Features

NEW YORK — Mix upper and lower case letters in your password? Substitute the numeral 1 for the letter l? Throw in an exclamation point and other special characters? Who can remember all that for dozens of websites and services?

No wonder it’s tempting to turn to apps and services that promise to keep track of your passwords, either on your device or online. All you need to remember is your master password.

But these password managers are like treasure chests for hackers. If your master password is compromised, all your accounts potentially go with it. Services that store password data online are particularly troublesome because they are easier for hackers to break.

Don’t do it, I’ve been saying for years. Now, I hate to say, “I told you so.”

LastPass, which offers a service that stores multiple passwords in encrypted form, says it has detected “suspicious activity”. Although it says it found no evidence that individual passwords or user accounts were breached, it’s advising users to change their LastPass master password.

I advise users to come up with a better system instead, one that relies less on just passwords.

Here are some tips:

All accounts aren’t equal

Instead of having to remember dozens of complex passwords, maybe you need to remember only a half-dozen.

Focus on accounts that are really important: Bank accounts, of course. Shopping services with your credit card information stored. And don’t forget e-mail.

Who would want your mundane chatter? Well, e-mail accounts are important because they are gateways for resetting passwords for other services, such as your Amazon account to go on a shopping spree.

What about other accounts?

Maybe you don’t need to worry about a password for a discussion forum or a news site. Yes, there’s the embarrassment of someone posting on your behalf, but it’s not the same as stealing thousands of dollars. Yet if it’s a discussion forum you value, and you’ve established a reputation under that identity, you might want to prioritize that, too. That thinking applies to social-media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.

For the rest of your accounts, it’s not as bad to turn to a password manager, but it might not be necessary. Web browsers from Apple and Google have built-in mechanisms for storing frequently used passwords. You even have options to sync those online if you use multiple devices. Google’s new Smart Lock feature extends that to Android apps, too, so you’re not limited to Web browsing. Many services also let you sign in with your Facebook or other ID instead of generating new passwords each time. Make sure the ID service offers two-step verification, as I’ll explain later. Turn that on.

Again, use these only for your less-important accounts. For the highly sensitive ones, choose a unique password and remember it. Write it down by hand and keep it in a safe place. If you must store it electronically, use password-protected files kept on your device — not online.

Phones and fingerprints

If you haven’t protected your phone with a passcode, tsk tsk! Someone can easily swipe your phone and get to your e-mail account to unlock all sorts of other accounts.

Fortunately, the latest iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones have fingerprint IDs that make it easier to unlock phones. Instead of typing in the four-digit passcode each time, you can tap your finger on the home button.

Apple now allows other app developers to use that fingerprint ID, too. So you can unlock banking apps with just a tap of your finger. In its upcoming Android update, called M, Google is also promising to make it easier for app makers to incorporate fingerprint ID. And Microsoft plans support for biometrics — such as a fingerprint or iris scan — in the upcoming Windows 10 system.

Double security

Major services including Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Dropbox offer a second layer of authentication, typically in the form of a numeric code sent as a text message. After you enter your regular password, you type in the code you receive on your phone to verify that it’s really you. A hacker wouldn’t have access to your phone.

You need to go into the account settings to turn it on this feature, which goes by such names as two-factor authentication or two-step verification.

It’s a hassle, but it keeps your accounts safer. Just assume that your password will get compromised at some point. This extra layer will keep the hacker from doing anything with it.

Even safer...

When given a choice, sign in with your mobile number rather than your e-mail address. It’s much easier to hack into an e-mail account to reset passwords. Of course, you’ll have to trust the service not to use your mobile number for marketing. In many cases, I still use my e-mail — with the two-step verification.

Also be careful when creating security questions to reset passwords. Your dog’s name? Your first school? These are things someone might find on your social-media page or elsewhere online. I make up answers and make them as strong as my regular passwords.

