YouTube invests $5 million in ‘positive’ video following backlash

YouTube has faced some serious backlash against awful content, lately, from exploitative childrens’ videos to Logan Paul’s ill-advised video of a corpse. YouTube needs to up its positivity, and it may be doing so with a $5 million additional investment in its socially-aware Creators for Change program, which premiered at the Tribeca TV festival last year.

YouTube notes that people around the world spent hundreds of thousands of hours watching Creators for Change videos tens of millions of times. The company says that it’s taught more than 15,000 young people in over 200 locations with workshops and school programs. Students surveyed in Germany and the UK, said Google, were able to feel more confident in identifying and countering hate speech, for example.

Source: YouTube

Facebook feigns accountability with ‘trusted’ news survey

When Facebook announced it was rolling out a major overhaul to its News Feed earlier this month, it did so with the intention of prioritizing interactions between people over content from publishers. It was a notable shift in strategy for the company, which for the past couple of years had been working closely with news outlets to on heavily promote their articles and videos. But, Facebook discovered that people just weren’t happy on the site — likely due to the vast amount of political flame-throwing they’ve been exposed to since the 2016 US Presidential election. So in order to alleviate this problem, it decided it was best if users saw more posts from friends and family, instead of news that could have a negative effect on their emotions. Because keeping people both happy and informed is, apparently, hard.

Unfortunately, Facebook’s solution to this problem doesn’t seem to be the best one. Last week, it said its plan is to only put front and center links from outlets that users deem to be “trustworthy.” Which just proves that Facebook would rather put the responsibility for policing misinformation on the community instead of itself. This is concerning because Facebook is, essentially, letting people’s biases dictate how outlets are perceived by its algorithms.

The full Facebook news trustworthiness survey.

It its entirety. https://t.co/bd0qkkXGgN pic.twitter.com/oUvTZLNiyB

— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) January 23, 2018

As reported by BuzzFeed News, Facebook has a “trusted” news source survey that consists of two simple questions: “Do you recognize the following websites?” and “How much do you trust each of these domains?” For the first one, the answers you can provide are a simple “yes” or “no,” while the latter gives you the options to reply with “entirely,” “a lot,” “somewhat,” “barely” or “not at all.” That doesn’t seem like the best or most thorough way to judge editorial integrity. Not only that, but the survey doesn’t take into account personal biases, leaving the system wide open to abuse. This is only going to encourage people to continue to live in a bubble of their own creation, where there’s no room for information or opinions that challenge their worldview.

Facebook seems to think the benefit to its survey is that it’s simple and straightforward, though that’s actually why it’s so misguided. There’s no room for nuance or additional context. How many people will say they don’t trust the New York Times or CNN simply because President Donald Trump calls them “Fake News” any chance he gets? Sure, those particular outlets shouldn’t have any problem being recognized as legit, but even labeling them as such doesn’t seem like it’s a responsibility Facebook’s willing to take on. A Facebook spokesperson said to Engadget that Facebook is a platform for people to “gain access to an ideologically diverse set of views,” adding the following:

We surveyed a vast, broadly representative range of people (which helps — among other measures — to prevent the gaming-of-the-system or abuse issue you noted) within our Facebook community to develop the roadmap to these changes — changes that are not intended to directly impact any specific groups of publishers based on their size or ideological leanings.

Instead, we are making a change so that people can have more from their favorite sources and more from trusted sources. I’d also add that this is one of many signals that go into News Feed ranking. We do not plan to release individual publishers’ trust scores because they represent an incomplete picture of how each story’s position in each person’s feed is determined.

“There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today,” Zuckerberg said in Facebook post announcing the News Feed changes. “Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them. That’s why it’s important that News Feed promotes high quality news that helps build a sense of common ground.”

The problem is that, by letting its users control how the system works, Facebook may actually end up amplifying the fake news bubble it helped create. Facebook users were instrumental in the spreading of misinformation and Russian propaganda during the 2016 US Presidential election. According to its own data over 125 million Americans had been exposed to Kremlin-sponsored pages on Facebook.

“The hard question we’ve struggled with is how to decide what news sources are broadly trusted in a world with so much division,” Zuckerberg added. He said that Facebook could try to make that decision itself, but that “that’s not something we’re comfortable with.”

There was also the thought of asking outside experts to help with the issue, Zuckerberg said, but apparently he wasn’t okay with that either because it would take the decisions out of Facebook’s hands and “would likely not solve the objectivity problem.” Instead, Facebook chose to rely on the community’s feedback to rank publishers — you know the same community that was responsible for sharing phony headlines like “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide.”

