Twitter’s new ‘While You Were Away’ recaps have been spotted on users’ timelines

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One of the features Twitter revealed at its November analyst day has started rolling out. ‘While You Were Away’ recaps notable tweets that have been published since you last opened up your timeline. As TechCrunch notes, a number of users have spotted the feature in recent days. OMG, it appears Twitter is testing a Facebook-like algorithm for the Home stream called "While you were away…" http://ift.tt/1B80WFr — Eli (@EliLanger) December 31, 2014 Of course, some of us spend all day glued to Twitter anyway, so maybe we’ll never actually see it (I swear I sleep-tweet sometimes too). Others are hoping…



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10 useful Chrome extensions to try in 2015

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New-Tab

I’m a huge fan of adding functionality to my browser, and we’ve featured some great extensions to supercharge Chrome in the past. Here are a few more that you might not have heard of, but are certainly worth a try. Jot If you’re constantly working in your browser, Jot is the best to-do list you could ask for: just open a new tab and add tasks or even quick notes to refer to later. Large fonts and beautiful background images of landscapes make it easy on the eye too. ➤ Jot DF YouTube Sure there are other extensions for the…



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FTC finalizes charges against Snapchat for not protecting user data

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Remember when we realized that all those Snapchat “snaps” that were supposed to disappear could be accessed by just looking at the app’s directory on your phone via a third-party app? If you were upset, you weren’t alone. Turns out FTC was a bit miffed as well. Today the FTC finalized charges against Snapchat for deceiving customers about the disappearing nature of messages sent through the service. If the messages are still retrievable, they aren’t really disappearing now are they? The FTC goes on to say, “Snapchat also deceived consumers over the amount of personal data it collected and the…



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China’s Christmas present to Google? Blocking Gmail

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Screen Shot 2014-12-29 at 10.28.37

Gmail has been completely blocked in China, following six months of disruption by government censors. Google’s Transparency Report reveals Gmail traffic in China dropping like a stone on December 25th. The Chinese government has not claimed responsibility for the sudden drop in Gmail traffic from the country but a Google spokesperson told Reuters: “We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end.” Anti-censorship group GreatFire.org says large numbers of Gmail addresses were cut off in China on Friday. Unsurprisingly, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told Reuters that she did not know anything about Gmail being blocked. During the summer,…



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FlashChat: Easy, fast, anonymous chat with the people around you

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This article is brought to you by FlashChat: chat freely with anyone on the same Wi-Fi network



Anonymous chat apps are all well and good, but without some way to make sure you have something in common, chatting with strangers quickly loses its appeal. That’s where FlashChat comes in. It lets you communicate with people on the same Wi-Fi network as you, anonymously. Whether you’re in an office, university campus, stadium, shop, airport, or anywhere else, you can have fun talking to new people who are close by. Getting set up is a breeze – you just open the app, choose a username and chat right away to other people on the same network. FlashChat is all…



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Samsung’s Look At Me app for Android helps kids with autism make eye contact

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Look At Me

Those who live with autism often have trouble making eye contact with others and perceiving emotions in others. A new app from Samsung might help children develop these skills — and make it fun too. Dubbed ‘Look At Me‘, the new app for Android uses smartphones’ cameras to help kids learn to read people’s moods, remember faces and express themselves with facial expressions and poses. It also gamifies these activities with interactive missions and a point system, and can be completed over a week with 15-20 minutes of play daily. The app is geared towards helping children with autism to…



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Rediscover the power of the mixtape with Tapely

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Tapely

A personalized playlist is a great way to let someone know how you feel, and it’s easy to make one online with the vast range of Web-based music services. Tapely takes things a step further, letting you customize a mixtape to set the mood and share them with anyone. Tapely can pull in music from YouTube and SoundCloud for you to preview and queue up. Once you’ve collated your favorite tracks, you can name your mixtape, add a background image from Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, your desktop or by searching the Web, and then choose your fonts and colors. When your…



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Samsung is pulling the plug on its ChatOn messaging service

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ChatOn

Even though it has signed up over 100 million users since its 2011 launch, Samsung’s free messaging app ChatOn has failed to catch on around the globe. As a result, the company is shutting down the service on February 1, 2015, worldwide but not in the US, reports Engadget. Samsung told South Korean media outlet Yonhap News that the move is a reaction to “changing demands in the market,” and that the company will focus on health and mobile commerce instead. A recent survey showed that users spent only six seconds per month on ChatOn, as opposed to 11 hours…



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Bing Search apps updated for iPhone and iPad with a new look

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Search engine Bing has refreshed its apps for iPhone and iPad, with a revised home screen that looks better and simplifies navigation to view trending content. The iPhone app now has a cleaner layout on the home screen, with the search bar in the center, and a content tab at the bottom, which displays local weather, news headlines and trending images when swiped up. Users can also tap on the home screen and swipe through a selection of images to set as the app background. The iPad app brings widget support so you can see trending stories and the image…



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Follower counts plummet after Instagram deletes millions of spam accounts, vain users outraged

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Instagram

After Instagram made good on its promise to remove scores of spam accounts from its service, many users noticed that they lost large swathes of followers — from a handful to a few million. Saddeningly, many users are having trouble dealing with the loss and are in a row over the issue. The Verge reports that Instagram said it would remove accounts that didn’t fall in line with its Community Guidelines, which includes refraining from spamming users in comments. Users were notified that they might notice drops in their follower counts, but it’s apparent from comments made on Instagram’s own…



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