Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Can Play a Role that Churches and Little League Once Filled
June 27th, 2017I’ll see you down at Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates.
Via: CNBC:
Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook groups to play an important role that community groups like churches and Little League teams used to perform: Bringing communities together.
And with nearly 2 billion people around the world on Facebook today, he might have a chance to make it happen.
Zuckerberg laid out his lofty ambition in a Chicago speech last week that suggested Americans are in need of something to unify their lives.
“It’s so striking that for decades, membership in all kinds of groups has declined as much as one-quarter,” he said during a rally for Facebook users who’ve built large community-support groups on the site. “That’s a lot of of people who now need to find a sense of purpose and support somewhere else.”
He added, “People who go to church are more likely to volunteer and give to charity — not just because they’re religious, but because they’re part of a community.”
Zuckerberg thinks Facebook can help, using its networking power to organize people.
“A church doesn’t just come together. It has a pastor who cares for the well-being of their congregation, makes sure they have food and shelter. A little league team has a coach who motivates the kids and helps them hit better. Leaders set the culture, inspire us, give us a safety net, and look out for us.”
Zuckerberg has now had six months to study how some savvy Facebook users, reportedly including Russian hackers, turned the internet platform he built into an online machine that spread fake news and helped elect Donald Trump as President — whom he snubbed this week.
Now that he’s seen how powerful a tool Facebook can be for spreading disinformation, Zuckerberg is pushing to use Facebook’s artificial intelligence algorithm to make the site even better at organizing online communities.
“We started a project to see if we could get better at suggesting groups that will be meaningful to you. We started building artificial intelligence to do this. And it works. In the first 6 months, we helped 50% more people join meaningful communities.”
His ultimate goal is to convince 1 billion users to join Facebook communities.
“If we can do this, it will not only turn around the whole decline in community membership we’ve seen for decades, it will start to strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together.”
EU Has Fined Google $2.7 Billion for Manipulating Search Results
June 27th, 2017Via: Recode:
The European Union slapped Google with a record-breaking $2.7 billion fine on Tuesday, charging that the U.S. tech giant had manipulated search results in a way that gives an “illegal advantage” to its own services while harming the company’s rivals.
The punishment — announced at a press conference by Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s leading competition official — follows a seven-year investigation into Google and requires the company to change its practices within 90 days or face additional penalties.
At issue for EU regulators is Google’s comparison shopping service, which Vestager believes the company had boosted unfairly by giving it “prominent placement” in search results — all the while having “demoted rival comparison shopping services.”
“What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” Vestager said in a statement. “It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.”
Google long has rejected the EU’s charges — and in a statement Tuesday, the company maintained it displays its results in a way that helps consumers “find the products you’re looking for quickly and easily.”
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U.S. Warship Stayed on Deadly Collision Course Despite Warning from Container Ship
June 26th, 2017Via: Reuters:
A U.S. warship struck by a container vessel in Japanese waters failed to respond to warning signals or take evasive action before a collision that killed seven of its crew, according to a report of the incident by the Philippine cargo ship’s captain.
Multiple U.S. and Japanese investigations are under way into how the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and the much larger ACX Crystal container ship collided in clear weather south of Tokyo Bay in the early hours of June 17.
In the first detailed account from one of those directly involved, the cargo ship’s captain said the ACX Crystal had signalled with flashing lights after the Fitzgerald “suddenly” steamed on to a course to cross its path.
The container ship steered hard to starboard (right) to avoid the warship, but hit the Fitzgerald 10 minutes later at 1:30 a.m., according to a copy of Captain Ronald Advincula’s report to Japanese ship owner Dainichi Investment Corporation that was seen by Reuters.
Amazon Robots Poised to Revamp How Whole Foods Runs Warehouses
June 26th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
In negotiations, Amazon spent a lot of time analyzing Whole Foods’ distribution technology, pointing to a possible way in which the company sees the most immediate opportunities to reduce costs, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the issue was private. Amazon, through a spokesman, declined to comment, as did Whole Foods.
Experts say the most immediate changes would likely be in warehouses that customers never see. That suggests the jobs that could be affected the earliest would be in the warehouses, where products from suppliers await transport to store shelves, said Gary Hawkins, CEO of the Center for Advancing Retail and Technology, a Los Angeles nonprofit that helps retailers and brands innovate. As Amazon looks to automate distribution, cashiers will be safe– for now.
“The easiest place for Amazon to bring its expertise to bear is in the warehouses, because that’s where Amazon really excels,” Hawkins said. “If they can reduce costs, they can show that on the store shelves and move Whole Foods away from the Whole Paycheck image.”
France to Ban All New Oil and Gas Exploration; Reduce Nuclear Power Use
June 24th, 2017Via: Independent:
France is to stop granting licences for oil and gas exploration as part of a transition towards environmentally-friendly energy being driven by Emmanuel Macron’s government.