Facebook told Engadget that this isn’t designed to be a voting system, and that people can’t volunteer to weigh in on how trustworthy a news outlet is. The idea is that a random sample of people will be surveyed and Facebook is going to ensure there’s diversity among those who participate — meaning the answers will come from Democrats, Republicans or users without party affiliation. And even if there are some people who respond based on their political ideology, Facebook said it won’t affect the ranking of any given publisher because no one group can.

The company suggested that labeling publications appropriately won’t be an issue, because it only determines their value if many different groups of people agree that a certain one is trusted or distrusted. Still, it’s hard to imagine just how exactly this is going to work as Facebook hopes, especially in a country that’s obviously so politically divided.

Either way, Facebook clearly seems to be having an identity crisis. And it begs the question: Why can’t a company worth billions of dollars, and with so much influence, seem to come up with a better solution? Yes, Zuckerberg said that Facebook didn’t feel comfortable leaving the objectivity decisions up to outside experts, but how is it any better to let users be the judge? Surely there’s a third option in which Facebook takes some responsibility (perhaps with third-party help), and builds something more robust than a useless survey.

Images: Reuters (All)

Alphabet enters the cybersecurity business with Chronicle

Google parent company Alphabet has a new business and it’s all about cybersecurity. Chronicle is an independent business under the Alphabet umbrella and it’s aimed at helping companies find, track and stop cyber attacks. With two branches — a cybersecurity and analytics platform as well as a malware intelligence service called VirusTotal — Chronicle will use its massive processing power and data storage capabilities to both assist businesses in searching for and retrieving information much more quickly than they can on their own as well as spot patterns that may become more apparent when years of data are able to be analyzed. “Add in some machine learning and better search capabilities, and we think we’ll be able to help organizations see their full security picture in much higher fidelity than they currently can,” said Chronicle CEO Stephen Gillett in a blog post.

Gillett says that because companies are often hit with thousands of security alerts per day, it’s almost impossible to assess all of them thoroughly. “As a result, it’s pretty common for hackers to go undetected for months, or for it to take a team months to fully understand what’s going on once they’ve detected an issue,” he writes. “All this adds up to more data breaches, more damage, and higher security costs.”

Inadequate cybersecurity has never been a more apparent problem than it is today. Last year we saw reports of data breaches affecting government agencies like the US Army and the NSA, companies like Equifax, Forever 21 and Accenture as well as data exposures impacting voting machines, political strategists and Verizon customers. There were also multiple widespread ransomware attacks.

Chronicle says a few Fortune 500 companies are already testing a preview of its cybersecurity intelligence platform. “None of us have to settle for cyber crime being a fact of life, or for a reactive, expensive existence of cleanup and damage control,” it says. “We’re looking forward to working with many organizations in the coming years to give good the advantage again.”

Source: Chronicle

Drake breaks Taylor Swift’s Spotify record for most streams in a day

Poor Tay Tay. The queen of pop music has just been deposed on the streaming service she fought with most by none other than Drake himself. According to Pitchfork, the artist’s latest song, “God’s Plan” now holds the title for the most streams in a single day ever.

When reached for comment, Spotify confirmed the news with Engadget. “We can confirm ‘God’s Plan’ by Drake now holds the US record as the most streamed track in a single day on Spotify,” a spokesperson told us in an email. “The song has overtaken previous record holder Taylor Swift with ‘Look What You Made Me Do.’” Pitchfork notes that Drake was the most streamed artist back in 2016 and also set the record for Spotify’s most-streamed song of all time, “One Dance.” Now, of course, Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” holds that title. Drake was also the most popular artist in 2015, making this new victory over TSwift even sweeter.

Via: Pitchfork

Scientists clone monkeys for the first time

Ever since cloning produced Dolly the sheep, scientists have copied a slew of mammals ranging from dogs to ponies. Primates, however, have been elusive — until now. Chinese researchers have successfully cloned a macaque monkey fetus twice, producing sister monkeys Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong using the same basic method used to create Dolly. The team removed the nucleus from monkey eggs and replaced it with DNA from the fetus, implanting the resulting eggs in female monkeys for them to give birth.

The process wasn’t easy. It took 127 eggs and 79 embryos to get these results, and it still required a fetus to work (Dolly was cloned from an adult). Still, it reflects progress in cloning science. The team managed the feat by injecting both a form of mRNA and an inhibitor, the combination of which improved the development of blastocysts (the structures that form the embryo) and the pregnancy rate for transplanted embryos.

Both baby macaques are healthy, the researchers said, and genetic tests confirm they really are duplicates. There could be success with cloning based on adults, too, as the team is still waiting on results from multiple pregnancies.

In theory, this makes human cloning more realistic given the genetic similarities between monkeys and our own species. However, that’s unlikely to happen any time soon, if at all. There are numerous ethical objections, and not just because it would involve creating exact copies of people. Whether or not you mind cloning based on fetuses, the process currently requires many failures to get to the intended results. There’s also the question of what happens with those clones that do survive into adulthood — they may face pressure to live up to the original.

