Monthly Archives: March 2017

Facebook has just released their biggest change in a decade called Facebook Stories — and as you may have noticed, it looks very similar to Snapchat and Instagram Stories.

All Facebook users now have access to the new camera feature that allows you to overlay special effects on photos and videos, much like Snapchat. Then lets you share to Facebook Stories which appears above News Feed on mobile and looks and works similarly to Instagram’s 24hr temporary slideshow, Stories. These posts can also be shared to News Feed and individual friends through the new Facebook Direct private visual messages, then will disappear once digested.

Since Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp’s Stories features have been widely well received by their users, Snapchat is said to be under “full attack” by Facebook. With Facebook’s enormous team of engineers and designers, plus billions of profit each quarter, it has the capacity to direct more resources towards Camera, Stories and Direct visual messaging than Snapchat can. As the trend moves towards media based messaging rather than text, it’s imperative for Facebook and all platforms to move toward this change.

While the LA startup Snapchat sees their target market as primarily U.S. teens, Facebook says they are determined to appeal to all ages and international demographics. Since the similarities between Facebook’s new features and those of Snapchat and Instagram are so blatantly similar it’s likely that in the long run, we will remember the companies who evolve with time, not always who the first was.

If you would like to learn more about Facebook Stories or would like to discuss social media and / or social media management as a service we provide, please be in touch with us at — [email protected]

2017 marks the 10th anniversary for the iPhone and many are expecting Apple to release something special later this year.

In the meantime, on 21 March, the iPhone SE has recently received an upgraded storage capacity from 16GB and 64GB to now the 32GB and 128GB. Rumours for another SE model are circulating at some point in the future.

Also on 21 March, the iPhone 7 has received a minor update during an Apple Store update, adding a Product RED version. Product RED is a charity that attempts to end AIDS in Africa. Part of the proceeds from the new red models will go to charity. Since Product RED was founded in 2006, Apple has generated more than £103 000 for the charity.

Perhaps the biggest expected change to the design of the iPhone 8 is the removal of the Home Button to allow edge-to-edge glass display. Alternatively, instead of the fingerprint sensor, Apple may use facial recognition making the new iPhone a truly remarkable innovation. Other rumoured features are wireless charging, long-range wireless charging and OLED display rather than LCD panels.

These along with internal upgrades will most likely be released in September 2017.

There wasn’t a new iPad Air released in either 2015 and 2016, so it was not surprising when Apple released a new iPad this month. Apple has done away with the “Air” from its name and the iPad Air line is now just called “iPad”. The new iPad comes with Apple’s A9 processor, an update to the A8X processor in the iPad Air A2 — meaning it has the same chip as the iPhone 6s, but keeps the same display and cameras as the Air 2.

The iPad mini received a minor update in March 2017, gaining more capacity for the same price (£419 for the 128GB Wi-Fi model and £549 for the 128GB Wi-Fi + Cellular). The iPad mini may see an upgrade this coming October, with the introduction of the iPad Mini Pro with upgraded components, a new thinner, more durable aluminium chassis, and will include the Smart Connector to match that of the other iPad Pro devices.

The new iOS update is traditionally released in the autumn with rumours announcement in June. So far the biggest rumour for iOS11 is an improved ‘natural sounding’ Siri as Apple works to improve the behaviour and response of its voice interface.

There are many exciting rumours for Apple products this year! As a partner with Apple, if you are interested in ordering or would like more information, please contact us at [email protected].

We are pleased to have worked with and to announce the launch of the new website for iFindTech.

iFindTech is a bespoke technology recruitment business with offices in Stockholm, Oslo and London. They assist founders, investors and technology leaders in hiring amazing talent.

Follow this link to visit their new website — ifindtech.com.

Please be in touch with us to discuss and learn more about our services, including branding, web design and build — [email protected]

If you’re having problems with your Dropbox today you’re not alone!

The online folder has been experiencing issues but should be working again shortly — we will keep you updated.

If you have any concerns, please be in touch with us [email protected].

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new website for Inventive Networks.

The brand, design and build for the new company were all finished in less than one day as their new venture required an urgent web presence. The website has full CMS that will soon be expanded upon.

Inventive Networks is the product of two seasoned recruiters who developed a way to facilitate a bridge between recruitment companies and the end client when a contractor is involved. With their sole purpose being not just solving the problem for recruitment agencies but also creating a new way to work. Check their new website out to learn more about their company and service — inventivenetworks.io

If you would like to learn more on these services — branding, web design and build, please be in touch with us at [email protected]

Google Keep, a note taking app and competitor to others such as Evernote and Microsoft’s OneNote, is now integrated into Google’s suite of applications aimed at businesses, G Suite.

Integrating Google Keep with Google Docs and G Suite, allows Keep to become a part of the users’ workflow by taking meeting notes, reminders and recording ideas.

Meaning you can now drag and drop notes from Keep into your work documents. This particular feature is only available via the web and requires for a Doc to be loaded and open in your browser. Using the Tools menu you can access Keep, which places your notes into a sidebar within the Docs page. From there you can drag and drop notes, images and checklists directly into a document.

You can also create notes as you work in a document by highlighting the text you want to grab, then right click on the selection and choose “Save To Keep notepad.”

Due to the Keep’s popularity, it is a natural move for Google to expand beyond its consumer user base. Now as a part of G Suite, business notes can now be kept secure and managed within a company’s own domain.

Keep was made available to G Suite customers as of 28th February. If you would like more information on this useful Google app and the G Suite package, please be in touch with us at [email protected]

Yesterday, there was a widespread issue experienced by many well known websites and apps. This lead to service that was either partially or fully broken on websites, apps and devices upon which it relies. DirectionForward hosting was not affected by this outage.

Amazon AWS S3 is used by around 148,213 websites, and 121,761 unique domains. 0.8% of the top 1 million websites use it — having quite a substantial impact on productivity yesterday, especially in the US where the outage started at 12:35 pm ET.

Amazon has not fully detailed what caused the high error rates but the issue seemed to be that information could get into Amazon’s overall network, but attempting to establish a network connection with the S3 servers was like hitting a brick wall. All traffic was stopped dead in its tracks, so any site or app that hosted data, images or other info on S3 was affected.

Below is a list of some of the affected websites and apps:

• Trello
• Slack
• WeTransfer
• Expedia
• Giphy
• Quora
• Medium
• Airbnb
• Pinterest
• Snapchat’s Bitmoji
• Mailchimp
• Kickstarter
• Lonely Planet
• Flipboard

The AWS S3 problem is now resolved and these and other websites and apps are functioning as normal once again.

If you are interested in learning more regarding this issue or Cloud hosting services, please be in touch with us at [email protected]