Sunday, June 30, 2019
Redmi 7A Set to Launch in India on July 4, Flipkart Reveals
Huawei Ban Reversal to Cover Only Widely Available Goods, Trump Aide Says
China's BOE to Mass Produce LCD Screens With Fingerprint Sensor
This American company has denied sharing chip technology with China
Tundra, a new zero-commission wholesale marketplace, announces $12M Series A; Tundra generates revenue via premium checkout options like faster shipping (Jordan Crook/TechCrunch)
Tundra, a new zero-commission wholesale marketplace, announces $12M Series A; Tundra generates revenue via premium checkout options like faster shipping — Tundra, a new zero-commission wholesale marketplace, has today announced the close of $12 million in Series A funding.
Vulgar Videos Made on Chinese Social Media Apps Now Infiltrate WhatsApp
Japan will restrict the export of some materials used in smartphones and chips to South Korea
Japan’s trade ministry said today that it will restrict the export of some tech materials to South Korea, including polyimides used in flexible displays made by companies like Samsung Electronics. The new rules come as the two countries argue over compensation for South Koreans forced to work in Japanese factories during World War II.
The list of restricted supplies, expected to go into effect on July 4, includes polyimides used in smartphone and flexible organic LED displays, and etching gas and resist used to make semiconductors. That means Japanese suppliers who wish to sell those materials to South Korean tech companies such as Samsung, LG and SK Hynix will need to submit each contract for approval.
Japan’s government may also remove South Korea from its list of countries that have fewer restrictions on trading technology that might have national security implications, reports Nikkei Asian Review.
Earlier this year, South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled several Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, that had used forced labor during World War II must pay compensation and began seizing assets for liquidation. But Japan’s government claims the issue was settled in 1965 as part of a treaty that restored basic diplomatic relations between the two countries and is asking South Korea to put the matter before an international arbitration panel instead.
Facebook civil rights audit says white supremacy policy is ‘too narrow’
Facebook’s second progress report pertaining to the civil rights audit conducted by former ACLU Washington Director Laura Murphy is here. Over the last six months, Facebook has made changes around enforcing against hate, fighting discrimination in ads and protecting against misinformation and suppression in the upcoming U.S. presidential election and 2020 Census, according to the progress report.
While Facebook has made changes in some of these areas — Facebook banned white supremacy in March — auditors say Facebook’s policy is still “too narrow.” That’s because it solely prohibits explicit praise, support or representation of the terms “white nationalism” or “white separatism,” but does not technically prohibit references to those terms and ideologies.
“The narrow scope of the policy leaves up content that expressly espouses white nationalist ideology without using the term ‘white nationalist,'” the report states. “As a result, content that would cause the same harm is permitted to remain on the platform.”
Therefore, the audit team recommends Facebook expand its policy to prohibit content that “expressly praises, supports, or represents white nationalist ideology” even if the content does not explicitly use the terms “white nationalism” or “white separatism.”
In Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s note today, she acknowledges the recommendation.
“We’re addressing this by identifying hate slogans and symbols connected to white nationalism and white separatism to better enforce our policy,” she wrote.
Sandberg also noted how Facebook recently updated its policies to ensure people don’t use Facebook to organize events intended to intimidate or harass people.
“Getting our policies right is just one part of the solution,” Sandberg said. “We also need to get better at enforcement — both in taking down and leaving up the right content.”
Sandberg is referring to the fact that Facebook has sometimes wrongfully taken down content meant to draw attention to racism and discrimination.
As Murphy noted in her report, “the definition and policing of hate speech and harassment on the platform has long been an area of concern. The civil rights community also claims that a lack of civil rights expertise informing content decisions leads to vastly different outcomes for users from marginalized communities.”
Facebook now says it’s taking steps to address this. One step, Sandberg says, is to have some content reviewers focus just on hate speech.
“We believe allowing reviewers to specialize only in hate speech could help them further build the expertise that may lead to increased accuracy over time,” Sandberg wrote.
Additionally, Sandberg has formalized a civil rights task force at Facebook. This task force will live on beyond the audit in order to continue building more awareness around civil rights issues on Facebook.
And ahead of the upcoming presidential election, Facebook says it is working on new protections against voter interference and is adding a policy that prohibits “don’t vote” ads. That policy is expected to go into effect before the 2019 gubernatorial election. On the census side, Facebook is working on an interference policy that it expects to launch this fall.
