Facebook 'ugly truth' memo haunts firm

Cambridge Analytica data on as many as 50 million Facebook users may still be out in the wild, according to a report yesterday from the UK’s Channel 4 News.

 The news organization says it has seen a cache of data dating back to the 2014 survey results Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan collected with his app “thisisyourdigitallife.” Kogan later sold that data to Cambridge Analytica, which had connections to the Trump campaign and may have used it to inform election ad targeting.

 The data in question here “details 136,000 individuals in the US state of Colorado, along with each person’s personality and psychological profile,” Channel 4 reports. This would appear to refute Cambridge Analytica’s claims as the scandal unfolded over the last two weeks that it deleted the Facebook data back in 2015 and is not guilty of any wrongdoing.

Cambridge Analytica is currently under investigation from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, and the company has volunteered to undergo an independent third-party audit to clear its name.

Facebook’s vice president and deputy general counsel, told Channel 4 in a statement. “The ICO has launched an investigation into Cambridge Analytica and we are assisting with this. We want to assure people that we have suspended Cambridge Analytica from Facebook.”

BOTS ARE BEING SUED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Artificially intelligent chatbots have dramatically changed the workplace, and they’re not going anywhere. Given the seismic nature of this change, it is crucial for forward-thinking executives to both understand this AI technology and appreciate how it changes their business’ policies and procedures.

Chatbots excel at automating tedious and repetitive tasks, freeing up employees to think strategically, innovate, and tackle more high-level tasks. But the introduction of any new technology brings with it associated complexities to appreciate — and pitfalls to avoid. One of these complexities involves the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Can bots be harassed?

The first question to consider is whether a bot can be sexually harassed. Although legally speaking, one cannot sexually harass a bot, there are three reasons to think it’s still not a good idea to engage in that kind of behavior with a bot:

• It perpetuates a sexist and sexually inappropriate culture.
• It may make one more likely to engage in that sort of prurient behavior with a fellow human employee.
• You could be mistaken about interacting with a bot, when actually you are interacting with a human.

Can bots harass humans?

It may seem curious to wonder about bots and sexual harassment. After all, they’re just pieces of software, not people; they can’t intentionally do things in the way that humans can. But what many people don’t know is that legally, sexual harassment does not have to be intentional, which at least opens the door to musing whether bots can perpetrate acts of sexual harassment.

 Given this, there are three important takeaways for executives to consider when implementing chatbots in the workplace:

• It is vital to provide training for the end user regarding how to interact with the chatbot.
• Your organization should delineate clear company policies for how employees are to engage with the chatbot.
• These policies and procedures should be codified somehow, such as in the employee handbook.

Get ahead of issues

Fortunately, B2B chatbots are very safe to use. They can only really go awry when they are intentionally misused by a human, which is an inherent risk in utilizing any form of technology. Well designed and executed B2B bots are safe for the workplace for the following reasons:

• They are trained only on professional data.
• They are constrained to specific job tasks.
• They even have the potential to help prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.

Even though these B2B chatbots are safe for the workplace, there are still a number of measures you should take in order to guarantee the safety and success of the bot’s implementation.

• Know what the bot’s training and data sources are, and understand the implications those sources will have on your bot’s performance.
• Establish policies to protect the bot against tampering and unwanted manipulation.
• Make sure there is a human in the loop monitoring and training the bot to ensure against unexpected behavior.

And of course, remember that vigilant monitoring of any new technology is pivotal for ensuring its effective implementation. That’s why my company, Talla, always has human employees overseeing bots to ensure proper functioning.

When it comes to the matter of sexual harassment, the two best ways to ensure a smooth integration of bots into your company are:

 (1) be well informed about the relevant features when selecting which bot platform to employ. 

 (2) institute policies that protect the employees, bulwark your company from fault, and provide procedures for remediation when infractions arise.

The fact still remains, should bots be given space to express sexual harassment?

Sources:

http://bit.ly/2H7UUvM

THE MAN WHO SENT HIS SPORTS CAR INTO SPACE IN 2018

Despite his frequent publicity stunts and numerous high-profile ventures, billionaire inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk remains something of an enigma to the wider world. A new CNBC video takes a two-minute dive into the world of Musk to get a closer look.  

The South African-born inventor’s net worth is estimated at around $20 billion. He made his first fortune in the early 1990s selling a web software company called Zip2 for $22 million. He later went on to co-found PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

 

These days, Musk heads up two major companies: Publicly traded automaker Tesla and SpaceX, the privately held space exploration company valued at around $21 billion. 

The notoriously prolific entrepreneur also has his hands in a number of smaller ventures and side projects, including Hyperloop tunnel-boring operation The Boring Company, a brain-computer interface venture called Neuralink, and the nonprofit artificial intelligence project OpenAI. 

