Synosuretech

Hashtags are very important because they make it easier to find information about a particular theme, campaign or content. They can also be used to get the attention of your audience, especially if they are catchy. So if you are doing a social media campaign and thinking of choosing a hashtag, here are five tips for selecting one:

TECH FIRMS  including Deezer and Spotify have called on Europe to crack down on Apple and Google and their "troubling" app store practices.

A report by Google recently stated that YouTube is going to be a dramatically more important piece of marketing mix in the future. Over 69 per cent of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube. Many say it will be the single biggest area of focus in 2017 and Google several years ago set up the YouTube spaces in London, Berlin, New York, Paris, Toronto, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Mumbai.

Most of the time we probably take the fact that we can speak, read, and write for granted. However there are people in the world that suffer from illnesses that prevent them from doing that. One of those illnesses is aphasia, which is the result of an injury to the brain that makes doing all of those things difficult or impossible.

Telecommunications companies in the country are losing about N156.3bn in potential revenue every month due to the increasing number of inactive telephone lines on their networks, investigation has revealed.

Following its Note 7 nightmare and the recall of about 2.8 million exploding washing machines last year, Samsung no doubt shudders when it hears the word “fire” these days. The company will be hoping to put its flame-filled past behind it with the unveiling of the Galaxy S8 (which you can watch  here ). But in what could be a bad omen, one of its stores caught fire yesterday.

Uber has pulled its self-driving cars from the roads after an accident which left one of the vehicles on its side. Pictures posted online showed the car on its right side on an Arizona street, next to another badly damaged vehicle. The car - a Volvo SUV - was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, on Friday, Uber said. No one was hurt.

Twitter has started surveying users to check their interest in a new enhanced version of its TweetDeck product, raising the possibility that the company is considering a paid version of its service.

Microsoft will enable Windows 10 users to choose when security updates are installed once they arrive rather than enforcing them straightaway. Users have complained that the reboots required for some updates, which cannot currently be deferred, are disruptive. People using Windows 10 devices will now be able to schedule an update within three days of receiving notification, the firm said in a blog. However, delaying security updates can be risky, experts say. Source

you rely heavily on your computer to get your jobs done. If anything happens to it, you may lose all your important files and other essential documents. This is why you should be careful with what you do both in terms of hardware and software with your computer.

South Africa’s MTN expects to add 8.3 million new users in the 2017 financial year, a document handed out at the firm’s results presentation showed on Thursday. However, MTN shares rose nearly 10 percent after Africa’s largest mobile network operator said it would pay a total dividend of 700 cents a share in spite of the loss, compared with 1,310 in 2015. The company had agreed to pay a fine of $1.1bn to Nigerian government which was reduced from $5.2bn in June 2016 over missing a deadline to cut off unregistered SIM cards. The fine on MTN wiped $768m per share from the firms in 2016 headline earnings, South Africa’s main measure of profit. Source

YouTube has launched a $35-a-month TV subscription service that will rival US cable networks. The live TV service will carry more than 40 channels, including some of the country's biggest networks including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN. The service will also include a "cloud DVR" that will let users record and store programming. Source

Netflix head Reed Hastings predicted Monday that mobile carriers will soon offer data plans that give users unlimited video streaming to meet the rising popularity of watching TV and movies on mobile devices.

THE Chief Product Officer of Facebook, Mr. Chris Cox, has urged Nigerian content creators to develop more content on the Internet. Cox gave the advice yesterday in Lagos at a news conference on the Social Media Week (SMW), Lagos 2017, which started yesterday. It will end on March 3. He said Nigeria was a hub for innovation and creativity because of its fast-growing mobile technology sector and its vibrant film and music industries. According to Cox, the world is moving to digital video with formats, such as virtual reality and live video broadcast, giving people new ways to tell their stories. Source

It is, however, important to note that advancement in technology has come with its own drawbacks. With the growth of social media, online scams have evolved. To stay safe online, learn to recognise these common social media scams, according to  www.wellsfargo.com/financial-education/basic: 1: Social media phishing A fraudulent social media account impersonates a reputable bank or company by using the company’s name and logo. These accounts may link to fraudulent websites that request your sensitive information. Scammers may try to convince victims to provide their information by linking to sites that appear legitimate, but whose URLs differ slightly from the real sites, such as a misspelled website name or another domain name. Once you enter your credentials on this site, the scammers can access your username and password. The links may also contain instructions to “like” a page, share a link, and complete a survey, through which scammers earn money every time a questionnair

Samsung has, for the first time since 2013, opted not to unveil a flagship Galaxy S smartphone at the Mobile World Congress tech show. Instead, it showed off two new tablet computers and a virtual reality headset that comes with a remote control. However, a new smartphone was briefly teased at the end of the company's presentation at the Barcelona event. Samsung said the new device would be unveiled on 29 March in New York. Source

