Facebook accused of non-consensually mapping faces

According to Bloomberg, a lawsuit has been filed in California accusing Facebook of “collecting, storing, and profiting” from the biometric data of more than 100 million users of its subsidiary Instagram. Facebook rejects the accusation. The complaint was filed this week in state court in Redwood City, in California’s Bay Area. The complaint claims that … Read more

Facebook Messenger Will Limit Forwarding Messages to Only Five People or Groups

Facebook Messenger has added a forwarding limit to let users forward messages only to five people or groups at a time. The new development is aimed to reduce the spread of viral misinformation and curb the circulation of fake news through the messaging platform. In 2018, Facebook brought a similar forwarding limit to WhatsApp in … Read more

Facial recognition for remote ID verification wins Africa Prize

Charlette N’Guessan is the first woman to win the prestigious prize since it was established in 2014, and the first winner from Ghana. The prize was awarded for BACE API, which uses facial recognition to verify identities remotely. N’Guessan and her team decided to go ahead with the project in 2018, after they discovered that … Read more

‘Catastrophic’ consequences if Facebook collapses

A University of Oxford paper which explores the hypothetical collapse of Facebook has recommended a new regulatory framework for ‘systemically important technological institutions’, which draws on existing regulation for global financial institutions and public utilities. Facebook going the way of MySpace is unlikely, with the company sailing mostly unharmed through its largest-ever advertiser boycott, increasing … Read more

Algorithm improves fairness of online search rankings

Cornell University computer scientists have developed a tool which can improve the fairness of online search rankings, without sacrificing relevance or usefulness. For much of the world, Google Search is the entrance to the rest of the internet (other search engines are available). With most users clicking the results towards the top of the first page of returned … Read more

Urbanista ‘London’ ANC wireless earbuds

First, true wireless earbuds were the high-water mark for new Bluetooth audio gadgets. Now, it’s true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation – the ANC often seen in product names, such as with these ‘London’ buds from hip Swedish audio brand Urbanista. ‘London’ follows previous Urbanista city-linked releases, such as Stockholm, Paris, Athens, Chicago, Boston, … Read more

Apple and Google bring app-less contact tracing to smartphones

Apple and Google have announced a new contact-tracing system designed to help public authorities track potential coronavirus transmission between individuals without having to build their own app. Apple and Google have announced a new contact-tracing system designed to help public authorities track potential coronavirus transmission between individuals without having to build their own app. The … Read more

$1bn plan for quantum and AI research announced by the White House

IBM, Microsoft and others have committed $300m to a joint initiative with the US Government to set up 12 research institutes that are looking into AI and quantum information sciences. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that the effort is designed to ensure the US continues to excel at the new technologies amid hot competition … Read more

Software needs a rethink for future chips, Intel says

Chip giant says Moore’s Law is alive and well but you are going to have to change the way software runs to take advantage of it. In his keynote at the HotChips conference held online this week, Raja Koduri, Intel’s chief architect and head of the graphics division, showed off the company’s snappy slogan for … Read more

Evolution or revolution? The all-ethernet in-vehicle network

Current in-vehicle Electrical and Electronic network architectures are complex, costly, and totally inadequate to address the needs of tomorrow. The question is not if they will change but when and how? EE architectures need to be more intelligent, flexible and connected; in-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-cloud (often referred as V2X). Networking across all industries, whether … Read more