In March of this year, Facebook settled with the ACLU and others pertaining to discriminatory job ads. Just days later, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said Facebook was in violation of the Fair Housing Act through its ad-targeting tools. This case is still pending.
In the meantime, Facebook has since begun working on a new system so that advertisers running US housing, employment and credit ads will no longer be able to target by age, gender, race, religion or zip code.
When this system launches, there will be a limited number of options by which to target. Additionally, Facebook won’t make any new terms available without first running it by the ACLU and the other plaintiffs from the March 2019 settlement.
In order to implement this new system, Facebook will ask advertisers to explicitly note if the ad involves housing, employment or credit opportunities. If it does, advertisers will be directed to the new system. Facebook is also putting tools in place to identify ads that advertisers failed to flag.
Additionally, Facebook is working on a tool that will let users search active housing ads by the advertiser and by location, whether or not they are in the target audience. This is expected to be available by the end of this year. Down the road, Facebook plans to make similar tools available for employment and credit opportunities.
“Given how critical access to housing, employment and credit opportunities are, this could have a significant impact on people’s lives,” Murphy wrote in her progress report.
This audit began in May 2018 following one scandal after the other pertaining to misinformation, and Facebook’s policies and people of color on its platform. The first six months entailed Murphy conducting interviews with civil rights organizations to determine their concerns. This last six months largely focused on content moderation and enforcement. The civil rights audit is far from over, and Facebook says we can expect to see the next update early next year.
How journalists, researchers, and civil rights groups are using big data, which put gerrymandering on steroids, to easily and cheaply track redistricting (Louise Matsakis/Wired)
How journalists, researchers, and civil rights groups are using big data, which put gerrymandering on steroids, to easily and cheaply track redistricting — THE SUPREME COURT'S conservative justices ruled Thursday that the highest court doesn't have the power to address partisan gerrymandering …
ETtech Top 5: Paytm's profitability push, Investors eye social commerce startups & more
NSAB comes up with traceability to help WhatsApp
Malls stands tall despite the rise of online retail
Shell out fee on Paytm transactions from today
Japan will tighten restrictions on export of materials used in smartphone displays and chips to South Korea from July 4, over a dispute about war-time labor (Makiko Yamazaki/Reuters)
Japan will tighten restrictions on export of materials used in smartphone displays and chips to South Korea from July 4, over a dispute about war-time labor — TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will tighten restrictions on the export of high-tech materials used in smartphone displays and chips …
Helo chases creators to meet 100 million user target
Asus 6Z 128GB, 256GB Variants to Go on Sale for First Time Today
CoinMarketCap acquihires the team of Hashtag Capital, which started as a crypto trading fund, to improve the easily faked volume-weighted crypto price estimates (Daniel Palmer/CoinDesk)
CoinMarketCap acquihires the team of Hashtag Capital, which started as a crypto trading fund, to improve the easily faked volume-weighted crypto price estimates — As its bid to improve its crypto data offering continues, CoinMarketCap is snapping up a firm building technology said to provide a “true price” for cryptocurrencies.
Bleckwen, a cybersecurity company developing AI-based fraud detection and prevention systems for banks and others, emerges from stealth, raises $10M Series A (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)
Bleckwen, a cybersecurity company developing AI-based fraud detection and prevention systems for banks and others, emerges from stealth, raises $10M Series A — Bleckwen, a cybersecurity firm developing fraud detection and prevention systems for banks and financial technology companies …
Nielsen Music Mid-Year Report: on-demand audio streams in the US grew 31.6% YoY to 507.7B in the first half of 2019 (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
Nielsen Music Mid-Year Report: on-demand audio streams in the US grew 31.6% YoY to 507.7B in the first half of 2019 — Music streaming services have already delivered a new high of half a trillion (507.7 billion) on-demand streams in the first half of 2019, according to Nielsen's mid-year Music Report released this week.
Investors rush to back social commerce startups BulBul, WMall, SimSim, and Mall91
Paytm Mall cuts its cash burn by a third, plans to break even in 2 years
TaTaTu, after raising $575M from royals and celebs in a private 2018 ICO for its blockchain-based Netflix-like service, now says it is not a blockchain business (Leigh Cuen/CoinDesk)
TaTaTu, after raising $575M from royals and celebs in a private 2018 ICO for its blockchain-based Netflix-like service, now says it is not a blockchain business — What started as a $575 million token sale is now a rewards program for watching videos. — TaTaTu's initial coin offering …
DeepNude app that undressed women removed after public outrage
The creators of the app “DeepNude” have shut it down citing the high probability of its misuse. The application allowed users to virtually “undress” women using Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms. It received a lot of flak on social media over its potential for abuse. The creators of the app said that the software was launched several months ago for “entertainment” purposes and that they “greatly underestimated” its demand.
