Thursday, 31 March 2016
Reddit’s missing ‘warrant canary’ suggests classified data requests from feds
Reddit issued its annual transparency report Thursday morning, listing the amount and type of data requested by various authorities. There’s plenty of interesting info, but perhaps most interesting is what’s not there: the site’s “warrant canary.” Read More
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Snapchat is down after Chat 2.0 boosts interest
Snapchat isn’t working for many users, with Stories failing to load and snaps not sending. The outage comes just days after Snapchat released its big Chat 2.0 update that brought stickers and other new features, but possibly more traffic than the service could handle. DownDetector shows a massive increase in problem reports over the past few hours. Users also appear to be having… Read More
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Spain’s Glovo acquires Italy’s Foodinho to expand on-demand delivery service
Spain’s Glovo, which operates a local on-demand delivery service similar to Postmates in the US, or Jinn and Quiqup in the UK, has acquired Italy’s Foodinho. Read More http://ift.tt/1UWEnhY
Here's why Cortana leaves Siri and Google Now in the dust
Introduction and bots
It isn't often that Microsoft is the company that beats Apple and Google to the punch, especially when it comes to something as cool and sophisticated as virtual assistants but, with Cortana, Redmond has done just that.
The presentation that Microsoft gave at Build 2016, the company's annual conference in which it explains where it's at and what it's doing, focused on 'bots', artificial intelligence, and improving services like Cortana.
Cortana means business
Siri, the virtual assistant that Apple launched alongside the iPhone 4S, and Google Now, the assistant embedded in most new Android phones, are rapidly being outpaced by Microsoft's assistant, which is available on smartphones, tablets, and PCs. This may not seem like a radical difference, but it does mean that Cortana is well-placed to dominate in an area that Microsoft thrives in – the enterprise.
Embedding Cortana into the mindset of businesses is important and, thanks to the rapid uptake of Windows 10, possible. Every Windows 10 PC has the little box in the bottom left that, when pressed, brings up Cortana, ready to answer any queries, help with any tasks, or respond to inane prodding. Apple and Google do not have this advantage as the assistants are not available on OS X or Chrome OS, the company's respective PC operating systems.
This isn't the first time in recent memory that Microsoft has outmanoeuvred its competitors. Windows 10, the newest version of the operating system that went on sale last summer, runs across smartphones, tablets, PCs, Xbox, and Internet of Things devices seamlessly, ushering in a new era of universal apps and the Universal Windows Platform.
This platform is what enables Cortana and will, in the future, allow Microsoft to make sweeping advances with its software that can then be rolled out across any number of devices across all hardware ranges. Cortana is simultaneously available on a Microsoft smartphone, a Lenovo tablet, and a Dell PC, and, thanks to Windows 10, she works just the same on all of them.
Bot building
Build also saw Microsoft adopting a different kind of technology: bots. Essentially, bots are little pieces of software that 'attach' onto other software and offer services automatically. For example, a bot enabled in Skype can translate a chat in real-time while a bot in Edge, the browser in Windows 10, can automatically order a pizza from Domino's.
Microsoft is describing this as 'Conversation as a Platform' and spent a lot of time on stage explaining why it is so important for the future of the company, especially since it failed to get in on mobile quick enough to have a meaningful market share now.
Cortana Intelligence Suite
Cortana Intelligence Suite
Cortana, it would seem, is about to get a lot more useful thanks to bots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Microsoft is formalising this by launching the Cortana Intelligence Suite, which is made up of two parts: Microsoft Cognitive Services, a set of APIs that let computers understand humans in more natural terms, and the Microsoft Bot Framework, which lets developers and companies create and manage bots more easily.
All of these software services are built on the back of Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform, and work alongside Office, Windows, and every other piece of software that Microsoft currently makes.
This is important as it means that businesses who have already bought into Microsoft services can quickly and easily harness Cortana and bots, increasing their productivity in the process. For Microsoft, this is a big win on every single level.
Life changing applications
But the applications for this software don't end there. One of the demos that Microsoft showed focused on a blind software engineer who works for the company in London. Thanks to Cortana, artificial intelligence, and a specially made pair of glasses, he can 'see' things as the computer identifies them and describes them. The accompanying video was moving and, for Microsoft, a good way to show how its technology can really change people's lives.
Google has touted its artificial intelligence smarts in relation to Google Now and, in some ways, it is an impressive technology that can track and predict what the user will be doing. Siri, in iOS 9, also picked up some deeper learning capabilities. But neither rivals Cortana and the aggressiveness with which Microsoft is constantly updating the assistant to deal with new tasks.
This obviously has big applications in the consumer world, but the enterprise world is where Microsoft can really hammer this home. No other company – not Amazon, not Google, not Oracle, not Box – has the level of data, the virtual assistant, or the operating system to do what Microsoft is doing and this is why Cortana is such a key part of Microsoft's long-term appeal with businesses.
Windows 10 is now on 270 million PCs and businesses are taking to the operating system at an unprecedented rate, according to Microsoft, which means the data set from which all of the intelligent services can draw will only grow bigger and bigger over time making them more and more useful.
