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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year. This week, we’re taking a look at the biggest news in the world of apps, including how the GameStop frenzy impacted trading apps, as well as how Apple’s privacy changes are taking shape in 2021, and more. The internet comes for the stock market, via trading apps Image Credits: TechCrunch Was there really any other app…

Back in December, Sydney Connors, 28, received a notification welcoming her to Clubhouse, the audio-based, invite-only app. Connors, who works in public relations and event curation in Cleveland, initially spent hours on it, joining various groups that appealed to her sensibilities as a theatre lover, which included chats centered around table reads of plays. After seeing how the app could be used for creative endeavors, she teamed up with her friend of more than 20 years, Brandon Patterson, 28, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, to work on an ambitious project: producing a virtual production of Dreamgirls, based on the 2006 movie of the same name. The idea came about as a way to bring about “Black joy during a time of darkness,” Patterson said, as well as to highlight talented artists who haven’t been able to perform because of the ongoing pandemic.Auditions were held on the app over the course of three days, and more than 9,000 people sang well-known songs popularized by Jennifer Holliday, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Loretta Devine. The American Idol–style competition was complete with extremely direct feedback and sometimes hilariously shady moments from the judges, though there were no malicious intentions, Connors and Patterson told me.…

Link's weight in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been recently discovered by fans, and the results are not what anyone was expecting. Something that players will notice when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is how much Link is able to eat. Despite the countless numbers of apples, cakes, and meat skewers he stuffs down, Link always manages to retain his svelte figure no matter what. More recently, a Twitter user actually discovered how much Link actually weighs, and it’s pretty shocking. Although the massive open-world title from Nintendo was released in 2017, players are still continuing to find new things in the game. While many are breaking the Breath of the Wild’s physics engine to snipe Guardians from absurd distances, some players are more than happy just making smaller discoveries. Of course the uncovering of Link’s weight may not be as flashy as the perfect Guardian kill, it’s still arguably an important discovery to take note of. Continue scrolling to keep reading Click the button below to start this article in quick view. The Twitter account @GifZelda was able to get Link’s weight by making use of a large in-game scale in one…

People are still criticizing former Blue Devil Zion Williamson for not being whatever they think he should be - lighter, taller, a better defender, whatever - but with consistent minutes, his game is continuing to grow. Take Saturday’s game against Milwaukee. Williamson didn’t shoot as well as he sometimes does with 7-13, but look at his overall stats: 21 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. That’s pretty close to a triple double. And there’s one more wrinkle involved with his improvement that’s not getting a lot of attention: his free throw shooting has significantly improved. In five games in December, he shot 25, 66.7, 57.1, 33.3 and 66.7 percent. So far this month, while he shot 50 percent from the line against the Clippers and Sacramento (a total of 5-10), in the other games this month he hit 70, 75, 83.3, 100, 66.7, 80, 77.8, 72.7 and 70 percent. In the last four games, he’s hit 30-40 for 75 percent. That’s a huge improvement and if he can continue that, he’s going to be vastly more effective and will get a lot of easy points because realistically, the only way to stop him is to foul him. And if he’s…

Before the Beatles hit it big, they put in a tremendous amount of hard work. A lot of it came in Hamburg, West Germany prior to reunification, where they played in the ‘60s. They played exhaustively, set after set, day after day and night after night. This was just 15 years or so after the end of World War II remember, and while young people had put it behind them, there were a lot of reminders of the war. There were plenty of veterans with amputations around, still fairly young themselves, and many former members of the Nazi party walked by them every day. Talk about a bizarre environment. But it made them an incredibly tight band and helped catapult them to enduring global fame. They were also the first great rock n roll group to ascend to international stardom that wasn’t American. Here’s some video of them in Liverpool’s Cavern Club from 1962 as Beatlemania began to build. Peter Jackson has been working on a documentary about the band that has been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Here are some excerpts that are really fun. They were active from 1960 to 1970 which seems like a tiny fraction of…

