Now, Google has updated Timelapse with the four past years of imagery — it now spans the period from 1984 to 2016 — and "petabytes" of new data, which includes new, sharper images.
The imagery gives you quite an amazing view into various processes that change the shape of our planet — deforestation, glacial motion, urbanization, war. Google offers a curated selection of interesting locations and events, such as the reconstruction of the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco or the movement of the Hourihan Glacier in Antarctica.
San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge reconstruction
IMAGE: GOOGLE/LANDSAT/COPERNICUS
You can, however, point the map to any location in the world and see how it changed over time (though the imagery might not be of the same quality everywhere).
See a YouTube playlist with all of Google's curated Timelapse examples, below.
Google has shared an interesting insight on how Timelapse was created on its blog — it took three quadrillion pixels and more than 5,000,000 satellite images to do it. Check out the details here.
The company is in the process of creating a new index for mobile devices, which will become the "primary" index for search, according to Google webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes. This means searches from mobile devices will serve up the freshest results as Google will update its mobile index more frequently.
Google has previously discussed such plans but Illyes' comments, which were reported bySearch Engine Land, are the first indication that the company plans to roll this out fairly soon.
A quick refresher on how Google Search works: Google's bots crawl the web tracking more than 60 trillion web pages and the links within them. These pages are then categorized into a massive index based on hundreds of different factors. This index, along with a series of algorithms, enables Google to turn up relevant search results when you enter a query into the search box.
Right now, Google only uses one such index for all its mobile searches. Under the upcoming update Illyes detailed, though, Google will create a separate mobile-only index that will serve as the "primary" index for search. As Search Engine Land points out, it's unclear exactly how this will work or exactly what the impact will be, but at a basic level it means that desktop and mobile users will see different search results and Google will put more resources into those surfaced on mobil
While some have interpreted this to mean that Google is "downgrading" desktop in some way, there are practical reasons why Google would want to prioritize mobile for updates. For one, mobile now accounts for the majority of all Google searches, so using an index that was created primarily for desktop no longer makes sense.
Think of your own search habits: When you use Google from your phone, chances are, you're looking for an immediate answer to a question you have in the moment. Likewise, if you want to research a topic more deeply — something that requires combing through several pages of results — you probably save that for desktop. So, it follows that Google would want to make its freshest results mobile-first.
The change also stands to drastically improve the user experience for mobile users. Think of how frustrating it is to search for something on your phone only to land on a link that is virtually unreadable because the website isn't optimized for mobile.
This update, in theory, helps guard against that since Google could prioritize content that's optimized for mobile devices even more than it already does. We've seen signs of this already, particularly with AMP, which allows publishers and others to create ultra-fast loading versions of articles to display in search results.
While we'll have to wait for further details from Google to find out exactly what the implications of the change will be — Google didn't respond to Mashable's request for comment on the update —it does sound like we'll find out sooner rather than later. The new index should be rolling out "within months," Illyes told Search Engine Land.
Facebook just announced it is changing one very important part of WhatsApp.
The messaging app, which was acquired by Facebook in 2014, will soon begin to share its users' phone numbers and usage information with the social network as part of an effort to build out its own business communication platform. The change marks the first time WhatsApp is formally sharing user data with its parent company. It's also a move that some users have been dreading since Facebook's acquisition was first announced.
Luckily, there is a way to opt out.
Whether you find WhatsApp's assurances that it won't misuse user data unconvincing or you're simply uncomfortable with the idea of your WhatsApp account being linked to Facebook, you can easily opt out, although you only have a limited time to do so.
WhatsApp is providing users with two ways to opt out. One way can only be done the first time you see the new terms of service so if you have already agreed then skip ahead to the second.
Option #1
You're able to opt out of sharing your WhatsApp account information the very first time you see the app's new terms of service. After seeing the notification that the terms of service have changed you'll need to hit "read" to view the full document.
Scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see a checkbox that says "share my WhatsApp account information with Facebook to improve my Facebook ads and products experiences." Uncheck it, then tap agree.
