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Lightroom Launches a New Video Editing Tool, But There’s More to It Than Video Adobe has always been more than a developer of great media-editing tools. It managed to create a unified environment where using multiple tools for one purpose creates a unique experience. Sometimes it results in unexpected benefits. For example, the video-editing tool that was recently added to Lightroom will do a lot of good to those processing photos. The video editor was added to Lightroom, formerly a photo-oriented tool, only recently. In fact, it’s not a fully-fledged video editor that allows for nonlinear cutting, adding transitions, or editing audio separately. No, the developers hold on to their primary concept, so with Lightroom, you can only trim your videos and color-grade them. The benefits of integration in the case with Lightroom are, though, quite obvious if you’re already familiar with the application. Lightroom uses the same tools for color grading videos that it does for photos. You can adjust curves, colors, contrast, and stuff the same way you do it to your still images. No necessity to learn new tricks means that you can do this part of the job in Lightroom doing what you have already mastered. Of course, if you want your video made professionally with sophisticated editing, you’ll need other software for that (and probably more for advanced audio montages). But for applying the right effects to the final version (or, well, to certain fragments of it before inserting into the cut), Lightroom does a great job. It’s not about the price because if you are a Creative Suite subscriber, you already have access to the aforementioned video editing tools, not having to choose between them. It’s all about familiar ways to do the same job to videos as you’re used to doing to photos. Are you a Lightroom user? What do you think about applying its image adjustment tools to videos? Are there better alternatives for this particular job? Share your ideas with us in the comments!  

• Adam Bayne
• 2022-06-26

WhatsApp Granular Privacy Controls: Who Can See Your Photos, About, and Last Seen With the recent update, your WhatsApp account may become a much less public space. Even though the conversations themselves have always been private and even encrypted, your WhatsApp profile still reveals a lot to visitors. Now you can control who can or cannot see certain details of your online activity on the messenger. Granular privacy controls are the name of more adjustable privacy options related to the public bits of information your profile reveals. Namely, it’s your user picture, your “Last Seen”, and your “About” section. All of these can be by default read even by strangers, but now it may change if you give it a minute and finely tune who can access what. With granular controls, you can define who can see each of these for each bit separately. There are four options of who can see it: Everybody, My Contacts, My Contacts Except…, and Nobody. The third is the most attractive: with it, and you can hide these details from certain people on your contact list without banning them completely. It’s this option that appeared after the update that makes the control really granular. With this new ability to partially blacklist someone, users now can embrace less radical ways of protecting their privacy. Previously to hide these details from someone too annoying, you had to remove them from contacts, block them, or hide these details from everybody at all. Now, you can hide your picture from some contacts, your About from others, and make a special list for those allowed to know when you were last seen. Now, the only thing that would make this even easier is the whitelist option. If you could only make certain details visible to certain contacts and hide them from the rest, this would also be great. And what would you add to these granular controls? If you have an idea, we’d like you to share it with us in the comments!  

• Jerry Pharrel
• 2022-06-27

TikTok Starts Offering Subscription Content and Upgrades the Playlists Feature It seems we finally see the moment when serious artists make serious art on TikTok on subscription basis. Jericho Mencke, a well-known comedy artist, features his series developed in collaboration with Pearpop on TikTok. Not is it only the first full-format show on TikTok; it’s in paid access which is also quite a revolution. The first unusual thing is the length: unlike your usual TikTok videos, an episode of the show by Mencke may be up to 30 minutes long. This is okay for scripted series in landscape mode, but for TikTok it is a serious step up. It’s okay, though, if we remember that Jericho Mencke made his career on TikTok and is much less popular on other social media, so it’s his natural environment. The second thing (much less pleasant to hear for many users, including Mencke’s fans) is that the access to the show is paid. The first season will contain eight episodes during which Mencke hosts comedic interviews with various personalities, from media stars to unknown ones. The decision was not made by TikTok, though, as some might have thought. The show is produced in collaboration with Pearpop, and the agency is responsible for its advertising, marketing… and sales. TikTok, in its turn, is rather the media than the message. It may sound seriously overpriced ($4.99 for the entire season), given that many subscription services provide a huge content library for nearly the same price. But, first, no one is obliged to pay, and, second, for many fans it’s a form of establishing a rapport with the celebrity. The first episodes are available for free; the results of the experiment, though, are yet to be seen and analyzed. And before that, of course, we will see fragments of the show torn apart and shared by other accounts that will try to capitalize on it. The first episode was released on June 7. Will you watch Finding Jericho on TikTok? Are you ready to pay for exclusive content like this? Do you think TikTok will create its own Originals and maybe become a portrait-mode Netflix? If you have something to say, welcome to the comments!