As such, monkey cloning may be limited to medical research, where having more than one monkey with the same genes could help scientists compare the results of treatments or test under specific conditions. That still won’t please everyone, but it’ll at least represent an ethical line in the sand that science is unwilling to cross.

Via: AP News

Source: Cell

macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 Displays Warnings When Opening 32-Bit Apps as Part of Apple’s Phase Out Plan

Starting with macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, Apple is commencing with its plan to begin phasing out 32-bit apps on Macs. Apple has promised that macOS High Sierra will be the “last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromises.”

After installing macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, which is now available in a beta testing capacity, when you open up an app that’s a 32-bit app, you’ll get a warning about its future incompatibility with the macOS operating system.

This is the first of many warnings Apple plans to provide as it works to put an end to 32-bit Mac apps, and this initial warning will only be shown one time for each app.

Apple’s efforts to phase out 32-bit apps on Macs mirror the path it took when ending 32-bit app support on iOS devices. In iOS 10, Apple provided increasingly more insistent warnings to let users know that their apps wouldn’t work with future versions of iOS before phasing out 32-bit support entirely in iOS 11.

As of January 2018, all new apps submitted to the Mac App Store must be 64-bit, and all apps and app updates submitted must be 64-bit by June of 2018. The next version of macOS after High Sierra will include “aggressive” warnings about 32-bit apps before they are phased out entirely.

Once 32-bit apps are phased out on Macs, they won’t be able to be used at all, so users will need to find replacements for older 32-bit apps that aren’t likely to be updated to 64-bit.

Related Roundup: macOS High Sierra
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Xcode 9.3 Beta Includes New Tools to Help Developers Detect Apps Using Too Much Battery

Along with the first beta of iOS 11.3, Apple today also seeded the first beta of a new Xcode 9.3 update to developers. Xcode 9.3 introduces a new Energy organizer that’s designed to help developers detect when an app or app extension is using up too much battery life on a user’s device.

The Energy organizer will display logs that are generated when an app exceeds a “reasonable CPU threshold” when running in either the foreground or the background, making it easier for developers to pinpoint and fix bugs.

Xcode 9.3’s release notes also mention a new 64-bit testing mode in macOS 10.13.4 that will allow developers to test software for 64-bit compatibility as Apple prepares to begin phasing out 32-bit Mac apps. In macOS 10.13.4, end users will see a notification when launching a 32-bit app, which warns them that 32-bit apps will not “run without compromise” in future versions of macOS.

Additionally, 32-bit is not offered as an option in Xcode’s build settings UI, and the build system will emit a warning when building for macOS for the 32-bit architecture.

Xcode has also been designed to run more Swift build tasks in parallel with other commands, improving build times for Swift projects. It may, however, also result in increased memory usage during the build.

Xcode 9.3 requires a Mac running macOS 10.13.2 or later, which means the software will no longer run on Macs that continue to use older operating systems like Sierra.

Developers can download Xcode 9.3 from the Developer Center.

Tag: Xcode
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Apple Releases Swift Playgrounds 2.0 With New Gallery, Subscription Feature for Following Content Creators

Alongside new iOS 11.3, macOS 10.13.4, and tvOS 11.3 betas, Apple today released a major update for Swift Playgrounds, the iPad app that’s designed to teach students how to code.

Swift Playgrounds 2.0 introduces a new feature that lets users subscribe to playgrounds from third-party creators, browse and download their content, and get alerts when new playgrounds are made available from content creators.

The update also includes support for new robots like IBM’s TJBot and the Mekamon, accessible via the Add Subscriptions button, and a new gallery view will show all playgrounds including third-party subscriptions in one easy-to-see single view.

A new Locations button is designed to let users open playgrounds from the Files app on the iPad, and documentation for iOS features and commands is now available from the Help button and the tools menu.

The latest version of Swift Playgrounds includes new features to make it easier to discover even more content. Now you can subscribe to playgrounds from your favorite third-party creators, then browse and download their content directly within Swift Playgrounds. You’ll automatically see new and updated playgrounds in your subscriptions, a content gallery that shows all playgrounds in a single view, new robots, and much more.

Swift Playgrounds 2.0 can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
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Safari 11.1 in macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and iOS 11.3 Introduces New Features and Optimizations

Both macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and iOS 11.3 ship with an updated version of Safari, Safari 11.1. Safari 11.1 incorporates many new features that have been in testing in Apple’s Safari Preview browser, introducing new web APIs, security improvements, media changes, and more.

Details on the Safari 11.1 update were shared by Apple’s Ricky Mondello, and a full change log is available from Apple’s developer website.