"We never thought it would be viral and (that) we would not be able to control the traffic. Despite the safety measures adopted (watermarks), if 500,000 people use it, the probability that people will misuse it is too high. We don't want to make money this way,” the DeepNude creators, who listed their location as Estonia, said on Twitter. The app used Deepfake technology, which combines and superimposes existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a machine learning technique.
pic.twitter.com/8uJKBQTZ0o
— deepnudeapp (@deepnudeapp) 27 June 2019“Surely some copies of DeepNude will be shared on the web, but we don't want to be the ones who sell it. Downloading the software from other sources or sharing it any other means would be against the terms of our website. From now on, DeepNude will not release other versions and does not grant anyone its use. Not even the licenses to activate the Premium version,” the creators said.
Several media reports have noted how the app could be used to take a photo of a clothed woman and transform that into a nude image. Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which seeks protection against “revenge” porn tweeted, “This is a horrifically destructive invention and we hope to see you soon suffer consequences for your actions.” CCRI President Mary Anne Franks later tweeted, “It's good that it's been shut down, but this reasoning makes no sense. The app's INTENDED USE was to indulge the predatory and grotesque sexual fantasies of pathetic men.”
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Redmi K20, Vivo Z1 Pro, Mi CC9, LG W Series, and Other Tech News This Week
Tata Sky reduces prices of its set-top boxes again
Tata sky has reduced the prices of its set-top boxes again. As per the second revision in the prices of the boxes, the Tata Sky HD set-top box will now be available at Rs 1,499, and the SD set-top box will cost Rs 1,399. The DTH provider’s move is seen as its aim to further expand its presence in the country. The latest price cuts also likely to encourage the sale of the HD variant owing to just Rs 100 difference between the prices of the two boxes.
It should be noteworthy that this reduction in prices is up to Rs 300 from the previous price cut. After the previous price cut which was announced last month, Tata Sky HD set-top box was available for Rs 1,800, while the SD variant was priced at Rs 1,600. In comparison, Dish TVs HD set-top box is priced at Rs 1,590 and the SD variant is available at Rs 1,490.
The move comes two weeks after the company discontinued multi-TV connection plans from June 15, which means that users with a multi-TV connection would have to pay for each and every connection separately that they have at their homes. After facing backlash from its users, the company announced a new ‘Room TV service' that is aimed at making it more ‘feasible’ for consumers to select TV packs on their multi-TV connections.
Users with secondary connections can now have different channels and services on all connections. “Subscribers can seamlessly choose the content of their choice on the secondary connections and only pay for the selected content. Their secondary connections can now have different channels and services from the base pack selected for the first connection in the house under the same subscriber ID,” Tata Sky had said. The new option can be accessed via the company’s website or the Tata Sky mobile app.
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In Stranger Things 3, the Hawkins Crew Feel the Pain of Growing Up
US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei: Trump
Offering an olive branch to Huawei Technologies, US President Donald Trump has said that the administration will now allow the Silicon Valley companies to resume business with the companies. This likely means that the Chinese telecom equipment maker and 70 of its affiliates will be removed from an “entity list” which forbids US companies from doing business with it. The move comes as the Washington agreed to restart trade talks in order to reduce tensions with Beijing.
“We’re right back on track,” Trump said at an 80-minute meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 (G20) summit of major economies in Osaka, Japan. “US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it,” he added.
“These are American companies producing the products. This is complex ... highly scientific. We are the only one with the technology. I have agreed to allow them to continue selling the products … I like our companies selling things to others ... very complex things. These are not things easy to make ... our companies were very upset, but we are allowing them. So if it is not a national security issue, we are allowing them to sell,” the US President noted.
According to a report, US-based chipmakers, like Qualcomm and Intel, lobbied, and quietly pressed the US government to ease restrictions on the sale of equipment and services to the Chinese tech giant. It was reported that executives from Intel and Xilinx Inc attended a meeting in late May with the US Commerce Department to discuss a response to Huawei’s placement on the entity list. “This isn’t about helping Huawei. It’s about preventing harm to American companies,” one of the people was quoted as saying.