• Adam Bayne
• 2022-06-08

Instagram Updates: 90-Second Reels and More Reels is the real driver of growth for the main social media by Meta: Instagram and Facebook. No wonder now Meta does as much as it can to keep Reels rolling, and new features will appeal to both creators and content consumers. New Reels length, stickers introduction, and new audio editing possibilities are meant to result in better experience. First of all, the longer the better. Though Reels is still far behind TikTok which has enabled its users to make videos as long as 10 minutes, now it allows creators to make and upload videos up to 90 seconds long. It’s a sufficient progress, given that previously the maximum was just 60 seconds. This will provide more relative freedom and make it easier for telling longer stories (and placing ads before, of course). Another innovation comes right from Instagram stories. Now creators can use interactive elements (polls, quizzes, and emoji meters) to further engage their audience. These elements have proven their potential on Instagram, so why not put them on Reels? Indeed, for a viewer it’s quicker to answer the quiz than to formulate some comment that makes sense, so why not save time and confusion? As for creation, Meta acknowledges the postmodern reality of our era, and it allows for meta-creativity based on other users’ work. Now a creator can use someone else’s Reels video as a template or even take a premade audio and complete it with their own footage. Audio editing has also received some new features, like voiceover or importing external audio into the editor. There is a huge library of sound effects (hey someone check whether Wilhelm scream is there), and you can add external audio for any video that’s not shorter than 5 seconds. Have you already appreciated these new abilities? Have they made it to your device? Or do you see them in your feed, used by creators you follow? Tell us what you think in the comments!

• Jerry Pharrel
• 2022-06-07

Google Chat Uses Banners to Prevent Phishing Attacks Google Chat, just like other services made for communication, may become the place where phishers attack their potential victims. Can Google prevent it without sacrificing usability? One of the ways to warn users without limiting their freedom is by showing banners that indicate something wrong with your contact or conversation. As the AI recognizes the conversation you’re invited to as potentially fraudulent, a banner pops up, saying “This invite is suspicious. This conversation contains links to known phishing sites that may try to steal your information”. The base of phishing sites is saved on a cloud, so it’s always relevant. The banners are similar to those shown by Gmail or Google Drive or maybe other apps that may be used by fraudsters. This feature is available for both personal Google accounts and those on Google Workspace. You don’t need to do anything to activate these warnings. On the contrary, you can disable them if you find them too annoying or you visit phishing sites and exchange links on purpose, for example, to detect differences between them and the sites they imitate. It is a part of advanced security-concerned measures that Google has taken recently. Similar banners pop up within apps of Google Workspace  (Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawing) if you try to open a potentially harmful file with one of these apps. It doesn’t matter where you got this file if it’s recognized as suspicious. On PC, the new security measure is available in web versions of Google apps. On Android, Google started rolling it out on May 19, so it may soon cover all of the world where Google operates. As for iOS, it’s not clear yet. Have you already seen these warnings? Did they help you avoid confusion and keep your data safe? What did that conversation feel like? Share your stories with us in the comments!  

• Adam Bayne
• 2022-05-25

Netflix to Employees: If You Don’t Like Our Content, Quit! Among the content by Netflix, there are always controversial pieces. What should employees do if they disagree with some particular message or don’t want to support it? Netflix has an indiscreet answer: quit. It’s not going to adjust its values of diversity if someone disagrees with something. Sounds cute? As controversial as anything about it. The idea behind it is quite positive: Netflix produces tons of content with various messages, characters, settings, and morals. Given this diversity, there is always someone to disagree with a certain piece or creative decision. So, the corporate ethics of Netflix says that an employee may have to work with pieces of content they don’t like, and it should not interfere. If it becomes intolerable, one should just quit instead of “walk out”. But what if the reason for “walk-out” is hate speech, for example, transphobia expressed by a stand-up comedian? So was the case with Dave Chapelle’s speech last year, and it really made employees walk out condemning the message. This made Netflix react, but not in the way some might expect. Instead, Netflix made content neutrality for employees a written rule. With an employee’s signature after these rules, breaking them will be harder. When outsiders criticize Netflix’s content, though, the company has to react. For example, so it was with a movie named Cuties which was said to sexualize minors. Neither can the company ignore the outflux of users which reached millions in Q1, while other streaming platforms, like Disney+ or Paramount+, gain more users. So maybe this measure will just help to choose new employees who will be aware of not rocking the boat. What do you think about it? If you were a Netflix employee working on a series or a movie that promotes something unacceptable for you, would you quit or try to change anything from within? Let us know your position in the comments!  