Animated GIFs can be replaced with silent videos in Safari 11.1 to result in smaller downloads, more available colors, and better decoding performance.

In iOS 11.3, Password AutoFill for apps works in web views within apps, which will make it easier to log into a site without having to copy and paste your password each time. Web apps that are saved to the Home screen on iOS devices and web pages in SFSafariViewController can also now use the camera to capture images.

A new security change provides a “Website Not Secure” warning when a user clicks a credit card field or password entry box on an insecure page, and

Intelligent Tracking Prevention, which prevents websites from tracking you around the web, has been improved in Safari 11.1, and there’s a new improved Safari Reader extraction engine to improve the Safari Reader experience.

Service Workers, new in Safari 11, are designed to allow background scripts to power offline web applications, and there are several other new APIs including Payment Request API, Directory Upload, Beacon API, HTMLImageElement.decode(), and an updated Clipboard API.

Safari 11.1 is bundled in to iOS 11.3 and macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, both of which are available for developers starting today. Apple plans to release iOS 11.3 and macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 public betas in the near future.

Tag: Safari
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Jigsaw Story: A good puzzle simulator that works best on bigger screens (review)

In all the game genres available in the Play Store, sometimes you may want to game in a much more chill, passive way. No quick reflexes. No bells, whistles, and music blaring at you. No multi-level story line or myriad of villains and their evil armies to survive.

Something like, say a puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle. But the real ones can be a pain to even get started, with trying to find space. And once you start, you’ve kinda committed that space until you’ve either solved the puzzle, or gave up and just put it all back in the box. In any case it’s not an easy start, and the commitment level is high.

How about a jigsaw puzzle on your device? How about multiple ones? With an intertwining story? Where you can decide the size and complexity before beginning, and where you can leave off without any ridiculous mess on your dining table?

There is a free option in the Play Store, called Jigsaw Story (download from the Play Store here). Jigsaw Story gives you multiple puzzles at a difficulty of your choosing, all while trying to put some semblance of a story between puzzles to pull you along. Let’s take a quick tour of this game and see if it’s a fit for you. It’s a family-friendly offering by the developer Happy Square Studio.

Setup

Setup is easy, but this is where you do have some choices to make. After downloading from the Play Store, you simply open the game, and you’re brought right to the tutorial screen.

Here’s where you can establish just the kind of experience you want. You can choose the first of seven different series of puzzles (each series comprises 10 puzzles in total), each with a different theme. You can adjust how many pieces (40, 80, or more), and whether the pieces can be rotated or fixed (please start with fixed; you’ll get overwhelmed fast otherwise).

Gameplay

From there you’re off into your puzzle! On the right is a sliding tray of all your loose pieces. Start taking some off and putting the on the board (edge and corner pieces first, right?). You can move these pieces as you wish throughout the puzzle. As you find your first match, drop it next to it’s mate and you will get a chime and glow-flare indicating they are now locked. Once locked you can still move them, but the locked pieces will now move as one unit.

Starting out.

Peeking at the final image.

On the lower-right you have several settings and tools at your disposal. Settings include turning audio on or off (background music is a pretty generic ding-a-ling tune). Tools are way more interesting; here you can preview the finished image as many times as you want (though only as a thumbnail; not allowing you to “cheat” too easily). You can also click a button that “filters” the available pieces in your tray to edge & corner pieces first (if you’re like me, this is your first move in the game!). Also, if your screen gets too busy, there is a ‘recall’ button that pulls all the individual pieces off the screen and back into the tray on the right side.

Once you complete a puzzle (hooray!) you gain points that you can use to chose which puzzle you want to tackle next. While there is a series of 10, you can choose the sequence that you solve them. Also, between puzzles, the game gives you a short story based on the character(s) and backgrounds within the puzzle theme. Granted, these seem a bit forced at times, but they do offer another level of interaction with the game.

Completed!

Visuals

The puzzles themselves are very aesthetically-pleasing; with each of the seven themes providing a wide array of visuals both within an individual puzzle, and going into deeper puzzles. And the graphics of picking, moving, and placing pieces is rather satisfying, relatively-speaking.

The stories leave a little to be desired.

The big complaint (literally relatively-speaking) is that you need a bigger device screen to truly enjoy this game; 6″ minimum, in my opinion. I played on an LG G6 (5.7″ diagonal) and I found myself squinting more than I’d like. This game is most at home on a tablet or similar-sized device. Otherwise the pieces are just too small. You solve a puzzle by finding small visual clues within each piece, and on a phone-sized screen it’s just too difficult. On a tablet this would be a truly enjoyable experience.

Conclusion

Overall I was very impressed with Jigsaw Story. If you want to just chill out with an Android game, and be able to pick-up/put-down at your leisure, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable and relaxing alternative.