I won’t repeat my tips on creating strong passwords, but you can find them here:

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7-ways-create-better-stronger-passwords

In many cases the very expression “in the cloud” sounds scary, as if cloud (i.e. “a visible mass of condensed water vapour floating in the atmosphere”) constituted a mysterious and remote place “up there”, where strange things happen to data.

With more and more being done in the cloud with every day that passes, users are asking if and to which extent they can trust the cloud with their digital contents: files, documents, numbers, photos and information of all kinds.

The worrying is legitimate but perhaps the question should be rephrased: “Are the digital contents stored on the hard disk inside my desktop or laptop computer safer than they would be in the cloud?” To which the answer would be: “not really, it is more or the less the same, unless you happen to be a big corporation with huge and complex security schemes.” Even in the latter case, however, and as we hear it in the news every now and then, no one is perfectly protected from hacking, intrusion or data theft; not even the big ones, whatever the shield.

Why is your internal hard disk more or less similar to the cloud, when it comes to protecting your data from prying eyes?

From the moment your personal machine is connected to the Internet, which today is the most common situation and by far of all computers and computer-like devices, you become part of the big, global network, and those with bad intention can access the files on your hard disk just as they can access those you stored in the cloud. Most people forget this aspect of networking. We have to face reality, once connected everything becomes possible. When you are connected to the Internet you and your local personal device are part of the cloud.

There are differences, of course, and they are not all in favour of your local storage. Surprisingly, or not, the cloud could prove to be even safer than your own hard disk in some instances. Which would be the case if for example your antivirus software does not provide enough protection, if it is outdated, or if you fall in the trap set by hazardous spam e-mail or websites, and bravely go clicking where you shouldn’t be clicking in the first place.

In such cases the server in the cloud that stores your data would definitely be offering a better protection that your own machine and would keep our data very safe, provided of course the service has good reputation and does not plan to “take a look” at your data — a very, very unlikely scenario.

To have your local machine ensure better protection than the cloud would take complex hardware, setup and software. It usually consists of a dedicated, hardware firewall, than only professional techies can set up and adjust. No home or small office does that. It is just not worth the trouble or the expense. Unless you, as a home user or small office staff member, happen to have something important to hide from the external world.

In the latter case you should ideally keep such “sensitive” data outside the internal hard disk of a network connected machine. A small USB drive or an external and removable hard disk drive that you’d store in a drawer, disconnected from the computer (and therefore from the network or the web), would constitute a simple and efficient solution.

“In the cloud” is an expression that should be demystified and the place trusted, in general.

URAYASU, Japan — Technology company SoftBank’s Pepper robot is going on sale in Japan on Saturday, equipped with a “heart” designed to not only recognise human emotions but react with simulations of anger, joy and irritation.

The robot, which has no legs and moves on wheels, was shown to reporters and guests at a Tokyo area theatre Thursday. It has a hairless head and moving arms and went through a year of software development after first being announced.

It glided proudly on to the stage, conversed with celebrity guests, did a dance, sang a birthday song and demonstrated how it could record family life in photos, and serve as a companion. It appeared to respond with joy when it was praised or stroked.

SoftBank Corp. CEO Masayoshi Son said the company was preparing for a global sales launch with partners Alibaba Group of China and FoxConn of Taiwan. They will each take a 20 per cent stake in SoftBank’s robotics unit, and help with software and manufacturing.

Details of when and where it will go on sale outside Japan were still undecided. But Son said the first overseas sales will likely happen next year, with test sales likely happening later this year. It sells for 198,000 yen ($1,600) in Japan and 1,000 of the robots will be available each month.

According to Son, the robot will develop its own personality of sorts, depending on how people interact with it. Pepper can remember faces and is programmed to be happy when it is given attention but becomes irritated and depressed when it is not. It will also cheer up sad people and try to mitigate suffering, he said.

Son gushed with emotion himself when explaining to reporters and guests what was in store for the 121 centimetre-tall, 28 kilogramme white Pepper, stressing the company’s commitment to robots, especially smart robots that can provide emotional interaction in everyday life.

