Zuckerberg’s vague new mission for Facebook

Facebook had already run into rocky territory over the past year, stumbling over censoring historically-significant content and wrestling with its own role in the election, before Trump came to office. Amid an ‘America First’ administration raising uncertainty about how the US fits in with the rest of the world, the social network’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote an extensive letter to the public outlining his company’s next direction — which isn’t to say it’s a new direction. In a sprawling 5,700-word essay, he rallies for globalization and using Facebook to build a massive, integrated community beyond the US. In other words: To keep growing the network and making it more essential for users.

In soaring and ambitious wording, Zuckerberg sees Facebook as the foundation of a social infrastructure enabling a global community. It can help build a supportive, safe, informed, civically-engaged and inclusive international network, his letter states in bullet points. If there’s a concrete step forward he pledges the company will take, it’s that the social network aims to better connect people by their interests so they can create “meaningful” digital versions of local clubs and institutions — online aspects of the infrastructure that binds humans together.

But the rest of the letter is vague on what Facebook will specifically do to push its 1.8 billion users, and the world, toward globalization. Zuckerberg told The New York Times that the international kerfluffle over censoring the ‘Napalm Girl’ photo convinced him to have Facebook adopt a more nuanced, country-specific content rules rather than its previous blanket policy. Ostensibly, this is the thinking behind the social network’s development of censorship tools as it tries to cozy up to China, which experts worried back in November could be abused by a hostile American administration. Maybe.

Overall, Zuckerberg advocates that integrating Facebook more completely into everyone’s day-to-day will repair what he sees as humanity’s increasingly threadbare social ties. This assertion has some teeth: Safety Check wouldn’t be such a successful tool to assure your community that you’re okay if they weren’t all on it to begin with. Fake news wouldn’t be such a threat if people didn’t earnestly share so much real reporting on the site. But clearly, any calls from the company’s CEO to make Facebook even more necessary to its users is self-serving.

At the least, it’s a public acknowledgment that the social network has new challenges it aspires to address — if not be responsible for. As The New York Times points out, his manifesto is a literal update of the founder’s letter Zuckerberg posted when Facebook when public in 2012, which he hasn’t updated since (bucking the annual rewrite most executives do to outline goals in the new year). While his new statement vaguely addresses what the social network could do with its connective power, it still retains the old letter’s simple desire: To connect more people and get them talking — aka, grow the userbase and keep them onboard.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg’s statement

Some poor soul has a Nintendo Switch, but no games

Today is a bittersweet day for NeoGAF user hiphoptherobot. His Nintendo Switch pre-order arrived on his doorstep two weeks ahead of schedule, but he has absolutely nothing to play on it. “I have no games at all,” he told the popular gaming forum. “All I can do is flip through the menus.” In a short video published on Vidme, he does just that — slowly working his way through the console’s set up process, peeking at News page filled with console use tutorials and fiddling with the console’s settings menu.

Despite encouragement from other NeoGaf users, hiphoptherobot is hesitant to take the console online to check out the Nintendo eShop. He’s afraid the store he bought it from might get in trouble with Nintendo for shipping it early. He’s not being completely paranoid — when retailers shipped the Xbox One to customers ahead of schedule, lucky gamers discovered that taking their hardware online could get it banned. Microsoft eventually sorted out the error, promising to reactivate the legitimately purchased consoles, but the process was a headache for everyone involved. The retailer who shipped the consoles early could face repercussions too, which is why the lucky NeoGAF user hasn’t said who made the shipping error in his favor.

Still, it’s a nice, early look at the Switch’s menu system — a minimalist interface that looks a little like a cross between the Android UI, and the PlayStation 4 menu. In his short video, he shows off the system’s system setup and user creation process, its resolution settings, dark and light themes, the screenshot gallery, a tutorial for detaching the console’s Joy-con controllers and a Nintendo News app. That last page seems to be a hub for game news, advertisements and tutorials for taking screenshots, setting up TV mode and charging. It does tease one thing about the Nintendo eShop, however — underlining a banner for the store with the promise of games, DLC and demos. Hopefully, Nintendo will grace us with more information through official channels soon.

