Plan to secure internet of things with new law

The internet of things, from toys to web cameras, should be more secure, the proposed legislation says.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2VBPrbi

Facebook takes its Portal international, adds WhatsApp, Facebook Live support

At its F8 developer conference, Facebook today announced that it is launching its Portal video chat hardware internationally by bringing it to Canada and a select number of European countries, too. This rollout will begin in June in Canada, with Europe following this fall. In the U.S., Portal sells for $199 and $349, depending on the screen size. The company did not announce international pricing.

Portal originally only launched in the U.S. As the company’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted during his F8 keynote today, the service has done better than the company expected. Given that it launched right during some of Facebook’s biggest privacy scandals, that’s a bit of a surprise, though we don’t know what Facebook’s own expectations were, of course, or how many of the device it has sold.

In addition, Zuckerberg announced that its WhatsApp messenger is also coming to Portal. That means end-to-end encrypted video chats are coming to Portal, something that should reduce some of the privacy concerns around the device. “Now, you can be sure that when you’re having conversations with your friends and family, everything stays between you,” Zuckerberg said, though most current users probably hope that this has always been the case, even when using Portal without WhatsApp.

Later this summer, Portal will also get new AR effects and a story-reading mode. Starting today, Portal can also display photos from Instagram, and Facebook is building a mobile app that lets you display photos on the Portal. You can do that today, but it’s significantly more complicated because you need to create a private album just for Portal.

Coming soon, too, is the ability to send private video messages and Facebook Live support.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2GPso3p

Developers can now verify mobile app users over WhatsApp instead of SMS

Facebook today released a new SDK that allows mobile app developers to integrate WhatsApp verification into Account Kit for iOS and Android. This will allow developers to build apps where users can opt to receive their verification codes through the WhatsApp app installed on their phone, instead through SMS.

Today, many apps give users the ability to sign up using only a phone number — a now popular alternative to Facebook Login, thanks to the social network’s numerous privacy scandals which led to fewer people choosing to use Facebook with third-party apps. Plus, using phone numbers to sign up is common with a younger generation of users who don’t have Facebook accounts — and sometimes barely use email, except for joining apps and services.

When using a phone number to sign in, the app can confirm the user by sending a verification code over SMS to the number provided. The user then enters that code to create their account. This process can also be used when logging in, as part of a multi-factor verification system where a user’s account information is combined with this extra step for added security.

While this process is straightforward and easy enough to follow, SMS is not everyone’s preferred messaging platform. That’s particularly true in emerging markets like India, where 200 million people are on WhatsApp, for example. In addition, those without an unlimited messaging plan are careful not to overuse texting when it can be avoided.

That’s where the WhatsApp SDK comes in. Once integrated into an iOS or Android app, developers can offer to send users their verification code over WhatsApp instead of text messaging. They can even choose to disable SMS verification, notes Facebook.

This is all a part of WhatsApp’s Account Kit, which is a larger set of developer tools designed to allow people to quickly register and login to apps or websites using only a phone number and email, no password required.

This WhatsApp verification codes option has been available on WhatsApp’s web SDK since late 2018, but hadn’t been available with mobile apps until today.

 

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2ITg8m2

Instagram will now let creators and influencers sell items directly

The monetization hose is on full blast at Instagram now, and today at F8, Facebook unveiled one of the latest developments on that front. The company said that creators will now be able to tag items to sell them directly to people viewing their posts and Stories.

For now, this will work only on items that are tagged from businesses that are part of the new checkout beta program Instagram is running in the U.S.

It’s also part of a bigger transactional swing that we’re seeing at Instagram that extends beyond just catering to consumerism and influencers speaking to Instagram’s billion-plus users.

Today Instagram also confirmed that it would be adding donation stickers in Stories — something we reported it was working on several months ago.

The tags that creators and influencers can now add is a significant development on product tagging, which up to now had been reserved just for businesses and brands, not open to individuals.

But the purpose for now doesn’t seem to be to help creators make commissions on those sales. Facebook tells us that “at this time,” creators will not make a cut on any purchases made as a result of anyone clicking on links in their posts (meaning: it may come down the line).

Rather, the point is to cut down on some of the repeat questions that creators get about what they are wearing, and where to buy it. “People are already shopping from creators by asking product questions in comments and Direct,” a spokesperson said. “With the ability to tag products, creators can provide the information their followers are looking for and get back to expressing themselves and sharing what’s on their mind, which will make their followers happy too.”

But they are not getting diddly, either. The spokesperson notes that creators will also receive additional insights with shopping posts, such as engagements and shopping insights. For those who are making a living out of their influencer status, these could help them leverage better deals with those brands, longer term.

Instagram will start testing first with a small group of creators over the next few weeks, including on the accounts of Gigi Hadid, Kim Kardashian West, Kris Jenner, Kylie Jenner and Leesa Angelique (who runs @saythelees). 

“It’s my job to share beauty secrets and tips,” she said about the new feature. “I’m usually writing long, detailed captions about the latest products I’ve been using. Having this tool just makes it that much easier to let everyone know what I’m wearing and from where – down to the shade.”

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2GKRfoV

Why women are indefinitely sharing their locations

Facebook boss reveals changes in response to criticism

Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook at a speech in San Francisco

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2DFrLsv

Old Facebook finally wants you to ‘Meet New Friends’

Facebook’s social graph is aging, full of long-lost acquaintances and hometown friends you don’t care much about seeing in the News Feed any more. But Facebook is now testing a pivot away from its core identity of connecting you with existing friends so it can revitalize the social graph and keep people coming back. Facebook’s “Meet New Friends” lets you browse people from shared communities such as your school, workplace or city who’ve also opted in to the feature. It’s now in testing in a few markets before it’s rolled out more widely soon.

Meet New Friends could give people fresh pals to follow in their News Feed, or help recently registered users grow their network until they have access to enough content to keep them busy. And eventually, Facebook could layer on monetization features similar to dating apps where users pay to be shown more prominently to potential connections.

Fidji Simo, the head of Facebook’s main app, tells me Meet New Friends was based on emerging behaviors the company had spotted. “Developing relationships with people they didn’t already know is very different from the core use case of Facebook,” but she notes, “We’ve already seen that naturally happen in Groups, and Meet New Friends will make that a bit easier.”

