Under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the company must comply with by March 7, Google is required to treat competing services and products the same as its own when ranking them in search results.

“We will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on comparison sites,” Google said in its blog post.

Competing comparison sites are the biggest critics of Google’s search policy. A few years ago, the company paid a €2.42 billion fine for breaking EU antitrust rules.

“For categories like hotels, we will also start testing a dedicated space for comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results including images, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights unit,” it said.

In the upcoming weeks, Android users will experience various updates that facilitate seamless transitions between default search engines or browsers on their phones. Additionally, individuals utilizing Google services and products will have the option to transfer their data to a third-party application or service.

A new online safety bill will oblige social media companies to remove any animal cruelty content from their platforms or face a fine of up to £18 million, the BBC reports. The new changes are expected to come into force this autumn.

The reason for the drastic measures is BBC Eye’s “Monkey Haters” investigation, which uncovered a worldwide network of monkey abuse. Ministers say this is a clear example of the imperative for new changes to online safety law.

From this autumn, animal cruelty videos will be considered a “priority offence” under a new change to the bill that brings them into line with child sexual abuse and threats to kill.

Under the new proposals, social media platforms will be fined up to 10% of their global annual revenue if they do not actively tackle illegal content and remove it.

An undercover BBC reporter joins a private messaging group on Telegram, where he discovers that hundreds of people in the US and UK are ordering and paying for videos of baby monkeys being tortured and killed by humans in Indonesia.

In the US, a former member of the air force has been charged and more than 20 people are under investigation. Two men in Indonesia have been sentenced to prison and in the UK three women have been arrested and released as part of the investigation.

The social media companies did not remain unmoved. YouTube said animal abuse had “no place” on the platform and that it had removed hundreds of thousands of videos. Telegram said its moderators cannot preemptively patrol private groups. There are still active monkey abuse groups on social media.

Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said that this kind of activity was “deeply disturbing” and that the bill would now broaden beyond its remit of protecting children to “stop the proliferation of animal abuse too”.

“The BBC’s diligent investigative work revealed a dark underbelly of our internet that pushes its sadistic criminal activity to everyday people,” she said.

David Bowles from the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)
was hopeful the amendment would be enacted.

“It’s deeply unsettling and disheartening just how widespread animal abuse videos and imagery are becoming and with young people spending so much time online, it can be incredibly challenging for parents and guardians to monitor the content they are seeing,” he said.

According to Nicola O’Brien, chief co-ordinator of the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC), of which the RSPCA and Action for Primates are members, the new law change “will put more emphasis on platforms to take responsibility and stop providing a literal platform for animal abusers”, adding that they are currently not doing enough to prevent content being shared on their sites.

The Online Safety Act aims to make social media companies more responsible for the safety of their users on their platforms.

Silicon Valley tech giants, however, opposed some of the proposals.

Some platforms such as WhatsApp, Signal and iMessage claim they cannot access or view anyone’s messages without destroying existing privacy protections for all users. They issued a statement saying they would rather leave the UK and deprive users there than compromise on the security of messages.

The final changes to the legislation will be considered by Parliament today. Stay tuned for details.

Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, is being updated with artificial intelligence. Today at the company’s campus in Washington, executives unveiled a new version of Bing incorporating the technology behind startup OpenAI’s viral chatbot ChatGPT.

Updates will include smooth written responses to queries that summarize information found on the web and the addition of a new chatbot interface for complex queries, Wired wrote on the topic.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said the new features signal a paradigm shift in search. “In fact, a new race begins today,” he said. Nadella is right: Google announced Monday that it will launch its own competing chatbot, a product called Bard, though it won’t initially be part of Google Search.

The response included a disclaimer: “This is not a definitive answer, however, and you should always measure actual items before attempting to transport them.”

A “feedback box” at the top of each answer will allow users to respond with a thumbs up or down, helping Microsoft train its algorithms. Google has already demonstrated its own use of text generation to improve search results by aggregating different viewpoints.

Microsoft has also incorporated aspects of ChatGPT’s core technology into a new sidebar in the company’s Edge browser. Users can use the tool to summarize a long and complex financial document or compare it to another. It’s possible to prompt the chatbot to turn those insights into an email, list or social media post with a certain tone, such as professional or funny.

ChatGPT has caused a stir since OpenAI launched the chatbot in November, amazing and exciting users with its smooth, clear responses to written prompts and questions.

OpenAI began as a non-profit focused on making artificial intelligence useful, but as of 2019 it is a commercial enterprise with significant investment from Microsoft, and recently secured a new commitment from the tech giant worth around $10 billion.

Microsoft has already commercialized a version of ChatGPT’s text generation technology in the form of Copilot, a tool that helps developers by generating programming code. Microsoft claims that experiments have shown that Copilot can reduce the time it takes to complete a coding task by around 40%.

