TheNewsGuru

Tag: Facebook

  • Instagram adding fantastic new features

    Instagram adding fantastic new features

    Instagram is now looking to add more features to its Web portals, to make it more functional; as the photo-sharing app has upgraded its mobile website to introduce the ability to share photos on it.

    Alongside photo-sharing, a condensed version of the Explore tab is also added.

    The ability to share photos on the mobile website is still limited, with the option only allowing users to only upload photos and crop them to a desired shape if the need be. It still doesn’t allow users to upload video, edit photo, or even apply filters. However, users can now edit their profile, or create a profile for that matter from the ungraded mobile web version.

    This upgraded mobile website version was first spotted by Matt Navarra.

    Instagram later confirmed it to TechCrunch, “Instagram.com (accessed from mobile) is a Web experience optimized for mobile phones. It’s designed to help people have a fuller experience on Instagram no matter what device or network they are on”.

    The mobile website now looks a lot like the app itself with a light version of the Explore tab as well.

    The mobile version lets you see posts, notifications, your profile, and even like photos of others. It even lets you comment on them as the case may be.

    The adding photo feature is not visible to everyone as of yet; so maybe it’s a gradual roll out that should arrive in the coming days.

    Facebook’s Instagram recently also announced that it now has 700 million users. The company adds that the last 100 million users were added in just four months.

  • Facebook tops 1.9 billion monthly users

    Facebook tops 1.9 billion monthly users

    On Wednesday, Facebook reported hitting 1.94 billion monthly users as of the end of the March quarter; up from 1.86 billion in the previous quarter and 1.65 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

    Facebook now has 1.28 billion people who use its services every single day, up from 18% year-over-year.

    According to CNNtech, Facebook’s unparalleled audience gives it an “insurmountable competitive advantage,” quoting Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush.

    It said, although some cracks are beginning to show up.

    Facebook posted $8 billion in revenue for the quarter, beating Wall Street estimates. However, its sales growth is beginning to slow down.

    Facebook’s total sales for the quarter were up 49% from the same period a year earlier, breaking its streak of five consecutive quarters of growing sales at 50% or more.

    David Wehner, Facebook’s CFO, said in November the company expected to see its ad sales growth rate “come down meaningfully” in 2017. The reason: Facebook is hitting the ceiling for how many ads it can shove in front of users.

    Wehner reiterated that point on a conference call with analysts Wednesday.

    Facebook stock fell 3% in afterhours trading.

    According to CNN, analysts are now looking to other Facebook services like Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp to pick up the slack as Facebook’s main business matures. Facebook does not break out sales for the other services.

    WhatsApp and Messenger each have more than one billion users and Instagram now has more than 700 million users.

    WhatsApp Status (a feature that copied Snapchat) reached 175 million daily active users, while Instagram Stories recently became more popular than Snapchat.

    In recent months, Facebook has also faced criticism for its handling of ad metrics, fake news and troubling videos of murder and suicide shared on the platform.

    Earlier on Wednesday, Facebook announced plans to add 3,000 reviewers to help monitor and combat violent videos.

    On the earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI tools will get better over time, but it will take a “period of years” to reach the quality level that Facebook wants.

    “It’s not just about getting content off of Facebook,” Zuckerberg said. He pointed to a recent case where Facebook worked with law enforcement to help save someone’s life who was live streaming their suicide on Facebook Live.

    Executives also addressed a report about gender bias at Facebook, which alleged that code written by women was rejected more often than code written by men.

    “This is an issue I take very seriously,” COO Sheryl Sandberg said on the call, adding that the study was conducted by a former employee with “incomplete data”.

    Facebook conducted its own research using full data and found that the rates at which code was sent back coordinated with level not gender. Sandberg said there are more male engineers at the senior level and in the industry in general.

  • Families of San Bernardino Shooting sue Facebook, Google, Twitter

    Families of San Bernardino Shooting sue Facebook, Google, Twitter

    Family members of three victims of the December 2015 shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, have sued Facebook, Google and Twitter, claiming that the companies permitted Islamic State to flourish on social media.

    The relatives assert that by allowing Islamic State militants to spread propaganda freely on social media, the three companies provided “material support” to the group and enabled attacks such as the one in San Bernardino.

    “For years defendants have knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits,” family members of Sierra Clayborn, Tin Nguyen and Nicholas Thalasinos charge in the 32-page complaint, which was filed in US District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

    “Without defendants Twitter, Facebook and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” the complaint said.

    Spokeswomen for Twitter and Google declined to comment on the lawsuit. Representatives for Facebook could not immediately be reached by Reuters on Thursday afternoon.

    Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on a holiday gathering of Farook’s co-workers at a government building in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others.

    Farook, the 28-year-old, US-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, 29, a Pakistani native, died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

    Authorities have said the couple was inspired by Islamist militants. At the time, the assault ranked as the deadliest attack by Islamist extremists on US soil since the September 11, 2001, attacks. In June 2016, an American-born gunman pledging allegiance to the leader of Islamic State shot 49 people to death at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before he was killed by police.

