Even though pundits are predicting some dark times for Twitter ahead – what with a bunch of executives about to bail out an all — there’s news today that will no doubt considerably increase traffic on the social network over the coming days and months: You can now livestream on Twitter using a GoPro Hero4 Silver or Black camera and Periscope, which means all your daredevil deeds will can be broadcast live, as they are happening.
The new feature is only available to iPhone users (at least for now), and since Twitter now allows Periscope video to play in its users’ news feeds, the exposure these videos get should be pretty significant. After all, Twitter has some 315 million users, and that’s a lot of hungry eyeballs. So, expect a lot of skateboard fails, drone videos, and other types of daring do on your Twitter feeds soon. It should be pretty entertaining.
While you’re on Twitter with your iPhone, be careful what links you tap on. If you haven’t heard there’s a malicious URL (Crashsafari.com) out there that made news yesterday because it crashes the iPhone’s Safari browser, then crashes your iPhone, forcing it to restart. Twitter Trolls figured this would make a hilarious joke, and are now posting the URL in disguise using shorteners like Bit.ly and misleading tweets to get you to tap.
Our word to the wise today: Don’t tap any links you don’t know for sure are 100% legit. And if your phone suddenly crashes while cruising Twitter, well, at least you’ll know why. There, I feel better now, you’ve been warned.
Finally, and I have to say that, on a personal level, I love this story and I hope to get to try it out myself … as a passenger. Uber is turning to a kids’ toy to help its drivers deal with , shall we say, inebriated passengers.
As part of a test being run in Charlotte North Carolina, Uber drivers are being armed with a Bop It game. You remember this thing? You have to Bop It, Pull It and Twist It before the time runs out, and the closer you get to the end, the faster the game gets. It’s an infuriatingly infectious game when you’re sober. Can you imagine what it’d be like to play with it while drunk!
The idea here is to keep potentially agro drunkees from causing Uber drivers problems on their trip home or wherever they’re headed. Because let’s face it, when you’re drunk, you might be one comment or one bad song on the radio away from a belligerent tirade. The Bop It is supposed to keep such passengers occupied so they don’t have reason to get upset and cause a back-seat scene.
I don’t know, though, that game pisses me off when I’m sober, I’m not sure how I’d get along alone in the back of a car with a Bop It. Also, I’m not entirely certain I wouldn’t just walk off with it when I got to my destination, either. Now the Uber driver has to decide if they really wanna pry a Bop It from a potentially grouchy drunk dude? Perhaps this isn’t such a great idea anymore. I am still totally looking forward to the YouTube videos, though!