The tech giant has revealed that the ability to lock Incognito sessions in Chrome behind biometric authentication on mobile devices is currently making its way to Android users after debuting on iOS. When this feature is turned on, users will have to confirm their identity via facial or fingerprint authentication every time they return to the Incognito tab after exiting Chrome or switching to another app.

With online risks on the rise, Chrome’s “privacy by design” approach means users can complete an online purchase, get work done or pay a bill with a little more peace of mind.

Built-in features like Google Password Manager make logging in safe across all devices and help detect compromised passwords. Along with providing strong default protections, the company makes privacy controls easy to find, understand, and use in Chrome. While many of these features are widely known, Chrome includes many privacy settings and security features that may be new to most users.

Locked Incognito sessions first became available on Android in 2022 – more than a year after Google began testing them for iPhone and iPad – but as an experimental feature that must be enabled via a flag.

Based on 9to5Google’s experience using it on Android last year, this feature will show a gray screen with the Incognito logo in the center when you return to a tab protected by the privacy feature. You’ll then need to tap “Unlock Incognito” to open biometric authentication or choose to verify your identity with a PIN.

In this release, Docker Extensions transitions from beta to GA. The Docker Extensions feature connects the Docker toolchain to application development and deployment workflows. To make it easier to use Docker Extensions, the ability to search, install, and uninstall extensions directly from the search bar has been added.

With Docker Desktop 4.16, Docker Extensions and the Docker Extensions SDK are now generally available to all platforms and users.

The Docker Extensions feature allows you to extend Docker Desktop with debugging, testing, security, networking and much more. You can also create custom add-ons using the Extensions SDK.

Since its launch, Marketplace Extensions has expanded from 15 initial extensions to over 30, with more to come.

Here’s more information about extensions and enhancements on Docker:

• Improved discoverability through search, categories, list of number of installed extensions, and more.
• Addition of an Extensions Marketplace in Docker Hub to make it easier to search for extensions and images.
• Create a tab for extensions in Docker Desktop.
• Made it easier to share new extensions with a Share button.

Docker now enables analyzing an image for vulnerabilities to be up to 4 times faster – and use up to 76% less memory. These performance improvements, which will be introduced as part of Docker Desktop 4.16, can be of great value when working with larger (over 5 GB) images.

To perform the analysis, you must select an image in the Images tab. An analysis will automatically run so that the user can be alerted to vulnerabilities in underlying images and dependencies.

Additional changes are described in the release notes. Many Docker Desktop dependencies have also been updated in this release, in particular Docker Compose is now version 2.15.1, Containerd is version 1.6.14, and Docker Engine has been updated to version 20.10.22. A number of bug fixes have also been made.

Docker Desktop 4.16 is now available. Docker Desktop is free for small businesses, but requires a paid subscription for larger organizations.

Through their startup Inrupt, Berners-Lee and CEO John Bruce created the “Solid Pod” – or Personal Online Data Store. It allows people to store their data in one central location and control which people and apps have access to it, rather than having it stored by apps or sites all over the web, CNN Business reports.

Berners-Lee says that the main appeal of this kind of self-hosting is control and privacy, and John Bruce adds to this by noting that user data is not only protected from corporations and governments, but is also less likely to be stolen by hackers.

“I think we’ve all realized that the value of the web is embodied in the data available on it. In this new world where you look after your data yourself, it doesn’t live in big silos that are lucrative targets for attackers.”

Says John Bruce.

Inrupt’s platform is already being tested by the UK’s National Health Service and the government of the Belgian region of Flanders, which plans to use the devices in question to allow its citizens to choose how to share their personal data.

In October, the BBC introduced an experimental service using Pod devices for “viewing parties”, where multiple friends stream a programme at the same time. When the viewing party is over, the user can see the data that has been generated, including which programme they watched and who else joined in, and choose whether to delete or edit the information – or allow the BBC to use it.

In a blog post, Eleni Sharp, executive product manager for BBC Research and Development, described this method as a “radically different approach to data management”.

Inrupt has been operating since 2017 and has earned $30 million, and Berners-Lee says it will help shape the next iteration of the World Wide Web – Web 3.

“You’ll hear people talk about Web 3 and decentralization as being very similar in ideas and goals.”

said Paul Brody, Global Blockchain Leader at consulting firm Ernst and Young.

He believes Web 3 could change the way we use the internet.

Berners-Lee hopes his platform will give control back to internet users. He is convinced that the public is concerned about privacy and don’t want to stand idly by when web platforms have massive amounts of data and misuse it. In his view, what we are missing is empowerment. His desire is to get back to a situation where you have autonomy and you have control over all your data.

According to DuckDuckGo, even if you log into sites that are not owned by Google, they can collect your data. It’s also a way for Google to collect data on users who have disabled third-party cookies. To access the new mode, users will need to update their app and browser extension.

