Xpertfeed

Summary:With a new policy after the US election, Google reveals the results of its actions to limit fake news sites. Google has released its 2016 Bad Ads report, to show how serious it is about combating deviants who abuse its massive ad network, from fraudulent advertisers to phony news sites. The company says it axed 1.7 billion bad ads in 2016, just over double the 780 million it took down in 2015 for violating its various policies.  In 2016 it also introduced important new policies to combat the rise of fake news. In the wake of Brexit and the US election, Facebook, Twitter, and Google were criticized for not doing enough to prevent fake news spreading on their platforms.  In November, Google introduced  a new AdSense policy  for publishers to prevent fake news sites from generating ad revenue on its platform. Since launching the policy, Google says it has permanently banned nearly 200 AdSense publishers for violating its new rules against  "misrepresentative con

Summary: Microsoft's latest acquisition, 3D data-optimization vendor Simplygon, is part of Redmond's strategy to make 3D part of future users' experiences. Microsoft is acquiring Simplygon , a Swedish 3D data-optimization vendor, for an undisclosed amount. The announcement, made by corporate vice president of Next Gen Experiences Kudo Tsunoda, on January 17, is part of Microsoft's " 3D for Everyone " strategy, of which the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update is a key piece. Simplygon will help Microsoft simplify the process of capturing, creating, and sharing information in 3D, Tsunoda said. The Simplygon technology will complement the new Paint 3D application (codenamed "Beihai") and new online creator community, Remix3D.com. Simplygon was developed by Donya Labs AB in Sweden, a company developing "automatic 3D data-optimization solutions." Simplygon currently is a player in the 3D game optimization and augmented reality/virt

Summary: Over a quarter of MongoDB databases left open to the internet have been ransacked by online extortionists. Tens of thousands of poorly configured MongoDB databases have been compromised over the past week, with attackers wiping data and demanding up to one bitcoin to return it. Victor Gevers, from Netherlands-based GDI Foundation, and Niall Merrigan, a Norway-based developer, have been tracking a surge in attacks on MongoDB installations in which a handful of groups are wiping vulnerable databases and replacing them with an empty database with names such as a 'WARNING', 'PWNED', and 'PLEASE_READ'. The attackers claim to hold a copy that can be purchased for between 0.2BTC and 1BTC, but there's no guarantee the data is actually available if a payment is made. According to Merrigan,  some 27,000  MongoDB servers have been compromised in the past day, up from  an estimated 2,000  on January 3 and  8,542 on January 5 . MongoDB is a popular

Summary: Intel outlines its plans to be the brains of the autonomous vehicle, but it'll have to duel with Qualcomm and NXP among others. Intel, best known for the processors behind PCs, servers and data center gear, now wants to be the brains behind autonomous vehicles. The chip giant at CES 2017 launched a new brand, Intel GO, that's designed for autonomous driving and aim to link cloud computing, connectivity and the car. To back up its efforts, Intel is launching t wo development kits to connect GO with Atom and Xeon processor s. Intel said its GO effort will provide the first 5G-ready development platform. The company also launched its 5G modem at CES.  CNET's Stephen Shankland  has the deep dive and the strategy details. As for partnerships, Intel is teaming up with BMW and Mobileye to have 40 autonomous vehicles on the roads by the second half of the year. Intel announced a partnership with BMW and Mobileye in July. The Intel moves come as the company boug

Summary: Rocky times at Cyanogen turn for the worse. The open source project and source code will remain available, but there will be no more nightly builds. Cyanogen late Friday  announced  all services and nightly builds will be discontinued no later than December 31.  The open source project and source code will remain available for personal development. The move, "part of the ongoing consolidation of Cyanogen," comes after it named a new CEO and laid off a huge portion of its staff. While it once wanted to offer a better version of Android, Cyanogen will now focus on building Android OS "mods" for OEMs. Owners of smartphones running Cyanogen OS, like the OnePlus One, will have to  switch  to the CyanogenMod ROM. As TechCrunch  points out , this isn't a commercial OS, rather managed by a community of developers. We have reached out to the Cyanogen folks to learn more about its future with the latest LineageOS.

