Month: May 2024
Microsoft Teams adds a group chat feature that Google Meet and Zoom have had for ages — but will anyone actually use it?
Quickly start a Microsoft Teams call from a group chat with new “Meet now” feature.
Starting an impromptu Microsoft Teams call with your co-workers or colleagues should soon be a lot easier thanks to a new group chat feature rolling out to the platform.
The video conferencing service will now will let users begin a “huddle” with other users, effectively an instant meeting for chat and collaboration.
The new “meet now” feature can be quickly started in a group chat, meaning there’s no need to scramble around setting up an “official” Microsoft Teams call and sending out invites that may be missed in busy inboxes.
Microsoft Teams group chats
“Meet now in group chat is a ringless experience designed to enable ad-hoc, real-time communication with your team in a hybrid environment,” the entry for the feature on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap noted.
To start a meeting, users need to open the required group chat, then at the top, select Meet now. Once started, all the members of the group will be able to see via their chat list that a meeting has started, and they can open the group chat and select Join at the top of the chat to enter the meeting.
Users can view the participants of a call by selecting the live indicator, and can also notify other users in the group chat about the meeting by selecting Ring other to join – with the option to pick either individuals or everyone who is yet to join.
The feature, rolling out now, will be available initially only to desktop users of Microsoft Teams – although it will be generally available to users across the world.
The Meet Now feature has been available in Microsoft Teams for over a year, with users able to start an instant meeting via their calendar simply by clicking the option, or in a channel, via the Posts tab, then clicking Meet and selecting Meet Now.
The news is the latest boost for Microsoft Teams users seeking closer compatibility, coming shortly after the company revealed a move to bring together “every type of Teams account” into a single desktop app.
This means whether on a work, school or personal Microsoft Teams account, users will now all access the same app, doing away with the current requirement for multiple versions for different use cases.
More from TechRadar Pro
Check out our rundown of the best online collaboration tools availableMicrosoft Teams is getting more Copilot AI – but will you actually use it?Microsoft Teams is solving one of its biggest problems at last — but you probably still won’t like it
Sports cars and millions seized in cybercrime busts
US and EU crime agencies make arrests after suspects used information for fraud and bomb threats.
US and EU crime agencies make arrests after suspects used information for fraud and bomb threats.
Destiny 2: The Final Shape expansion leaks a week early via PS5 Cloud Streaming
If you’ve been around Destiny for some time now, you’re probably familiar with leaks here and there, with files being… Continue reading Destiny 2: The Final Shape expansion leaks a week early via PS5 Cloud Streaming
The post Destiny 2: The Final Shape expansion leaks a week early via PS5 Cloud Streaming appeared first on ReadWrite.
If you’ve been around Destiny for some time now, you’re probably familiar with leaks here and there, with files being datamined ahead of upcoming updates. However, no leak is as big as the one happening right now.
Almost a full week ahead of Destiny 2’s culmination of the light and darkness saga with The Final Shape, the whole expansion has seemingly been made available via PS5 Cloud Streaming.
Yes, you heard that right, some have been playing the whole, incredibly hyped-up, ending to the whole Destiny and Destiny 2 story, right now before its June 4 release date.
Naturally, those who have managed to crowbar their way into the update are taking full advantage, playing through all of the available content and uncovering any secrets that The Pale Heart has to offer.
It does appear however that the method of accessing the DLC has been patched so no more Guardians can get through the floodgates, but the damage has already been done.
This obviously has huge ramifications for those who want to go in spoiler-free, so we’d definitely recommend muting any associated Final Shape words on your go-to social media platforms, because boy are there some interesting screenshots floating around.
There are also a number of videos of cutscenes, in-game missions, and more going live on YouTube so again, if you’d rather save yourself for the ‘official’ launch, maybe keep Destiny 2 out of your search bar for now.
As for those concerned about the implications for The Final Shape world’s first Raid race, the activity itself is still locked until June 7 but as always with Raid mechanics, there are some similarities between what crops up in the Raid and in the campaign. So, there could be a few advantages to those who have managed to play a little.
Naturally, images of the weapons and armor from the Raid are out in the wild, so along with the aesthetics come ginormous story spoilers. Again, do not search for anything to do with the Raid if you want to go in blind.
With the news breaking of this ‘leak’, many are urging Bungie to simply release the expansion early so everyone can be on a level playing field. However, we highly doubt that this will happen, and you’ll have to just sit and wait for June 4 to come around.
The post Destiny 2: The Final Shape expansion leaks a week early via PS5 Cloud Streaming appeared first on ReadWrite.
