Alphabet’s autofocusing contact lens won’t be tested in 2016
Bad news if you were hoping that Google’s (now Alphabet’s) smart contact lenses would be available relatively soon: they’re running into some hurdles. Novartis, which is partnering with Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences on an autofocusing lens that addresses farsightedness, says it won’t make its goal of testing the technology in 2016. It’s “too early to say” when trials would start, a spokeswoman explains to Reuters. It’s also uncertain when tests for the other lens, which monitors blood sugar levels, would likely begin.
According to Novartis, the setback is due to a “very technically complex process” where both companies are “learning as [they] go along.” That’s not totally surprising. Both lenses were were considered long-term bets on the future of health care, and there was no guarantee that they’d be ready all that quickly. The question is whether the hurdles are relatively modest, or if these smart contact lenses are still years away from reaching your eyes.
Source: Reuters
Signal makes it easier to verify the privacy of your chats
One of Signal’s privacy advantages is that it not only encrypts your conversations, but gives you simple proof that those discussions are truly secret — you just have to compare a set of digits or scan a QR code. Those safety numbers aren’t always easy to use, however, and that has led to people inadvertently putting themselves at risk — especially when they switch devices. Developer Open Whisper Systems is fixing that by altering how safety numbers work in terms of both simplicity and practicality.
To begin with, it’s streamlining its QR code approach: you now need just a single scan for the conversation, and the code only includes the safety numbers instead of the phone numbers. That prevents people from inadvertently revealing phone numbers and potentially exposing the conversation. Would-be snoops who already know someone’s digital fingerprint will recognize who you’re talking to, but they won’t read the chats themselves.
Also, new devices and app reinstalls won’t always require that you approve someone again to keep the chat going. The latest Signal version has an optional “advisory mode” that will tell you when safety numbers have changed, but doesn’t preclude you from talking to the other participant. It’s turned off by default, but OWS may enable it by default for new installations if it works well.
The changes might be coming just in time. OWS tells American Public Radio’s Marketplace that demand for the app jumped a whopping 400 percent after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. If you ask co-founder Moxie Marlinspike, the interest comes from people who are “less comfortable” with Trump having control of the US’ far-reaching surveillance apparatus. In other words, they’re worried that the President-elect might abuse his power to spy on critics. Is that rational? Not really (there are still some anti-abuse mechanisms in place), but that won’t stop nervous internet users.
Source: Open Whisper Systems
Twitter bots were rampant during the US election
If you believe one study, it’s not just fake news that polluted the internet during the US election… it’s bogus accounts, too. Researchers at the international Project on Computational Propaganda report that the use of politically minded Twitter bots reached an “all-time high” during the 2016 presidential campaign. Out of 18.9 million studied tweets using political hashtags, 17.9 percent of them came from “highly automated” accounts that post 50 or more tweets per day. That ratio only grew higher during the debates, peaking at over 27 percent during the final Clinton/Trump showdown — and it conveniently tanked after the election was over.
The findings suggest a strong slant to the automatic tweeting. For every automated pro-Clinton tweet recorded, there were four or more pro-Trump tweets, the researchers say. Also, most of those Trump tweets (up to 81.9 percent) were mixed with pro-Clinton or neutral hashtags. In short: while the Trump campaign had very few official Twitter accounts, its commanding social network presence wasn’t limited to Facebook.
With that said, the team is quick to acknowledge that its data collection method is inherently limited. Not all of those prolific Twitter users are guaranteed to be bots, for one. Also, this doesn’t include the legions of tweets that didn’t include the hashtags or mention candidates by name. And there’s the very nature of a large-scale study like this to consider. Although there’s a good chance that many of the tweets are exactly as described, it could sometimes be hard to make the distinction between someone discussion a candidate’s views and actively endorsing them. Most are likely endorsements, but it’s hard to say that’s the case for each and every one. The one certainty is that these surges in robotic social networking are unlikely to go away any time soon.
Source: Political Bots
Oculus’ free VR painting tool Quill arrives in December
Oculus is giving away a virtual reality painting tool, but you’ll still have to pony up some of your hard-earned dollars to be able to use it. The company will release the beta version of Quill for free on December 6th, the same day its Touch motion controllers start shipping out… because you need the $199 controllers to do any actual art.
Quill was created to give Art Director Wesley Allsbrook a way to draw the Oculus Story Studio original film Dear Angelica directly in virtual reality. It was developed within 48 hours during a hackathon in 2015, and since then, Oculus has added new features to allow artists’ distinct styles to shine and make them feel like they’re truly painting in 3D. You can download Quill on December 6th from the Oculus Home Store — till then, you can check out what it can do in the video below.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Oculus
Kanye West says Facebook and Google ‘lied to you’
You’re not the only one upset that the internet might have misled you. Kanye West cut short a Sacramento concert with an epic 15-minute speech where he railed against the state of the music industry, politics, and… the internet. The superstar says that people feel like they lost (due to the election, among other issues) because Facebook and Google “lied to you.” He even calls out Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg by name around the 12-minute mark. Supposedly, the internet mogul reneged on a promise that he “would help” Kanye and then decided to “look for aliens.” We’re not sure where that last part comes from, since Facebook’s out-there projects are largely limited to Earthly concerns like solar-powered internet drones.
He also tells people to only put their iPhones in the air, since he wants “only originals.” Guess we know where he stands on smartphones, then (although he recently got rid of his phone to focus on creativity).
Is Kanye presenting a complex, nuanced take on the problems of internet accuracy and corporate responsibility in Silicon Valley? Hell no. This is a shoot-from-the-hip diatribe. However, it shows that concerns over online authenticity are bubbling to the surface. If Kanye sees it as a problem as serious to him as unfairness to Obama and alleged corruption at the MTV Video Music Awards, you know it’s in the mainstream consciousness. In that sense, efforts to fight fake news are overdue — Kanye’s speech is a reflection of frustration that, in some ways, has been simmering for months or even years.
Lost in all of this: ‘If you ain’t got an iPhone, don’t put it up. Only originals.’ He’s in Ye mode now. https://t.co/0LYyxhz1Rz
— Edgar Alvarez (@abcdedgar) November 20, 2016
Source: Fader (1), (2)
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