Artificial intelligence built by Facebook has learned to classify images from 1 billion Instagram photos. The AI used a different learning technique to many other similar algorithms, relying less on input from humans. Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2270102-facebook-ai-learned-object-recognition-from-1-billion-instagram-pics/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: Facebook
Facebook Lifts Political Ad Ban
Facebook will lift its ban on political ads on Thursday, ending a self-imposed prohibition that began immediately after the November 2020 general election and remained active for months. Politico reports: Facebook informed top political advertisers of its decision by phone and email on Wednesday, according to sources with knowledge of the announcement. The social media giant banned political and social issue-related…
How Microsoft Plans To Give Virtual Reality Apps a Big Boost
The market for virtual and augmented reality products has developed slower than expected, but Microsoft is seeking to accelerate the sector by making it much easier for people to connect from different locations and with different kinds of devices. From a report: The ultimate goal of the new effort, dubbed Microsoft Mesh, is to allow, for example, a person in an…
Facebook, TikTok Least Trusted By Americans, Google Most Trusted, Says Survey
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Forty percent of Americans don’t trust Facebook and TikTok and Google appears to be winning the trust wars, according to a survey from SeoClarity. SeoClarity surveyed 1,057 American residents to gauge trust in tech companies and found a majority of US citizens think social media companies need more regulation. The findings are notable…
How Facebook Silenced an Enemy of Turkey To Prevent a Hit To the Company’s Business
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this report from ProPublica: As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a political dilemma. Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request,…
Is the Net Neutrality Debate a Pointless Distraction?
“People may scream at me for saying this, but net neutrality is one of America’s longest and now most pointless fights over technology.” So argues the New York Times “On Tech” newsletter author Shira Ovide, calling the debate “a distraction for our elected leaders and corporations when there are more pressing issues.” Ovide also shares their discussion with Times technology and…
Amazon Rainforest Plots Sold via Facebook Marketplace Ads
Parts of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are being illegally sold on Facebook, the BBC is reporting. From the report: The protected areas include national forests and land reserved for indigenous peoples. Some of the plots listed via Facebook’s classified ads service are as large as 1,000 football pitches. Facebook said it was “ready to work with local authorities”, but indicated it would…
US Drops Digital Tax Demand, Opening Door To Global Deal
The U.S. has dropped a key demand in negotiations over digital taxation of technology companies such as Alphabet’s Google and Facebook, lifting a barrier that had raised transatlantic trade tensions and prevented an international deal. From a report: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told her counterparts at a virtual meeting of Group of 20 finance officials that the U.S. is no longer…
Facebook Is Considering Facial Recognition For Its Upcoming Smart Glasses
Facebook is discussing building facial recognition into its upcoming smart glasses product and has been weighing the legal implications of the controversial technology, Buzzfeed News reported citing remarks from executives at an internal meeting Thursday. From a report: During a scheduled companywide meeting, Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s vice president of augmented and virtual reality, told employees that the company is currently assessing…
Twitter Announces Paid Super Follows To Let You Charge For Tweets
Twitter announced a pair of big upcoming features today: the ability for users to charge their followers for access to additional content, and the ability to create and join groups based around specific interests. From a report: They’re two of the more substantial changes to Twitter in a while, but they also fit snugly into models that have been popular and…