‘Power of the Dream’ trailer traces the political might of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream
The political power of the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream lies at the heart of Prime Video’s new sports documentary. Watch the trailer.
The political power of the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream lies at the heart of Prime Video’s new sports documentary. Watch the trailer.
Instagram is expanding its anti-bullying features for teens
Instagram is expanding two of its safety features in an effort to ramp up its bullying protections for teens. The company is changing how limiting and restricting work in its app to give teens ways to deal with potential bullies that it claims are less likely to lead to further retaliation.
With the changes, Instagram users will have the ability to “limit” their post interactions to “close friends” only. That means that users will only see comments, direct messages, tags and mentions from people on their close friends list. Other followers will still be able to interact with their posts, but those comments and messages won’t be visible to others.
The company previously introduced comment limiting as a creator-focused anti-bullying feature in 2021 with the goal of preventing the kind of sudden flood of harassment experienced by several UK football players. The latest changes, according to Instagram, are geared more toward teens who are dealing with bullies, but may be hesitant to use the app’s block feature due to fears of escalating potential conflicts,
For cases when people may be dealing with one particular bully, Instagram is making similar changes to its “restrict” feature. Users will be able to prevent restricted individuals from tagging or mentioning them. Comments from those on the restricted list will also be automatically hidden from others.
The updates comes as Meta is facing scrutiny over its handling of teen safety and other issues. The company was sued by dozens of states last year for allegedly failing to protect its youngest users from harmful aspects of its service.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-is-expanding-its-anti-bullying-features-for-teens-100037418.html?src=rss
Instagram is expanding two of its safety features in an effort to ramp up its bullying protections for teens. The company is changing how limiting and restricting work in its app to give teens ways to deal with potential bullies that it claims are less likely to lead to further retaliation.
With the changes, Instagram users will have the ability to “limit” their post interactions to “close friends” only. That means that users will only see comments, direct messages, tags and mentions from people on their close friends list. Other followers will still be able to interact with their posts, but those comments and messages won’t be visible to others.
The company previously introduced comment limiting as a creator-focused anti-bullying feature in 2021 with the goal of preventing the kind of sudden flood of harassment experienced by several UK football players. The latest changes, according to Instagram, are geared more toward teens who are dealing with bullies, but may be hesitant to use the app’s block feature due to fears of escalating potential conflicts,
For cases when people may be dealing with one particular bully, Instagram is making similar changes to its “restrict” feature. Users will be able to prevent restricted individuals from tagging or mentioning them. Comments from those on the restricted list will also be automatically hidden from others.
The updates comes as Meta is facing scrutiny over its handling of teen safety and other issues. The company was sued by dozens of states last year for allegedly failing to protect its youngest users from harmful aspects of its service.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-is-expanding-its-anti-bullying-features-for-teens-100037418.html?src=rss
Instagram’s ‘limits’ adds a mute button for everyone other than close friends
Image: Instagram
Instagram is expanding “limits,” a safety control you can use to hide DMs and comments from accounts who may be harassing you. Now, instead of just hiding content from recent followers or people who don’t follow you, Instagram will mute incoming messages from everyone except the users on your close friends list.
Even though Instagram first rolled out limits to help creators deal with harassment campaigns, anyone can use the feature if they’re facing unwanted messages and comments from bullies and other bad actors. It could give a way to shut down incoming noise without disconnecting people from a supportive community.
Image: Instagram
When limiting interactions from everyone but close friends, you’ll only see DMs, tags, and mentions from the people on your list. Users not on your close friends list can still interact with your posts, but you won’t see these updates. These accounts also won’t know that you’ve hidden their content. You can also choose to view or ignore the limited comments and DMs.
Instagram lets you limit accounts for up to four weeks at a time, but you can extend it. You can enable limits by tapping your profile, selecting the hamburger menu in the top-right corner of the screen, and choosing Limited interactions. From there, you can toggle on limits for Accounts that aren’t following you, Recent followers, or Everyone but your Close Friends.
Instagram is also building on its restrict feature, which now lets you prevent a user from tagging or mentioning you in addition to hiding their comments. These expanded features come as Instagram faces increased scrutiny from the US government over the safety of its young users. Earlier this year, Meta rolled out a new feature that prevents adults from messaging minors on Instagram and Facebook by default. The company also moved to hide suicide and eating disorder content from teens on both of its platforms.
Image: Instagram
Instagram is expanding “limits,” a safety control you can use to hide DMs and comments from accounts who may be harassing you. Now, instead of just hiding content from recent followers or people who don’t follow you, Instagram will mute incoming messages from everyone except the users on your close friends list.