He said the inspiration for Pepper came from his childhood memories of Astro Boy, an animated Japanese character which did not have a heart and could not understand why people cried. He made a point of programming Pepper to look like it weeps: lights well up in its round eyes. It has artificial intelligence technology from IBM.

Although Son acknowledged some may not agree with the idea of making robots that appeared to have human traits, he said such technology could be transformative.

The world already has robots that help in manufacturing, and mankind has already made the car and the plane, but what it needs is love, he said with a straight face.

“Our vision is to offer a robot with love,” he said.

One way the robot might be used, Son said, is showing all the video it has taken of an individual over several years, even decades, such as his or her wedding, because it is programmed to document moments when it senses elevated emotional arousal such as happiness and surprise.

Its grip is very weak so it won’t hurt those around it, although it also won’t be able to clasp a beer to fetch one for its owner, Son said.

In Thursday’s demonstration, it carried on a realistic conversation. When an actor showered it with praise, it responded with a childlike voice: “Please say more,” and “Really?”

SoftBank will also make Pepper available for commercial uses from the fall, including renting out the robot for 1,500 yen ($12) an hour to retailers and companies for their reception desks.

Where feminism is concerned, I would describe myself as a part-time feminist. What that means is, I am all for intellectual and social equality between men and women. I also favour the reasoning that every person is entitled to freedom and liberty with identical civic rights, regardless of their gender. 

Additionally, there must never be any discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, skin colour, culture, or lifestyle. I believe in this, truly. I am dedicated to fighting the ignorance that says people are controlled by and limited to their biology.

But when some definitions of feminism, however warped, go on to suggest that women should never wax their legs, tweeze their eyebrows, buy pretty lingerie or wear lipstick, I call it quits. I don’t think women need to look like men to enjoy the equivalent political, legal, economic and social privileges. Absolutely not! We are one half of the world’s population and we deserve to reach the heights of excellence in what we do, in whichever manner we want. There is no point in removing old boundaries only to impose new ones. 

Education is a great leveller but in certain societies we still have to learn to break specific stereotypes before any semblance of impartiality between the sexes can be discussed, in its complete essence. Forget feminism, there are some gender roles that have been handed down from generations, which nobody has the courage to question. For instance: Why do mothers tell their young sons not to shed tears even when they are hurt because ‘boys never cry’? Why are they encouraged to play with toy cars or trucks and kept away from dolls? Why are daughters expected to help in household chores but not sons? 

In many multinational companies, why are men paid more than women, when they occupy the same position professionally? Why are work/life balance speeches always directed towards working mothers? Why is it that a father is not given paternity leave to look after his newborn? And, in the rare case, where he is indeed given that opportunity, why do his friends and family secretly sympathise with him?

These and many such typecasts have to be immediately dislodged by the educated class, before there is mutual respect and dignity between everyone. 

Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, made a very pertinent remark in one of his speeches where he asked why is it that our teenage daughters and sons have different curfew hours for coming home after partying? Also, why do we ask our daughters where they went in the evening, and not our sons?

Such questions emerging from the freshly elected head of state, of the largest democracy in the world, were very refreshing. The most die-hard feminists in my home country were nearly ready to make him an honorary member of their tribe.

And then he was invited on an official trip to neighbouring Bangladesh. While praising the efficiency of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Indian PM delivered a faux pas. Despite being a woman, she was doing an exemplary job of fighting terrorism, he told her condescendingly. 

An intended compliment came out as a patronising remark and the entire social media ignited with vitriol, overnight. 

“Who carried these heavy suitcases from the car,” my husband asked, lowering the newspaper. 

“I did,” I admitted.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he queried.

“I managed,” I said.

“Despite being a woman?” he probed, raising an eyebrow.

“Because of being one,” I answered.

LOS ANGELES — At the Electronic Entertainment Expo on Tuesday players swooped like eagles through Paris, blasted asteroids, and fought in boxing rings as videogame makers dove into worlds of virtual reality.

The expansive E3 show floor was rich with VR offerings from developers working on games for immersive head gear expected to hit the market in force next year.

