The new order requires the company to ban developers who don’t comply with its privacy policy. Facebook also has to make a new committee focused on privacy-related risks. In a statement posted on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, said the company will review its systems and bring new privacy controls: In a blog post, Facebook said it will perform quarterly certification checks to ensure privacy controls are working properly. To implement this, we’ll have to review our technical systems to document any privacy risks and how we’re handling them....

But that’s not the only project the social network is working on in the news space. According to a report from BuzzFeed News, Facebook is testing an AI-powered tool called TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) to summarize news pieces, so you don’t even have to click through to read those articles. The report noted that the company showed off this tool in an internal meeting last night. It’s also planning to add features such as voice narration and an assistant to answer queries about an article....

Thankfully, we have seen plenty of AI models in the last few years that make this task easier by automatically captioning photos. Facebook, which introduced a model called Automatic Alternative Text (AAT) in 2016, has updated its model to identify objects in a photo 10 times more efficiently than before, and in greater detail. The refreshed model can easily recognize things such as activities, landmarks, and types of animals in a picture....

The former US president’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were blocked in the wake of the US Capitol insurrection, due to concerns that Trump would use the platform to foment further violence. At the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the ban would remain in place at least until Joe Biden replaced him as president. But now that the inauguration has taken place, the decision has been referred to the platform’s new Oversight Board, raising the possibility that his account could be reinstated....

A press release confirms the telecom giant will face court over allegations it violated the Federal Communications Act, a consumer contract, as well as several other laws, when hackers assumed the identity (and telephone account) of cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin in 2017. “Judge Wright strongly repudiated AT&T’s audacious bid to prevent [Terpin] from demonstrating to a jury the carrier’s contempt for consumers’ privacy and utter disregard of its legal obligations to prevent this very type of SIM swap and financial crime,” said Terpin’s defence....

The Acoustasonic series is Fender’s latest take on the acoustic-electric guitar. In essence, it’s an acoustic guitar that looks like a Strat – you can play it out in the woods around a campfire completely unplugged just like a Dreadnought or any other regular old six-string strummer. And, like other acoustic-electrics, you can also plug it in to an amp if you want to get loud. What’s novel here is that Fender’s managed to add in the necessary hardware to make the Acoustasonic guitars fully electric as well....

The new act — akin to Europes General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — gives a right to people in California to know and control personal data collected by websites. While CCPA will give folks in California more command over their data, Firefox’s new change will roll out to all users of its browser. In a blog post, Firefox said it already collect very little data about its users. It does take note of how many tabs are open and how long sessions are, but with the update, you’ll be able to delete that too: Make sure to update your Firefox browser on January 7 and check out our Basics section for a guide on how to delete your data from Firefox....

Thankfully, they’re not only on sale here, but you can also get an added 15 percent off when you use the promo code MERRY15 during checkout. Better hurry though…this discount is only good for two days only. Then like the Big Guy himself, it’s gone… 1. Mondly Language Learning App Mondly can turn you into a polyglot, allowing you to learn up to five languages by immersing in Mondly’s unique approach to language acquisition....

The automaker will establish Ion Park in Romulus, Michigan, realizing the 2010 commitment to make its home state Ford’s center of excellence for EVs. “The new lab will help Ford speed up the battery development process to deliver even more capable, affordable batteries,” said Anand Sankaran, the Park’s director. To accomplish this mission, Ion Park will focus on optimizing all aspects of the battery value chain, from mining to recycling....

Surgical emergencies are in fact one of the main challenges when it comes to human space travel. But over the last few years, space medicine researchers have come up with a number of ideas that could help, from surgical robots to 3D printers. Mars is a whopping 54.6 million kilometers (33.9 million miles) away from Earth, when closest. In comparison, the International Space Agency (ISS) orbits just 400 kilometers above Earth....