• Jerry Pharrel
• 2022-05-23

TikTok Pulse: Now Creators Will Get a Share of Ad Revenue As TikTok becomes more and more of an ecommerce platform and a marketing hub, the role of those who makes it popular – that is, the creators – grows even stronger. When content and money come together, they should contact. TikTok Pulse is a program that enables top creators to get money when their videos are watched alongside ads. How does it look? Now, TikTok “places brands at the heart of TikTok communities”. For this, it specifies 12 content categories, so brands can choose the most relevant among them. These categories will be used to decide what this or that add should pop up next to. The content in these categories should be also verified, to avoid any unsafe situations for the brands’ reputation. Through the eye of a creator, the greatest thing about Pulse is its automation. You won’t have to search for partners and make deals yourself (though, in theory, it may bring more profits as well as make curated advertising more engaging). Now it’s done automatically as your videos make it to the top and become attractive to advertise next to. Which creators can benefit from this program? TikTok says it’s Top 4%. But it’s not enough to have a certain number of daily viewers; the program updates daily, and it’s not the author that attracts advertisers but a certain video. More hits, less misses. Now more original quality content is required from video makers. And though this is similar to YouTube’s Partner Program, the money will not look original either; will anyone refuse it for this reason? What do you expect from this program, as a viewer or maybe as a creator? Will creators compete harder to get to the Top 4%? Will ads become more relevant and less annoying? Will content personalization change? Let’s try to predict the next change in TikTok’s experience. Would you leave your forecast in the comment?  

• Jerry Pharrel
• 2022-05-11

Snapchat to Show New Snap Originals and Start a Partnership with Cameo Would you rather not skip an ad if you see your favorite celebrity in it? Well, soon you’ll have a chance to check. Snapchat explores new ways to intensify its advertising activity, and one of them is partnership with Cameo. Now, it will be easier for advertisers to partner with stars and influencers and create new ad experiences together. Cameo is a video creation platform for celebrities who can be contacted there. Now, as the platform joins forces with Snapchat, it will be easier for an advertiser to contact someone famous and get them to record a video that will appear in Snapchat feeds. This sort of partnership will make ads a content in its own right. More than that: it will provide new possibilities in terms of targeting, given that everyone has their favorite celebs. As for now, over 45K celebrities are present on Cameo. This means there is a chance to collaborate with them on an ad campaign that leaves everyone happy. Viewers will get more content from their idols (some of it can even go viral), celebrities will get paid, and advertisers will gain more attraction. Another option Snapchat launches now is called “Snap Promote”. With it, content partners may promote their Discover shows along with other authored content on users’ Stories pages, within the “For You” feed. This can work well for them if the targeting is right and as a result ads are relevant for the viewer. By the way, more Discover shows are already on their way, both new and good old ones like Charli vs. Dixie and others. Everybody has felt adsick in their life. But with these new steps, ads on Snapchat may become less annoying, more relevant, and – maybe – worth viewing for their own sake. Of course, if they feature your favorite singer, actor, or influencer. What do you think about this possible future? Share your opinion with us in the comment section, if you please!  

• Gopal Bhar
• 2022-05-09

Halo Infinite May Roll Out Multiplayer Narrative Events One of the greatest issues about the overall well-received Halo Infinite is the lack of content and modes. While the co-op multiplayer is already on the way, there may be more content to make this game even greater. And among other ideas, a very fruitful one is arguably rolling out narrative-driven events for multiplayer mode. Indeed, why not? Multiplayer, even in PvP only, has become one of the main attractions for fans. And the show on Paramount+ can provide external inspiration for the developers. Given that some new content in the game will be directly inspired by the show, this is quite a way to go. Other games can also inspire the developers, given how influential Fortnite has become partly due to its long-time narrative-centered development. What will these narrative-driven events be? Probably they will be made as organic for the universe as can be. The Halo: Infinite multiplayer already has seasons; why not accompany them with some stories and cutscenes? Let each of them tell a separate story from the beginning to the end; at the same time, in the same setting, they can build up to a larger interactive novel in the world of Halo. The developers have time to start implementing it. According to statements by 343, the co-op mode (for which these events are suited better) will appear no earlier than in August 2022. It’s hard enough to start with these events, given how much work is yet to be done. The only thing we wouldn’t like to see in Halo: Infinite seasons is a pop culture festival similar to that on Fortnite. Some injections and cameos, though, can be welcomed if they are not made for their own sake but to expand the setting. What do you think about narrative-driven events on Halo Infinite? Would it make you spend more time in it? Maybe the existing story or the show can inspire you to shape some idea? We’d like to read it in the comments if you please!