Queues were long through the day as people at the world’s leading video game trade show jockeyed to experience what it is like to venture into fantasy worlds.

“People love VR,” Robyn Gray of Other World Interactive told AFP while showing off a game that transported players to a space arena where they destroyed asteroids with friends.

“It is still like this magical, sparkly Christmas time present.”

Gray is a lead designer at California-based Other World Interactive virtual reality studio, which boasted having one of the most popular virtual reality applications at Google’s online Play shop.

The game, Sisters, is a ghost story that works with smartphones inserted into Google Cardboard virtual reality headsets.

Other World also boasted a socially conscious app focused on climate change that lets people in virtual worlds see greenhouse gas being spewed around them.

Fly like an eagle

French video game titan Ubisoft had a private room in a corner of the show floor where it let visitors get their hands on and their heads into a game that transformed them into eagles free to fly through Paris.

Sensors in Oculus Rift head gear allowed turns or twists of a head to direct flight, with players flying along streets, zipping beneath bridges, and even swooping through the Eiffel Tower.

Ubisoft was working to have Eagle Flight ready by the time Oculus and Sony release their respective virtual reality headsets, according to Arnaud Antoine, who was overseeing the demos.

Ubisoft also delivered a face-to-face confrontation with psychotic ‘Far Cry 3’ antagonist Vaas Montenegro, who ended the virtual encounter by sending the bound player plunging into deep water with a rock tied to their legs.

“You are the prisoner,” Antoine explained of the scene fans of the game would recognise. “If you don’t look at him, he gets mad.”

Ubisoft is exploring the potential for players in virtual reality to engage with artificial intelligence in video games, according to Antoine.

A TrackMania racing game, tailored by Ubisoft for Project Morpheus virtual reality gear from Sony, was set on a twisting, looping track that left a player dizzy.

‘Everyone doing VR’

Elsewhere on the show floor, people wearing virtual reality headsets threw punches as they slugged it out in faux boxing rings, or went armed with rifle-like controllers to battle enemies in grim settings.

Analysts expected E3 to be a coming-of-age of sorts for virtual reality, which has been around for decades but remained an unfulfilled promise for gamers eager to immerse themselves in fantasy worlds.

Facebook-owned virtual reality firm Oculus delivered hands-on demonstrations of games, and the Rift head gear was at other booths.

Oculus will begin shipping Rift headsets early next year, but has not mentioned pricing.

The cost of buying into the experience was expected to be driven up by the need for powerhouse computers to render virtual reality video smoothly and quickly.

Rift will come with an Xbox controller due to an alliance with console maker Microsoft.

“Immersive technologies have a lot more to offer than video games, but it is a great place to start,” said Gartner analyst Brian Blau.

“Game developers know how to get people immersed in graphical simulations better than anybody; it is natural to think they will be first in line to create content.”

Among those checking Oculus at E3 was Andre Goncalves, director of gaming for Comic Con in Portugal.

Virtual reality calls on developers to rethink approaches, taking into account factors such as how uncomfortable head gear might become after hours of play and creative new ways to interact with digital realms, according to Goncalves.

“Everyone is doing VR,” Goncalves told AFP.

“But, they are on the top of the mountain now when it comes to making games; they will gave to go back to the bottom and find a new way up.”

SINGAPORE — Security researchers have uncovered a flaw in the way thousands of popular mobile applications store data online, leaving users’ personal information, including passwords, addresses, door codes and location data, vulnerable to hackers.

The team of German researchers found 56 million items of unprotected data in the applications it studied in detail, which included games, social networks, messaging, medical and bank transfer apps.

“In almost every category we found an app which has this vulnerability in it,” said Siegfried Rasthofer, part of the team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology and Darmstadt University of Technology.

Team leader Eric Bodden said the number of records affected “will likely be in the billions”.

Another security researcher working separately, Colombian Jheto Xekri, said he had also found the same flaw.