Even though Instagram first rolled out limits to help creators deal with harassment campaigns, anyone can use the feature if they’re facing unwanted messages and comments from bullies and other bad actors. It could give a way to shut down incoming noise without disconnecting people from a supportive community.
Image: Instagram
When limiting interactions from everyone but close friends, you’ll only see DMs, tags, and mentions from the people on your list. Users not on your close friends list can still interact with your posts, but you won’t see these updates. These accounts also won’t know that you’ve hidden their content. You can also choose to view or ignore the limited comments and DMs.
Instagram lets you limit accounts for up to four weeks at a time, but you can extend it. You can enable limits by tapping your profile, selecting the hamburger menu in the top-right corner of the screen, and choosing Limited interactions. From there, you can toggle on limits for Accounts that aren’t following you, Recent followers, or Everyone but your Close Friends.
Instagram is also building on its restrict feature, which now lets you prevent a user from tagging or mentioning you in addition to hiding their comments. These expanded features come as Instagram faces increased scrutiny from the US government over the safety of its young users. Earlier this year, Meta rolled out a new feature that prevents adults from messaging minors on Instagram and Facebook by default. The company also moved to hide suicide and eating disorder content from teens on both of its platforms.
Very Few People Are Using ‘Much Hyped’ AI Products Like ChatGPT, Survey Finds
A survey of 12,000 people in six countries — Argentina, Denmark, France, Japan, the UK, and the USA — found that very few people are regularly using AI products like ChatGPT. Unsurprisingly, the group bucking the trend are young people ages 18 to 24. The BBC reports: Dr Richard Fletcher, the report’s lead author, told the BBC there was a “mismatch” between the “hype” around AI and the “public interest” in it. The study examined views on generative AI tools — the new generation of products that can respond to simple text prompts with human-sounding answers as well as images, audio and video. “Large parts of the public are not particularly interested in generative AI, and 30% of people in the UK say they have not heard of any of the most prominent products, including ChatGPT,” Dr Fletcher said.
This research attempted to gauge what the public thinks, finding:
– The majority expect generative AI to have a large impact on society in the next five years, particularly for news, media and science
– Most said they think generative AI will make their own lives better
– When asked whether generative AI will make society as a whole better or worse, people were generally more pessimistic In more detail, the study found:
– While there is widespread awareness of generative AI overall, a sizable minority of the public — between 20% and 30% of the online population in the six countries surveyed — have not heard of any of the most popular AI tools.
– In terms of use, ChatGPT is by far the most widely used generative AI tool in the six countries surveyed, two or three times more widespread than the next most widely used products, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
– Younger people are much more likely to use generative AI products on a regular basis. Averaging across all six countries, 56% of 18-24s say they have used ChatGPT at least once, compared to 16% of those aged 55 and over.
– Roughly equal proportions across six countries say that they have used generative AI for getting information (24%) as creating various kinds of media, including text but also audio, code, images, and video (28%).
– Just 5% across the six countries covered say that they have used generative AI to get the latest news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A survey of 12,000 people in six countries — Argentina, Denmark, France, Japan, the UK, and the USA — found that very few people are regularly using AI products like ChatGPT. Unsurprisingly, the group bucking the trend are young people ages 18 to 24. The BBC reports: Dr Richard Fletcher, the report’s lead author, told the BBC there was a “mismatch” between the “hype” around AI and the “public interest” in it. The study examined views on generative AI tools — the new generation of products that can respond to simple text prompts with human-sounding answers as well as images, audio and video. “Large parts of the public are not particularly interested in generative AI, and 30% of people in the UK say they have not heard of any of the most prominent products, including ChatGPT,” Dr Fletcher said.
This research attempted to gauge what the public thinks, finding:
– The majority expect generative AI to have a large impact on society in the next five years, particularly for news, media and science
– Most said they think generative AI will make their own lives better
– When asked whether generative AI will make society as a whole better or worse, people were generally more pessimistic In more detail, the study found:
– While there is widespread awareness of generative AI overall, a sizable minority of the public — between 20% and 30% of the online population in the six countries surveyed — have not heard of any of the most popular AI tools.
– In terms of use, ChatGPT is by far the most widely used generative AI tool in the six countries surveyed, two or three times more widespread than the next most widely used products, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
– Younger people are much more likely to use generative AI products on a regular basis. Averaging across all six countries, 56% of 18-24s say they have used ChatGPT at least once, compared to 16% of those aged 55 and over.
– Roughly equal proportions across six countries say that they have used generative AI for getting information (24%) as creating various kinds of media, including text but also audio, code, images, and video (28%).
– Just 5% across the six countries covered say that they have used generative AI to get the latest news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.