“These pop-ups are invasive, annoying, and they undermine user privacy. Google is employing a dark pattern by pushing you to sign in when you might not have otherwise”,

said Peter Dolanjski, director of product for DuckDuckGo.

By offering Google Sign-in Pop-Up Protection, DuckDuckGo is further emphasizing its commitment to protecting user privacy. If you’re concerned about your online privacy, using a search engine like DuckDuckGo can be a simple and effective way to keep your data safe while you browse the web.

What does the creator of this idea think?

Pablo Rodriguez, who is the federal heritage minister, says the bill will “increase fairness” in the digital news market by creating a framework and contracting process through which companies like Google and Meta, which own social networking sites Facebook and Instagram, can pay media outlets.

Pablo Rodriguez stands firmly behind the belief that he is making these reforms for the sake of protecting the future of a free and independent press. He argues that it is about ensuring that Canadians have access to fact-based information and protecting the strength of their democracy.

But what does the bill actually include? 

The bill provides for the creation of a system, overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which would have the power to impose administrative monetary penalties on companies that do not comply with its provisions.

Is there a solution? 

Companies can exempt themselves from the contracting process set out in the proposed legislation, known as Bill C-18, provided they have agreements with media outlets that meet certain criteria.

With the growth of size and complexity of single-page applications, the initial load time of websites has been steadily growing. This can be especially problematic for consumer-facing sites where long load times can lead to lost customers.

The majority of JavaScript frameworks rely on an initial bootstrap process that requires a large amount of code to be downloaded and executed before the browser can render the page.

Many JavaScript frameworks do support server-side rendering to ease the initial load by rendering a snapshot of the site on the server. However, to rehydrate or make the page interactive, two expensive steps need to take place:

Both the framework and the application (JavaScript) need to be downloaded, a process that can be quite long.

The page itself needs to be initialized within the JavaScript framework in order for the JavaScript events to become active.

Qwik uses asynchronous, out-of-order component hydration to ensure that the first interaction can happen much quicker. This means that Qwik will lazy load and render only the components that are needed.

After Qwik pre-renders the application on the server, it will determine that the only interactive element is myButton and will only download/re-render it. The rest of the components are static, so Qwik avoids the extra effort of downloading and rendering them.

QRL or “Qwik Resource Locator“ is the syntax Qwik uses in order to connect resources. In our example, on:click will contain the path (filename + function name), and Qwik could determine the exact code required for the button click operation.

On the client-side, the process is managed through qwikloader, a tiny (<1k) library that orchestrates loading the necessary code and connecting it to the right events.

You might know how a basic API works. An Application Programming Interface (API) provides a platform where two sites or software can interact. It can act as a building block that helps you automate your repetitive tasks and develop more functionality.

For example, if you need to make an account on a website using Facebook, then it will extract your details out of facebook.com with the help of Facebook API. Next, the back end team of that website utilizes your details and creates your account on it.

Similarly, news APIs can connect between online news and applications. They help you in different ways when you:

• Create coverage reports automatically for your clients
• Utilize news stories in the form of a data source to be used in advanced AI apps
• Predict the results of elections

For this, you need an efficient way to obtain machine-readable data methodically and automatically from different news websites. You can scan, analyze, and enrich this data to serve various use cases that you have planned.

What are its different types?

• APIs for a particular online news site such as the Guardian: Here, the data type and amount are based on that specific site, but the full article text appearing on the original site might not be provided.
• A news story feed is linked to original websites or publications.
• Structured data retrieved from different news sites and served as a service.

How to choose the right news API?

If you are convinced to go ahead with a news API, next, you need to choose the right one that justifies your needs.

Below mentioned are some of the things you should keep in mind while choosing a news API:

• Coverage: Think which kind of media outlet you want to cover – only the big news sites such as the New York Times, or you want to combine some prominent blogging sites that are relevant as well.
• Language: Check what languages you want the data or the results in. Is it only English or any other language as well?
• Headlines or full text: Many APIs provide just the headlines or the news stories’ snippets, which might not be resourceful for textual analysis. So, if you need them, go for an API that can provide you with full text and news articles’ headlines.
• Usability: Every API must be easy to use and comfortable for your team and developers. Hence, before choosing a news API, check its documentation and conventional standards it follows. Determine how it integrates with other tools. For better understanding, you can try its free trial version, if available. If you like it, then you are good to go.

Now, let’s quickly get to some of the best global news APIs that you can use to extract data and build your products.

News API

News API is yet another REST API, which is simple and lightweight. It returns JSON metadata relevant for articles and headlines that are spread across the web. The API covers wide-ranging markets, including sources from over 55 countries. With News API, everything is fast and asynchronously cached to deliver a quick response.

In case you are still in the developmental stage, you can enjoy a free trial. The news API supports effortless integration with the help of HTTP GET requests to get results in JSON. It also includes a source filter using which you can extract data from your desired list of sources.