Rest of the Day: Facebook Now Supports USB Security Keys
Facebook now supports security keys, an optional two-factor authentication method. These keys plug into a USB port and act like a literal key, allowing access to the account only when the key is inserted. About this and much more in today’s news.
- The Facebook security keys you can buy from companies like Yubico are more secure than using a phone number (which can potentially be hacked), although perhaps overkill for most of them. This add-on also includes new NFC support, which means an NFC-enabled Android device can potentially act as a dongle. [Facebook]
- Facebook is also tweaking its news feed algorithm to display more relevant videos. They will take into account the watch time and video view rate, which means that a video that has been briefly seen by a large number of people may be promoted less than a long video that retains viewers. [Facebook]
- Google Translate can now perform direct translations of Word Lens from Japanese. Word Lens is an augmented reality feature that translates whatever you point your camera at. (You may have been able to translate static images already, but now it happens live, like in a sci-fi movie.) This is very neat, but remember that sometimes it’s better to learn a few phrases and talk to people . [Google]
- Twitter is clearly heating up the relationship with Instagram. The site recently created an Instagram account to advertise itself as a news site. Not interesting in and of itself, but the relationship between the company froze after Facebook bought Instagram. Twitter then blocked Instagram from using its API, and Instagram initially banned Twitter from showing photos. Drama! Anyway, I just want the Instagram links to auto-expand again. [The Verge]
- There is a jailbreak for iOS 10.2, but it looks a little unstable and questionable. (Do people still jailbreak iPhones?) [Redmond Pie]