WhatsApp's core messaging function is pretty easy to use. But there's a lot more to the Facebook-owned messaging service —  which surpassed 1 billion users in February 2016  — than most of its users possibly know. We take you through some of its most useful but less well-known features Mute groups conversions if they are very attractive and Interruptive Read more

LTE has been around for quite some time now and devices featuring the technology are now more common than ever. However, existing 4G LTE technology can only be upgraded so far, and now, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has released  a draft report  detailing the  specifications of the next-generation 5G technology . Many companies have already started taking steps to commercialize 5G technology. Samsung recently announced its  5G RF Integrated Circuit (RFIC)  for "commercial readiness". Intel also launched its  Atom chips  in an effort to make future devices 5G compatible. It will be interesting to see how technology evolves as far as connection speeds are concerned. Source

Uber is being sued for stealing trade secrets and technology from Google. Waymo, set up by Google owner Alphabet, is taking legal action against Otto, Uber's self-driving vehicle unit that it bought last year for $700m. The lawsuit argues that former Waymo manager Anthony Levandowski took information when he left to co-found a venture that became Otto. Uber said it took the allegations seriously and would review the matter carefully. The lawsuit alleges that Mr Levandowski "downloading 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary design files" during his time as a Google employee Source

Gboard now speaks in 15 more languages. Google has added support for Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Catalan, Hungarian, Malay, Russian, Latin American Spanish, and Turkish. And voice typing — the ability to dictate messages by pressing the mic button on the keyboard’s space bar — is in tow, bringing the iOS release up to par with its Android counterpart. And finally, it now includes the new emojis added as part of Apple’s iOS 10 update. As far as third-party keyboards are concerned, few come close to the versatility of Google’s  Gboard . The popular digital touchpad for iOS and Android boasts predictive typing, a growing gallery of GIF and emojis, a one-handed mode, and built-in Google Search. And on Thursday, Google  announced  an update that’s going to make it even better. Read More

The Galaxy Note7 started out as one of the best Android devices of 2016, but it quickly turned into one of the most disastrous smartphone launches to date.  While Samsung finally closed the book on its Galaxy Note7 fiasco last month, the issue of whether refurbished units would make their way back onto the market has still persisted. While an earlier claimed that they might be coming to Vietnam, India and other emerging markets with new bodywork and smaller batteries, a Samsung India representative has now denied that the refurbished units will be sold in India. Although this is probably the clearest response you'll get about a refurbished Note7, there is always the possibility that it will make an appearance in other regions. Read More

Many people turn to unlocked phones because of their many advantages. For those who are still on the fence, this section will briefly discuss the seven advantages of purchasing an unlocked phone in detail. Increased network compatibility Because unlocked phones are not programmed to work with just one particular network, users can switch GSM networks when necessary. According to eBay, this is a big boon for people who frequently travel for work or leisure since it allows them to switch to other available network providers once they are out of their current provider’s coverage zone. Read More

YouTube is to scrap "unskippable" 30-second advertisements on the video-streaming service, from 2018. Google  confirmed the plan  to the BBC's Newsround programme, saying it wanted to focus on "formats that work well for both users and advertisers". Long unskippable adverts are seen as a nuisance by many viewers, and Google has introduced shorter formats. One media agency said the move reflected the difference between online video and linear television services. Read more

BlackBerry may be  hoping for a recovery  in its smartphone business, but it's hitting rock bottom right now. Gartner analysts  estimate  that BlackBerry's once-dominant platform hit 0.0 percent market share in the fourth quarter of 2016. Yes, zilch.  The company did ship 207,000 phones, but that gives it less than half the unit volume of the "other OS" category. This wasn't hard to see coming given BlackBerry's  years-long decline , gradual shift toward Android and recent focus on services. It's still incredibly symbolic, however, and shows that the company's  deal with TCL  effectively amounts to starting from scratch. Read More

Facebook is to roll out an app that lets users watch the platform's video content on television. The move could allow it to eventually better compete with the likes of YouTube and traditional television channels for advertising revenue. Users with Apple TV, Amazon's Fire TV and Samsung's Smart TVs will be able to watch Facebook's user-generated videos directly on their televisions. The  announcement  is in line with Facebook's increasing focus on video. The company has recently been paying creators for exclusive premium video content, and is heavily promoting the Facebook Live feature that allows users to live stream events. Facebook says the standalone app will be released "soon". Read More