Source: NeoGAF

Microsoft Office for Mac gets Touch Bar support

Owners of the Macbook Pro with Touch Bar will be pleased to hear that Microsoft Office now works with the LCD strip Apple introduced with its latest laptop. Support for Touch Bar was announced alongside the new MacBook Pro at an Apple event last October, but Office support is now available to all users. The Touch Bar has special layouts ready for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, with Outlook and Skype additions coming soon. It’s the latest high-profile app to get Touch Bar support and joins other massive apps like Adobe’s Photoshop and Apple’s own Final Cut Pro.

With the new update, Office users can now insert comments, photos and hyperlinks directly from the Touch Bar, while PowerPoint fanatics have new view-specific controls for presentations. Word Focus Mode makes fullscreen useful by moving important style options to the Touch Bar while keeping the main writing window clutter-free. Dragging along the Touch Bar will help users rotate graphic objects more precisely in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. To get the free update, simply check for updates in the Help menu in any Office for Mac apps you have.

Source: Microsoft

Valve may be using a neural net against ‘Counter-Strike’ cheaters

It sounds like Valve is taking advantage of a neural network to combat the spread of cheats in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Posting on Reddit, someone using the moderator-verified Valve Anti-Cheat account wrote that a fix is in the works for folks using spinbot hacks. A spinbot, as Rock, Paper, Shotgun describes it, helps avoid being hit by other players’ weapons. Combined with aiming cheats, it makes the cheater pretty impervious to defeat.

But the type of processing power needed to fuel this sort of endeavor sounds pretty intense considering everything that goes on in a given match, and the amount of matches that take place per day. Seems like Valve has this covered, though.

“The process of parsing, training, and classifying player data places serious demands on hardware, which means you want a machine other than the server doing the work. And because you don’t know ahead of time who might be using this kind of cheat, you’d have to monitor matches as they take place, from all ten players’ perspectives.

There are over a million CS:GO matches played every day, so to avoid falling behind you’d need a system capable of parsing and processing every demo of every match from every player’s perspective, which currently means you’d need a datacenter capable of powering thousands of cpu cores.

The good news is that we’ve started this work. An early version of the system has already been deployed and is submitting cases to Overwatch. Since the results have been promising, we’re going to continue this work and expand the system over time.”

It’s important to note that Overwatch is the company’s system for weeding out cheaters — not Blizzard’s competitive shooter that’s taken the world by storm. Considering Valve’s work on AI in the past and how much the company values its Steam platform, not to mention Counter-strike itself this all sounds pretty realistic.

We’ve reached out for confirmation that this indeed was a post made by Valve, and will update this post should it arrive. Given the outfit’s historic reticence to respond to press inquiries, though, the chances of hearing back may be slim.

Comment from discussion ELI5: Why are spinbots not auto-detected or atleast kicked for ‘improper play’..

Via: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Source: Reddit

The Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $30 on a UE Roll 2 Bluetooth speaker

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

Honeywell HCM-350 Germ Free Cool Mist Humidifier

Street price: $70; MSRP: $70; Deal price: $50

This deal matches the previous lowest price we’ve seen on the Honeywell HCM-350, and is the best price we’ve seen in quite some time. Coming in at $20 under the street price, it’s a solid discount. This deal is only available in black.

The Honeywell HCM-350 is our top pick in our guide to the best humidifier. Tim Heffernan wrote, “The Honeywell’s evaporative technology (as opposed to ultrasonic or warm mist), avoids problems common to the other methods, like overhumidification, pools of condensed water around the base, and white mineral dust building up on nearby surfaces. The HCM-350 Germ Free Cool Mist Humidifier is easier to keep clean than nearly every other humidifier we’ve tested, because every part that touches water is free of electronic components and lacks the sharp angles that harbor buildup. And the HCM-350 is the only humidifier we’ve found that has a seamless, molded reservoir, which eliminates a problem common in inferior models: leaks. Evaporative humidifiers like this are not the most powerful type, but in less than two hours, the Honeywell reaches and maintains a comfortable level of humidity in a room up to about 400 square feet.”