    In December 2016 the families of three men killed at the nightclub sued Twitter, Google and Facebook in federal court on allegations similar to those in the California lawsuit.

    Federal law gives internet companies broad immunity from liability for content posted by their users. A number of lawsuits have been filed in recent years seeking to hold social media companies responsible for terror attacks, but none has advanced beyond the preliminary phases.

     

     

     

    NDTV

  • Zuckerberg partnership builds scientific pre-publishing platform, bioRxiv

    With the view to cure all diseases in our children’s lifetime, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has announced a partnership to support and further build bioRxiv, a platform for scientists to pre-publish research works.

    Announcing the bioRxiv partnership, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and co-founder of the CZI, said “I’m excited the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is partnering with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to support and build out bioRxiv to help scientists share research faster”.

    bioRxiv is a preprint repository for the biological sciences launched in November 2013. It is hosted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. As preprints, papers hosted on bioRxiv are not peer-reviewed, but undergo basic screening, and checked against plagiarism.

    Scientific researches usually take years to complete; and the Facebook founder is hoping that, with bioRxiv, scientists do not just get involved in painstaking researches ending up to find out what they were seeking solution for already has solution(s).

    “It’s common for scientists to be working on a problem for a long time and then when another paper finally publishes, they realize someone solved their problem or found a better approach a long time ago,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.

    “It can be a huge waste of time, and if we can help eliminate it, scientific progress can move a lot faster. That’s what bioRxiv does,” he added.

    Zuckerberg further stated that “If we’re going to cure all disease in our children’s lifetime, we need to speed up science” adding that “One thing that slows us down today is that it can take a year or longer to publish research in a scientific journal”.

    TheNewsGuru reports that bioRxiv is a free service that lets scientists share drafts or their results, or “preprints”, before they’re published.

    “It’s quickly becoming the standard database for pre-publishing biological research. We’re proud to support their work and help build out their service to accelerate science,” Zuckerberg said.

    Responding to a comment on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg agrees that the principle of bioRxiv for scientific research can be applied for research in other fields of study since bioRxiv was inspired by and intends to complement the arXiv repository, launched in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg, which mostly focuses on physics and other related disciplines. Paul also serves on the bioRxiv advisory board.

    “I agree. The faster we share research, the faster we learn and the more progress we make together,” he said.

    Jocelyn Kaiser of Science said that in their first year, the repository had “attracted a modest but growing stream of papers”, having hosted 824 preprints.

    As a result, several (but not all) biology journals have updated their policies on preprints, clarifying they do not consider preprints to be a ‘prior publication’ for purpose of the Ingelfinger rule.

    In 2015, over 20,000 tweets had been made about bioRxiv-hosted preprints, a bioRxiv progress report stated.

    As of February 2016, the submission rate to bioRxiv had steadily increased from 60 to 200 per month, with a total of 3100 papers received.

    As of April 21, 2017, over 10,000 papers have been accepted. In March 2017, the number of monthly submissions is now over 620.

    Mark Zuckerberg said he is optimistic that our children’s generation will see a world 100% free of diseases; but not sure our generation will witness that world.

  • Indian state places ban on all social media platforms

    Jammu and Kashmir, a state in India has on Wednesday banned all social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp for one month in the Valley in order to prevent “anti-national and anti-social elements” from spreading “inflammatory messages”.

    This is coming after Mobile Internet services have remained suspended in the Valley since April 19 following widespread students’ unrest.

    According to a report by NDTV, the Home Department order, written by R. K. Goyal, Principal Secretary to Government, in this regard read: “On careful examination of all relevant factors, it is observed that the use of social media platforms, which are being misused by anti-national and anti-social elements by transmitting inflammatory messages in various forms, are immediately required to be regulated/curbed”.

    The order places a blanket ban on social networking platforms including Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, QQ, WeChat, Qzone, Tumblr, Google+, Baidu, Skype, Viber, Line, Snapchat, Pinterest, Telegram, Reddit, Snapfish, YouTube (upload), Vine, Xanga, Buzznet, and Flickr.

    The order cites Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2007, to note the Central Government or State Government has the power to take possession of licensed telegraphs and order stoppage of transmission or interception or detention of messages.

    The order directed all Internet service providers (ISPs) that any message or picture through the above-mentioned social networking platforms should be immediately banned.

    The ban remains effective till further orders or for a period of one month, whichever is earlier.

    The authorities had also blocked over 300 WhatsApp groups that, the government said, had been spreading rumours to stoke passions among the youth during the volatile situation in Kashmir.

    The Home Department issued the order to this effect in exercise of powers conferred under the Indian Telegraph Act, an official said in Jammu.

  • Advertisers delight: Twitter records strongest growth ever, reports 328 million active users

    Twitter reported its strongest growth in monthly active users in more than a year and a much better-than-expected quarterly profit, despite stiff competition from Facebook and Snapchat, sending its shares up 11 percent.

    The microblogging service said average monthly active users increased 6 percent to 328 million in the first quarter from a year earlier.

    Analysts on average had expected 321.3 million monthly active users, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

    Revenue fell 7.8 percent to $548.3 million, its first drop since its initial public offering.