When users open Meet New Friends, they pick the communities through which they’re open to meeting new friends. For now they choose between schools, employers and locations, but Facebook will eventually add Groups too. In that sense it works a bit like Facebook Dating, which rolls out to 14 new countries today and opens to dating friends with its new Secret Crush feature.

Algorithms will sort potential connections by who is most relevant, such as those with mutual friends or shared interests, but you won’t get “matched” where both users have to state their interest in the other. Instead, users can just browse profiles, and then either send people a friend request (which might feel a bit out of the blue), or send them a single text-only message to a recipient’s dedicated Meet New Friends chat inbox. They can’t message that same person again until they respond (to prevent spamming), and the text-only limitation ensures no unsavory photos get blasted around. If they do reply, the thread moves to Facebook Messenger.

Meet New Friends will pit Facebook against a range of other apps, from local-focused Meetup and Nextdoor to verticalized apps like Hey Vina for women only to dating-affiliated apps like Bumble BFF. But Facebook benefits from its ubiquity, so users can try Meet New Friends without feeling embarrassed by downloading an app just to make them less lonely.

For years, the mildly creepy People You May Know feature has been a cornerstone of Facebook’s growth strategy. But it’s still just about recreating your offline social graph online. As Facebook strives to become more meaningful to people’s lives, fostering new friendships could give people a fuzzy feeling about the giant corporation.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2PF0WJq

Facebook Dating opens to friends with Secret Crush

Facebook built Dating to be privacy-safe, hoping to avoid the awkwardness of friends or family checking out your romance profile. But now Facebook has found a way to let you silently express your affection for a friend without them knowing unless they reciprocate.

Facebook Dating is opening in 14 more countries, bringing the total to 19. It will launch in the US before the end of the year. Dating brings with it a new feature called Secret Crush that expands it beyond strangers and friends-of-friends. Choose up to 9 friends you like-like. If they’ve opted into Facebook Dating, they’ll get a notification that some friend has a crush on them. If they add you as a Secret Crush too, you’re both notified and can chat on Messenger.

Facebook Dating product manager Charmaine Hung tells me that “I have 2000 Facebook friends. I’m not best friends with all 2000 people, and there’s a good chance that one of that could be a really good match with me. I trust them, I appreciate them, and I know we’re compatible. The only thing missing is knowing if we’re both interested in being more than just friends without the fear of rejection if you were to do this in real life.”

Facebook announced Dating at F8 a year ago and launched it in Colombia in September. Users opt-in, and then browse Events and Groups they’re part of for potential matches. They send them a text-only message based on something in their profile which goes to a special Dating inbox. And if that person reciprocates, they can chat and maybe meet up. Now it’s opening in the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana, and Suriname.

One concern with Secret Crush is that users might spam the feature by constantly adding a removing people from their list until they discover a match. That’s why Facebook will only let you sub out one person per day after you reach your initial limit of 9.

Currently there’s still no plan to monetize Dating, but that’s not the point. After years of scandals, Facebook needs to prove it deserves to be your social network. Mindlessly browsing the News Feed has proven to be exhausting and at times detrimental to health. But if the app can introduce you to your future spouse, or even just a summer fling, you might keep a place in your for Facebook too.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2GLG7rQ

Instagram officially tests hiding Like counts

Would we feel less envious, shameful and competitive if Instagram didn’t tell us how many Likes a post received? That’s the idea behind Instagram now hiding Like counts from both a post’s viewers and its author as part of an experiment in Canada. A post’s creator can still open the Likers window to see the names of everyone who hearted their post, but they’d have to count them manually.

Even though Like totals would still impact how the algorithm ranks a post in the feed, if rolled out, the change would refocus Instagram on self-expression instead of being a popularity contest. Users might be less likely to delete a photo or video because it didn’t get enough Likes, or resort to their Finsta account to post something authentic but less “perfect.” It could make us less likely to envy-spiral because we wouldn’t see friends or influencers getting more Likes than us. And people might be more willing to post what truly represents their complicated identities because they’re not battling for the biggest Like count.

“Later this week, we’re running a test in Canada that removes the total number of likes on photos and video views in Feed, Permalink pages and Profile,” an Instagram spokesperson tells TechCrunch. “We are testing this because we want your followers to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.” The small percentage of Canadian users in the test will see a notice atop their feed warning them of  “a change to how you see Likes.”

One big concern, though, is that influencers often get discovered for paid promotions or have their sponsored content measured by public Like counts or a screenshot of their Liker list. “We understand that this is important for many creators, and while this test is in exploratory stages, we are thinking through ways for them to communicate value to their brand partners,” an Instagram spokesperson tells TechCrunch.

TechCrunch first reported two weeks ago that Instagram had prototyped hiding public Like counts, as spotted by Jane Manchun Wong. The company confirmed the feature had been built but not tested in the wild. The news immediately set off a wave of commentary from users. Many, while initially shocked, thought it would make Instagram usage healthier and cutback on some of the toxic anxiety produced by staring at the little numbers.

So why test in Canada? “Canadians are highly social and tech savvy, with over 24 million people connecting across our family of apps each month. We wanted to test this with a digitally savvy audience that has a thriving community on Instagram,” a company spokesperson told us.

The difference between good and bad Facebooking

It’s reassuring to see Instagram adding new well-being features after the departure of founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Systrom in particular had been a big proponent of reducing envy and inauthenticity on social media, which was part of the impetus for launching Instagram Stories, where users could share unpolished looks at their lives. Before he left in September, Instagram rolled out its Your Activity dashboard showing the average time you spent per day on the app, plus a “You’re All Caught Up” warning that tells users they’ve seen all recent feed posts and can stop scrolling.

A 2013 study by Krasnova et al. discovered that 20 percent of envy-causing situations that experiment participants experienced happened on Facebook. They also determined that Facebook causes toxic envy, noting that “intensity of passive following is likely to reduce users’ life satisfaction in the long-run, as it triggers upward social comparison and invidious emotions.” Instagram, with its focus on imagery and manicured looks at our lives, might cause even more envy. Hiding Likes would be a strong step toward us judging ourselves less.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2V3sONv

Facebook Messenger will get desktop apps, co-watching, emoji status

To win chat, Facebook Messenger must be as accessible as SMS, yet more entertaining than Snapchat. Today, Messenger pushes on both fronts with a series of announcements at Facebook’s F8 conference, including that it will launch Mac and PC desktop apps, a faster and smaller mobile app, simultaneous video co-watching and a revamped Friends tab, where friends can use an emoji to tell you what they’re up to or down for.