Investors are watching closely to see if Tesla — which has its headquarters in Palo Alto and a huge automobile manufacturing facility in Fremont — can deliver its moderately priced Model 3 en masse and successfully become a mainstream carmaker. Among the first of those vehicles debuted at its Palo Alto showroom last month. 

Not content to simply bring electric cars to consumers, Musk is also looking to upend the diesel trucking industry with Tesla’s all-electric Semi slated to debut next year. 

SpaceX has made headlines with its reusable rockets, which hold the promise of drastically reducing the cost — and waste — associated with space travel. The company landed a major milestone last month when it shot the world's biggest operational rocket, the Falcon Heavy, into space with Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster and a dummy named "Spaceman" onboard. 

Though it has been less than a month since SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy into space, astronomers have already been plotting the possible course for the rocket’s payload, Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster. While there’s definitely no chance of Musk getting his car back, scientists say there’s a (slim) possibility of it one day crashing into Earth — eventually. 

A paper published on ArXiv on February 13, superbly titled “The random walk of cars and their collision probabilities with planets,” details “the fate” of the Roadster and its captain. According to the researchers’ calculations, over the course of the next million years, the Tesla has only a six percent chance of smashing into our planet. So even if Elon Musk develops a cryogenic chamber suit to selfishly keep himself alive for millions of years, he still won’t get to give his car another spin. 

Enter the Musk Reads prize giveaway 

While a space car crash landing would certainly make for one hell of a homecoming, the reality is, none of us will be around to see it. That’s because we’ll all be dead and long forgotten — our memories lost to the void. 

Sources:

https://goo.gl/AXRdvN 

SAMSUNG GALAXY S9 RELEASE IS TOMORROW,HERE IS EVERYTHING TO EXPECT FROM IT

It's unlikely the impending unveiling will have many surprises in store, though, as we already know a hell of a lot about the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, courtesy of the online rumour mill.

We've rounded up everything we know about the handset so far below.

Specs

- 5.8in / 6.2in QHD+ Super AMOLED curved display (570ppi / 529ppi)

- Samsung 10nm Exynos 9810 CPU (4x 2.9GHz, 4x 1.9GHz)

- 4GB RAM / 6GB RAM

- 3,000mAh / 3,500mAh batteries

- 64GB storage with microSD expansion up to 400GB

- Cat 18 LTE support (1.2Gbps download speeds)

- Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, front-facing iris scanner

- 12MP Dual Pixel camera with OIS (f/1.5, f/2.4) / Vertical dual rear-facing camera, 8MP front-facing camera

- Bixby AI assistant with dedicated button

- USB-C, 3.5mm headphone jack

- Stereo speakers

- Wireless charging support

- IP68 water and dust resistance

- Built-in FM radio

- Updated DeX docking station

- Midnight Black, Titanium Gray, and Coral Blue, Lilac Purple variants

Say hello to the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9 Plus

Multiple rumors (and common sense) point to a repeat of last year, namely two new phones, once again. According to specs from WinFuture, the main difference between the incoming S9 and the S9 Plus will still be screen size. However, it may not be the only thing separating the 5.8-inch Galaxy S9 from the 6.2-inch Plus version. The bigger S9 Plus will apparently pack dual 12-megapixel rear cameras -- a first for the Galaxy S family, even if the Note 8 picked up a second camera last year.

Animated emoji

At the start of the year, Samsung's chip division announced its latest Exynos mobile processor, and it made a big deal about how its new chip would improve future smartphones' AI performance, face detection and image recognition. Real-time 3D scanning of your face, then, would be very possible. As the press release put it: "Hybrid face detection enables realistic face-tracking filters as well as stronger security when unlocking a device with one's face."

New camera tricks

Let's home in on those purported dual cameras. Beside the depth of field skills we've seen on other companies' camera phones, Samsung might be planning something a little more remarkable: a rear camera that can switch between two different aperture modes.

Like Samsung's Asia-only W2018 from last year, the camera may tap into an f/1.5 aperture for low-light shooting or macro photography, but also use an f/2.4 aperture to ensure more objects are in focus. F/1.5 is also an extraordinarily low f-stop for a smartphone -- and means more light hitting the imaging sensor, more detail and less noise. A very early leak, involving a possible retail box for the S9, suggests this variable aperture camera will make it to both the new phones.

Any other business

Last but not least, it looks like Samsung will fix one of our biggest issues with the Galaxy S8 -- that terrible fingerprint sensor placement. Now, it's graciously moved away from being right next to the camera sensor(s), looking a lot more like rival Android phones, at least on the back. We'll discover which rumors turned out to be true in a few days. There's a conspicuous absence of Bixby news, but we're certain Samsung will have more to say about its beleaguered virtual assistant as it comes up to its one-year anniversary. Rest assured, we'll be giving it a thorough hands-on testing as soon as we can.