IMAGE: WHATSAPP
Option #2
If you have already agreed to WhatsApp's new terms of service and the account sharing, you can still opt out provided you do so within 30 days of when you first agreed.
Head to Settings —> Account —> Share my account info and uncheck the box.
You can read more about opting out on WhatsApp's FAQ page. Note that WhatsApp says that even if you opt out, "the Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities." So you may never be fully unlinked from Facebook. But, at the very least, your WhatsApp account can't be used to surface more creepily targeted Facebook ads.
Snapchat is about to have a couple of really good years.
The company will see huge gains in the numbers of its U.S. users, according to a new report from market research firm eMarkerter.
Snapchat reports that right now it has about 150 million daily active users worldwide. The company doesn't break out how many of those users are in the United States, but eMarketer estimates that the app will have about 58.6 million monthly users in the U.S. in 2016.
But those numbers are set to change dramatically, according to the company's research. The firm predicts that the company will see a 27.2 percent increase in user growth in 2016 and another 13.6 percent increase in 2017.
The report notes that growth will likely stabilize by 2018 with only "single-digit" increases as "the Snapchat audience is expected to be substantially larger than it is today." Still, that's a huge amount of growth for a company that is already outpacing Twitter and many other rivals.
IMAGE: EMARKETER
The report also predicts that Snapchat, once known for its predominantly teenage user base, will continue to grow in popularity among older users. The app's U.S. user base is roughly 70 percent millennials right now, according to eMarkerter, but their share is set to go down to just 56 percent by the end of 2020.
That's good news for Snapchat, which is widely believed to be eyeing an IPO for sometime in the not-so-distant future. But before that happens, the company still needs to prove it can reliably make money — and a lot of it. And, as we've noted previously, if Snapchat hopes to realize those goals, it will need to both grow and diversify its user base.
Right now, the company makes the bulk of its revenue from advertising — think sponsored lenses, geofilters and the adds you see in Discover — and a bigger, more diverse set of users will certainly be a boon for both advertisers and Snapchat's bottom line.
Correction: An earlier version misstated Snapchat's current user base. The app has 150 million daily active users.
Facebook is making its 360-degree videos more immersive and easier to navigate.
The social network introduced a new "guide" feature that allows users to highlight specific portions of the video before posting it. The feature launched alongside a bigger update to Facebook's publisher tools, which included a set of new features that allow page owners to see more detailed stats around how their readers are interacting with their video content.
The new guide feature for 360-degree videos, which you can see in action in the video below, is meant to make it easier for people viewing the clips to find the most interesting parts. Unlike viewing in a 360-degree video in a headset, watching the spherical clips on the web may be less intuitive for users.
With the new tool, anyone who posts a 360 video on Facebook can identify the specific parts of the clip they want to direct users to during the video. When the guide — indicated by a circular symbol on the right side of the video — is enabled, the video will automatically move to preset areas of the clip. The feature is enabled by default, but users can also opt out if they prefer to "steer" the video themselves.
Facebook is also providing a new analytics tool called Heatmap for 360-degree videos that have more than 50,000 views. Heatmap tracks which parts of a 360 video have been watched the most and provides a visualization that shows the "hottest" parts of a clip
360 video aside, Facebook is also giving publishers new analytics tools that offer a much more comprehensive look at who is watching their video content, and how they are interacting with it.
A new audience demographic dashboard will show minutes viewed broken down by age, location and gender for any given video.
Facebook's audience insights provide demographics for video views.
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
Additionally, page owners will be able to keep tabs on whether video views came directly from their own post or from another page or user sharing it.
Facebook is also proving new analytics specifically for live video, with tools that track which moments in a live video garnered the most comments, reactions and likes.
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
Some of these video metrics may sound a little creepy. That Facebook knows exactly where, when and how users are consuming video (like other insights the company provides, it tracks these stats in aggregate) may be off-putting to some. But it fits in nicely with Facebook's goal of a video-dominant network.