Emoji has been referred to as a “lingua franca” — a bridging language that allows us to bypass spoken language barriers and cultural differences. But emoji aren’t just as level ground for communicating, or as an innocent outlet to sext, they’ve become an accessible symbol of activism and politics over this past decade. “Emoji has become a summary of our society and has increasingly intertwined with our conversations, even when we’re talking about politics,” Lilian Stolk, an emoji expert told TNW....

Despite the fact these were Predator drones – the same kind the US used to assassinate a foreign general earlier this year – the mission was strictly surveillance. The drones were reportedly unarmed. Officials say the drones carried no onboard facial recognition software, but nearly 300 hours of film was streamed to ICE agents and other CBP personnel during the operation. Despite it being unconstitutional to film protesters, there’s nothing to stop the government from running this footage through facial recognition software now or in the future....

Insurance policies help us tackle risk and make sure that we are covered if things don’t turn out the way we expect. And in this regard, Lloyd’s has a long history of providing some of the boldest and most eccentric insurance covers. Here are some of the things you might not have known could be covered. Titanic Everyone knows the tragic story of the Titanic, the luxurious British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after colliding with an iceberg on the morning of April 15, 1912....

Slip into the skin of a genetically-engineered assassin hunting down a secret cabal of global titans sucking the world dry. Or play both sides of a deadly game of cat and mouse between special forces soldiers and an alien killing machine. Or face the ultimate challenge: learning the skills to serve meals at lightning-fast speed to defeat a giant evil meatball from destroying the fabled Onion Kingdom. Those are the games users get absolutely free this month — and three of the dozens of free games they’ll get throughout the year as a PlayStation Plus subscriber....

But, you know what? Specialization is overrated. Rather than pursuing one narrow programming path, why not learn a bunch? The Pay What You Want: 20-Course Programming Bundle is a kitchen sink-sized programming package that jams in just about any web development discipline you could ever want. And rather than charging you an Ivy League sum for all that schooling, it’s actually on sale now at any price you want to pay....

The aim of this feature is to learn how you write code, and to suggest lines and functions automatically, learning how to. What’s more, the Copilot tool helps you find alternative ways to solve a problem and use, new APIs easily. GitHub has developed this feature in partnership with OpenAI, but it’s not based on GPT-3. Here’s what the company said about its technical capability on the blog: The feature is also capable of autofilling code that repeats itself, turning comments or descriptions into functioning code, and helping you build tests for your project....

Business Insider today broke the story reporting that “some 200” employees had signed a letter demanding answers from the company’s CEO Nat Friedman. According to the article (paywall), the employee received a warning from HR for their comment before being terminated for what the company claims is a pattern of misconduct. Background: Without knowing exactly what GitHub’s claiming the employee did before the “Nazi” statement it’s difficult to assess whether the blow-back against the company is likely to die out or become a grassroots movement similar to the currently unfolding situation surrounding Google’s firing of eminent AI ethicist and researcher Timnit Gebru....

The software uses Bluetooth to alert people if they’ve been in contact with someone who has the virus. When a user declares that they’ve likely caught COVID-19, the system sends a notification to other Android phones and iPhones that have been in their vicinity. The idea is to both reduce infections and help governments monitor the viruses’ spread. However, it will only be effective if a lot of people use it, a problem that has plagued most existing contact-tracing apps....

But if today’s Google I/O presentation is anything to go by, Google really wants to make sure it’s known as a hardware company too. Granted, Google has been building its hardware portfolio for years now, but devices have sometimes felt like a side gig for the company — products destined for the Google graveyard. Then the company announced the Pixel 6 and revealed its in house processor, the Google Tensor, signaling a deeper commitment to hardware....

And then Google took the feature away sometime around May last year. Now it appears to be back, as first reported by Android Police. Redditor u/Meningna noticed its return yesterday. While it doesn’t appear to be back for everyone just yet, a few other redditors have seen it too, including Android Police‘s Rita El Khoury and yours truly on our Pixel 4 XLs. The feature started out life as “Now on Tap” – back when the Google Assistant was ‘Google Now....