Sources:
https://goo.gl/naHKxS

$1.3 BILLION COMPANY LOSS CAUSED BY A 20 YEAR OLD LADY

Snap's shares sank after Ms Jenner's tweet about Snapchat's re-design to her 24.5 million Twitter followers. Celebrity Kim Kardashian's half-sister posted: "sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad."

After dropping almost 8%, shares in Snap closed 6% down on Wall Street, and are now back near the $17 price at which the shares were listed when the company floated on the stock market.

Snapchat is facing intense competition from Facebook's Instagram - especially for celebrity users - and Ms Jenner's attack comes at a time when investors are already worried.

Ms Jenner later tweeted a follow-up: "still love you tho snap... my first love".

Snap has rejected complaints about November's re-design to its messaging app, with its boss Evan Spiegel saying earlier this month that users just needed time to get used to it.Mr Spiegel had something to soften the blow, though, with news on Thursday that his total pay last year was a staggering $637.8m.

It is thought to be the third-highest annual package ever received by a company's chief executive.

The remuneration was, however, heavily boosted by the award of shares when the company listed on the stock market.

Mr Spiegel's basic salary for last year was a more modest $98,078.The package trails the 2007 and 2008 compensation for Daniel Och, head of hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management.

He received annual packages of $918.9m in 2007 and $1.19bn in 2008.

Sources:

https://goo.gl/sh5va7

FAKE NEWS IS STILL WITH US IN 2018 BUT WITH A VIDEO GAME

The online game Bad News lets you build your own fake-news empire.Fake news is still with us in 2018, manipulating our social feeds and minds with blatant appeals to partisanship and emotion.

The media hasn't solved it. Facebook and Twitter haven't eliminated it. The government hasn't fixed it.

Where all of these huge organizations have failed, the game Bad News wants to succeed.Bad News is a browser-based game built to "vaccinate" people against disinformation on social media by placing them in the driver's seat of its distribution. Built by a team of researchers, journalists and academics, the game tasks you with building a fake news empire while avoiding those pesky people complaining about "facts" and "truth."

Bad News is a Twine-style game designed by members of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab and media literacy group Drog. Its goal is to teach players about digital misinformation by turning them into purveyors of it. You’ll start with a small-time Twitter account and slowly build followers by feeding their appetite for fear and anger, while deflecting fact-checkers’ criticism and muddling straightforward issues with minimally plausible conspiracy theories.

You win Bad News by destroying the quality of online discourse for your own gain. You lose by acknowledging nuance, tipping too far into fantasy, or fighting with the game’s snarky narrator. It’s reminiscent of The Westport Independent, a game about running a newspaper in a totalitarian state, except that there’s no ideological justification here — just the endless quest for clicks and eyeballs.

The game works at different levels, involving both bizarre made-up conspiracy theories - one being the claim that dinosaurs built the pyramids - and misinformation with a genuine history.

SOURCES:
https://goo.gl/8eYUzc

MOST POWERFUL PRESIDENT IN THE WORLD SAYS VIDEO GAMES,CAUSE VIOLENCE

Guns don't kill people, but video games might. Movies, too.

That might, at least, be one interpretation from remarks made by Donald Trump during a meeting on Thursday with state and local officials in Florida.

President Trump, weighing in on the ongoing conversation about gun violence in America, suggested laying the blame partly at the feet of pop culture today, citing violent movies and video games as possible causes of the problem.

The president seemed to set his sights on the entertainment band even the internet itself.

At meeting on school safety, President Trump says violence in video games and movies is responsible for shaping young people’s thoughts: “We have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing” https://t.co/VfXvVkwQmq pic.twitter.com/vbt2t0dhtm

— CNN (@CNN) February 22, 2018

He began by suggesting that the internet's influence on young minds should be examined. He moved on, however, to the gaming industry.

in addition to calling out violence in movies and video games, Trump said that the Parkland shooting had led his administration to consider taking action on policy measures to directly address access to guns.

“We have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing and how they’re seeing it, and also, video games,” said Trump, speaking during a discussion on school safety at the White House. “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence in video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.”

Young people have counteracted this narrative, as they have every time it is stated. The survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting have taken to activism, gaining a national profile as they advocate for gun control legislation. Following Trump’s comments today, CNN interviewed a student at the school who did not hold back in his response.

Some might wonder why the president seems keen to point to many things as the potential cause of young mens' violence except the ease with which guns can be obtained by those who shouldn't be anywhere near them.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sources:
https://goo.gl/YWaaKZ