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Is Google Going After Facebook?

December 12, 2016 by  
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The word on the information street is that Google wants to buy Facebook. It is entirely speculative, but could have legs.

Information leaked suggests that talks are well advanced between the two companies.

Anecdotal evidence from many Facebook users suggests that talks are well advanced and the companies are already sharing experimental data, between themselves, of user data. Other sources suggest that Microsoft (Vole) is also interested in Facebook and, conversely, that Facebook is interested in buying Microsoft.

None of the companies cared enough to comment to Fudzilla at press time.

Courtesy-Fud

Is Facebook Moving Into A.I.?

December 6, 2016 by  
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Facebook Inc is developing a way to automatically flag offensive material in live video streams, building on a growing effort to use artificial intelligence to monitor content, said Joaquin Candela, the company’s director of applied machine learning.

The social media company has been embroiled in a number of content moderation controversies this year, from facing international outcry after removing an iconic Vietnam War photo due to nudity, to allowing the spread of fake news on its site.

Facebook has historically relied mostly on users to report offensive posts, which are then checked by Facebook employees against company “community standards.” Decisions on especially thorny content issues that might require policy changes are made by top executives at the company.

Candela told reporters that Facebook increasingly was using artificial intelligence to find offensive material. It is “an algorithm that detects nudity, violence, or any of the things that are not according to our policies,” he said.

The company already had been working on using automation to flag extremist video content, as Reuters reported in June.

Now the automated system also is being tested on Facebook Live, the streaming video service for users to broadcast live video.

Using artificial intelligence to flag live video is still at the research stage, and has two challenges, Candela said. “One, your computer vision algorithm has to be fast, and I think we can push there, and the other one is you need to prioritize things in the right way so that a human looks at it, an expert who understands our policies, and takes it down.”

Facebook said it also uses automation to process the tens of millions of reports it gets each week, to recognize duplicate reports and route the flagged content to reviewers with the appropriate subject matter expertise.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg in November said Facebook would turn to automation as part of a plan to identify fake news. Ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. election, Facebook users saw fake news reports erroneously alleging that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and that a federal agent who had been investigating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was found dead.

However, determining whether a particular comment is hateful or bullying, for example, requires context, the company said.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/facebook-developing-artificial-intelligence-to-patrol-live-videos.html

Facebook Goes End To End

July 18, 2016 by  
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Facebook Inc announced that it began testing end-to-end encryption on its popular Messenger application to prevent snooping on digital conversations.

The limited testing on Messenger, which has more than 900 million users, comes three months after Facebook rolled out end-to-end encryption to its more popular WhatsApp, a messaging application with over 1 billion users that it acquired in October 2014.

The move comes amid widespread global debate over the extent to which technology companies should help law enforcement snoop on digital communications.

End-to-end encryption is also offered on Apple Inc’s iMessage platform as well as apps including LINE, Signal, Viber, Telegram and Wickr.

Facebook Messenger uses the same encryption technology as WhatsApp, which uses a protocol known as Signal that was developed by privately held Open Whisper Systems.

“It seems well designed,” said Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins University cryptologist who helped review an early version of the protocol for Facebook.

While WhatsApp messages are encrypted by default, Facebook Messenger users must turn on the feature to get the extra additional security protection, which scrambles communications so they can only be read on devices at either end of a conversation.

Facebook said that it was requiring users to opt in to encryption because the extra security is not compatible with some widely used Messenger features.

“Many people want Messenger to work when you switch between devices, such as a tablet, desktop computer or phone,” the company said in an announcement on its website. “Secret conversations can only be read on one device and we recognize that experience may not be right for everyone.”

Facebook also said that Messenger users cannot send videos or make payments in encrypted conversations.

Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/end-to-end-encryption-comes-to-facebook-messenger.html

Twitter Blocks Intelligence Agencies

May 17, 2016 by  
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Twitter has prohibited a data-mining firm from providing analytics of real-time tweets to U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a Wall Street Journal report, quoting a person familiar with the matter.

Twitter, which provides Dataminr with real-time access to public tweets, seems to be trying to distance itself from appearing to aid government surveillance, a controversial issue after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the government was collecting information on users through Internet and telecommunications companies.

Executives of Dataminr told intelligence agencies recently that Twitter, which holds around 5 percent of the equity in the startup and provides the data feed, did not want the company to continue providing the service to the agencies.

Twitter’s move appears to be in line with its policy on the use of its tweet data by external companies.

“Dataminr uses public Tweets to sell breaking news alerts to companies such as Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones and government agencies such as the World Health Organization, for non-surveillance purposes,” Twitter said in a statement Sunday. “We have never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes.”