Facebook is also beefing up its tools for the 40 million active businesses and 300,000 businesses on Messenger, up from 200,000 businesses a year ago. Merchants will be able to let users book appointments at salons and masseuses, collect information with new lead generation chatbot templates and provide customer service to verified customers through authenticated m.me links. Facebook hopes this will boost the app beyond the 20 billion messages sent between people and businesses each month, which is up 10X from December 2017.

“We believe you can build practically any utility on top of messaging,” says Facebook’s head of Messenger Stan Chudnovsky. But he stresses that “All of the engineering behind it is has been redone” to make it more reliable, and to comply with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s directive to unite the backends of Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram Direct. “Of course, if we didn’t have to do all that, we’d be able to invest more in utilities. But we feel that utilities will be less functional if we don’t do that work. They need to go hand-in-hand together. Utilities will be more powerful, more functional and more desired if built on top of a system that’s interoperable and end-to-end encrypted.”

Here’s a look at the major Messenger announcements and why they’re important:

Messenger Desktop – A stripped-down version of Messenger focused on chat, audio and video calls will debut later this year. Chudnovsky says it will remove the need to juggle and resize browser tabs by giving you an always-accessible version of Messenger that can replace some of the unofficial knock-offs. Especially as Messenger focuses more on businesses, giving them a dedicated desktop interface could convince them to invest more in lead generation and customer service through Messenger.

Facebook Messenger’s upcoming desktop app

Project Lightspeed – Messenger is reengineering its app to cut 70 mb off its download size so people with low-storage phones don’t have to delete as many photos to install it. In testing, the app can cold start in merely 1.3 seconds, which Chudnovsky says is just 25 percent of where Messenger and many other apps are today. While Facebook already offers Messenger Light for the developing world, making the main app faster for everyone else could help Messenger swoop in and steal users from the status quo of SMS. The Lightspeed update will roll out later this year.

Video Co-Watching – TechCrunch reported in November that Messenger was building a Facebook Watch Party-style experience that would let users pick videos to watch at the same time as a friend, with reaction cams of their faces shown below the video. Now in testing before rolling out later this year, users can pick any Facebook video, invite one or multiple friends and laugh together. Unique capabilities like this could make Messenger more entertaining between utilitarian chat threads and appeal to a younger audience Facebook is at risk of losing.

Watch Videos Together on Messenger

Business Tools – After a rough start to its chatbot program a few years ago, where bots couldn’t figure out users’ open-ended responses, Chudnovsky says the platform is now picking up steam with 300,000 developers on board. One option that’s worked especially well is lead-generation templates, which teach bots to ask people standardized questions to collect contact info or business intent, so Messenger is adding more of those templates with completion reminders and seamless hand-off to a live agent.

To let users interact with appointment-based businesses through a platform they’re already familiar with, Messenger launched a beta program for barbers, dentists and more that will soon open to let any business handle appointment booking through the app. And with new authenticated m.me links, a business can take a logged-in user on their website and pass them to Messenger while still knowing their order history and other info. Getting more businesses hooked on Messenger customer service could be very lucrative down the line.

Appointment booking on Messenger

Close Friends and Emoji Status – Perhaps the most interesting update to Messenger, though, is its upcoming effort to help you make offline plans. Messenger is in the early stages of rebuilding its Friends tab into “Close Friends,” which will host big previews of friends’ Stories, photos shared in your chats, and let people overlay an emoji on their profile pic to show friends what they’re doing. We first reported this “Your Emoji” status update feature was being built a year ago, but it quietly cropped up in the video for Messenger Close Friends. This iteration lets you add an emoji like a home, barbell, low battery or beer mug, plus a short text description, to let friends know you’re back from work, at the gym, might not respond or are interested in getting a drink. These will show up atop the Close Friends tab as well as on location-sharing maps and more once this eventually rolls out.

Messenger’s upcoming Close Friends tab with Your Emoji status

Facebook Messenger is the best poised app to solve the loneliness problem. We often end up by ourselves because we’re not sure which of our friends are free to hang out, and we’re embarrassed to look desperate by constantly reaching out. But with emoji status, Messenger users could quietly signal their intentions without seeming needy. This “what are you doing offline” feature could be a whole social network of its own, as apps like Down To Lunch have tried. But with 1.3 billion users and built-in chat, Messenger has the ubiquity and utility to turn a hope into a hangout.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2USxL6O

Top 10+ Best Equalizer Apps For Android 2019

Android OS has supported equalizer for a while. But, it’s still not a great experience because some music player apps have the equalizer and others don’t. So, here in this article, we are going to share some of the best Android equalizer apps 2019 which you can use right now. In our spare time, we […]

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Social media firms agree to work with UK charities to set online harm boundaries

Social media giants, including Facebook-owned Instagram, have agreed to financially contribute to UK charities to fund them making recommendations that the government hopes will speed up decisions about removing content that promotes suicide/self-harm or eating disorders on their platforms.

The development follows the latest intervention by health secretary Matt Hancock, who met with representatives from the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google and others yesterday to discuss what they’re doing to tackle a range of online harms.

“Social media companies have a duty of care to people on their sites. Just because they’re global doesn’t mean they can be irresponsible,” the minister told parliament today.

“We must do everything we can to keep our children safe online so I’m pleased to update the house that as a result of yesterday’s summit, the leading global social media companies have agreed to work with experts… to speed up the identification and removal of suicide and self-harm content and create greater protections online.”

However Hancock failed to get any new commitments from the companies to do more to tackle anti-vaccination misinformation — despite saying last week that he would be heavily leaning on the tech giants to remove anti-vaccination misinformation, warning it posed a serious risk to public health.

Giving an update on his latest social media moot in parliament this afternoon, he said the companies had agreed to do more to address a range of online harms — while emphasizing there’s more for them to do, including addressing anti-vaccination misinformation.

“The rise of social media now makes it easier to spread lies about vaccination so there is a special responsibility on the social media companies to act,” he said, noting that coverage for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination in England decreased for the fourth year in a row last year — dropping to 91%.

There has been a rise in confirmed measles cases from 259 to 966 over the same period, he added.