Reportedly, out of $70 billion that Huawei spent buying components in 2018, some $11 billion went to US firms including Qualcomm, Intel and Micron Technology Inc. The Chinese tech giant also works with companies like Google and Microsoft, and uses their software in phones and computers. Further, telecom giants like Vodafone and EE also shrug their shoulders and followed other companies in cutting ties with the company in the European market.
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The man whose resignation cost Apple $9 billion
Saturday, June 29, 2019
WhatsApp has a positive impact on psychological health of users, finds study
Online communications apps and the amount of time people spend using them has been a topic of debate for a long time now. At a time when social media apps are introducing digital well-being tools to their platforms, a new study published in the Journal of Human-Computer Studies has found that using apps like WhatsApp has a positive impact on mental health.
The study was conducted on 200 WhatsApp users who completed an online questionnaire measuring their usage of WhatsApp and motivations, online bonding, quality of relationships, group identity, and psychosocial outcomes. The study found that online bonding through WhatsApp, which also facilitates group chats and calling, makes people feel less lonely and has a positive impact on their self esteem.
The study titled 'Psychosocial Outcomes Associated with Engagement with Online Chat Systems' has 158 female and 42 male participants. It found that "minutes per day using WhatsApp was positively related to quality of relationships".
"The more time people spent on WhatsApp, the more this related to them feeling close to their friends and family and they perceived these relationships to be good quality," said Dr Linda Kaye, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, England-based Edge Hill University.
"It gives rise to the notion that social technology such as WhatsApp may stimulate existing relationships and opportunities for communication, thereby enhancing aspects of the users' positive well-being," she added.
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Amazon Air has started operations in Anchorage, Alaska, which could allow Amazon to expand its in-house logistics to moving goods to and from Asia (Rachel Premack/Business Insider)
Amazon Air has started operations in Anchorage, Alaska, which could allow Amazon to expand its in-house logistics to moving goods to and from Asia — - Observers say Amazon is building a logistics empire to compete with UPS and FedEx. — Beginning June 27, Amazon will start daily operations …
15-year-old stabs brother to death for not letting him play PUBG Mobile
A 15-year-old boy from Thane, Mumbai allegedly killed his elder brother who was scolding him for playing PUBG Mobile, the police have said. 19-year-old victim Mohammad Shaikh has asked his younger brother to stop playing PUBG Mobile on his phone and this allegedly resulted in the boy flying into a fit of rage.
PTI reports, quoting senior police inspector Mamata D’Souza, that the minor allegedly banged Shaikh’s head against the wall and then repeatedly stabbed him with a pair of scissors after being repremanded for playing PUBG Mobile.
Shaikh was taken to a government hospital after the incident occurred but he had succumbed to his injuries and was declared dead on arrival.
A case has been registered by the police under section 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
PUBG Mobile has been associated with several violent incidents in the past, resulting in murders and even suicides. The battle royale game is hugely popular in India and has been considered to have a negative impact on children. However, it is important to consider that just like any other game, this one too should be played in moderation.
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Booster, which enables fuel delivery directly to cars via an app in more than 20 US cities, raises $56M Series C, bringing total raised to $88.5M (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)
Booster, which enables fuel delivery directly to cars via an app in more than 20 US cities, raises $56M Series C, bringing total raised to $88.5M — Booster, a San Mateo, California-based startup offering same-day fuel delivery service in the U.S., today announced that it's raised $56 million …
Creative Group, which offers mobile phone top-ups and e-vouchers for iTunes, Google, Spotify, Xbox, PlayStation, and other online services, raises €22M (Andrii Degeler/Tech.eu)
Creative Group, which offers mobile phone top-ups and e-vouchers for iTunes, Google, Spotify, Xbox, PlayStation, and other online services, raises €22M — Creative Group, a fintech startup headquartered in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, has landed a €22 million in funding from Prime Ventures …
Google reduced ability of device manufacturers to use Android alternatives: Competition Commission of India
Google has been accused of imposing “unfair conditions” on device manufacturers and abusing the popularity of its Android platform by the competition watchdog in India. It was earlier reported that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered an investigation into Google’s anti-competitive practices in India, but the details of that directive were not disclosed at the time.
Now, a Reuters exclusive bares those details after conducting a review of CCI’s 14-page order. The said order reveals that the CCI found Google imposing “unfair conditions” on device manufacturers. It says that by making pre-installation of Google apps conditional, the company has, “reduced the ability and incentive of device manufacturers to develop and sell devices operated on alternate versions of Android,” thereby flouting India’s competition laws. “It amounts to prima facie leveraging of Google’s dominance,” CCI said in the order.
