Meta is reportedly planning to offer paid blue checkmarks for Facebook, Instagram

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Code within the Instagram app suggests Meta is planning to take cues from Elon Musk's Twitter by adding blue checkmarks in its app, which is verification on the social platform that Twitter now charges for. Reverse engineering professional Alessandro Paluzzi spotted a new mention in the codebase of both Facebook and Instagram suggesting it wants to add a "paid blue badge."

Meta has yet to confirm or deny the feature, but if true, it looks like the company is looking for a new way to monetize. It's a baffling source of revenue from a creator's perspective, given verification is crucial for ensuring prominent people or profiles are distinguished from copycats, scammers, and the like. What value would these blue checkmarks bring if people can just pay for them? Since this is hidden within the code, it may not even be released. But it gives us an idea of what Meta might be considering.

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Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum can easily pick up pet hair

The Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum hopes to make home cleanup a simpler task, especially if you're a household with pets. The company boasts how the Shark Stratos makes deep cleaning possible with its strongest suction on any cordless Shark stick vacuum. It also makes it possible to pick up any pet hair your beloved furry friends leave behind with its DuoClean Powerfins HairPro feature. And with its Clean Sense IQ infrared tech, this vacuum can sense hidden dirt and debris and boost its deep cleaning power. 

This stick vacuum prevents any odours or allergens from escaping with its Odour Neutralization Technology and Anti-Allergen Complete Seal. The former prevents bad odours from accumulating inside the vacuum, while the latter promises that the Shark Stratos picks up 99.97% of dust and allergens down to 0.3 microns. The Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum is available for $499.99.

Twitter delays API changes again

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Twitter is delaying the rollout of its paid API, with the company saying it needs more time to work on the redesign. It's not an indefinite delay, though, as Twitter mentioned "a few more days" delay. It was initially supposed to cut access to the free API on February 9. But that got pushed back to February 13 without warning. Twitter CEO Elon Musk hasn't said much about how the paid access to Twitter's API will work, but he suggested a charge of US$100 per month and an additional "ID verification" to limit bot abuse. The company later said it would allow "good bots" to tweet up to 1,500 times per month.

As Engadget pointed out, automated accounts and third-party clients aren't the only users affected by these changes. Researchers use the platform for different purposes. The recent one was around the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. Members of the Turkish diaspora used tweets to create heatmaps of where survivors could be located to share their findings with aid organizations and rescue crews. Musk's cost-cutting measures will affect use cases like this. When the API changes take effect, it will likely further slow down the work of data scientists and those involved in rescue efforts.

iOS 16.3.1 update appears to break Google Photos

The latest iOS update seems to be causing trouble with Google Photos. So, if you rely heavily on Google Photos, you might want to hold back. However, the issue with that this update fixes a vulnerability being actively exploited in the wild. Maybe now might not be the time to use Google Photos on the platform. 

It's being reported that the photo service crashes instantly for iPhone and iPad users attempting to open it after the upgrade. Hopefully, Apple or Google comes up with a fix for this as soon as possible.

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