Positive outcome to yesterday’s meeting with the social media companies. They’re starting to get the message that acting now to protect vulnerable people online – esp children – is a moral imperative. We now need to see firm action pic.twitter.com/3fMWnZ4sxa

— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) April 30, 2019

With no sign of an agreement from the companies to take tougher action on anti-vaccination misinformation, Hancock was left to repeat their preferred talking point to MPs, segwaying into suggesting social media has the potential to be a “great force for good” on the vaccination front — i.e. if it “can help us to promote positive messages” about the public health value of vaccines.

For the two other online harm areas of focus, suicide/self-harm content and eating disorders, suicide support charity Samaritans and eating disorder charity Beat were named as the two U.K. organizations that would be working with the social media platforms to make recommendations for when content should and should not be taken down.

“[Social media firms will] not only financially support the Samaritans to do the work but crucially Samaritans’ suicide prevention experts will determine what is harmful and dangerous content, and the social media platforms committed to either remove it or prevent others from seeing it and help vulnerable people get the positive support they need,” said Hancock.

“This partnership marks for the first time globally a collective commitment to act, to build knowledge through research and insights — and to implement real changes that will ultimately save lives,” he added.

The Telegraph reports that the value of the financial contribution from the social media platforms to the Samaritans for the work will be “hundreds of thousands” of pounds. And during questions in parliament MPs pointed out the amount pledged is tiny vs the massive profits commanded by the companies. Hancock responded that it was what the Samaritans had asked for to do the work, adding: “Of course I’d be prepared to go and ask for more if more is needed.”

The minister was also pressed from the opposition benches on the timeline for results from the social media companies on tackling “the harm and dangerous fake news they host”.

“We’ve already seen some progress,” he responded — flagging a policy change announced by Instagram and Facebook back in February, following a public outcry after a report about a UK schoolgirl whose family said she killed herself after being exposed to graphic self-harm content on Instagram.

“It’s very important that we keep the pace up,” he added, saying he’ll be holding another meeting with the companies in two months to see what progress has been made.

“We’ll expect… that we’ll see further action from the social media companies. That we will have made progress in the Samaritans being able to define more clearly what the boundary is between harmful content and content which isn’t harmful.

“In each of these areas about removing harms online the challenge is to create the right boundary in the appropriate place… so that the social media companies don’t have to define what is and isn’t socially acceptable. But rather we as society do.”

In a statement following the meeting with Hancock a spokesperson fo Facebook and Instagram said: “We fully support the new initiative from the government and the Samaritans, and look forward to our ongoing work with industry to find more ways to keep people safe online.”

The company also noted that it’s been working with expert organisations, including the Samaritans, for “many years to find more ways to do that” — suggesting it’s quite comfortable playing the familiar political game of ‘more of the same’.

That said, the UK government has made tackling online harms a stated aim and policy priority — publishing a proposal for a regulatory framework intended to address a range of content risks earlier this month, when it also kicked off a 12-week public consultation.

Though there’s clearly a load road ahead to agree a law that’s enforceable, let alone effective.

UK sets out safety-focused plan to regulate internet firms

Hancock resisted providing MPs with any timeline for progress on the planned legislation — telling parliament “we want to genuinely consult widely”.

“This isn’t really issue of party politics. It’s a matter of getting it right so that society decides on how we should govern the Internet, rather than the big Internet companies making those decisions for themselves,” he added.

The minister was also asked by the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, to guarantee that the legislation will include provision for criminal sentences for executives for serious breaches of their duty of care. But Hancock failed to respond to the question. 

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2VBstku

Top 8 FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Clients for Android 2019

Let’s have a look at the Top 8 FTP Clients for Android that you can use to transfer the files remotely over the servers or say the remote storage. Also, this FTP is secure that you can do the file transfers without worrying about getting the things hacked as these clients works on certain encryption […]

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Top 8 Best Bootable USB Tools For Windows 2019

If you are searching for the best free Bootable USB Creator for Windows 10, then you have landed to the right page. Here we have shared 5 best free Bootable USB Tools for Windows Operating system. So, check out the best free Bootable USB Creator. Well, if you are using a Windows operating system for […]

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Top 13 Best Music Torrent Sites 2019

For music download, there are tons of websites available on the internet which provides users music for free, and this is where all the hassle begins. Users need to do real hard work to find their favorite music file. So, to make things easy, we are going to share some of the best free music […]

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from Tech Viral http://bit.ly/2TlyxJv

Family-friendly robot company Anki set to close

Anki, the company behind Cozmo and Vector, is facing financial difficulties.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2Y1twIh

Drone owners to be charged annual fee under new proposals

Every drone and model aircraft owner could be charged £16.50 a year under plans by the regulator.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2WjUudK

Samsung unveils TV that can switch to vertical mode

The TV can pivot from a horizontal to a vertical position, to better display smartphone content.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2ISENqS

Music royalties reach record high but songwriters 'on minimum wage'

But there are claims that "a lot of songwriters are making less than minimum wage".

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2vvW1kM

When will you next buy a mobile phone?

Mobile phone sales worldwide are declining but is our love affair with them over?

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2PDPtKm

Vodafone found Huawei security flaws in Italy in 2009

Vulnerabilities in Italy could have given the Chinese firm access to people's home networks.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2ZOSrAz

TalkTalk service at bottom of Ofcom poll for third year running

It's the third year in a row that the broadband provider has come bottom of Ofcom's customer survey.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2PCZVBZ

What Is ToF sensor And What Does It Do?

We all know very well that when the war of the megapixels seems not to be enough to distinguish the high-end and the so-called Premium medium range devices, now the ToF sensors arrive simply to make a difference and become exclusive only in the most advanced smartphones of the market. Hence, today here, in this […]

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Prisma Labs raises $6.7M for its AI-powered approach to visual editing

Remember Prisma? The Moscow-based team behind the app that sparked a style transfer craze in 2016 has raised a €6 million (~$6.7M) Series A, led by early stage artificial intelligence focused VC firm, Haxus.

While two of Prisma’s original co-founders left the company in the middle of last year, to work on building a new social app — the still, as yet, unreleased Capture — co-founder Andrey Usoltsev stayed on to keep developing Prisma Labs, taking up the CEO role.

The Series A funding will go towards expanding Prisma’s 21-strong team and scaling the business by spending on marketing to grow uptake of its apps’ premium subscription offers. These include a subscription layer for its eponymous app which gives users access to styles not available in the free version.