U.S. intelligence agencies gained access to Dataminr’s service after In-Q-Tel, aventure capital organization backed by U.S. intelligence agencies, put money in the firm, the WSJ said, quoting a person familiar with the matter. Twitter is said to have conveyed to Dataminr that it didn’t want to continue the relationship with intelligence agencies at the end of a pilot by the data analysis firm arranged by In-Q-Tel. Dataminr does not figure in the list of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies on its website.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/uncategorized/twitter-blocks-intelligence-agencies-access-to-tweet-analytics.html

Groupon Starts Fight With IBM

May 16, 2016 by  
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The online marketplace Groupon Inc has filed a lawsuit against IBM Corp, accusing it of infringing a patent related to technology that assists businesses  to solicit customers based on the customers’ locations at a given moment.

Groupon filed its lawsuit on Monday with the federal court in its hometown of Chicago, two months after IBM accused Groupon of patent infringement in a separate lawsuit.

“IBM is trying to shed its status as a dial-up-era dinosaur” by infringing the rights of “current” technology companies such as Groupon, according to Groupon spokesman Bill Roberts.

Doug Shelton, an IBM spokesman, said: “This counter suit is totally without merit.” IBM’s full name is International Business Machines Corp.

The latest lawsuit concerns IBM’s WebSphere Commerce platform, which Groupon said lets merchants send messages to customers with GPS-enabled devices based on their real-time locations, and their use of social media including Facebook.

Groupon said the platform infringes a December 2010 patent, and that it deserves royalties based on the “billions of dollars” of revenue that Armonk, New York-based IBM has received through its infringement.

“IBM, a relic of once-great 20th Century technology firms, has now resorted to usurping the intellectual property of companies born this millennium,” Groupon said in its lawsuit.

On March 2, IBM accused Groupon in a federal lawsuit in Delaware of infringing four patents, including two related to Prodigy, a late-1980s forerunner to the Internet.

“Over the past three years, IBM has attempted to conclude a fair and reasonable patent license agreement with Groupon, and we are disappointed that Groupon is seeking to divert attention from its patent infringement by suing,” Shelton said.

The Chicago case is Groupon Inc v International Business Machines Corp, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 16-05064. The Delaware case is International Business Machines Corp v Groupon Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware, No. 16-00122.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/groupon-gets-into-patent-fight-with-ibm.html

Qualcomm and LG Settle Dispute

May 5, 2016 by  
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Qualcomm has buried the hatchet with LG after the smartphone vendor agreed to pay more for its chips.

LG said the dispute with Qualcomm has been completely settled, although it did not say how much it had agreed to pay. Earlier it had claimed Qualcomm had overcharged for the chips under a licensing contract.

The news about the lawsuit settlement emerged following Qualcomm’s profit forecast for the second quarter in January, which was below what Wall Street’s tarot readers had predicted.

The company expected its mobile chip shipment to fall by 16-25 per cent in the second quarter. Additionally, it expected 3G and 4G device shipment to decline by 4 to 14 per cent. As for the first quarter of 2016, Qualcomm’s chip shipment fell 10 per cent , with a drop in revenue by 21.6 per cent. Revenue from licensing declined 10.4 per cent, suggests a Reuters report.

An LG spokesperson said that this kind of dispute was “actually nothing” and was similar to the ones that the industries had in the past.

“Qualcomm has lowered its royalty rate to LG in return for LG’s guaranteed purchase of Qualcomm processors, which are currently being used in its flagship handsets and will be used in upcoming flagship models,” added the official.

Qualcomm might have been a little nervy.  LG has invested millions to develop its own chipset, in an attempt to cut down its dependency on Qualcomm for mobile processors.

Courtesy-Fud

 

Google Says A.I. Is The Next Big Thing

May 3, 2016 by  
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Every decade or so, a new era of computing comes along that influences everything we do. Much of the 90s was about client-server and Windows PCs. By the aughts, the Web had taken over and every advertisement carried a URL. Then came the iPhone, and we’re in the midst of a decade defined by people tapping myopically into tiny screens.

So what comes next, when mobile gives way to something else? Mark Zuckerberg thinks it’s VR. There’s likely to be a lot of that, but there’s a more foundational technology that makes VR possible and permeates other areas besides.

“I do think in the long run we will evolve in computing from a mobile-first to an A.I.-first world,” said Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, answering an analyst’s question during parent company Alphabet’s quarterly earnings call Thursday.

He’s not predicting that mobile will go away, of course, but that the breakthroughs of tomorrow will come via smarter uses of data rather than clever uses of mobile devices like those that brought us Uber and Instagram.

Forms of artificial intelligence are already being used to sort photographs, fight spam and steer self-driving cars. The latest trend is in bots, which use A.I. services on the back end to complete tasks automatically, like ordering flowers or booking a hotel.

Google believes it has a lead in A.I. and the related field of machine learning, which Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt has already pegged as key to Google’s future.

Machine learning is one of the ways Google hopes to distinguish its emerging cloud computing business from those of rivals like Amazon and Microsoft, Pichai said.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/google-says-a-i-is-the-next-big-thing-in-computing.html

FCC Votes To Tighten Broadband Providers Privacy Rules

April 19, 2016 by  
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is moving toward major new regulations requiring ISPs to get customer permission before using or sharing their Web-surfing history and other personal information.