The problem, Bodden said, is in the way developers — those who write and sell the applications — authenticate users when storing their data in online databases.

Most such apps use services like Amazon’s Web Services or Facebook’s Parse to store, share or back up users’ data.

While such services offer ways for developers to protect the data, most choose the default option, based on a string of letters and numbers embedded in the software’s code, called a token.

Attackers, Bodden says, can easily extract and tweak those tokens in the app, which then gives them access to the private data of all users of that app stored on the server.

The researchers said they had no documented evidence that the vulnerability had been exploited.

The vulnerable applications, which they declined to name, number in the tens of thousands, and include some of the most popular on the Apple and Google app stores.

Rasthofer said all four companies had responded to their findings; he said Apple staff had told him on Monday that they would soon incorporate warnings to developers to double check their security settings before uploading apps to its App Store.

Google declined to comment, while Apple and Amazon did not respond to queries.

A Facebook spokesperson said that after researchers notified it of the vulnerability the company had been working with affected developers. She declined to provide details.

App developers responsible

Facebook’s Parse lists among its customers some of the world’s biggest companies — all of which, Rasthofer said, were potentially affected.

Security researchers say mobile applications are more at risk of failing to secure users’ data than those running on desktop or laptop computers. This is partly because implementing stronger security is harder, and partly because developers are in a rush to release their apps, said Ibrahim Baggili, who runs a cybersecurity lab at the University of New Haven.

Others pointed to weaknesses in the ways apps transmit data. Bryce Boland, Asia Pacific chief technology officer at internet security company FireEye, said the report reflected deeper problems.

He said FireEye regularly found developers send users’ names and passwords unencrypted, “so it’s not surprising to find them storing them insecurely as well”.

Bodden likened his team’s discovery to the Heartbleed bug, a web-based vulnerability reported last year that left half a million web servers susceptible to data theft. Security researchers said this might be worse, since there was little users could do, and exploiting the vulnerability was easy.

“The amount of effort to compromise data by exploiting app vulnerabilities is far less than the effort to exploit Heartbleed,” said Toshendra Sharma, founder of Bombay-based mobile security company Wegilant.

Other security researchers say that while responsibility for weak authentication lies with those developing the apps, others in the chain should shoulder some of the blame.

“The truth is that there is plenty of fault to go around,” said Domingo Guerra, co-founder of mobile security company Appthority. Cloud providers and app stores, he said, should ensure best practices are implemented correctly and test apps for such holes.

LOS ANGELES — Dinosaur action flick “Jurassic World” has set new marks in North America and around the world, stomping this weekend’s competition and old records with massive ticket sales.

“Jurassic World”, starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, took in $511 million in global revenue for the best opening weekend in history, scooping up $100 million of that from China.

Earning $208.8 million in its first weekend, the fourth iteration in the “Jurassic Park” series topped the “Avengers” 2012 record, according to final figures released Monday by Exhibitor Relations.

That haul easily beats the previous global record, for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”, from 2011 of $483 million.

The comic thriller returns to the famous dinosaur island, now converted to an amusement park, and follows a new hybrid experiment gone awry.

Steven Spielberg co-produced “Jurassic World”, returning to the series after directing the first two of the four films.

“This is absolutely a four-quadrant movie and is working on so many levels. The release date was awesome and everybody stayed off of our date,” The Hollywood Reporter quoted Universal domestic distribution chief Nick Carpou as saying.

In addition to Chris Pratt as chief dinosaur-keeper and Bryce Dallas Howard as the park’s overzealous marketing guru, the cast of the film includes a multi-ethnic array of actors.

‘Eating records’

Paul Dergarabedian, a media analyst at Rentrak, told AFP that “Jurassic World” benefited from something of a perfect box-office storm.

“Nostalgia, legacy, pedigree: Three things that can make a newly updated franchise a monster,” he said.

“There are many reasons ‘Jurassic World’ is eating box office records like a hungry Indominus Rex: the original ‘Jurassic Park’ was the second coming of ‘Jaws’ and was for many the film that defined in the psyche their personal definition of the summer movie experience.