“We’re going to grow rapidly. We’re going to double our team this year and set up the impressive marketing budget,” says Usoltsev.

Late last year the team released a new freemium selfie retouching app, called Lensa, hoping to capture a slice of the beauty filter/photo-editing market. Their twist was to bake in AI smarts that power automatic adjustments — smoothing skin tone, whitening teeth, brightening eyes and so on, at the touch of the in-app camera button — as if by technomagic.

Their pitch for the selfie retoucher is ‘natural’ looking enhancements. And Prisma claims it’s seeing “very high” retention rates for Lensa, more akin to a sticky social network than photo-retouching software.  

They argue the app’s face-retouching machine learning algorithms have benefited from the heap of data amassed from Prisma’s multi-millions of selfie-submitting users. And while there’s certainly no shortage of rival apps out there claiming to make selfies look better, Lensa’s AI-powered retouching does offer — at a glance — less crude/more plausible results than plenty of gimmicky ‘beauty filter’ apps also touting reality-editing wares.

“There is competition [for selfie retouching] and we think that it is good because it shows the size of the market,” says Usoltsev. “It’s huge. There are millions of people using apps like Facetune and what our advantage is is that we have a great technical team, R&D team that creates the best technology on the market in some areas… that trained building Prisma.

“We’re focusing on the quality and the natural look of the results. And some apps on the market didn’t pay as much attention as needed to these two things. We’re going to focus on this. We are not the first in this space but we are going to be the best in this space.”

“Automation is the key,” he adds. “We can now provide users with new kind of product, new kind of photo- and video-editors that automate the routine and requires less effort from the user side to get awesome results.”

Lensa, which launched in December with a subscription offering right off the bat, now has more than 100,000 users, according to Usoltsev — though it’s not breaking out paying subs yet.

The early userbase skews female and young — without, according to Usoltsev, Prisma doing any overt targeting — the main group being 18-24 year old women, somewhat unsurprisingly for a selfie beautifying app.

“The product is not viral, like Prisma, and most of the users are acquired from paid sources like Facebook ads and so on so. We strongly control the amount of users we acquire and now the product is not ready for the real scale,” he continues, noting they’re in the process of tweaking the app to expand the features and improve product market fit.

They’re also playing with the business model, with the initial subscription offering definitely feeling a bit underwhelming vs the core free AI-powered edits. (You can read our first look at Lensa here.)

“Right now we’re very close to start scaling it,” he adds. “We need a couple of more releases to be ready 100% and then we start scaling.

“We’re going to expand the range of features. We’re going to add a video feature because our primary feature — retouching — works in real-time and we tested it even on livestreaming and it works well. We’re working on optimizing it even more, to work faster, and in better quality.”

Other ongoing dev work to polish Lensa’s proposition includes tweaking the auto-adjustments it makes by determining the best settings for portrait-influencing factors, such as exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows. “For each adjustment we use a neural network,” he notes. “They work together… to find the best output result.”

Prisma is also monetizing its namesake original app — which grabbed around 70M downloads in a few months back in 2016, with Usoltsev saying they’re still relying mostly on organic/viral downloads rather than active promotion, riding the Prisma craze’s long viral tail.

They now have more than 100,000 paying subscribers for Prisma, though they’re not breaking out active usage — beyond saying it runs into the “millions”. (Back in 2017 they were reporting active monthly usage for the app of around 10M.) A premium sub offering was switched on in Prisma in January 2018.

“The paying audience is actually diverse. The major group by age I think it’s 24-35 year olds. And men and women is about the same proportion,” he adds.

Last year’s launch of Lensa came despite an earlier focus shift for the startup to b2b, after the style transfer craze that had powered its namesake app’s 2016 virality appeared on the cusp of being crazed (and, well, cloned) to death.

The plan, as it was in 2017, was for Prisma Labs to offer an SDK for computer vision-powered effects that developers could use to enhance their own apps. But the team kept its hand in the consumer space, maintaining their apps as testing grounds. A decision that set them up for what now looks a full reverse pivot back to consumer.

Usoltsev tells us the earlier b2b switch was “mostly” at the behest of Prisma’s investors — and wasn’t something the wider team was keen on.

They’re fully stoked to get back to their consumer roots, he adds.

“It didn’t really resonate with our team experience and our company DNA,” he adds of the b2b phase. “But in the process we figured out this is not what we want to do. We came up with the idea for the new product in the process and came up with the broader vision for the entire company and what we want to do.

“The core team was all about consumer products and b2b was not seen as interesting topic at all.”

So what’s on the slate for the future, as the team thinks about other features and/or consumer apps it might want to launch this year?

“Right now we’re thinking a lot about video,” he says. “Video is so fast growing space right now and we see a lot of new apps that break into the market — like TikTok — that grows insanely and based on video. And we’re going to provide users with automated tools to enhance their videos.

“Videos is more complicated to edit than photos because it requires more skill… to learn how to edit videos. And if your clip is longer than one minute it’s so hard to create it because montage could be a boring process and the longer the video is the more complicated the process is. So we’re going to fix this — and provide users with automated tools to help them create great videos quickly and with no effort, or as little as possible.”

AI-enabled auto video editing is “probably” going to be a standalone app, he says, rather than a feature baked into one of Prisma’s existing apps. But, well, watch this space.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2V5eO5V

Climate change: Electric car target 'needs to be sooner'

The government's plan to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040 is too tame, its advisers will say.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2XTHj3o

Huawei: US official warns 'no safe level' of involvement with tech giant

Intelligence sharing will be at risk if countries use the firm to build 5G networks, official says.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2UJwKhr

Twitter announces new content deals with Univision, The Wall Street Journal and others

Twitter is unveiling a number of new content deals and renewals tonight at its NewFronts event for digital advertisers.

It’s only been two years since Twitter first joined the NewFronts. At the time, coverage suggested that executives saw the company’s video strategy as a crucial part of turning things around, but since then, the spotlight has moved on to other things (like rethinking the fundamental social dynamics of the service).

And yet the company is still making video deals, with 13 of them being unveiled tonight. That’s a lot of announcements, though considerably less than the 30 revealed at last year’s event. The company notes that it has already announced a number of partnerships this year, including one with the NBA.