Fitbit Charge 2

Street price: $150; MSRP: $150; Deal price: $130

We’ve seen the Fitbit Charge 2 at $130 before, but the key to this deal is in using Visa Checkout. By using Visa Checkout, you can get $25 off on purchases over $100. That drops the price of this Fitbit Charge 2 down to $105 which is a new low price and an incredible deal. Make sure you sign up for a separate Visa Checkout account and that your credit card and address info is correct, then select it during the checkout process and you should see the discount automatically apply.

The Fitbit Charge 2 is our social support pick in our guide to the best fitness trackers. Amy Roberts wrote, “Fitbit has a lock on social support features thanks to its multiyear head start in building its user base. While its trackers aren’t quite as accurate as other makers’, it’s hard to discount the motivation that comes with friendly competition. So if you have friends who already use Fitbit, there’s a benefit to also getting one. The Charge 2, with its trim size, move alerts, and automatic activity tracking (they call it SmartTrack), is our pick for social support. However, heart-rate tracking is where most Fitbits fall short, including the Charge 2. In our tests, its readings were all over the place, so if your exercise program follows strict heart-rate zones, this Fitbit isn’t for you. Also, the Charge 2 (like all Fitbits) is not fully waterproof and merely “sweat, rain and splash proof.” So take it off when you shower or swim. Overall, it’s a user-friendly device for people who prefer to stay in the Fitbit ecosystem, but our other picks are more capable if you’re starting out on your own.”

Canon EOS 80D EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit Refurbished

Street price: $1,080 (new); MSRP: $1,250 (new); Deal price: $850

We posted the camera body alone at $800 new late last year, so to get the lens as well for just $50 more is an excellent bonus. While refurbished, the items in this bundle are covered by the standard one year Canon warranty. Shipping is free.

The Canon EOS 80D is our runner-up in our best midrange DSLR guide. Amadou Diallo wrote, “If you plan to shoot video on a regular basis, or if you already have several Canon lenses you don’t want to replace, we recommend the Canon EOS 80D, which is a significant improvement over its predecessor (the EOS 70D, our previous runner-up). The image quality of this 24-megapixel DSLR isn’t quite as stellar as that of our top pick.”

UE Roll 2 Bluetooth Speaker

Street price: $100; MSRP: $100; Deal price: $69

This is a great deal on our top pick for portable Bluetooth speaker, just matching the previous low we’ve seen it at once before. We normally see this Bluetooth speaker only go on sale for $80, and at over $10 below that, this is a great deal on the UE Roll 2.

The UE Roll 2 is our top pick in our guide to the best portable Bluetooth speakers. Brent Butterworth wrote, “The original UE Roll was our unanimous pick for the best portable speaker when we tested 30 new models last year, and we feel just as strongly about its replacement, the UE Roll 2. Like the original, the UE Roll 2 sounds full, with smooth reproduction of everything from bass notes to cymbals, and it plays loud enough to fill a hotel room or a spot at the beach with sound. It’s so watertight, it will survive being dunked 1 meter underwater for 30 minutes. Seven months of worldwide traveling with the original Roll have only confirmed our love of this design. The only real downside is that it lacks a speakerphone function.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursdays, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

Carriers compete: Sprint launches unlimited deal after Verizon, AT&T do

Why it matters to you

Sprint is giving you another option by slashing the prices of its own unlimited deals to keep pace with T-Mobile and Verizon.

When carriers compete, you win. Verizon’s recent reintroduction of its unlimited data plan has set off a feeding frenzy of sorts among the big four cell phone service providers, all to your benefit. The latest company to unveil a brand new unlimited deal is Sprint, who on Thursday announced a plan that promises to be 50 percent of the cost of Verizon and AT&T unlimited rates. At $22.50 a line, the company is calling the offer its best ever and it includes HD-quality video, 10GB mobile hotspot per line, and an iPhone 7 lease.

