Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Submission + - Facebook usage has collapsed since scandals, data shows

mrspoonsi writes: Facebook usage has plummeted over the last year, according to data seen by the Guardian, though the company says usage by other measures continues to grow.
Since April 2018, the first full month after news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in the Observer, actions on Facebook such as likes, shares and posts have dropped by almost 20%, according to the business analytics firm Mixpanel. The decline coincided with a series of data, privacy and hate speech scandals. In September the company discovered a breach affecting 50m accounts, in November it admitted that an executive hired a PR firm to attack the philanthropist George Soros, and it has been repeatedly criticised for allowing its platform to be used to fuel ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. “On top of that, Facebook has continued to lose younger users, who are spreading their time and attention across other social platforms and digital activities,” eMarketer said.

Comment Re: Attn: FBI (Score 2) 185

Clarification: The phone was not an iPhone 4s, but an iPhone 6s. The "Die Welt" article only quotes a policeman as saying that "iPhones from 4s upwards cannot be accessed without the PIN", but makes no further statement as to the actual phone used by the accused. The original source, however, clearly states the phone model as an iPhone 6s:

http://www.badische-zeitung.de...

Comment Re:This all sounds impressive... (Score 2) 235

Thank you for one of the few comments in this thread that actually deals with what this is (as opposed to what it isn't, i.e. human-level AI).

I would like to add that hyperparameter tuning is _not_ a trivial part of programming a machine learning model, therefore this IS something rather interesting. It lowers the effort needed to do something interesting with machine learning, and therefore makes machine learning much more accessible to non-experts.

However, the tasks in machine learning that still require humans need a much more flexible sort of intelligence: a) asking the right question, i.e. determining the variables to be predicted and b) finding the right input parameters (or independent variables) that will help answer the question.

Comment Please also make high-end Bluetooth headsets (Score 1) 209

I hope this will also lead to improvements in consumer devices for people without hearing impairment. I am always jealous when I see what an elegant device my father's hearing aid is. All the Bluetooth headsets that I have tried, even at the very high end, are extremely clumsy beasts in comparison. If the experience from lower-end hearing aids trickles down to high-end Bluetooth headsets, that will improve my life considerably.

Comment Re:You get a kick out of hitting yourself? (Score 2) 354

This is not a question of wanting to do something. Germany (like most other countries) has signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol. This means that we cannot legally refuse helping refugees that arrive here. Neither can Austria, the US and 143 other countries. If we now refuse to honor that convention, it will for all practical purposes cease to exist.

Furthermore, I second that we do not really have a problem with the number of refugees in Germany. Temporary issues, yes, but in the long term this will not be a problem.

Comment The attackers will always be ahead (Score 1) 199

Is it just me, or should cars just not come with (much) wireless connectivity?

Granted, a key that opens doors remotely is useful. And it is nice to have a Bluetooth connection to the car radio. But apart from that?

Having the car online most of the time (which is what OTA updates would necessitate) has more downside than upside. In such a life-critical system, the additional convenience of an Internet connection does not justify the reduced safety. I personally never want to see a "Transfer x bitcoins to address y now, and you will get your steering back" message on my dashboard.

Submission + - Australia's major parties vote against encryption in wake of Apple FBI case (delimiter.com.au) 1

daria42 writes: If you're counting on Apple to keep your digital information safe, you may want to think again ... at least if you live in Australia. Yesterday the country's two major political parties — Labor and the Coalition — voted down a motion in Federal Parliament calling for strong encryption to be supported in the wake of the FBI's demands that Apple unlock iOS. It appears that implementing comprehensive telephone and email retention in Australia may not have been the end of demands by law enforcement in the country.

Slashdot Top Deals

% APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; ...and is best for educational purposes. -- A. Perlis

Working...