“When you collaborate with the top publishers in the world, you can develop incredibly innovative ways to elevate premium content and bring new dimensions to the conversations that are already happening on Twitter,” said Twitter Global VP and Head of Content Partnerships Kay Madati in a statement. “Together with our partners, we developed this new slate of programming specifically for our audiences, and designed the content to fuel even more robust conversation on Twitter.”

Here’s a quick rundown of all the news:

• A partnership with Univision covering Spanish-language sports, news and entertainment content, including 2020 election analysis and reporting.
• A multi-year extension of Twitter’s deal with the NFL, which includes highlights and analysis.
• The Players’ Tribune and Twitter are announcing a live talk show called “Don’t @ Me,” where two athletes with debate topics chosen in part by Twitter users.
• A multi-year extension of Twitter’s deal with Major League Soccer.
• Continued programming from ESPN, including new ESPN Onsite branding to highlight shows filmed on location at big events.
• Bleacher Report is bringing “House of Highlights” back for a second season.
• Blizzard Entertainment will be sharing content from BlizzCon in November, including the entire opening ceremony.
• The Wall Street Journal is launching WSJ What’s Now, an original video show for Twitter. The deal will also include live-streamed content from Wall Street Journal events.
• Bloomberg’s TicToc will expand its coverage to include events like the G20 Summit, United Nations General Assembly and World Economic Forum.
• CNET is announcing a new partnership with Twitter, which will cover major tech industry events.
• Time is developing new video content for Twitter around the Time Person of the Year and Time 100.
• Live Nation is bringing a new concert series exclusively to Twitter this fall, with 10 concerts in 10 weeks.
• At the Video Music Awards, Viacom-owned MTV will offer a Stan Cam where fans can share their own live-streamed reactions to the show. Viacom will also be live-streaming red carpet coverage from its other events.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2PE434z

How tech is bringing Israelis and Palestinians together

Young people on either side of a decades-old conflict seldom meet, but tech is building bridges.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2vrILxN

Google owner Alphabet misses sales forecasts

Shares in the internet giant tumble nearly 7% after its sales growth falls short of forecasts.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2VFF1aQ

Diving into TED2019, the state of social media, and internet behavior

Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. Last week, TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha gave us his recap of the TED2019 conference and offered key takeaways from the most interesting talks and provocative ideas shared at the event.

Under the theme, ‘Bigger Than Us’, the conference featured talks, Q&A’s, and presentations from a wide array of high-profile speakers, including an appearance from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey which was the talk of the week. Anthony dives deeper into the questions raised in his onstage interview that kept popping up: How has social media warped our democracy? How can the big online platforms fight back against abuse and misinformation? And what is the Internet good for, anyway?

“…So I would suggest that probably five years ago, the way that we wrote about a lot of these tech companies was too positive and they weren’t as good as we made them sound. Now the pendulum has swung all the way in the other direction, where they’re probably not as bad we make them sound…

…At TED, you’d see the more traditional TED talks about, “Let’s talk about the magic of finding community in the internet.” There were several versions of that talk this year. Some of them very good, but now you have to have that conversation with the acknowledgement that there’s much that is terrible on the internet.”

Image via Ryan Lash / TED

Anthony also digs into what really differentiates the TED conference from other tech events, what types of people did and should attend the event, and even how he managed to get kicked out of the theater for typing too loud.

For access to the full transcription and the call audio, and for the opportunity to participate in future conference calls, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free. 

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2vtMPh6

Overcast makes it easy to turn clips from podcasts into viral clips

The popular iOS podcasts app Overcast wants to make it easier for people to share clips from their favorite shows across social media. The feature will likely be well-received by podcasters looking to expand their show’s audience, as they’ve previously been limited to sharing their podcast by way of links or audio-only snippets, for the most part. Overcast’s solution, meanwhile, allows anyone to share either an audio or a video clip from any public podcast, the company said in an announcement.

That means a show’s fans can get in on the action — giving their favorite podcast a viral boost by promoting it on social media, where it could reach new listeners.

New to Overcast: Clip sharing!

Read more: https://t.co/OHDZuaE4Ms pic.twitter.com/zqqXF4umm7

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) April 27, 2019

To use the clip-sharing feature in Overcast, you first tap on the “share” button at the top right corner of the app. You can then pick either an audio clip or a portrait, landscape or square video. In the clip-editing interface that appears, you can locate and select the audio clip you want to share. Clips can be up to one minute in length, the company says.

The variety of video formats is designed to appeal to those tasked with marketing a podcast across social media — including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat — where the supported video aspect ratios may vary. In addition, podcast marketers will be able to remove the Overcast branding from their shared clip to give it a more professional feel.

Overcast’s new feature competes with existing tools for marketing audio across social media — like those from Wavve, Headliner, Spotify-owned Anchor, and others, including, perhaps, Soundcloud. Some of these services offer captions, as well, which podcasters may prefer to Overcast’s clips.

But unlike other rival tools, Overcast’s clip-sharing feature isn’t meant only for podcast creators and marketers — it’s for listeners, too.

Of course, that also could present a problem. Listeners who have an axe to grind could pull a clip that presents a podcaster in a bad light — perhaps, taking something they said out of context in hopes of manufacturing social media outrage. Or maybe they just catch the podcaster on a bad day saying something dumb. Small gaffes that in the past could have been overlooked, could now be used against a podcaster because these viral clips are so easy to create and share.

Time will tell to what extent the feature is adopted and how it’s used, or if the idea makes its way to other apps to become more of a standard.

According to Overcast founder Marco Arment, the clip-sharing feature was inspired by a remark on the Unco podcast by Stephen Hackett, where the problem was discussed in more detail.

In addition to the launch of clips, Overcast’s public sharing page got a small refresh, too. It now features badges to other podcast apps and the RSS feed to the podcast for any show listed in Apple Podcasts.

“It’s important for me to promote other apps like this, and to make it easy even for other people’s customers to benefit from Overcast’s sharing features, because there are much bigger threats than letting other open-ecosystem podcast apps get a few more users,” Arment said.

That “much bigger threats” comment refers to the new trend of podcast “exclusives” — like those on Luminary or Spotify, which aren’t available to the public. Arguably, these aren’t podcasts in the strictest sense of the word — they’re audio programs.