That’s right — if you switch to take advantage of this new deal, Sprint will let you lease the new iPhone 7 for $0 monthly payments for 18 months. “Only Sprint can offer the best price for unlimited — 50 percent off Verizon and AT&T unlimited plans — and a network that can handle the data demands to meet customers’ needs,” said Marcelo Claure, Sprint president and CEO. He continued, “Our unmatched spectrum position gives us a clear competitive advantage in a high-capacity unlimited world.”

More: T-Mobile undercuts Verizon’s unlimited plan, throws in HD video for good measure

We should point out that in order to secure the price of $22.50 per line, you will need to activate a total of four lines. When you sign up for Unlimited Talk, Text and Data with Sprint AutoPay, you will receive your first line for $50 a month. Two lines will set you back $90 a month, and the addition of your third and fourth lines come at no extra cost. That means that ultimately, a family of four would pay $22.50 for each line a month.

Even if Sprint gets an influx of customers from its new offer, the network isn’t worried about handling the uptick in data consumption. “With more than 160MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum in the top 100 U.S. markets, Sprint has more spectrum than any other carrier across the nation,” the company noted in a release. “This is a tremendous advantage, allowing Sprint to keep adding the capacity and speed needed to serve its customers’ increasing demand for unlimited data.”

‘Injustice 2’ is coming to mobile, and it’s bringing a new combat system with it

Why it matters to you

If you don’t have an Xbox One or PS4, you’ll still be able to punch superheroes in the face when Injustice 2 launches in May.

Superhero brawling is making its way back to mobile with Injustice 2, the sequel to the hit beat ’em up, Injustice: Gods Among Us. Alongside the main game’s release on the PS4 and Xbox One, the mobile release is bringing with it a full roster of characters, new features and game modes, and — most importantly — a fully revamped combat system.

Announced by Mortal Kombat co-creator and NetherRealm creative director Ed Boon, it looks like much of what will appear on the PS4 and Xbox One when Injustice debuts in May will also show up on the mobile version.

Yes #Injustice2 is coming to mobile! Brand new app with tons of new features, modes & all new combat system! More info soon! pic.twitter.com/C1GLWXhOgK

— Ed Boon (@noobde) February 15, 2017

Unfortunately, official details about how the game may differ from the console version and the original Injustice on mobile remain nearly nonexistent.

Character-wise however, we can make some claims about inclusions. In the screengrabs Boon showed in the Tweet, we see a number of characters, including multiple versions of Superman and Batman, Green Lantern, Catwoman and Deadshot, as well as roster listings for Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Gorilla Grodd, and a character portrait of The Flash.

We’re told that the main game will have the biggest roster of characters of any DC beat ’em up ever, so it seems likely that the mobile version will also have more characters than before.

More: ‘Injustice 2’: News, rumors, and everything we know

Other details we can infer from the screengrabs include energy and currency mechanics that are similar to the original game, and battle sequences that have the ability to pause or fast forward.

Boon has promised more details soon, and with the main Injustice 2 game coming as soon as May 16, we won’t have long to wait until both iterations are available to play.

Trends with Benefits: Elon Musk is boring a hole under LA, would you take a pilot-less flying taxi?

Pilot-less Flying Taxis: If you head to Dubai this summer, you could be one of the few people to actually try out a flying pilot-less taxi. The 184 has one passenger, eight propellers, four arms and NO pilot. Would you be willing to go for a ride?

Boring Company: Elon Musk posted on Twitter in December that he was tired of sitting in traffic and said he wanted to bore a hole under the freeways to alleviate it. It looks like he was serious, because he is now drilling test holes in the SpaceX parking lot!

Each week, we gather a round table of tech experts from the Digital Trends staff, along with the occasional celebrity guest, to discuss all things tech. Topics range from the big tech stories of the week to predicting the future, all while maintaining a somewhat civil decorum.