And as Facebook continues that push into video, tools like these will be increasingly important to the network's publishers looking to gain favor with the site's ever-changing News Feed algorithm. The company already has deals with many media companies (including Mashable) to pay them to produce live broadcasts, and in March, the company announced it would rank live videos higher in News Feed.
More recently, Facebook revealed it would begin experimenting with commercial breaks during live broadcasts. But if Facebook (and its media partners) hope to make serious money off their burgeoning video business, they'll need a much better understanding of how users are consuming video content.
Twitter is experimenting with a new look for the tweet composer in its iOS app.
The test, which users first began to notice Wednesday, moves the app's tweet composer to the top of users' timelines. Previously, the app's tweet composer was a separate part of the app.
The new look causes the app to behave more like Twitter's website, which also has both a compose window and button. The redesign puts the tweet composer at the top of your timeline, along with the camera icon for adding a photo, video or live stream.
Other media, like polls, GIFs and location info, are still available when you tap into the composer itself.
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the experiment, saying it was meant to make it easier for iOS users to tweet while browsing the app.
“We want to make it easy for anyone to Tweet. To that end, we’re experimenting with ways to make the Tweet compose bar easier to access on Twitter for iOS, similar to the experience on Twitter.com.”
It's not clear if Twitter plans to expand the test to its Android app or whether it could become a permanent feature. Twitter, like other social networks, often tests new features and design changes with small groups of users before making them available more broadly.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Previously, we featured 16 apps that'll seriously raise your Instagram game. This time we're target-locking on specific apps that'll give your photos and videos a retro '90s aesthetic to make them stand out from the crowd.
We're so spoiled these days with our fancy 4K and uncanny-valley graphics, but in the early '90s, graphics were limited, and those of us who were lucky enough to have computers at home probably had one from the '80s — which meant even crappier low-res graphics.
BitCam is a simple camera app that mimics the style of old-school computer operating systems like the Classic Mac OS. You get three different grain levels of pixelation (FatBits, Standard and Super-Res). To get color graphics, however, you'll need need to pay $1.99.
Ignore the name, it has almost nothing to do with the app and after installation, it shows up as "Chromatic."
With this app, though, you can either take a photo or edit an existing photo and give it a chromatic stereoscopic 3D effect. You only get controls for adjusting the angle and radius of the effect, but's more than enough to get the retro aesthetic.
The only annoying thing about the app is you have to deal with ads. And there's no way to pay to remove them.
Ahh, the '90s, when scan lines and VHS tape ruled. There are lots of VHS camcorder apps out there — most of them free — and they all do pretty much the same thing.
This one is free and records in a cropped 4:3 aspect ratio (but with pillarboxing) for that extra old-school look. In true '90s fashion, videos have a time and date timestamp in the corner and glitch lines that run across the footage.
To really sell your fake '90s footage, be sure to shake the camera and do big side-to-side pans and swoops to replicate the big, bulky video cameras of a bygone era.
Though the '90s eventually brought us advanced 3D computer graphics, 2D sprites still ruled the gaming world. Game consoles like NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Commodore 64 (some of which actually came out in the '80s) made sprite-based art commonplace in that decade.
Famicam64 replicates dozens of different game and computer graphics styles from that era, including even the ill-fated Virtua Boy's awful headache inducing red-3D aesthetic.
Why is an app called 1967 in a roundup about reproducing the look of the 1990s? Because the filters reproduce the effect of many of the film filters that I used in the '90s, when film was on its last legs. 1967's is also notable for its simple interface.
The app gives you 10 free filters and all 64 if you pay $1.99, which is pretty damn reasonable.
players, beware: Niantic is starting to get serious about cracking down on cheaters.
The company is starting to permanently ban players who cheat either by spoofing their location or by using software to access the game "in an unauthorized manner."
The company does offer a form for banned users to appeal the decision, if they believe a mistake has been made, though it's not clear how these cases are handled.
"We will continue to work with all of you to improve the quality of the gameplay, including ongoing optimization and fine tuning of our anti-cheat system," the company says.
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