Last week, it was reported that CCI is scanning Google’s agreements with OEMs and the conditions which the company places in those agreements. The CCI is said to have handed letters to several OEMs asking about their relationship with Google.
The investigation unit of CCI is expected to complete the probe into Google’s activities within 150 days of the April 14 order by CCI. However, as happens in cases like these, the matter could be dragged out for longer.
In a similar case last year, Google was fined $5 billion by the EU antitrust regulators for abusing the dominance of its Android platform.
According to Reuters, the complainants in the India case allege that Google engaged in similar anti-competitive practices in India “with the aim of cementing Google’s dominant position”.
Last year, a fine of $20 million was imposed on Google by the CCI for Search bias and abusing its dominant position. Google’s appeal against the fine is still pending.
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EU-based IT-consultant Capgemini to buy Altran for $4.1B, to fill the gap in its services competing with rivals like Accenture for IoT, 5G, and AI contracts (Bloomberg)
EU-based IT-consultant Capgemini to buy Altran for $4.1B, to fill the gap in its services competing with rivals like Accenture for IoT, 5G, and AI contracts — Capgemini SE said it will acquire Altran Technologies SA for 14 euros-a-share to expand its software engineering network with internet and technology companies.
Data mining and ad targeting company LiveRamp, formerly known as Acxiom, to acquire Data Plus Math, which helps advertisers analyze TV viewer data, for $150M (Patience Haggin/Wall Street Journal)
Data mining and ad targeting company LiveRamp, formerly known as Acxiom, to acquire Data Plus Math, which helps advertisers analyze TV viewer data, for $150M — Cash-and-stock deal, valued at $150 million, combines companies' data sets that help advertisers check efficiency of campaigns
6 tips to keep your Facebook account safe
How to use voice typing feature in Google Docs
How to share WhatsApp Status to Facebook and other apps
Buying an iPhone online? How to check it's a brand new phone
A look at the challenges, downsides, and huge costs of 5G rollout in the US, which may take a decade or more to complete (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)
A look at the challenges, downsides, and huge costs of 5G rollout in the US, which may take a decade or more to complete — As carriers launch their 5G networks, the promise of superfast wireless is clashing with the reality of the rollout; ‘the real onslaught has not yet begun’
Splyt, which wants to bring international roaming to ride-hailing apps and already allows Alipay users to book Grab rides, raises $8M Series A from Grab, others (Jon Russell/TechCrunch)
Splyt, which wants to bring international roaming to ride-hailing apps and already allows Alipay users to book Grab rides, raises $8M Series A from Grab, others — The vision of a universal global ride-hailing service is over. Uber's decision to exit markets like China …
Friday, June 28, 2019
Indian Coast Guard Asst Commandant Result 2019 – Selection List II Released
Apple may shift production of this device from US to China amidst trade war
GoFundMe is an increasingly popular way to raise money to cover medical expenses, where storytelling and personal connections often play a crucial role (Nathan Heller/New Yorker)
GoFundMe is an increasingly popular way to raise money to cover medical expenses, where storytelling and personal connections often play a crucial role — When patients turn to crowdfunding for medical costs, whoever has the most heartrending story wins. — For those who want their hearts broken …
Here’s why AI-based Deepfake app called DeepNude shut down
Apple to Move Mac Pro Production From US to China: Report
TRAI Said to Be Unlikely to Review 5G Spectrum Prices in India
DeepNude Deepfake App to Undress Women Shuts Down After Furore
At G20, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announces "Osaka Track" to promote cross-border data flow as 24 countries, including the US and China, sign statement of support (Satoshi Sugiyama/Japan Times)
At G20, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announces “Osaka Track” to promote cross-border data flow as 24 countries, including the US and China, sign statement of support — OSAKA - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday at the G20 summit formally declared the launch of the “Osaka Track,” …
Web design and hosting platform Webflow acquires Intellimize, which raised $50M and offers AI-powered webpage personalization, a source says for "eight-figures" (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch : Web design and hosting platform Webflow acquires Intellimize, which raised $50M and offers AI-powered webpage...
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Jake Offenhartz / Gothamist : Since October, the NYPD has deployed a quadruped robot called Spot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage...
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Andrew Tarantola / Engadget : An adapted excerpt from the book “Your Computer Is on Fire”, on how voice assistants like Siri and Alexa al...
