Here are today’s Top 5 News & Events from Around the World. Take a look!
#5
Instagram’s First Overseas Development Center in Japan, What’s the Reason?
Instagram’s first overseas development centre in Japan shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone who knows how quick Instagram has grown over there. Over the last couple of years, Insta users have tripled in Japan. But that’s not the only reason for this latest development. The Facebook-owned company is looking ahead towards the Olympics that are scheduled for 2020 in Japan. Instagram is working with the athletes to tell them how promoting on Instagram will bring more fans to the games. Instagram is positioning itself as a middle man, who can connect fans to their favourite athletes. The Japanese government is looking to self boost its image of a technologically advanced country during the Olympics. Instagram is lending a helping hand by helping itself. It could also target the over 30-year-old audiences in Japan, who have so far stayed away from it. As reported by JapanToday. Interesting tit-bit is the development of taking live pics and videos by Twitter, Japan has more active users of Twitter. So is Twitter too looking in the same direction? We would need to wait and watch.
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#4
Who Would Ask a Dead Person for Facial Recognition Training? No One, But Its Getting There
The recent revelations of IBM testing facial recognition system on Flickr images without consent caught the eyes of the press and the company was ridiculed. But what if things are getting worse than that? According to the latest report by Slate, it has been found that not only corporations but the US government too are testing facial recognition on anyone from immigrants, abused children to even dead persons. Ethical values down the drain for the sake of tech development. The detailed report is yet to be reviewed, but the initial findings are damning for a free society.
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#3
16 People Arrested So Far in India for Playing PUBG, Are You Serious?
16 people including teenagers have been arrested in India in the state of Gujarat for playing PUBG. If you don’t know yet, the third person shooting mobile game is banned in the state of Gujarat. If you play the game you’ll end up in jail. In fact, the police commissioner has issued notices to colleges informing students not to play this game as it will lead to their arrest. Many in India have taken on to Twitter to ridicule this law. PUBG game maker has raised concerns over the law and said that it’s looking at it. As reported on BBC.
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#2
AI to Help Fight ‘Revenge Porn’ on Facebook, Will It be Effective?
Facebook is dealing with a lot of scandals these days. It wants to show that it means business when it comes to cleaning up its own mess. As a step in this direction, Facebook is launching an AI-enabled feature that will catch any ‘revenge porn’ pics on its platform. It claims that it will work faster than its human moderators. The machine learning algorithm will detect these pictures and send them to Facebook moderators who would make a call on deleting them. Revenge porn is a punishable offence under the law in 42 states of the United States. However, Facebook has also said that the AI isn’t going to be perfect and that it will still rely on people to report such images and videos to it.
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#1
Spotify Calls Apple a ‘Monopolist’, Well Spotted?
Spotify in response to Apple’s allegations that it wants to use its platform but doesn’t want to pay for its services has finally responded by saying that Apple is acting like a monopolist. The fight between the two companies is public and both have done their best to belittle the another. You can find the full report on the Variety. The bone of contention is the practice of Apple to charge 30% subscription fee from its developers such as Spotify. Meanwhile, Spotify has also claimed that Apple does this to trim the competition against its own Apple music.
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