Once, Facebook allowed academic researchers access to its data. We know how that story ends: with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now LinkedIn, the professional social networking site owned by Microsoft, says it will open its vast trove of data to academic researchers. But the company, whose chief data officer, Igor Perisic, made the announcement in a blog post Monday, said it’s putting controls in place to protect user privacy. The data will be restricted to only those whose academic proposals have been approved. The researchers will only have access to aggregate, anonymised data and will only be able to use it within a secure…
Author: Loknath Das
Instagram has started testing placing recommended posts in user feeds. Unlike recommended posts in the Explore tab that have been a part of the photo sharing platform for a long time, recommended posts in the Instagram Feed will reach select users over the next few days. The recommended posts will be visible to you at the end of your Feed – just below the “You’re All Caught Up” message that was introduced early last month. This is notably not the first time when Instagram is testing recommended posts in the Feed. The Facebook-owned company was spotted showing recommended posts in the Feed back…
Facebook will pull Onavo Protect virtual private network application from the App Store after getting word that it violates Apple’s data collection rules, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The free application creates an encrypted VPN connection that routes internet activity through computer servers managed and secured by Facebook. The app also alerts users when sites they visit might be malicious. Facebook is able to gather information about how people use smartphones outside of the leading social network’s services, potentially gleaning insights about rivals or internet trends. “We’ve always been clear when people download Onavo about the information that is collected and how it is used,”…
Facebook on Wednesday said it has suspended more than 400 of thousands of applications it has investigated to determine whether people’s personal information was being improperly shared. Applications were suspended “due to concerns around the developers who built them or how the information people chose to share with the app may have been used,” vice president of product partnerships Ime Archibong said in a blog post. Apps put on hold at the social network were being scrutinized more closely, according to Archibong. The app unit launched in March by Facebook stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal. Facebook admitted that up to 87…
Amazon Game Studios’ next project is an adaptation of an Amazon Prime Original television show, The Grand Tour, the car enthusiast program hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, all formerly of Top Gear. Aptly titled The Grand Tour Game, the racing game will feature “incredible cars, exotic locations and ridiculous challenges” from the TV series, Amazon said in a news release. The Grand Tour Game will be delivered episodically alongside season three of the show. It will feature four-player split-screen support and voice-over from Clarkson, Hammond and May. The game will also incorporate footage from the show, with “seamless” transitions between…
BattleTech, the turn-based strategy title from Harebrained Schemes, turned a lot of heads when it was released in April. Now the developers have announced their first expansion. Called Flashpoint, it will include new BattleMechs, a new biome and a new mission type. Flashpoint is the first in a series of procedurally generated short stories, according to a news release issued this week to coincide with the Gamescom convention in Germany. The announcement was accompanied by a new trailer, which we’ve embedded above. “Flashpoints are high-stakes branching short stories, comprised of procedural mercenary missions linked together with new crew conversations, special events, critical choices, and valuable rewards,”…
The NBA socialverse is petty, dramatic, and even a little bit narcissistic. And that’s what makes it the best pro-sports social media world on the internet. It’s one of the few places where headlines are made by someone liking an Instagram comment. It’s also a place where you’ll see stars slide into random people’s DMs—not for anything like that, but just to argue about their skills. And it’s certainly the only place where grown men share pictures from Arthur, a decades-old PBS cartoon. What makes NBA stars on Twitter and Instagram different from stars in other sports is that many of them aren’t shy about…
Synergy said Microsoft’s dominance of the large collaboration segment has helped it to distance itself further from the chasing pack of SaaS providers. “Thanks primarily to its leadership in the collaboration segment, Microsoft’s annual revenue growth is running at 45%, far surpassing overall market growth,” the analyst noted. Along with Google, ServiceNow and Oracle, Microsoft is the fastest-growing SaaS provider. Synergy said Salesforce is the second-largest SaaS provider and remains the dominant player in customer relationship management (CRM), but this segment is relatively low growth compared to other SaaS segments, enabling Microsoft to pull ahead in the overall market. The third-biggest SaaS provider is Adobe,…
Cisco’s transformation from a networking hardware company into a diversified business with lots of exposure to software is finally starting to pay off, according to CNBC’s Jim Cramer. Last Wednesday, the company reported earnings of 70 cents per share, excluding certain items, up a penny from analysts’ estimates of 69 cents per share. It also beat top line expectations, reporting $12.84 in revenue versus the $12.77 billion that Wall Street estimated. Shares rose more than 6 percent on the fourth quarter results. The Mad Money host gave all the credit to CEO Chuck Robbins, who is leading the charge to shift from hardware to…
Social networking giant Facebook is donating $250,000 (nearly Rs 1.75 crore) for relief work in Kerala, which has been battered by torrential rains, floods and landslides, leaving over 300 dead amid massive destruction, the company said on Monday. Facebook will donate the money through the Community Resilience Fund for GOONJ – a Delhi-based non-profit organisation that is leading the relief and recovery efforts in the impacted localities. “In the last few days, Facebook along with the power of the community, has helped reach out to people through features such as Live, creating Page, joining community and raising funds,” a Facebook spokesperson told…