At 2:45 pm Pacific we answer your questions live.

Please subscribe and share Trends with Benefits and send in your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We also broadcast the show live on YouTube every Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Pacific.

Maximize your workouts with the Wahoo Tickr X Heart Rate Monitor ($20 off)

Sometimes the best workout trackers are not the ones you wear on your wrist. Others that attach to other places in your body can get better readings, especially when it comes to measuring heart rate, which gives you more accurate data and better insights into your workouts. The best of these non-wrist wearables that are smartly designed, will be compatible with your favorite fitness apps, such as the Wahoo Tickr X Heart Rate Monitor and Workout Tracker, currently discounted by 20 percent and available for $80 on Amazon.

More: The Best Fitness Trackers You Can Buy

The Wahoo Tickr X captures both motion and intensity to ensure you get the most effective workouts. With the companion Wahoo Run/Fit App, the workout wearable measures heart rate, training zones, calorie burn, running form metrics, and indoor run and spin cadence. Especially useful for runners, it tracks various other indicators of running form like vertical oscillation, cadence, and ground contact time. Additionally, the treadmill mode tracks distance and speed when you’re running indoors. To save you time, you can pair the TICKR X with the Wahoo Seven Minute Workout App and get a high-intensity circuit workout, with automatic rep counting, and personal record tracking.

Complete with built-in memory, the wearable allows you the freedom to train without a phone. The device will still capture valuable performance metrics and then syncs them to your phone later. The most advanced model in the line of Wahoo Tickr devices, the activity tracker can deliver vibrational alerts and is both sweat and waterproof.

Best of all, the fitness tracker is compatible with third-party apps and other devices. The Wahoo Tickr Xis both iOS and Android compatible and works flawlessly with more than 50 Smartphone Apps including Nike+ Running, MapMyFitness, Runkeeper, Strava, Apple Health, and Cyclemeter/Runmeter. With both ANT+ and Bluetooth 4.0 capabilities the tracker easily connects to GPS watches (including Apple Watches), iPhone 4S and later models, and Android devices with Android 4.3 or newer operating systems.

The Wahoo Tickr X Heart Rate Monitor and Workout Tracker normally retails for $100 but is currently marked down to $80 on Amazon, giving you a $20 or 20 percent discount.

$80 on Amazon

Valley that shows signs of flooding may be key to identifying past life on Mars

Why it matters to you

Sites like a small valley on Mars that shows signs of past flooding may hold the key to discovering that we are not alone in this universe.

Mars has a new hot spot for exploration, according to a team of researchers who’ve identified a region that shows signs it was once flooded with water. The region may offer a prime spot to explore  for signs of past life on the red planet.

“The site on Mars that we have examined is located on the floor of a small valley that was eroded by flowing water,” Mary Bourke, a Trinity College, Dublin researcher who co-led the team that made the discovery, told Digital Trends. Along with her colleague, Heather Viles, from the University of Oxford, Bourke published a paper detailing her findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters this week.

More: Spiders on Mars? Citizen scientists help NASA spot the strange formations

“For the topic of our paper, there is an additional geomorphological signature, and that is the layers of sediments on that valley floor that are visible between the aeolian (windblown) dunes that now occupy the valley,” Bourke said. “Those sediments are arranged in such a way that they suggest they are traces of dunes that have migrated down the valley. There are only a limited number of ways in which those sediments could be present, and they all involve the presence of water.”

To make these observations, the researchers used high -esolution satellite data, which allowed them to identify small-scale landforms that resembled features seen in satellite images of Namibia here on Earth. “We were able to visit the site in Namibia to help us test our theory about the Martian features,” Bourke said.

“We are interested in this in terms of the aeolian geomorphology,” Bourke said, “but perhaps also as a potential new site for those planning Mars missions, where habitable conditions were met on Mars.”

Moving forward, Bourke and Viles will continue to research how water helped construct Martian landforms while studying analogous sites in Namibia, Antarctica, and Australia.