Data makes the world go round
One of the goals that Microsoft outlined at Build was to enable users to interact with their computers using natural language. This is achieved by collecting vast amounts of natural language data which is then processed, broken down, and learnt from. Microsoft now has this data and is using it to improve Cortana and its other services.
For the first time in a very long time, Microsoft is leading in a way that Apple, Google, and almost every other big technology firm simply cannot do, and it is this which will firmly cement Redmond's place as the war over who gets the most users, the cleverest software, and ultimately the biggest share of the profits continues.
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Humidity rather than heat is the number one enemy of the hard disk
Heat isn't the biggest enemy for the humble hard disk, rather humidity is what causes the most failures, a new piece of research has observed.
The study, carried out by Rutgers University and entitled 'Environmental Conditions and Disk Reliability in Free-cool Data Centres', found that the most negative effects on drive controllers and adapters were felt when humidity levels increased.
As Network World reports, the testing took place in Microsoft data centres and encompassed over a million hard drives over a period of several years, and unsurprisingly found that the vast majority of hardware failures in the data centres – 89% of them – were disk failures.
Clear difference
And as the humidity level rises, hard disk rises, failures increase to such an extent that the study authors noted you could easily tell which data centres had humidity controls, as those which didn't showed up clearly when they looked at the annualised failure rate of controllers.
Humidity is such a danger that researchers found that positioning drives in the "hot region at the back of the server" actually improved the reliability level of the drives, because the heat kept humidity at bay – and the heat is clearly the lesser of two evils.
Whether the cost of advanced humidity controls for a data centre is worth it compared to what you'd fork out replacing the extra failed disks is another matter – although that also depends on how long-term you're looking.
Last month, we saw some research from Google on the reliability of the hard disk's big rival, the SSD. That also turned up an interesting finding, namely that it wasn't the amount of usage the SSD had seen which correlated with high error rates, but simply the age of the drive.
In other words, heavy usage isn't the big demon which it used to be, and today's SSDs cope far better with heftier workloads.
- Also check out: The hard drive is becoming obsolete
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Citymapper launches seamless routing between Cabs and Public Transit
Citymapper is making a significant push into the US market today with the news that it has added what it is calling a “SuperRouter” capability. This effectively combines public transit with cabs to create completely new integrated routes. In simple terms, it means you could ask Citymapper’s app to come up with a route, and it would give you options both a cab service like… Read More http://ift.tt/1Y1MQPg
Microsoft will bake ad blocking into its Edge browser
Microsoft is planning to build ad blocking directly into its Edge browser on Windows 10, and that integration will be coming soon.
This fact was revealed at the company's Build conference in a session concerning what's coming next for Edge, where a slide was shown detailing incoming improvements ranked in terms of their importance – with number one on the list being extensions, unsurprisingly.
Extensions will be going live in the next version of Edge, which will arrive in the next major Windows 10 Anniversary Update (although they're live in preview already, in a limited form anyway) that lands later in the summer.
Integrated ad blocking is number four on the list – so a pretty high priority – and is also targeted for that same version of Microsoft's browser coming in the summer. That could render extensions like Adblock Plus unnecessary before they've even had a chance to emerge on Edge – depending on the quality of Redmond's effort, of course.
Block around the clock
Microsoft already has some anti-advert measures in Internet Explorer in the form of Tracking Protection Lists which block some ads, with Firefox offering similar measures, and of course recently we've seen other major browsers plump for integrated ad blocking.
That includes Apple's Safari on mobile, and Opera has recently baked in ad blocking on its desktop browser with the facility also planned for its mobile browser – and what's more, Opera has gone for a proactive blocker which will intervene and ask the user if they'd like to 'block ads and surf the web faster'.
All of which leaves Google's web browser looking rather out in the cold with a definite dilemma. Advertising is Google's lifeblood in terms of revenue, of course, so integrated ad blocking isn't something the company wants to go near with a barge pole – yet if these developments are ignored, Chrome runs the risk of looking outdated compared to the competition, offering slower surfing, and it could effectively become seen as the 'new IE' of the current browsing era.
Those are risks Google will somehow need to balance, but it will be a tricky juggling act to pull off to say the least.
Via: ZDNet
http://ift.tt/1WZts5f
Microsoft will bake ad blocking into its Edge browser
Microsoft is planning to build ad blocking directly into its Edge browser on Windows 10, and that integration will be coming soon.
This fact was revealed at the company's Build conference in a session concerning what's coming next for Edge, where a slide was shown detailing incoming improvements ranked in terms of their importance – with number one on the list being extensions, unsurprisingly.
Extensions will be going live in the next version of Edge, which will arrive in the next major Windows 10 Anniversary Update (although they're live in preview already, in a limited form anyway) that lands later in the summer.
Integrated ad blocking is number four on the list – so a pretty high priority – and is also targeted for that same version of Microsoft's browser coming in the summer. That could render extensions like Adblock Plus unnecessary before they've even had a chance to emerge on Edge – depending on the quality of Redmond's effort, of course.
