UK recommends that Facebook and other social media sites disable 'like' option and data collection for minors
UK watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has put forward new proposals it believes will help to improve the safety of children online. Among the recommendations is the suggestion that Facebook and other social media sites should disable "like" functionality for minors.
The ICO's "Age Appropriate Design" consultation document is a code of practice for online services, and includes proposals such as minimum age checks and an increase in privacy settings for minors. Another suggestion in the 16-point set of proposals is that social media firms limit the collection of personal data about under-18s.
Hulu buys back AT&T's 9.5 percent stake
Hulu has bought back the minority share AT&T held in the streaming video firm. The two companies have come to an arrangement which sees Hulu purchasing AT&T's minority stake for $1.43 billion.
Buying the 9.5 percent stake at this price values Hulu at $15 billion. The deal gives even greater control to Walt Disney Co, which holds a 60 percent stake in Hulu as part of a joint venture.
Urban Armor Gear launches Plasma Series cases for Huawei P30 and P30 Pro
My everyday smartphone is an iPhone 8 Plus. It's a phenomenal device -- it has a big display, insanely long battery life, a great camera, wireless charging, and Touch ID -- not Apple's finicky face unlock nonsense found on its newer phones. Best of all, it uses the very secure iOS operating system. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Android -- quite the opposite. What I don't like, however, is not getting timely OS updates. That is what ultimately drove me from Google's mobile operating system to Apple's.
There is one new Android smartphone that is so exceptional, however, that I am tempted to leave iOS for it. That phone is the Huawei P30 Pro. This device is drop-dead gorgeous and full of top specifications. While Apple is largely known as the king of cameras, the P30 Pro's photo capabilities are supposedly on another level. If I was to buy the P30 Pro (or even the non-Pro P30), I would want to protect my investment with a rugged case. Thankfully, well-respected case-maker Urban Armor Gear has launched its popular Plasma Series case for both the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro!
Forget Easter eggs, Facebook Messenger now officially has a dark mode
Following the popular trend, Facebook has now officially rolled out the much-requested dark mode option to Facebook Messenger on both iOS and Android.
The feature was available as a secret Easter egg from the start of last month, but now it is being rolled out on a global basis for everyone to enjoy. Dark mode can now be accessed as a regular setting without the need to jump through any special hoops.
Mozilla criticizes Apple's iPhone privacy claims, launches online petition
Apple is one of the most privacy-focused tech companies. It has consistently protected its users, going so far as to defy the US Government by refusing to unlock an iPhone for the FBI. Conversely, Google makes a lot of its money from advertising and tracking users, while Microsoft has extreme telemetry in Windows 10.
And that's why it is so surprising that Mozilla -- another privacy-focused organization -- is criticizing Apple. You see, the Firefox-maker is calling out Apple for allowing advertisers to track iPhone users. Mozilla is going so far as to launch a petition, hoping to get Apple to change an important iPhone default setting.
iOS 13 could herald the arrival of system-wide dark mode, better multitasking and so much more
With the big reveal of iOS 13 thought to be mere weeks away, leaks and rumors now abound. So, what can iPhone and iPad owners expect this time around? Well, it's looking as though 13 could be a lucky number as much sought after features are on the cards.
According to sources, the long-awaited dark mode is said to be arriving, along with new gestures. Apple is also said to be bringing improved multitasking and a lot more besides.
New Kodi 18.2 'Leia' RC arrives -- download it now!
The Kodi Foundation released Kodi 18 'Leia' three months ago, bringing a number of big new features to the hugely popular home theater software, including a new Games area, updated and improved PVR backend clients, and a redesigned Music section.
A month later, a bug fix release candidate -- Kodi 18.1 -- arrived, and today there’s another new release available to install.
Cyber hygiene is at an all-time low
Well-known attacks and attack vectors remained successful because security personnel did not address vulnerabilities and apply patches according to a new report from cybersecurity and visibility business Ixia.
IT vendors created code or configurations that led to many successful security breaches in 2018, but IT operations and security personnel shared the blame due to ignorance of the latest patches and challenges in deploying patches in a timely manner.
Internet Explorer flaw leaves Windows users vulnerable to hackers -- even those who don't use the browser
A zero-day exploit found in Internet Explorer means hackers could steal files from Windows users. What's particularly interesting about this security flaw is that you don't even need to be an Internet Explorer user to be vulnerable.
A security researcher has revealed details of an unpatched exploit in the way IE handles MHT files, and the problem affects Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2. It leaves users vulnerable not only to having their files stolen by hackers, but also means they could be spied upon.
Microsoft email hack was worse than first thought -- some users' messages were accessed
Over the weekend we reported that hackers gained access to Microsoft's web-based email services for a period of three months. Microsoft tried to calm users' concerns by saying that only "your e-mail address, folder names, the subject lines of e-mails, and the names of other e-mail addresses you communicate with" had been accessed. But for some people, things were rather worse.
It transpires that some users have been sent a notification from Microsoft informing them that hackers were able to access the content of emails.
Before you watch Game of Thrones Season 8 premier on HBO, download these FREE PlayStation 4 avatars and theme
Tonight is finally the night! After two years, Game of Thrones finally returns to the airwaves. Unfortunately, the Season 8 premier excitement is bittersweet, as it is the final season. Sadly, there are only six episodes remaining in the series. With that said it will be rewarding to finally find out who becomes the ruler of the world. My money is on Theon Greyjoy to end up sitting on the Iron Throne, but I digress.
Believe it or not, in the USA, you can watch the Game of Thrones Season 8 premier for free. How? Simply sign up for a seven-day trial of the HBO Now streaming service -- just cancel before the trial ends to avoid being charged. That isn't the only free thing that Game of Thrones fans can get today. You see, Sony has launched a really cool PlayStation 4 theme to celebrate tonight's premier.
Facebook suffers huge outage, along with WhatsApp and Instagram
If you've had trouble accessing Facebook today, you're not alone. Users in the US, Europe and Asia struggled to access not only Facebook, but also the WhatsApp and Instagram services owned by the social media giant.
Facebook has said little about this incident which comes just a month after it suffered its worst outage ever, causing problems for users for over 24 hours. This weekend's outage led to #FacebookDown, #instagramdown, and #whatsappdown hashtags trending on Twitter, and numerous reports of problems were posted to Downdetector.
Leaked: Microsoft's Xbox One S All Digital console
The future of the Xbox console certainly appears to be a disc-less one. German website WinFuture has obtained images and details of the console which could be officially revealed in the coming days.
The name has already been spotted on packaging, so we can be fairly sure that it is the final name. As the moniker suggests, the Xbox One S All Digital eschews discs in favor of game downloads -- the packaging itself proclaims "disc-free gaming". The box also reveals some details about the hardware specs of the Xbox One S All Digital.
Microsoft reveals hackers gained access to its web email services for three months
Microsoft has confirmed that hackers were able to access customers' web-based email accounts for a period of three months at the beginning of the year. Between January 1 and March 28, unknown hackers hit the accounts of various Microsoft email services.
The company is in the process of sending notifications to those who have been affected by the issue and it recommends users change their account passwords. (Update: it's worse than first thought!)
In praise of the autoencoder
When you consider all the machine learning (ML) algorithms, you’ll find there is a subset of very pragmatic ones: neural networks. They usually require no statistical hypothesis and no specific data preparation except for normalization. The power of each network lies in its architecture, its activation functions, its regularization terms, plus a few other features.
When you consider architectures for neural networks, there is a very versatile one that can serve a variety of purposes -- two in particular: detection of unknown unexpected events and dimensionality reduction of the input space. This neural network is called autoencoder.
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