    Net loss narrowed to $61.6 million, or 9 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $79.7 million, or 12 cents per share, a year earlier.

    Twitter’s user growth has stalled in the past few quarters and the company has been trying to convince advertisers that it will strengthen its user base.

    As part of its efforts, the company has updated its product offerings including live video broadcasts from its app and launched new features to attract users.

    Twitter’s weak performance has raised questions about CEO Jack Dorsey’s leadership and whether the company would be bought by a bigger media firm. Financial markets speculated about a sale of Twitter last year, but no concrete bids were forthcoming.

    Excluding items, the company earned 11 cents per share, beating the estimate of 1 cent per share.

    Twitter’s advertising revenue fell 11 percent to $474 million in the quarter, above the average analyst estimate of $442.7 million, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

     

     

    Source: NDTV

  • Facebook developing keyboardless typing directly from human brain

    Facebook developing keyboardless typing directly from human brain

    Facebook is working to create a data input method that doesn’t rely on a keyboard, but instead allows the user to type directly from the brain, the company said at its two-day developers conference in San Jose, California.

    “In a few years’ time we expect to demonstrate a real-time silent speech system capable of delivering 100 words per minute,” or about five-times faster than a person can type with a smartphone, said vice president of engineering Regina Dugan on the second day of the conference.

    Dugan also heads Facebook’s hardware research unit known as Building eight, which has more than 60 scientists and engineers working on the new keyboardless typing method.

    The input method could, for example, allow users to send a text message or email to a friend without taking out a smartphone to type.

    Dugan also tried to calm consumers at the conference, saying the California-based social media giant isn’t interested in detecting a person’s thoughts, but only what the person intends to type.

    “We’re not talking about decoding your random thoughts. That might be more than any of us care to know,” she said.

    Dugan referred to research at Stanford University, which has allowed a paralysed woman to type at about eight words per minute directly from her brain.

    But the current method requires invasive surgery in which an array of electrodes is implanted to receive data where the brain would normally control the person’s motor functions.

    “That simply won’t scale,” Dugan said, referring the surgery process.

    “So we’ll need new non-invasive sensors.”

    Facebook is considering wearables such as caps that can read data through the human skull.

    While the company may need years to produce a mass-scale device, any advances in the research have potential to be a huge breakthrough in human communications, Dugan said.

    “Even something as simple as a yes-no brain click would fundamentally change our capability.”

    NAN

  • Police arrest Thai man for slashing daughter’s throat over Facebook use

    Police arrest Thai man for slashing daughter’s throat over Facebook use

    The police on Monday arrested a Thai man for slashing his daughter’s throat after an argument about her Facebook and smartphone use.

    Sornkrai Poonperm, police commissioner of Petchburi province, some 120 kms south-west of Bangkok, said Surin Kaewrae, 41, confessed to attacking his 13-year-old daughter with a knife.

    “Kaewrae attacked his daughter with a knife after a dispute over her excessive use of Facebook and a smartphone,’’ Poonperm said.

    However, his daughter survived the attack and is being treated in hospital.

    According to Sornkrai, Surin was apprehended while on the run with his 5-year-old daughter in a nearby province.

    Meanwhile, he has previously been sentenced to three years for other crimes.

    Surin told police he had many arguments with his daughter previously, adding that he had told her several times to study rather than chat with her boyfriend, but his daughter never listened.

    Police said later Surin’s wife Hattaya Kaewrae, the victim’s mother, attempted to physically attack her husband but was held back by police.

    Report says Surin has been charged with attempted murder and he is in police custody.

     

    NAN

  • Facebook lauds Saraki for opening up National Assembly

    The Office of the President of the Senate is indeed delighted at the endorsement of the Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki for opening up the activities of the 8th Nigerian National Assembly through various channels, especially the daily Facebook Live Video streaming from Senate Plenary.

    The Chief Product Officer and Company Lead on Product Management and Development of Facebook, Christopher Cox, gave the commendation while speaking at The Future of Media Keynote Session and opening of the annual Social Media Week held at the Landmark Centre in Lagos.

    Special Assistant to the Senate President on New Media, Bamikole Omishore, in a statement in Abuja, said: “This commendation reinforces one of the core mandates of the Senate President to the New Media unit, which is to bridge the gap between the Senate and Nigerians.

    “The Nigerian Senate facebook live streaming has an average view of four million unique clicks monthly for the plenary live feeds and we will be expanding coverage to courtesy calls, committee hearings and oversights in the next few months,” he said.

    Omishore added: “You would recall that Saraki personally attended the 2016 edition of the Social Media Week in company of Senators Foster Ogola, Dino Melaye and Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi amongst others, where he spoke on the topic: “Promoting Online Communities to improve Participatory Governance” and subsequently had a no-holds-barred interaction with traditional and social media enthusiasts on how to continue bridging the gap between elected government officials and Nigerians passionate about the use of social media for political engagement.

    “We are encouraged to do more with this commendation and wish to kindly reiterate and assure our friends, from the online community and beyond, of the commitment of the Senate President towards ensuring that the 8th National Assembly continues to witness improved transparency and accountability on government functions and people participation,” he said.