Twitter streamlines application process for verified accounts
Twitter is making it a bit easier for users to apply for “Verified” status — signified by a blue badge icon usually reserved for public figures. What was previously somewhat of a convoluted process has now been streamlined as an online application process.
From Twitter:
Twitter announced today it has created an online application process for Twitter accounts to receive verified status. Verified accounts on Twitter allow people to identify key individuals and organizations on Twitter as authentic, and are denoted by a blue badge icon. An account may be verified if it is determined to be of public interest. Typically this includes accounts maintained by public figures and organizations in music, TV, film, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas.
Though not yet available as of the time of this writing, the application can be found on Twitter’s help site, where users can fill out a form to request verified status. The form, Twitter notes, starts rolling out today, and should be available globally by week’s end.
However, don’t expect to join the ranks of the current 187,000 verified accounts unless yours is “of public interest.” That’s one of the requirements detailed on Twitter’s verification support page, where you can find all of the information you’ll need to get started.
Twitter now lets anyone apply for a verified account – and here’s how
Now you can be one of the cool kids – on Twitter, at least.
Twitter has finally opened its blue checkmark to everyone, marking the first time it’s allowed any ole’ user to get a verified Twitter account. Previously, Twitter doled out its verified badges to users sparingly, giving them only to public figures, brands, journalists, politicians, athletes, and high-profile people. You couldn’t ask to be verified. It just happened – on a seemingly random basis.
The company has about 187,000 verified accounts. That’s not a lot, however, when you consider it has around 320 million monthly active users. But all that’s about to change. Anyone can now fill out a form and request verification. Doing so will notify Twitter of your interest, and if the company deems your account worthy or “of public interest”, you’ll finally get that coveted blue checkmark.
In other words: you’ll get a seat at the cool kids’ lunch table. Here’s what you need to know about getting Twitter-verified.
What is a verified Twitter account?
Ever see a Twitter profile with a blue checkmark next to the name of the person? See Kim Kardashian West’s profile for an example.
That blue checkmark is called a “verified badge”. It lets people know that the account is authentic and of public interest. You not only see it on an account’s profile but also in search results. Verified badges are applied by Twitter but does not imply an endorsement by Twitter.
Who is eligible for a verified Twitter account?
The company said it verifies accounts maintained by users in “music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas”. It’s unclear if Twitter is now willing to verify everyday people, but we’re assuming that isn’t the case.
How do you get a verified Twitter account?
If you believe your Twitter account is of public interest and should be verified, you can submit a request by filling out this form.
Twitter will ask you to explain why it should verify your account. It wants to understand your impact in a field or your mission. You can also provide URLs to support your request, including sites that suggest your newsworthiness or relevancy in a field. Twitter might also request that you scan and upload a legible copy of your government-issued ID, such as a passport or driver’s license, to confirm your identity.
Are there any other tips you should know?
Before you complete Twitter’s verified badge request form, make sure your account meets the following standards:
- A verified phone number.
- The profile name should reflect the real or stage name of the person/corporation/company
- A confirmed email address (or, if the account is a corporate or company account, the email address associated with the account is a corporate or company email address).
- A complete bio.
- A profile photo (the profile and header photo should reflect the person/corporation’s branding/company’s branding).
- A birthday (for accounts that are not a company/brand/organization).
- A website link.
- Tweets set as public in Tweet privacy settings
Why is Twitter letting anyone apply for a badge?
Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter’s vice president of User Services, in a statement explained why Twitter has opened up its blue checkmark to everyone:
“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification. We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience.”
Want to know even more?
This Twitter support page includes troubleshooting steps that may help you in your journey to get verified.
Watch the first trailer for Telltale’s new ‘Batman’ game
It’s the Caped Crusader, but now how you’ve seen (or played as) him before. Telltale Games has released its first trailer for BATMAN, an adventure game series about the iconic superhero in Gotham. Unlike the well-received Arkham games by developer Rocksteady Studios, this episodic series will be focusing on the double life of Bruce Wayne and his vigilante alter ego. The trailer starts with his reliable butler, Alfred, asking Bruce to “step out of the shadows” and ensure “there is room for Bruce and Batman” inside the suit. We then see Batman taking out some thugs and catch a glimpse of the Batmobile screeching through a dimly lit street.