The FCC voted 3-2 last week to approve a notice of proposed rule-making, or NPRM, the first step toward passing new regulations, over the objections of the commission’s two Republicans.

The rules, which will now be released for public comment, require ISPs to get opt-in permission from customers if they want to use their personal information for most reasons besides marketing their own products.

Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly complained that the regulations target Internet service providers but not social networks, video providers and other online services.

“Ironically, selectively burdening ISPs, who are nascent competitors in online advertising, confers a windfall on those who are already winning,” Pai said. “The FCC targets ISPs, and only ISPs, for regulation.”

The proposed rules could prohibit some existing practices, including offering premium services in exchange for targeted advertising, that consumers have already agreed to, O’Rielly added. “The agency knows best and must save consumers from their poor privacy choices,” he said.

But the commission’s three Democrats argued that regulations are important because ISPs have an incredible window into their customers’ lives.

ISPs can collect a “treasure trove” of information about a customer, including location, websites visited, and shopping habits, said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. “I want the ability to determine when and how my ISP uses my personal information.”

Broadband customers would be able to opt out of data collection for marketing and other communications-related services. For all other purposes, including most sharing of personal data with third parties, broadband providers would be required to get customers’ explicit opt-in permission.

The proposal would also require ISPs to notify customers about data breaches, and to notify those directly affected by a breach within 10 days of its discovery.

Courtesy- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/fcc-votes-to-tighten-broadband-providers-privacy-rules.html

Is Apple Trying To Rain On Intel’s Parade?

April 5, 2016 by  
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Intel’s cunning plans for computers that will recognize human emotion using its RealSense 3D camera, have been killed off in the short term by Apple.

RealSense is a mix of infrared, laser and optical cameras to measure depth and track motion. It can be used on a drone that can navigate its own way through a city block, but it is also good at detecting changes in facial expressions, and Intel wanted to give RealSense the ability to read human emotions by combining it with an emotion recognition technology developed by Emotient.

Plugging in Emotient allowed RealSense to detect whether people are happy or sad by analyzing movement in their lips, eyes and cheeks. Intel said that it could detect “anger, contempt, disgust, fear,” and other sentiments.

A few months ago the fruity cargo cult Apple acquired Emotient. Intel has removed the Emotient plug-in from the latest version of the RealSense software development kit.

It is not clear at this point if Apple told Intel that it invented the plug in and so it had to sling its hook, or if Intel did not want Jobs’ Mob anywhere near its technology.

The RealSense SDK has features that allow it to recognize some facial expressions, but it’s unclear if they’ll be as effective as the Emotient technology.

Courtesy-Fud

Qualcomm Jumps Into VR

March 24, 2016 by  
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Qualcomm has thrown its hat into the virtual reality (VR) ring with the launch of the Snapdragon VR SDK for Snapdragon-based smartphones and VR headsets.

The SDK gives developers access to advanced VR features, according to Qualcomm, allowing them to simplify development and attain improved performance and power efficiency with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, found in Android smartphones such as the Galaxy S7 and tipped to feature in upcoming VR headsets.

In terms of features, the development kit offers tools such as digital signal processing (DSP) sensor fusion, which allows devs to use the “full breadth” of technologies built into the Snapdragon 820 chip to create more responsive and immersive experiences.

It will help developers combine high-frequency inertial data from gyroscopes and accelerometers, and there’s what the company calls “predictive head position processing” based on its Hexagon DSP, while Qualcomm’s Symphony System Manager makes easier access to power and performance management for more stable frame rates in VR applications running on less-powerful devices.

Fast motion to photon will offer single buffer rendering to reduce latency by up to 50 percent, while stereoscopic rendering with lens correction offers support for 3D binocular vision with color correction and barrel distortion for improved visual quality of graphics and video, enhancing the overall VR experience.

Stereoscopic rendering with lens correction supports 3D binocular vision with color correction and barrel distortion for improved visual quality of graphics and video, enhancing the overall VR experience.

Rounding off the features is VR layering, which improves overlays in a virtual world to reduce distortion.

David Durnil, senior director of engineering at Qualcomm, said: “We’re providing advanced tools and technologies to help developers significantly improve the virtual reality experience for applications like games, 360 degree VR videos and a variety of interactive education and entertainment applications.

“VR represents a new paradigm for how we interact with the world, and we’re excited to help mobile VR developers more efficiently deliver compelling and high-quality experiences on upcoming Snapdragon 820 VR-capable Android smartphones and headsets.”

The Snapdragon VR SDK will be available to developers in the second quarter through the Qualcomm Developer Network.

The launch of Qualcomm’s VR SDK comes just moments after AMD also entered the VR arena with the launch of the Sulon Q, a VR-ready wearable Windows 10 PC.

Courtesy-TheInq

 

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