Nicolas Hulot, the “ecological transition” minister said a law would be passed in the autumn.
“There will be no new exploration licences for hydrocarbons,” he told BFMTV.
The minister, previously famed in France for his environmental activism and nature documentaries, also outlined proposals to increase the taxation on diesel and to “make decisions faster” to curtail pollution.
Mr Macron said he was opposed to exploration for gas and favoured a ban on fracking during his election campaign, particularly in the overseas territory of French Guiana.
But Mr Hulot was among those warning that any ban would trigger lawsuits from energy companies and saying change must be imposed gradually.
Around 75 per cent of France’s electricity is currently provided by nuclear power stations, with the industry employing around 200,000 people and led by state-owned EDF.
A law was passed last year to reduce the nuclear proportion to 50 per cent by 2025, sparking controversy over potential job losses and the closure of up to 20 reactors.
Mr Macron reinstated his commitment to the law last month but has evaded concrete targets for the ultimate aim of making France run completely on renewable energy.
Excessive Lead Levels Found in Almost 2,000 Water Systems Across All 50 States
June 24th, 2017Via: USA Today:
While a harsh national spotlight focuses on the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation has identified almost 2,000 additional water systems spanning all 50 states where testing has shown excessive levels of lead contamination over the past four years.
The water systems, which reported lead levels exceeding Environmental Protection Agency standards, collectively supply water to 6 million people. About 350 of those systems provide drinking water to schools or day cares. The USA TODAY NETWORK investigation also found at least 180 of the water systems failed to notify consumers about the high lead levels as federal rules require.
Many of the highest reported lead levels were found at schools and day cares. A water sample at a Maine elementary school was 42 times higher than the EPA limit of 15 parts per billion, while a Pennsylvania preschool was 14 times higher, records show. At an elementary school in Ithaca, N.Y., one sample tested this year at a stunning 5,000 ppb of lead, the EPA’s threshold for “hazardous waste.”
Brutal Kangaroo: CIA Malware for Air Gapped Systems
June 24th, 2017Via: WikiLeaks:
Today, June 22nd 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the Brutal Kangaroo project of the CIA. Brutal Kangaroo is a tool suite for Microsoft Windows that targets closed networks by air gap jumping using thumbdrives. Brutal Kangaroo components create a custom covert network within the target closed network and providing functionality for executing surveys, directory listings, and arbitrary executables.
The documents describe how a CIA operation can infiltrate a closed network (or a single air-gapped computer) within an organization or enterprise without direct access. It first infects a Internet-connected computer within the organization (referred to as “primary host”) and installs the BrutalKangaroo malware on it. When a user is using the primary host and inserts a USB stick into it, the thumbdrive itself is infected with a separate malware. If this thumbdrive is used to copy data between the closed network and the LAN/WAN, the user will sooner or later plug the USB disk into a computer on the closed network. By browsing the USB drive with Windows Explorer on such a protected computer, it also gets infected with exfiltration/survey malware. If multiple computers on the closed network are under CIA control, they form a covert network to coordinate tasks and data exchange. Although not explicitly stated in the documents, this method of compromising closed networks is very similar to how Stuxnet worked.
Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads
June 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Google is stopping one of the most controversial advertising formats: ads inside Gmail that scan users’ email contents. The decision didn’t come from Google’s ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud sells a package of office software, called G Suite, that competes with market leader Microsoft Corp. Paying Gmail users never received the email-scanning ads like the free version of the program, but some business customers were confused by the distinction and its privacy implications, said Diane Greene, Google’s senior vice president of cloud. “What we’re going to do is make it unambiguous,” she said.
Ads will continue to appear inside the free version of Gmail, as promoted messages. But instead of scanning a user’s email, the ads will now be targeted with other personal information Google already pulls from sources such as search and YouTube. Ads based on scanned email messages drew lawsuits and some of the most strident criticism the company faced in its early years, but offered marketers a much more targeted way to reach consumers.
Amazon: Delivery Drone ‘Beehives’?
June 23rd, 2017Via: The Verge:
Amazon’s drone delivery program stopped being a joke a while ago, but the company still has to overcome serious challenges to make the technology actually work. One of these is getting drones near enough to large populations so they’re more efficient than regular road delivery. Amazon has an idea for that though: Huge. Drone. Beehives.
In a patent application published yesterday, Amazon described how “multi-level fulfillment centers for unmanned aerial vehicles” could help put drones where they’re needed. The application notes that due to “their large footprint,” current warehouses are located “on the outskirts of cities where space is available.” But multi-story drone centers could be built vertically, rather than horizontally, allowing them to be placed within “downtown districts and/or other densely populated urban areas.” And, of course, making them high-rises would let the drones fly in and out without getting dangerously close to pedestrians at street level.
Amazon’s application includes sketches of a number of differently shaped buildings and interior views, showing how human employees would load-up the drones with packages.