Telltale is known for its tight writing and difficult decisions, and it seems the new BATMAN series will be no exception. Harvey Dent (aka Two Face) is running for Mayor and some typically shady types claim their money can seal or destroy his campaign. How you interact with them and secondary characters, such as Gotham Gazette reporter Vicki Vale, seem to be at the heart of this five-part yarn. Plenty of fan favourites will be making an appearance too — in the trailer we see Catwomwan, Falcone and Commissioner Gordon, to name a few. There are plenty of Bat-gadgets too, as well as iconic locations such as the Batcave and Wayne Manor.
The first episode in the series, Realm of Shadows, will be out on August 2nd on every platform imaginable, including PC, PS4, Xbox One, iOS and Android. A disc-based version with a code for the season pass will arrive on September 13th in North America and Europe on September 16th.
Source: Telltale Games
Twitter opens up application process for verified accounts
The little blue checkmark on certain Twitter profiles has long been an elusive identifier to obtain. Verified accounts are often awarded to personalities on Twitter to identify them as “authentic,” and you’ll generally see them on profiles owned by musicians, television personalities, actors, and other important figures.
But it’s not always been simple to ensure your profile receives the badge that denotes it as authentic to audiences. Twitter is introducing a simplified application process for users to apply for verification on their own, beginning today.
“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter’s vice president of User Services explained in a press release. An open application process makes sense, especially when even larger entities such as WikiLeaks can fall for spam requests for verification and several personalities, aside from the 187,000 verified accounts out there, that yet to have been verified.
You can head over to Twitter and begin the process right now, though it isn’t available in all areas right this moment. It’s expected to expand globally throughout the rest of the week.
Source: Twitter
Atom-scale storage holds 62TB in a square inch
Storage tech doesn’t get much better than this. Scientists at TU Delft have developed a technique that uses chlorine atom positions as data bits, letting the team fit 1KB of information into an area just 100 nanometers wide. That may not sound like much, but it amounts to a whopping 62.5TB per square inch — about 500 times denser than the best hard drives. The scientists coded their data by using a scanning tunneling microscope to shuffle the chlorine atoms around a surface of copper atoms, creating data blocks where QR code-style markers indicate both their location and whether or not they’re in good condition.
Not surprisingly, the technology isn’t quite ready for prime time. At the moment, this storage only works in extremely clean conditions, and then only in extreme cold (77 kelvin, or -321F). However, the approach can easily scale to large data sizes, even if the copper is flawed. Researchers suspect that it’s just a matter of time before their storage works in normal conditions. If and when it does, you could see gigantic capacities even in the smallest devices you own — your phone could hold dozens of terabytes in a single chip.
Via: Popular Mechanics
Source: TU Delft, Nature
Deezer’s $10 music streaming service is open to all in the US (updated)
Before now, if you wanted to subscribe to Deezer in the US, you needed to own Bose or Sonos audio gear or be a Cricket customer in order to do so. Just over a month after the streaming service shed podcast app Stitcher, it’s opening up the $10 monthly streaming plan to all users in the States. While Deezer offers both free and paid tiers in other countries, the monthly subscription will be the only way for US users to listen when the 30-day trial runs out. Paying up will also get you access to podcasts (still driven by Stitcher) and features like Flow, a personalized station of tunes based on what you’ve been listening to recently.
Deezer has been around for years at this point, amassing over 6 million users around the globe. The company only dipped its toe in the US market though, with deals that offered service to owners of specific speaker brands. Speaking of which, the $20 high-resolution streaming plan will remain exclusive to folks who have a Sonos setup for the time being.
6 million users isn’t a small number, but it’s less than half of what Apple claims and a fifth of Spotify’s total in terms of paying customers. It will certainly be an uphill climb for the service after Rdio closed up shop, Pandora is prepping to leverage the pieces and Apple is rumored to be interested in Tidal. Deezer recently revamped its discovery features, tools that have grown in popularity for both Spotify and Apple Music. However, at a time when it seems like streaming services are consolidating, Deezer’s chief international officer Gerrit Schumann told TechCrunch the company isn’t looking to sell or make another purchase to pad its user total.
“Right now we’re well set up to grow on our own,” Schumann said. “In our past we made smaller acquisitions here and there, but it’s about growing organically now.”
