Periscope doesn’t want you to feed the trolls

While Twitter, Periscope’s parent company, is still having issues with trolls and abusive comments. Periscope has found a reasonable way to deal with them. The livestreaming app introduces community moderation for comments. This works during a livestream where it allows viewers to report unwanted comments. And then a select number of viewers will vote if the comments made qualify as abusive or spam. If the majority agrees that it is, then the commenter will have his chat disabled temporarily. If he or she commits further offenses, said commenter won’t be able to share his or her thoughts for the rest of the broadcast. This helps police negative and abusive content on the service, which is a hard thing to do given the real-time nature of Periscope. The feature should be live for both iOS and Android this week.

Source: Periscope 1 + 2

ASUS VR headset spotted at Computex 2016

The big ASUS announcements at Computex 2016 in Taiwan revolve around the ZenFone and the ZenBook. But spotted on the showroom floor are VR headsets the Taiwanese brand didn’t even mention. It seems to be built to go against the Samsung Gear VR but it has a nicer leather strap reminiscent of the ZenWatch and shiny metal-like body. It’s said to be coming next year but not much is known about it. The VR headset is 5.7 inches wide diagonally and is speculated to fit the newly launched ZenFone 3 devices.

Like the Gear VR, it has a touchpad and buttons on the side. And as Gizmodo points out, it looks like ZTE’s own VR headset, which is being made with Google’s Daydream VR platform. We can’t help but wonder if this VR is being developed for said platform. We have to wait a while to find out more about this mysterious VR headset.

Source: Gizmodo

Google Photos now offers free original quality storage for Nexus users, introduces new features

To celebrate its first year, Google has officially released the free original quality storage for Nexus users on Google Photos. This means you don’t need to let Google compress your image to fit 16-megapixel resolution requirement to not count against your Google storage. Other new features coming to Google Photo include new sorting methods for photos within an album (including newest first, oldest first, and recently added). Contrast and Exposure controls are also coming to Google Photos soon.

Source: Android Community

Google app on iOS now faster than ever

Google’s giving its iOS users more reason to continue using its app—it’s now faster than ever, which the company says will help you save time. And while the speed difference might not be noticeable, Google says it’s there. Google promises these improvements save all iOS app users a combined 6.5 million hours this year. The Google app for iOS also now supports Accelerated Mobile Pages, which are news articles from different publications that are optimized to load instantly (think Facebook’s Instant Articles). You’d see the word AMP and a lightning bolt for articles that support this feature. You’ll see them when you’re in the Top Stories section. Aside from that, sports fans will now be able to watch highlights from your favorite teams right from Google Now cards. Just tap the sports highlight card and you’re good to go.

Source: Google Search blog