Tag Archives: It

Facebook, Google Are Managing the Internet When It Suits Them

  Google and Facebook are facing new competition to their online business models after President Donald Trump signed a bill putting Internet service providers on a path to being able to monetise online users the same way these technology giants do. Next up is the threatened unwinding of the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules, which could put these companies in a double bind, because ... Read More »

Dear Dr Kasturirangan, Reforming Indian Education Is Not As Tough As It Looks

Dear Dr Kasturirangan, As the former chairperson of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), I’m sure you are no stranger to shouldering big responsibilities. Even then, your current responsibility, as the head of the panel to draft the National Education Policy, perhaps dwarfs everything else. Because it has the power to transform India. It is much easier to improve the position ... Read More »

Facebook Moderation Guidelines Leaked, Show How It Reviews Hate Speech, Extremist Content

HIGHLIGHTS Challenges such as revenge porn have overwhelmed Facebook moderators It reviews around 6.5 million reports of potentially fake accounts a week It confirmed that it was using software to intercept graphic content Leaked Facebook documents show how the social media company moderates issues such as hate speech, terrorism, pornography and self-harm on its platform, the Guardian reported, citing internal ... Read More »

Fitbit May Buy Pebble, but Can It Really Make a Killer Smartwatch?

HIGHLIGHTS There are reports of Fitbit acquiring smartwatch maker Pebble Third-party smartwatches have missing features or rely on hacks You’re probably better off buying Android Wear or an Apple Watch Recently, reports have been circulating that Fitbit, the foremost player in the fitness-wearable space, is looking to buy Pebble, one of the early smartwatch makers with considerable clout in that ... Read More »

Alphabet claims Uber was hiding the self-driving technology that it allegedly ripped off

A new court filing from Alphabet claims that Uber hid a key piece of self-driving technology that it allegedly copied from Waymo, the Google parent company’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary. “They were hiding a device,” Alphabet said in a filing today, supporting its motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent Uber from working on self-driving technology. Uber says it isn’t ... Read More »

What It Takes to Build a Startup in 2017

Thinking about building a startup in 2017? You’re going to be up against a huge challenge this year. It’s a lot different building a startup today than it was a couple of years ago. It is far more competitive, the advertising costs are much higher and you have to do a much better job in acquiring customers. It’s great that ... Read More »

Technology is a marvel – now let’s make it moral

Illustration by Jasper Rietman Illustration: Jasper Rietman Countless decisions must soon be made about how Britain navigates the world, having cut itself adrift from the European Union. And alongside the obvious things like trade deals and immigration rules, we ought too to make choices about who and how we want to be as a society. What is Britain in the ... Read More »

Tackling abuse on social media is a monumental task – but billion dollar companies should be up to it

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies have faced criticism over their moderating CREDIT: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Much of the activity which makes up our lives online is conducted in public. The giant social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Youtube – are all to some extent designed around similar principles; they thrive on open, instant, global participation. The processes of ... Read More »

Official: America auto-scanned visitors’ social media profiles. Also: It didn’t work properly

The US Department of Homeland Security used software to scan social media accounts of people visiting America, but it didn’t work properly. That’s the conclusion of a study by the department’s inspector general. In a heavily redacted report [PDF] that surfaced this week, the watchdog revealed that in December 2015, US Citizenship and Immigration Services ran a pilot program to ... Read More »

Is Your Business App On Android? Here’s Why It Had Better Be

Planning a new app for your small business? Make sure you build it on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Android, since that’s where you’re most likely to find your customers. According to a new Gartner report, Android is dominating the smartphone marketplace with a whopping 86.2 percent share in the second quarter of 2016. Android Dominates Smartphone Business Android’s topnotch performance came from ... Read More »