David Thompson BENTONVILLE -- A Bentonville man was being held Friday on $100,000 bond in the Benton County Jail after his arrest in connection with possessing child pornography, according to a probable cause affidavit. David Loran Thompson, 52, was arrested Tuesday in connection with distributing, possessing, viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child; video voyeurism; and endangering the welfare of a minor. Prosecutors haven't filed formal charges against him. Bentonville police began investigating in August after receiving information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of child pornography possibly being posted on Tumblr, a social media tool, according to the affidavit. Tumblr confirmed three images were sent by the user, and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified the images as apparent child pornography, according to the affidavit. Police were able to trace the postings to Thompson, according to the affidavit. Police questioned Thompson, who denied any involvement in viewing child pornography. He told police he's a truck driver and part of a nonprofit organization Truckers Against Trafficking, which trains truck drivers to recognize and report instances of human trafficking, according to the affidavit. He admitted to being involved in a group on Tumblr with…

image copyrightGetty ImagesWhen trying to write - a quick article, for instance, or an essay or even that tricky first novel - it can be easy to become distracted. Twitter seems to be full of people who are, or should be, or want to be writing. Many of them have heard plenty of tips and advice from others over the years and are keen to pass some of those nuggets of wisdom on. "Harsh writing advice" began trending on Twitter in response to a now-deleted tweet, which survived as a screenshot, stating that writing friends are also competition.It led to some people dismissing the statement.HARSH WRITING ADVICE:Thinking of your friends as competition isn’t going to make you a better writer, because no matter what imaginary horse race you invent, you can only write what you write. So write it.— Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama) January 29, 2021 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterBut it also morphed into Twitter users exchanging pieces of writing advice ranging from the serious...HARSH WRITING ADVICE: The first time you think your book is finished, you've actually reached the starting line and are ready to start writing the real…

SALEM — The 28th anniversary concert of Dulci-More: Folk & Traditional Musicians is free and all are welcome to attend. The live concert will start at 2:30 p.m. Sunday and people can view it on Facebook Live on the Dulci-More Musicians Facebook Timeline. Nine Dulci-More members are planning to get together on Zoom and send the live stream to Facebook. For those unable to watch live, the link should remain on the timeline after the concert is finished for viewing later and will probably also be added later to a YouTube channel for those having trouble viewing it on Facebook. A pre-show at 2:15 will feature videos from two of the previous anniversary concerts. Live music will last about an hour followed by a post-show featuring another couple of videos from a previous anniversary concert. Unlike our previous anniversary concerts where many members of Dulci-More perform together as an ensemble for most songs, due to the latency (delay) issues of live music on most internet platforms with live music, most of the songs for this concert will be performed by individuals or by couples at the same address on the same computer. According to Bill Schilling, “We will plan to…

1984 witnesses Mark Zuckerberg’s birth. By 2020, he influences over 2.7 billion Facebook users. His net worth exceeds $54 billion. A third of the planet uses Facebook, a company with only 30,000 employees.Facebook fulfills user wants, not necessarily needs. Its popularity astounds Corporate America. Deploying artificial-intelligence (AI) for platform surveillance commoditizes user participation. AI distills each user’s behavior into a set of about 29,000 predictive criteria. Selling user profiles fuels Facebook. Extracting information from Facebook pages enables construction of shadow profiles for those not even on the platform.Facebook-derived user data empowers advertisers. These advertisers develop targeted ads for groups as small as 20. Not only Corporate America but foreign intelligence agencies benefit from this approach. Nowadays, the flood of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and fake news radicalize users.Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg call Facebook a public utility. However, regulation and profit margins set by government oversight define public utility conduct. Roger McNamee, author of “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,” highlights Facebook’s past performance as anything but that of a public utility. He observes, “They have taken advantage of our trust, using sophisticated techniques to prey on the weakest aspects of human psychology, to gather and exploit private data, and to…

Users are receiving malicious Whatsapp Messages that allegedly installs an "Android worm" on your device. The malware is reportedly known to be infectious since it can even spread the infection to your contact lists, without you knowing it. (Photo : Photo by Torsten Dettlaff from Pexels) As The Sun reports, A YouTuber and tech Expert Lukas Stefanko highlighted this issue on a recent tweet with a video that warns users about the circulating Whatsapp Android Worm. Android WhatsApp Worm?Malware spreads via victim's WhatsApp by automatically replying to any received WhatsApp message notification with a link to malicious Huawei Mobile app.Message is sent only once per hour to the same contact.It looks to be adware or subscription scam. https://t.co/NYbh2A9Y6M pic.twitter.com/2tFgLyG94O— Lukas Stefanko (@LukasStefanko) January 21, 2021 Fake 'Free SmartPhone' Huawei Promo App Installs Malware to WhatsApp Users The expert from tech security firm ESET tweeted about the issue to warn his followers of the circulating "Android worm" with an attached video showing how the malware can land on your phone. The worm can get access to your device once you receive the malicious message and download what claims to be a promo Huawei app that gives you a chance of winning a free…