   One of the longstanding criticisms of Snapchat is that the app is confusing and not very intuitive to use. Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., even went so far as to include a guide on how to use the app in its public offering paperwork with the SEC. The reason Snapchat can feel hard to understand happens to be the same reason it's popular with younger people, according to Snapchat's first investor, Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Ventures. In a comment on a recent Medium post titled "Why Snapchat’s Design is Deliberately Confusing," Liew explained that Snapchat's design "is confusing to some because it breaks traditional metaphors and conventions for app design. Hence it is confusing to those who are expecting those conventions." SOURCE

We've all been there, messaging a mate or potential partner with something we thought would be funny, alluring or just the right amount of miffed at their latest cancelling only to cringe when reading it back. Sadly, this sender's remorse is being dragged back up, with a new WhatsApp feature forcing you to relive every cringe-inducing message you've ever sent before sharing it with the world. How? Well, a new service has launched, letting users of the world's most popular messaging app relive their WhatsApp chats, both good and bad, in printed form. Dubbed Zapptales, the new service lets users export their entire message threads with a certain friend or group and have it printed up as something less digital. Read More

Shares in Twitter are set to fall when Wall Street opens after it reported that its fourth-quarter losses had nearly doubled. The social networking service reported a loss of $167m (£133m) in the final three months of 2016, as against $90m in the same period a year earlier. Average active user numbers came in at 319 million for the quarter, 4% up on a year earlier. Fourth-quarter revenues were $717m, 1% up on last year's $710m. It was the company's slowest quarterly revenue growth since it became a publicly listed company in November 2013. Read full Article

Did you know Samsung is one of the first big -name brand to enter the Smartwatch market and interestingly it has released some great smartwatches over the past few months. However, according to report it was estimated that Samsung stood third in the Smartwatch market share during 2016 and only Apple managed to sell 11.9 million Smartwatches last year which results in a market share of 49% fitbit (with 17% market share). Indeed, it derserves to be observed that Samsung (with 15% market share) stays second and third respecively. Thus, with product such as Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 frontier doing extremely well, it is no longer surprising to see the company expecting to push sales of its Smartwatches this year which might increase its Market share. SOURCE

Whatever the case may be, it is key to know if your smartphone has been bugged. According to Jumia Travel, there are five ways to tell: Your phone takes time to shut down If your phone takes forever to shut down, it may be a pointer that it has been compromised. You will notice that when your phone eventually goes off, the backlight will still be on. This may likely mean that your phone is in control of whoever has bugged it. So, whether you switch off or not, it will be difficult to get rid of them. Increased data usage It will definitely be difficult for a smartphone without Internet connection to be tapped. You may surf your phone every second daily, but you already know that you cannot exhaust your data at a go. Thankfully, most phones will alert you if you are using too much data. But if the data traffic is unusually high, and your phone keeps alerting you, you should be concerned. You find apps you didn’t download There are thousands of useful apps that you can do

Thirty more US technology firms have signed a brief opposing President Trump's immigration ban, bringing the total number involved to 127. The new signatories include Tesla, Adobe, HP and Evernote. They join 97 others who have filed a legal document stating the ban "inflicts significant harm" on their businesses and is unconstitutional. The  amicus brief  allows parties not directly involved in a case but who feel affected by it, to give a view. It was filed in Washington on Sunday and also includes Apple, Facebook and Microsoft as signatories. Mr Trump's  executive order  halted the entire US refugee programme for 120 days, indefinitely banned Syrian refugees and suspended permission to enter the US for all nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries. SOURCE

Diamond Bank has signed up two million-subscriber search on its mobile banking app – Diamond Mobile app, and its Diamond Y’ello account. In a statement made available to our correspondent by the bank on Sunday, the Head, Retail Banking Businesses, Robert Giles, attributed the record to the bank’s digital innovation “and quest to provide customers with convenient banking services.” He said, “In January 2016, we recorded the one millionth Diamond Mobile app customers having launched the app a few years earlier. We are delighted that we were able to double that number in only one year. This is an affirmation of the trust our valued customers have in our products and services, and we pledge to continuously provide cutting edge services to them.” Source

The Google Now launcher has been downloaded over 50 million times through the Play Store since the app debuted back in August 2014.  The app was primarily designed for the Google Nexus line , however, popularity skyrocketed as the launcher proved to be lightweight andswift, and offered a means to cover or hide less than desirable Android skins from competing manufacturers. According to a leaked email sent to Android Police, Google has just added an expiry date to the beloved app by removing it from the Play Store before the end of Q1 2017. Any new devices that attempt to ship with the launcher after March 1st will not be approved by Google. The search giant will allow manufactures such as Sony to tap into some of Google Now's features such as "Search Launcher Services," which allows users access to Google Now Cards by swiping right on the home screen. SOURCE