• Gopal Bhar
• 2022-04-27

Game Testers from Raven Studio (Activision Blizzard) Can Form a Union… Soon Is game testing a profession? Yes, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on April 22. The ruling was necessary because the employer (in this case, no other than Activision Blizzard) in January did not recognize the new union its professional testers voted to form. Now they officially can, and so they are a union in its own right. The employees were pushed by tensions in December, caused by the company’s decision to lay off some workers instead of improving the compensation they were supposed to receive. More than that: when the testers responded with a strike, on returning to work they learned that their unit had been doomed and would be broken up soon. Instead, the workplaces would be distributed among the teams across the Raven Studio. This was made to dismiss the vote and render it useless. This left most of the company’s testers unsatisfied. Forming a union was the most logical decision (after all, what are unions for?) The union was even given a name: the Game Workers Alliance with Communications Workers of America. When Activision refused to recognize it, the workers took to the board. And while its ruling was in favor of the workers, Activision is reported to seek ways to appeal. Raven Software Corporation was acquired by Activision in 1997. Since that, the company developed many famous games, including Heretic II, and Quake 4, as well as multiple Star Wars and X-Men installments. Since 2010, Raven Software specializes in Call of Duty projects, being so far responsible for as many as 14 installments in the series (including Warzone, Black Ops: Cold War, and. What do you think of this crise? Will they find a way to settle it, or will the tensions continue? And how do you think it will impact the future of the studio and the quality of its releases? Let’s speak freely in the comments!

• Adam Bayne
• 2022-04-25

PUBG to Get a Crossover with Among Us! Being one of the most influential Battle Royale Games, PUBG is still far from transforming into an incessant pop culture festival like Fortnite. Yet it’s no stranger to collaborations either. The recently announced collaboration will see the conjunction of two of the most unexpected universes, namely those of PUBG: New State, the new mobile edition of PUBG, and Among Us. What so you think it will be? Just new suits resembling a chicken nugget? No, the collaboration goes further than just visual. Of course, the map of the island will be decorated with unusable elements and decorations resembling the interior of the iconic starship. But these will only affect the appearance, and there is more to the event than this. There will be a special set of icons, frames, and titles inspired by Among Us in PUBG: New State, but they have to be earned by completing special quests. Though, of course, they can be purchased, but not directly, but in crates that can contain Among Us-themed items too. So it’s up to you whether to try your luck or your skill to obtain these. The most impressive addition, though, is the mini game that becomes available between regular matches. As you join the game with three other random players, one of them is assigned the role of an Impostor. The others must find the Impostor before getting killed by them. Of course, there is always friendly fire, so you are to decide who to trust and who to avoid. The event starts tomorrow, April 21, and is set to last until May 19. You will have enough time to earn the desired items which are to stay in your profile even after the event is over. A good reason to spend more time in PUBG: New State even despite the spring weather! What do you think about this crossover? Which of the two games do you prefer? Let us know what you think of it in the comments!  

• Gopal Bhar
• 2022-04-20

Cyberpunk 2077 1.5: Fantastic Visuals, More NPC, and LOD Mods Games by CD Projekt RED have always been fantastic when it came to visuals. Even The Witcher 2 (2011) has aged well, leaving alone The Witcher 3, looking great even not being updated for the next-gen. As for its most recent product, Cyberpunk 2077, it boasted incredible visuals even at launch, and now things have got better due to both official updates and modders’ efforts. The official update 1.5 brought lots of improvements, and not just bug fixes that have been a must since the terrible launch. Now, the game supports the most recent features like ray-traced local light shadows, as well as purely gameplay improvements like better AI for enemies and reworked perk system. This alone makes the current version of Cyberpunk 2077 for PC much more playable (if your PC is fresh and powerful enough to handle it). Yet when it comes to PC, one cannot ignore modding. It’s the modder community that made The Witcher 3 even more impressive than it was, with new textures, performance optimization, and even funny additions, and now they are doing the same with Cyberpunk 2077. Installing some mods over the updated version maxes the impression. For example, the Extreme NPC Density mod does to the game just what it says on the tin. The Night City becomes even more populated than it was, and the streets get just crowded, each NPC behaving independently. This makes the impression fantastic. And there are others as well. Cyber Engine tweaks, for example, boosts the framerate. JB - TPP MOD WIP Third Person gives you the third-person perspective that you loved about The Witcher series and missed in Cyberpunk 2077. And Appearance Change Unlocker lets you customize the look of your character. Add this to the overall improvements in the 1.5 update and rediscover the game; it may happen that it already beats what’s prepared for the next-gen update. Have you already updated your Cyberpunk 2077? Did you install any mods, and if so, which ones? Share your impressions with us in the comments!  

• Jerry Pharrel
• 2022-04-18