Snap Working on Drone; Twitter Ups Troll Protections; Facebook Using AI for Suicide Prevention

Posted: March 1, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Snap has reportedly been working on a drone. The New York Times says it’s not clear that it’s a product that will make it to production, but the company has said they feel we are just at the beginning of what cameras can do, and that their products are moving towards making taking videos a fun and seamless part of everyday life.

Twitter has been a virtual haven for trolls over the years, and now the company is announcing some new features to help stem harassment. According to recode.net, you will be able to mute specific words including usernames from your timeline. You can mute for a day, month, or permanently. You can also mute ‘eggs’, those accounts that use the egg avatar and haven’t provided a photo. Further, you can block accounts without confirmed email addresses or phone numbers. While this won’t kill off trolling completely, it will at least thin them out and slow them down.

Facebook has started using artificial intelligence to spot people that may be at risk of killing themselves. BBC.com reports that the algorithms pick up on comments in posts or the comments friends leave, and then a human review team jumps in to contact the person and works to suggest ways the person might get help. Right now, the AI tool is just testing in the US.

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Apple Going for Glasshole Market; Twitter Adds Mute to Convos and Hashtags; Nintendo’s ‘Super Mario Run a Month Away; Spotify Has Been Wearing SSDs-Patch Is Out

Posted: November 15, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yes, they were clunky, but that wasn’t the main reason people who had Google Glass were called ‘glassholes.’ Apple has revolutionized portable music players with the iPod and phones with the iPhone, can they do the same with digital glasses? Bloomberg.com says they’re working on some. A great AR headset would go a long way in bringing in the future, which at lot of people think will involve AR. The real trick will be having small enough components to produce a good AR experience, and batteries that power it which won’t weigh you down. It’s a huge challenge, but think about the iPod and iPhone…maybe by 2018 we’ll see the iAR or will it be Apple AR?

A lot of criticism has been thrown at Facebook and Twitter over fake news and trolls since the election. Now, bgr.com reports that Twitter has added a mute feature to conversations and hashtags to try to contain harassment. Previously, you could only mute individuals, and their friends could still gang up on a person. You will also now be able to mute keywords and hashtags.

Super Mario Run for iPhone and iPad will launch December 15th. Geekwire.com says it will sell for $10, and is specifically designed for mobile devices. Gamers can try before they by for free with elements of the games 3 modes. The game is designed to accomodate one-handed play….Mario runs forward on his own. Just tap to make him jump.

After sucking up life out of SSDs for months, Spotify has released a fix. According to bgr.com, a bug has allowed the app to continually rewrite data to your drive, even while in idle mode…up to 5 to 10 gigs an hour. Over a day, it would write up to 700 gigs. SSDs have a limited number of writes available, although most should last 10 years with normal use. Look for V. 1.0.42, it’s out and you should have it or upgrade to it on your desktop or laptop.

StoreDot- Working On Way to Charge Smartphones in Seconds

Posted: December 9, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

From the ‘I want it now’ department….forward.com says an Israeli co. has developed tech that can charge a mobile phone in seconds and electric car in minutes. StoreDot’s battery uses ‘nano-dots.’ No word on when it may be out.

Leaked pictures indicate that next year’s HTC One M-9 may be 5.2 inches, just a little over the size of the M-8. Bgr.com cautions that earlier information points to it being 5.5 inches, the size of the iPhone 6 Plus.

Thenextweb.com reports that a company called Trustev has developed tech they say can ban trolls for good. They say they use a digital fingerprint, so even IP addresses or using vpn, trolls can be barred.