The clips-sharing feature takes the opposite position. The podcasts this feature helps to promote are open and accessible to the public — and now all of the content inside each episode is more accessible, too.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2PAVNCp

How To Fix “Shellexecuteex failed code 2” Error Message

Recently, lots of Windows 10 users have reported that they are getting “shellexecuteex failed code 2” while installing .exe files. So, here in this article, we are going to share some of the best methods to fix the “shellexecuteex failed code 2” from the Windows operating system. Recently, lots of Windows 10 users have reported […]

The post How To Fix “Shellexecuteex failed code 2” Error Message appeared first on Tech Viral.

from Tech Viral http://bit.ly/2XS8f3r

Talk key takeaways from Facebook’s F8 with TechCrunch writers

Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference is taking over the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose this week and TechCrunch will be on the ground covering any and all announcements.

The week is sure to have its fair share of fireworks as the company’s top brass takes the stage to talk about the future of Facebook’s product offerings, privacy, developer tools and more. TechCrunch’s Josh Constine and Frederic Lardinois will be on the ground at the event. Wednesday at 2:00 pm PT, Josh and Frederic will be sharing with Extra Crunch members what they saw, what excited them most and what the future of Facebook might look.

Tune in to dig into what happened onstage and off and ask Josh and Frederic any and all things Facebook, social or dev tools.

To listen to this and all future conference calls, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2UNlO2f

Minecraft player loses five-year-long game

Phil Watson is "killed" by a zombie baby and a spider.

from BBC News - Technology https://bbc.in/2DCK2qk

Facebook accused of blocking wider efforts to study its ad platform

Facebook has been accused of blocking the ability of independent researchers to effectively study how political disinformation flows across its ad platform.

Adverts that the social network’s business is designed to monetize have — at very least — the potential to influence people and push voters’ buttons, as the Cambridge Anaytica Facebook data misuse scandal highlighted last year.

Since that story exploded into a major global scandal for Facebook the company has faced a chorus of calls for increased transparency and accountability from policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

It has responded with lashings of obfuscation, misdirection and worse.

Among Facebook’s less controversial efforts to counter the threat that disinformation poses to its business are what it bills “election security” initiatives, such as identity checks for political advertisers. Even as these efforts have looked hopelessly flat-footed, patchy and piecemeal in the face of concerned attempts to use its tools to amplify disinformation in markets around the world.

Perhaps more significantly — under amped up political pressure — Facebook has launched a searchable ad archive. And access to Facebook ad data certainly has the potential to let external researchers hold the company’s claims to account.

But only if access is not equally flat-footed, patchy and piecemeal, with the risk that selective access to ad data ends up being just as controlled and manipulated as everything else on Facebook’s platform.

So far Facebook’s efforts on this front continue to attract criticism for falling way short.

“the opposite of what they claim to be doing… “

The company opened access to an ad archive API last month, via which it provides rate-limited access to a keyword search tool that lets researchers query historical ad data. (Researchers first need to pass an identity check process and agree to the Facebook developer platform terms of service before they can access the API.)

However a review of the tool by not-for-profit Mozilla rates the API as a lot of weak-sauce ‘transparency-washing’ — rather than a good faith attempt to support public interest research which could genuinely help quantify the societal costs of Facebook’s ad business.

“The fact is, the API doesn’t provide necessary data. And it is designed in ways that hinders the important work of researchers, who inform the public and policymakers about the nature and consequences of misinformation,” it writes in a blog post where it argues that Facebook’s ad API meets just two out of five minimum standards it previously set out — backed by a group of sixty academics, hailing from research institutions including Oxford University, the University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, and many more.

Instead of providing comprehensive political advertising content, as the experts argue a good open API must, Mozilla writes that “it’s impossible to determine if Facebook’s API is comprehensive, because it requires you to use keywords to search the database”.

“It does not provide you with all ad data and allow you to filter it down using specific criteria or filters, the way nearly all other online databases do. And since you cannot download data in bulk and ads in the API are not given a unique identifier, Facebook makes it impossible to get a complete picture of all of the ads running on their platform (which is exactly the opposite of what they claim to be doing),” it adds.

Facebook’s tool is also criticized for failing to provide targeting criteria and engagement information for ads — thereby making it impossible for researchers to understand what advertisers on its platform are paying the company to reach; as well as how effective (or otherwise) these Facebook ads might be.

This exact issue was raised with a number of Facebook executives by British parliamentarians last year, during the course of a multi-month investigation into online disinformation. At one point Facebook’s CTO was asked point blank whether the company would be providing ad targeting data as part of planned political ad transparency measures — only to provide a fuzzy answer.

Of course there are plenty of reasons why Facebook might be reluctant to enable truly independent outsiders to quantify the efficacy of political ads on its platform and therefore, by extension, its ad business.

Including, of course, the specific scandalous example of the Cambridge Analytica data heist itself, which was carried out by an academic, called Dr Aleksandr Kogan, then attached to Cambridge University, who used his access to Facebook’s developer platform to deploy a quiz app designed to harvest user data without (most) people’s knowledge or consent in order to sell the info to the disgraced digital campaign company (which worked on various U.S. campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump).

But that just highlights the scale of the problem of so much market power being concentrated in the hands of a single adtech giant which has zero incentives to voluntarily report wholly transparent metrics about its true reach and power to influence the world’s 2BN+ Facebook users.

Add to that, in a typical crisis PR response to multiple bad headlines last year, Facebook repeatedly sought to paint Kogan as a rogue actor — suggesting he was not at all a representative sample of the advertiser activity on its platform.

So, by the same token, any effort by Facebook to tar genuine research as similarly risky rightly deserves a robust rebuttal. The historical actions of one individual, albeit yes an academic, shouldn’t be used as an excuse to shut the door to a respected research community.

“The current API design puts huge constraints on researchers, rather than allowing them to discover what is really happening on the platform,” Mozilla argues, suggesting the various limitations imposed by Facebook — including search rate limits — means it could take researchers “months” to evaluate ads in a particular region or on a certain topic.

Again, from Facebook’s point of view, there’s plenty to be gained by delaying the release of any more platform usage skeletons from its bulging historical data closet. (The ‘historical app audit’ it announced with much fanfare last year continues to trickle along at a disclosure pace of its own choosing.)