“At the time 1993’s ‘Jurassic Park’ was released it was the first film to ever open with over $50 million and as such was seen and loved by a massive audience that were at once repelled and thrilled by its science-run-amok premise, its homage to the dinosaurs that everyone grew up learning about and were intrigued by in grade school.

“And not least of all, the collective movie theatre popcorn experience that the iconic superstar director Steven Spielberg delivered.” 

Universal Pictures had also been smart with its marketing of the film, he added, noting that broadcaster NBC in the US had been showing the original in the run-up to the latest release to drum up interest.

Comedy “Spy” took in $15.6 million in ticket sales on the weekend. The story follows a CIA analyst (Melissa McCarthy) who leaves a desk job to go deep undercover in a field assignment with global disaster in the balance.

Third place on the weekend charts went to California earthquake thriller “San Andreas”, taking in $10.8 million.

The film featuring Dwayne Johnson as a rescue pilot searching for his daughter topped box office sales two weekends ago when it took in $54.6 million.

The third instalment of the “Insidious” horror films, “Insidious: Chapter 3”, took fourth place on this weekend charts with $7.3 million in sales in its fourth week on the charts.

Hit musical film starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson “Pitch Perfect 2” took in $6.4 million for the fifth spot. The sequel follows the Barden Bellas singing team after a ban from the competitive circuit.

Hollywood male bonding comedy-drama “Entourage”, based on a HBO series of the same name, took in $4.2 million in box office sales in its second week on the charts.

Hit dystopian film “Mad Max: Fury Road” took in $4.1 million in ticket sales in its fifth week on the charts, bringing its total North American haul to $138.5 million. 

The high adrenaline sci-fi road battle movie stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.

Super hero film “Avengers: Age of Ultron” grabbed $3.7 million in ticket sales for the eighth spot in its seventh week on the charts.

Disney’s “Tomorrowland” starring George Clooney took in $3.5 million, while “Beach Boys” biopic “Love & Mercy” took in $1.7 million.

NEW YORK — The Pope is on Twitter, along with the Dalai Lama, world leaders and, of course, Kim Kardashian.

The short-messaging service can bring fleeting fame, instant ignominy and get you fired. It has been credited for sparking revolutions and, like Facebook, transforming the way the world communicates.

But despite the buzz generated by thousands of chatty journalists, athletes and celebrities, Twitter has never turned a profit. Its user base of 302 million is dwarfed by rivals such as Facebook, which counts 1.44 billion.

Facebook has grown into an Internet powerhouse, while Twitter in many aspects remains a niche social network, unable to convince the masses that they need its service to keep up with what’s happening in the world. Lots of people sign up but not a lot stick around.

That likely had much to do with last week’s announced exit of Twitter Inc. CEO Dick Costolo, who gave way to co-founder, and former CEO, Jack Dorsey while the San Francisco company looks for a new leader.

Despite the executive turmoil and a stock price that has fallen 30 per cent since late April, industry experts — not to mention loyal users — see potential in the company.

But first it needs to address some of its biggest problems. Here are some of Twitter’s most pressing challenges, along with possible fixes.

Where are the users?

Its user growth is stalling and there are a lot of competitors. Besides its old rival Facebook, Twitter is feeling the heat from mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Line and Viber, not to mention Snapchat, Instagram and a bevy of others only your cool middle-school niece might have heard of. Twitter grew from 204 million active users in the first quarter of 2013 to 255 million a year later and 302 million in the first three months of 2015. In comparison, Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced in April that it has reached 800 million monthly active users.

Make it easier to use

Almost one billion users have tried Twitter and not stuck around, according to tech investor Chris Sacca, a longtime Twitter backer who wrote a lengthy critique of the service and posted it online this month. Sacca suggested the service could offer more features to engage visitors — including special channels or tabs focused on live events, topics of interest or even a user’s geographic location. He also recommended more “nudges”, including feedback, polls and other interactive features that would make newcomers feel less “lonely”.