These days, smartphones and tablets come with the toughest and most scratch-resistant touch screen panels, thanks to such materials like Corning Gorilla Glass. It takes a lot to break and damage them. This, however, does not mean it is impossible if you behave recklessly with your Android device. AndroidPit, one of the world’s most popular online sources of Android reports, provides the following eight tips on how to protect your Android touch screen.  Choose your tool wisely Only use your fingers or stylus, if one comes with the device, like on the Galaxy Note 3, for example. The Sony Xperia Z Ultra allows you to use pencils on the display; however, this should not be done with any other device. Know its limits Avoid letting your touch screen be exposed to other electrical devices. Many people think that magnets will damage your phone, when in fact it likely won’t. The only thing that a magnet might do is mess up your built-in magnetic sensor, which is used

Over the next five years, the company behind Snapchat will pay Google at least US$2 billion in cloud bills. On Thursday, Snap revealed in a  filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission  that it signed a five-year contract to pay Google at least $400 million a year for cloud services. That's a steep figure, considering that Snap made roughly $404 million last year.  In return for the massive commitment, Snap will receive reduced pricing, though it’s not clear how deep the company’s discounts will be. Sinking a bunch of money into Google Cloud makes sense, because Snapchat began its life built on top of Google’s AppEngine platform-as-a-service offering. SOURCE

Instagram is testing a major change to its platform: letting you post multiple images at once. Droid Life reports having seen the feature pop up in the latest version of the Instagram app on  Android  (via  @m4au312  on Twitter). We've had no luck trying to replicate it, so it's likely a test that includes a small number of users. Chances are you might have seen such image albums – known officially as ' carousels ' – within advertisements; Instagram launched the feature for businesses  way back in 2015 . Instagram did not comment when contacted for more information. That sheepishness makes it seems likely it’s only a matter of time until the feature rolls out to more users. SOURCE

You might think wearable tech is another bit of useless kit phone companies are trying to flog, but smartwatches could soon tell us if we’re about to get ill and protect us from disease. New research looking at data from health-monitoring wearable tech led to the detection of incoming colds and more serious issues like diabetes. It all puts the Fitbit to shame, really. Scientists monitored some subjects for up to two years and recorded stats like heart rate and skin temperature. Long-term monitoring of baseline measurements meant that slight deviations caused by the start of an illness could be easily detected SOURCE

Facebook is updating its News Feed algorithm in an effort to rid its site of spam and click-bait. The social network’s content clean-up process began in earnest in 2014 but was renewed in August of last year when it developed its own take on a click-bait targeting system akin to an email spam filter. The move pre-empted the company’s broader strategy to tackle fake news, kicked off in late 2016. On Tuesday, Facebook announced it is adding signals to its News Feed algorithm to identify "authentic" posts from people and pages. The implementation process saw Facebook categorise Pages it identified as posting spam or trying to directly ask users for likes, comments and shares in order to boost content.  The company used this data to train a model that continuously detects whether posts from other Pages are likely to be authentic. Facebook claims one indication that a publisher may be posting misleading items is if people keep hiding its posts. SOURCE

Academix.ng, an e-Library service provider for Africa focused research, has introduced its e-Library card service for Nigerian universities to enable its subscribers to conveniently access millions of research materials. The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Iso Bassey, said Academix.ng, by the initiative, was looking to serve millions of students and lecturers of tertiary institutions without access to e-Library services. The e-Library cards are now available in various denominations and provide access for 14, 30 and 90 days SOURCE

If you happen to be someone who sits through the majority or all of a video, you can rest assured you’ll see more videos of a similar duration on the News Feed. Your commitment to a longer video indicates to Facebook that the content in question is engaging, and it therefore uses that signal to prioritize the clip in terms of News Feed distribution. Chances are this change won’t affect you if you steer clear of visual content altogether or only engage with it briefly. However, the change could result in Pages creating longer videos in order to benefit from the update. Facebook claims that alongside the bump for longer clips, shorter videos may see a slight dip in distribution. The company warns that compelling content is not determined by its duration, and instead relies on the story it tells. It also advises Page admins to look at video insights in order to examine the impact of a clip’s performance. With Facebook previously touting that it is gearing up for a  video-ce

Facebook The social network of record has come out with quite a few apps, but this one remains the most essential. According to PC Magazine, if you watch strangers using their iPhones, there is a good chance that Facebook is the app they are using. And there is a reason for that: No other communication app offers the richness of interaction possibilities. With the Facebook app, you can not only respond to friend’s posts, but also upload photos and even broadcast live video Flipboard Flipboard, an app initially designed for the iPad that curates content from your social networks and web partners (think periodicals, blogs, etc.) based on your interests and turns them into stunning magazine-like digital pages, is now available on the iPhone. Writing in PC Magazine, Muchmore and Duffy say the app is free to download and requires a free user account. Flipboard absolutely shines on the iPad, taking advantage of swiping gestures with both visual and interactive grace, and it is sti