Block around the clock
Microsoft already has some anti-advert measures in Internet Explorer in the form of Tracking Protection Lists which block some ads, with Firefox offering similar measures, and of course recently we've seen other major browsers plump for integrated ad blocking.
That includes Apple's Safari on mobile, and Opera has recently baked in ad blocking on its desktop browser with the facility also planned for its mobile browser – and what's more, Opera has gone for a proactive blocker which will intervene and ask the user if they'd like to 'block ads and surf the web faster'.
All of which leaves Google's web browser looking rather out in the cold with a definite dilemma. Advertising is Google's lifeblood in terms of revenue, of course, so integrated ad blocking isn't something the company wants to go near with a barge pole – yet if these developments are ignored, Chrome runs the risk of looking outdated compared to the competition, offering slower surfing, and it could effectively become seen as the 'new IE' of the current browsing era.
Those are risks Google will somehow need to balance, but it will be a tricky juggling act to pull off to say the least.
Via: ZDNet
http://ift.tt/1UW6qyh
VR Week: Geffen: 'Amazing' VR will suffer from a quality content drought
When it comes to the cutting-edge of television, Anthony Geffen and Atlantic Productions have a claim to be among the keenest, and it is virtual reality that is currently stirring their interest.
Perhaps best known for their collaboration with iconic broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough, Atlantic have produced some of the most critically acclaimed 3D and IMAX documentaries ever made.
In December last year, its VR studio Alchemy went one step further and produced a VR-ready deep dive - again featuring Attenborough - that took visitors to the world famous Natural History museum in London as close as many of them will ever get to being in a submarine investigating the Great Barrier Reef.
Geffen is a passionate advocate for pushing the envelope in storytelling, palpably excited by the prospects of creating stories in an immersive environment, and with a firm grasp of the issues and bumps ahead in a journey just started.
"We've been interested in VR for a long time, he told techradar. "When it hits the sweet spot it's completely different from anything else and so immersive. It's very exciting.
"The problems that people face are that it is very expensive at the moment but probably the next issue will be that currently [film-makers] are going somewhere, filming with 360 cameras stitching the footage together and just churning it out.
"The first time you let people stand in Piccadilly Circus is sometimes amazing, but you can stand there in real life and it's not a story that people will keep going back to. People will get fed up quite quickly
"And with the public now getting cheap access to VR headsets - like Samsung giving away the Gear VR with its phones etc - what we're not getting fast enough is a lot of powerful VR experiences that will make people think 'Wow this is a great new medium'. That's quite dangerous.
"There are a few amazingly good films but not enough that people will truly engage with."
Geffen believes that mobile phones have proven to be the revolutionary arrival for VR, but the computational power of the likes of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are kindling a more powerful experience.
"The tethered Vive and Rift we are building stuff for too. They can deal with a lot of data, very rich real-time graphics rendering. We're building something to do with the ancient world and the pyramids, you can go inside and move around in real time and it's amazing stuff.
"But that's like shooting a full movie - and how are we going to get that financed going forward?"
VR has, of course, already been through the boom and bust of hype in the 80s, and Geffen admits it remains "dangerous" as an industry despite its obvious attractions. "Half of me predicts the curve will happen in a different way [to the last VR arrival], there isn't the content at the moment but everybody is feeling really good about VR.
"The downturn will come in about September and I think this is a massive problem. Manufacturers should have supported content, but budgets were cut. I think the big providers - the likes of Google - have realised they have made a bit of a mistake and they are now coming to the likes of us for content.
"It's classic for the big manufacturers to launch with second rate content after failing to support the creators. Oculus has a home store with nothing significant to support it.
"We're lucky to have other properly backed productions. Even Google are slow to back content but somebody need to back content."
Geffen used the dive VR production in his regular visits to Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. "It's nice that Google told us that the Attenborough dive was so far ahead of anything they've seen outside of gaming in VR - and they are obviously very sophisticated. Others didn't want to show me their VR content and when I did see some it's not that great.
"It's a real problem...and if a solution doesn't happen quickly we're going to see a big downturn. The potential of this thing is enormous but the barrier for entry is high for the consumer. At the moment it's like having an IMAX screen but no IMAX footage."
Geffen's doubts over VR's imminent journey do not seem to impinge on his enthusiasm for its potential in the longer term, he waxes lyrical on the journey's being provided by the computer generated worlds he's beginning to see, adding, "some of the stuff that's coming will blow everyone away.
"It's not competing with television or cinema - it's a completely different platform," he says. "There are a lot of great film directors doing this as an extension and it needs a lot of people at the top of their game producing great content.
"Now we're seeing huge amounts of 360 video but longer term I see the really exciting end being the the 'scanned world' where you can interact in the environment. Video will be okay but when can move from a fixed position that's the sweet spot.
"We're actually working on a long-scale project of a tethered world with real time graphics and there's no doubt Facebook and other people are thinking ahead to things like the future of communication with that.
"I actually think the goal out there for is for both factual and non-factual worlds and not just the shoot-em-up in a VR world."
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