Deal with trolls

Twitter has long had a problem with trolls, the online bullies and blowhards whose abuse has been an ongoing issue that has alienated established and potential users. It has tried to make it easier to report threats and in April updated its policy against violent threats to include not just specific threats but people promoting violence against others. It’s too early to say if this has helped.

More apps and options

Twitter is well-known around the globe, but it must do more to capitalise on its own brand, said Brian Blau, a tech analyst at the Gartner research firm. Twitter could be offering users more specialised apps for various activities, in the way that Facebook has built a stable of apps for messaging, consuming news and sharing photos, he said. Twitter’s Periscope app, which lets users share live video, is an example of “exactly the kind of thing Twitter should be doing”, Blau added. But he noted that Facebook, Snapchat and other companies have invested heavily in direct-messaging capabilities, which can make money by showing ads, selling animated adornments or enabling users to play one-on-one games. Twitter, meanwhile, has only tinkered around the edges of its direct-messaging function.

Demonstrate strengths to advertisers

Twitter knows something about its users’ interests, but Facebook knows far more about its users’ likes and habits, while Google and Pinterest can more readily predict what users might want to buy. That, coupled with Twitter’s slowing user growth, has made advertisers are more likely to spend their money on other sites, analysts say. Twitter’s strength, however, is drawing people’s attention during live events, such as sports championships, breaking news and popular television shows, said Debra Aho Williamson at the eMarketer research firm. Reaching casual users on a routine basis is harder, but Twitter may succeed if it can “engage advertisers in that ‘real-time’ story”, she said.

Show investors it’s serious about business

The new CEO must show Wall Street that Twitter is focused on building revenue and delivering on financial targets, added Scott Kessler, a tech stocks analyst at S&P Capital IQ. “Their single biggest shortcoming is really about the ability to consistently communicate and execute against their strategy,” he said.

LOS ANGELES — YouTube is seeking to win over gamers.

The online video giant announced plans ahead of next week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo to launch a separate app and site specifically for fans of video games.

Ryan Wyatt, YouTube’s global head of gaming content, unveiled YouTube Gaming during an event at YouTube Space LA, one of the site’s production facilities. He said YouTube Gaming will be a destination for users to find gaming videos, live streams and Internet personalities.

“Despite the crazy usage that gaming drives on YouTube, we’ve never really built gamers the experience that they deserve,” said Wyatt. “That’s something that changes today.”

The app and site, which is scheduled to debut in the US and UK later this summer, will feature individual pages dedicated to more than 25,000 games.

YouTube product designer Jonathan Terleski demonstrated that if a user began searching for the word “call” on the YouTube Gaming app, the military shooter “Call of Duty”, not the Carly Rae Jepsen tune “Call Me Maybe” would appear first.

YouTube is also seeking to make it easier for users to broadcast live and competitive gaming, known as e-sports, by creating singular links that can be shared, removing the need to schedule a broadcast and promoting live broadcasts.

“YouTube Gaming is built from the ground up for gamers, by gamers,” said Wyatt. “No longer is gaming going to be lost in a sea of content. We’re unleashing a brand-new user experience that puts games front and centre. That includes live gaming, as well.”

The move by Google-owned YouTube takes direct aim at Twitch, the gaming-centric streaming video site acquired by Amazon last year for nearly $1 billion. While YouTube remains the dominant online video site, Twitch has solidified itself over the past three years as a destination to stream gameplay from such titles as “League of Legends” and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive”. Twitch now boasts 100 million users who watch 1.5 million broadcasters a month.

“We welcome new entrants into the growing list of competitors,” said Matthew DiPietro, Twitch’s vice president of marketing, in a statement. “Gaming video is obviously a huge market that others have their eye on. It inspires us to work even harder to make the community proud.”

The announcement of YouTube’s renewed focus on gaming once again signals the importance of online video. While the interactive extravaganza is no longer broadcast live on TV cable channels such as Spike and G4, the surprise-laced press conferences and flashy game demonstrations attract millions of viewers on YouTube, Twitch and other online streaming services.