Summary: Remote code execution bugs in Apport, an Ubuntu Linux default file handler, has opened a door to attacks and crashes. Donncha O'Cearbhaill, an Irish security researcher, found a  remote execution bug in Ubuntu . This security hole, which first appeared in Ubuntu 12.10, makes it possible for malicious code to be injected into your system when you open a booby-trapped file. This can be used to crash your system or run malware. It does not -- a small blessing -- enable attackers to become the root user. Apport in turn generates a crash file with the unusual ".crash" extension and a  magic byte  sequence.  Magic bytes are the unique sequences  meant to identify a file. For example, a PDF document without a PDF extension can still be identified as PDF by its hexadecimal magic byte sequence: "25 50 44 46."O'Cearbhaill found that Ubuntu will open any unknown file with  Apport  if it begins with "ProblemType: ". Apport is Ubuntu's

Summary: This year was a big one for Microsoft, across the company, in expanding its AI footprint. Microsoft officials talked up the company's momentum across its various AI projects and initiatives at its AI day in San Francisco on December 13. A week ago, word leaked that Microsoft was providing early access to users on Kik to Zo. Zo is a successor to Microsoft's ill-fated Tay.ai chatbot, which the company revoked shortly after its launch earlier this year after users got it to spew racist, hate-filled comments. Users last week found Zo to be a lot more limited and locked down than Tay, which is unsurprising given how quickly Tay spiraled out of control. Microsoft officials said today there are already 115,000 Zo.ai users, just a week after its unofficial soft launch.In September this year, Microsoft created a combined AI and research group of about 5,000 people under the direction of Executive Vice President Harry Shum. Today, Microsoft took the wraps off a  AI-f

Summary: Workers spend a quarter of their day dealing with email, making it the second most time consuming activity in their jobs. A new app aims to streamline our inboxes. In 2015, people sent and received more than 205 billion emails each day. It is hard to wade through the deluge of emails to focus on what is important to you. Artificial intelligence startup  Notion  thinks it can solve your communications overload. Notion's neural network was built to "positively impact the way we manage our relationships through emails."It analyzes the history of your relationship with each person and gives insights for that relationship to help you manage your email. The cloud based AI analyzes the relationships behind communications and predicts what is important to you. It claims to have over 95 percent accuracy. The AI learns which emails you are most likely to remove from your inbox and groups emails together. As you scroll through your inbox, less important emails

Summary: Top analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that the iPhone 8 could break sales records set by the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 2015. According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it's OLED displays, an all-glass design, and wireless charging. In a note to clients, Kuo predicts that the iPhone 8 will kick off an "unprecedented replacement demand" resulting in 120 to 150 million units being shifted during the second half of 2017, beating the approximately 120 million record that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus set for the second half of 2015. Much of this demand, claims Kuo, will be driven by a new high-end iPhone 8 that features a new design, low-energy OLED display, and other "notably superior specifications" that will differentiate it from the "less exciting" 4.7- and 5.5-inch iPhone handsets. Kuo sees two drivers: Our rationale is as follows:  (1) the OLED model may trigger replacement demand among high-end users given its complet

Summary: Thanksgiving and Black Friday are delivering record online sales and a lot of that traffic is being delivered via smartphones and tablets. Black Friday and Thanksgiving shoppers increasingly relied on the small screen as mobile traffic dominated online sales, according to data compiled from various sources. Adobe reported that online sales hit a record $3.34 billion on Black Friday. According to ChannelAdvisor , 68.2 percent of Thanksgiving Day e-commerce traffic came via a smartphone. Toss in tablets and 77.8 percent of traffic on Thanksgiving came via a mobile device. And perhaps the biggest wrinkle is that mobile orders outpaced computer orders. Fifty-three percent of orders were driven through a mobile device. Mobile devices still struggled to deliver sales conversions (2.1 percent for smartphones), but traffic delivered the numbers, according to ChannelAdvisor. Walmart's mobile traffic was more than 70 percent of its Black Friday total, said ChannelAdvis