The two areas where Facebook’s API is given a tentative thumbs up by Mozilla is in providing access to up-to-date and historical data (the seven year availability of the data is badged “pretty good”); and for the API being accessible to and shareable with the general public (at least once they’ve gone through Facebook’s identity confirm process).

Though in both cases Mozilla also cautions it’s still possible that further blocking tactics might emerge — depending on how Facebook supports/constrains access going forward.

It does not look entirely coincidental that the criticism of Facebook’s API for being “inadequate” has landed on the same day that Facebook has pushed out publicity about opening up access to a database of URLs its users have linked to since 2017 — which is being made available to a select group of academics.

In that case 60 researchers, drawn from 30 institutions, who have been chosen by the U.S.’ Social Science Research Council.

Notably the Facebook-selected research dataset entirely skips past the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when Russian election propaganda infamously targeted hundreds of millions of U.S. Facebook voters.

The UK’s 2016 Brexit vote is also not covered by the January 2017 onwards scope of the dataset.

Though Facebook does say it is “committed to advancing this important initiative”, suggesting it could expand the scope of the dataset and/or who can access it at some unspecified future time.

It also claims ‘privacy and security’ considerations are holding up efforts to release research data quicker.

“We understand many stakeholders are eager for data to be made available as quickly as possible,” it writes. “While we remain committed to advancing this important initiative, Facebook is also committed to taking the time necessary to incorporate the highest privacy protections and build a data infrastructure that provides data in a secure manner.”

In Europe, Facebook committed itself to supporting good faith, public interest research when it signed up to the European Commission’s Code of Practice on disinformation last year.

The EU-wide Code includes a specific commitment that platform signatories “empower the research community to monitor online disinformation through privacy-compliant access to the platforms’ data”, in addition to other actions such as tackling fake accounts and making political ads and issue based ads more transparent.

However here, too, Facebook appears to be using ‘privacy-compliance’ as an excuse to water down the level of transparency that it’s offering to external researchers.

TechCrunch understands that, in private, Facebook has responded to concerns raised about its ad API’s limits by saying it cannot provide researchers with more fulsome data about ads — including the targeting criteria for ads — because doing so would violate its commitments under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework.

That argument is of course pure ‘cakeism’. Aka Facebook is trying to have its cake and eat it where privacy and data protection is concerned.

In plainer English, Facebook is trying to use European privacy regulation to shield its business from deeper and more meaningful scrutiny. Yet this is the very same company — and here comes the richly fudgy cakeism — that elsewhere contends personal data its platform pervasively harvests on users’ interests is not personal data. (In that case Facebook has also been found allowing sensitive inferred data to be used for targeting ads — which experts suggest violates the GDPR.)

So, tl;dr, Facebook can be found seizing upon privacy regulation when it suits its business interests to do so — i.e. to try to avoid the level of transparency necessary for external researchers to evaluate the impact its ad platform and business has on wider society and democracy.

Yet argues against GDPR when the privacy regulation stands in the way of monetizing users’ eyeballs by stuffing them with intrusive ads targeted by pervasive surveillance of everyone’s interests.

Such contradictions have not at all escaped privacy experts.

“The GDPR in practice — not just Facebook’s usual weak interpretation of it — does not stop organisations from publishing aggregate information, such as which demographics or geographic areas saw or were targeted for certain adverts, where such data is not fine-grained enough to pick an individual out,” says Michael Veale, a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute — and one of ten researchers who co-wrote the Mozilla-backed guidelines for what makes an effective ad API.

“Facebook would require a lawful basis to do the aggregation for the purpose of publishing, which would not be difficult, as providing data to enable public scrutiny of the legality and ethics of data processing is a legitimate interest if I have ever seen one,” he also tells us. “Facebook constantly reuse data for different and unclearly related purposes, and so claiming they could legally not reuse data to put their own activities in the spotlight is, frankly, pathetic.

“Statistical agencies have long been familiar with techniques such as differential privacy which stop aggregated information leaking information about specific individuals. Many differential privacy researchers already work at Facebook, so the expertise is clearly there.”

“It seems more likely that Facebook doesn’t want to release information on targeting as it would likely embarrass [it] and their customers,” Veale adds. “It is also possible that Facebook has confidentiality agreements with specific advertisers who may be caught red-handed for practices that go beyond public expectations. Data protection law isn’t blocking the disinfecting light of transparency, Facebook is.”

Asked about the URL database that Facebook has released to selected researchers today, Veale says it’s a welcome step but points to further limitations.

“It’s a good thing that Facebook is starting to work more openly on research questions, particularly those which might point to problematic use of this platform. The initial cohort appears to be geographically diverse, which is refreshing — although appears to lack any academics from Indian universities, far and away Facebook’s largest userbase,” he tells us.

“Time will tell whether this limited dataset will later expand to other issues, and how much researchers are expected to moderate their findings if they hope for continued amicable engagement.”

“It’s very possible for Facebook to effectively cherry-pick datasets to try to avoid issues they know exist, but you also cannot start building a collaborative process on all fronts and issues. Time will tell how open the multinational wishes to be,” Veale adds.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on the criticism of its ad archive API.

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2VxuT3z

What to Do When the Power Button of your Android Smartphone is Broken

Let’s have a look at the method to Do when the Power Button of your Android Smartphone is Broken by enabling the settings and using one app that will help you to access the power button options. So have a look at complete guide discussed below to proceed. Power button or the lock/unlock button is […]

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from Tech Viral http://bit.ly/2Vx2TgB

20+ Cool Android Mods you Should Definitely Use

Let’s have a look at Cool Android Mods you Should Definitely Use that you can use your android phone to add cool new features in your android phone. So follow the below guide to proceed. Talking about the performance and speed of any general Android device, all of these perform really well until the devices are filled […]

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from Tech Viral http://bit.ly/2rG1hzR

How to Make your Android Safe for Kids

Stop your kids from doing any unauthorized activity on your Android by applying some of these methods that will make your android safer for kids to use it in your absence. Here in this article are some of the steps that you can perform so that you can make your device safe for your kids. […]

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from Tech Viral http://bit.ly/2JaLi7N

How to View Hidden Files and Folders In Android

Explore out the things that are hidden in your android device with our method to view all your hidden files in your device. We are going to share the easiest method by which you can easily view all these files and manage them accordingly in your android. So have a look on complete guide discussed […]

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from Tech Viral http://bit.ly/2kcgbZb