“The way you reach a gamer today is very different than the way you would 20 or even 10 years ago,” said Michael Gallagher, president of the Electronic Software Association, which organises E3, the gaming industry’s annual trade show.

“It’s more direct. The consumers want the experience of video game debuts through the eyes and voices of true gamers,” Gallagher continued. “Now, those true gamers who can speak with enthusiasm about a new ‘Fallout’ or ‘Call of Duty’ are able to do it live and in person through streaming technology. It’s another example how the industry has matured and grown beyond traditional forms of media.”

JAKARTA — Jakarta’s traffic jams are a constant vexation for the city’s 10 million residents. With the chaos not looking to abate anytime soon, entrepreneurial types have made it their business to help fellow commuters circumvent the world’s worst gridlock.

Commuters spend three to four hours a day in their cars on Jakarta’s roads, a situation which Indonesian businessman Nadiem Makarim described as a huge waste of productivity. The average speed of traffic is 8.3km per hour, slower than a runner of average fitness covering the same distance in a race.

Yet the Indonesian capital’s glaring inefficiencies have also created opportunities for the likes of Makarim, who has launched a smartphone app that lets users summon a motorbike rider to weave them quickly through gridlocked traffic, deliver a meal or even get the shopping.

Since the launch of the app in January, the number of distinctive, green-jacketed drivers on its books has jumped tenfold to 10,000. The app itself has been downloaded nearly 400,000 times in six months — a national record.

“I created GO-JEK because I really needed it,” Makarim told Reuters this week in Jakarta on the sidelines of the annual New Cities Summit, where over 800 CEOs, mayors, thinkers, artists and innovators met to discuss urban change.

Jakarta’s congestions are one of the biggest brakes on economic growth. Officials say the traffic — adjudged recently by motor-oil firm Castrol to be the world’s worst based on an analysis of stopping and starting by drivers — costs the economy about 65 trillion rupiah, or nearly $5 billion, a year.

A slump in infrastructure investment after the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, problems freeing up land for development, turf wars between city departments, and poor planning all means Jakarta’s public transport cannot cope with the numbers of people moving about the city.

The city’s population is growing by 120,000 a year partly due to rural-urban migration, putting enormous pressure on already-stretched infrastructure such as transport.

With an average annual income of around $3,800 per head, five times the national average, migrants are pouring into Jakarta seeking a better life than would be possible as farmers or fishermen.

“This accelerating urbanisation is largely an Asian story,” said John Rossant, chairman of the New Cities Foundation. “There’s been nothing like this in human history.”

Waze to go

Traffic-navigation app Waze is another big hit with Jakarta residents, who use it to identify the speediest routes through the congestion and to alert other users to accidents, floods and even greasy-palmed police officers standing on street corners.

“Jakarta is indeed a huge market for us,” said Waze spokeswoman Julie Mossler. The city ranks regularly within the top 10 of Waze’s 200 world markets, with 800,000 users.

Inefficiency also creates opportunities of a more low-tech order.

At the edge of the city centre, roadside “jockeys” rent themselves out as passengers for 20,000 rupiah ($1.50) to drivers seeking to dodge a 3-in-1 rule prohibiting cars with fewer than three people from main roads during peak hours.

Amid the palls of exhaust fumes at clogged junctions, freelance traffic conductors battle to keep cars flowing for loose change handed through windows by frazzled drivers.

Minimarts offering commuters a spot to eat, drink and browse the Internet while waiting for the rush-hour traffic to clear are also thriving.

The city is now investing in better public transport. Construction of a mass rapid transit system began in 2013, after decades of delay, and is slated to open in 2018.

But, with at least 1,000 new cars and motorbikes added to the city’s roads every day, entrepreneurs don’t see an immediate threat to their business models.

“I would happily shut down GO-JEK if Jakarta could solve its traffic problems,” said Makarim. “Unfortunately it’s virtually impossible to solve in the next 10 years.”