Deezer is now available to all music lovers in the US! 😄 #DeezerUS #FlowMyMusic pic.twitter.com/BuQOVgpHKQ
— Deezer (@Deezer) July 19, 2016
Update: This post has been updated to clarify that Cricket Wireless customers were also able to use Deezer in the US before today’s wider launch and that Deezer Elite’s high-resolution streaming is still exclusive to Sonos speakers.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Deezer (Twitter)
‘Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked’ gets a PS4 release date
If you own a PlayStation 4 and have been patiently waiting to play Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked, then you’re in luck. The nautical-themed expansion will be released on August 2nd on the PSN store, with a 10 percent launch discount to boot. Though that August 2nd date is only a few weeks away, this marks a several month delay for the expansion. Shipwrecked was originally supposed to launch on Sony’s console sometime this spring.
The add-on has been available for PC since April, and was even on sale for $4.50 on Steam during its launch period. Shipwrecked features news characters, biomes to explore, food to cook, and sea monsters to fend off. The octopus-like Quacken seems quite deadly. You’ll also be going up against an active volcano and even mutinies. The emphasis here is on adapting Don’t Starve’s survival gameplay to a brighter, more colorful world filled with tropical islands.
Source: PS Blog
SpaceX wants two more landing pads for Falcon Heavy rocket
What’s better than watching one of SapceX’s Falcon 9 reusable rockets land? Watching three of them land. At the same time! Okay, that spectacle isn’t here quite yet, but Elon Musk’s rocket company is working on it: SpaceX recently announced that it’s seeking federal approval to build two additional landing pads at Cape Canaveral — giving it enough space to attempt a ground landing for a heavy rocket with two recoverable boosters.
Specifically, SpaceX wants the extra pads to run ground landing tests for the Falcon Heavy rocket, a new platform with three cores, each equivalent to a single Falcon 9. SpaceX is calling it the world’s most powerful operational rocket, and with the power to launch 54 metric tons into orbit, it just may be — but the company will need to get it off the ground first. Building the new platforms is one of the first steps to accomplishing that goal. The company says it may land the rocket at sea to start, however. Either way, we’ll be watching when the Falcon Heavy takes its first flight later this year.
Source: Orlando Sentinel, Twitter
Kepler space telescope spots two planets that might support life
After recovering from a shutdown scare back in April, NASA’s Kepler telescope continues its mission scoping out the stars for Earth-size planets orbiting other stars, crude criteria to find ones that might support life. The spacecraft just spotted four more exoplanets in a cluster around a foreign sun, two of which fit the bill to potentially contain living organisms.
All four planets are 20 percent to 50 percent larger than our own, suggesting a rocky surface, and orbit a red dwarf star called K2-72, which is 181 light years away from Earth in the Aquarius constellation. The two life-supporting contenders, K2-72c and K2-72e, appear to be in the “habitable zone” orbiting just far enough from their sun for liquid water to naturally exist, scientists said. The findings were among a report of 104 promising planets first announced in January but only recently published online.
While Kepler still spots exoplanets through a crude light meter, measuring the dip in brightness in distant stars when planets pass in front of them, the K2 mission reconfigured Kepler to spot dimmer stars like red dwarfs.
“An analogy would be to say that Kepler performed a demographic study, while the K2 mission focuses on the bright and nearby stars with different types of planets,” said K2 study leader Ian Crossfield in a NASA blog post. “The K2 mission allows us to increase the number of small, red stars by a factor of 20, significantly increasing the number of astronomical ‘movie stars’ that make the best systems for further study.”
Via: Space.com
Source: NASA blog
Kia brings Android Auto and Apple CarPlay to older cars
For many, the biggest problem with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay is getting it in the first place. Unless you buy a very recent car, you’re likely stuck buying an aftermarket head unit to drag your vehicle into the smartphone era. Kia thinks it can do better, though. It’s promising free updates to both Android Auto and CarPlay for a slew of vehicles that have either the UVO3 infotainment system or a compatible navigation system.
These aren’t limited to the youngest vehicles, either. Most of the updates (for the Optima, Optima Hybrid, Sedona and Soul EV) support 2015 model year cars, and you can upgrade standard Souls dating as far back as the 2014 model year. While some patches are limited to 2016 (Sorento) or 2017 (Forte, Sportage) models, Kia is still covering a pretty wide swath.
You’ll have to register at Kia’s MyUVO site to get a notification about the update, but you should hear about it before the end of July. And importantly, you can download it yourself when available — you won’t have to go to the dealership or otherwise wait to install it. Should Kia pull this off without a hitch, you won’t have to worry quite so much about buying an older ride.
Via: AppleInsider
Source: Kia
