That was intense, right?
Source: Wired
Today is a big day for Facebook . The company is hosting its F8 developer conference in San Jose today and just before the event is scheduled to start, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dropped a bit of news: the company will soon launch a new privacy feature that will allow users to see and delete the data Facebook has collected from websites and apps that use its ads and analytics tool.
With this, you can scrub at least some of your browsing history from Facebook’s data store. Zuckerberg likens this feature to deleting cookies from your browser history.
“Once we roll out this update, you’ll be able to see information about the apps and websites you’ve interacted with, and you’ll be able to clear this information from your account,” Zuckerberg explains. “You’ll even be able to turn off having this information stored with your account.”
Facebook notes that when you delete information through this feature, the company will remove all identifying data from your history but will still provide aggregated analytics to developers.
The Facebook founder also stresses that his time before Congress taught him that he didn’t have “clear enough answers to some of the questions about data.” Unsurprisingly, he promises to make some changes there and notes that the company is working on new and clearer controls.
The Clear History feature is currently in development and will roll out in the coming months.
Source: TechCrunch
The latest Marvel movie trailer shows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) teaming up for giant-size action.
Source: CNET
Over three years after Google paid $25 million to gain the exclusive rights to the “.app” top-level domain, the company is at last making .app domains available to register starting on May 7, at 9 AM PDT through Google’s Early Access Program. The following day, the domains will go on sale for the general public, including through other registrars.
The new top-level domain (TLD) is an obvious choice for app developers and others in the tech industry, as it serves as an easy-to-remember alternative to .com domains – where inventory has long been running low for popular words.
In addition to the expected demand, Google is requiring HTTPS for all. app websites. This built-in security protects against ad malware, tracking injection by internet service providers, and safeguards against spying on open Wi-Fi networks, the company explains.
Google has been an advocate of pushing the web towards HTTPS adoption, noting last fall that 64 percent of traffic through its Chrome browser on Android was protected, up from 42 percent the year before. Chrome traffic on Mac was up to 75 percent, and on Windows up to 66 percent at the same time. The increases were due to a number of actions on Google’s part, including its decision to flag all websites using HTTP to transmit private information as “insecure.”
This year, Google said it would mark all pages without HTTPS encryption as insecure starting in July with the launch of Chrome 68.
Given its plans, it makes sense that Google’s new domain addition would also include HTTPS protection built-in.
Still, it’s something of a milestone, Google notes.
“Because .app will be the first TLD with enforced security made available for general registration, it’s helping move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future in a big way,” the company writes in its announcement of the new TLD.
Prior to the public launch of .app, Google had reached out to potential candidates, offering them a first crack at grabbing a .app domain in order to showcase the potential use cases. Some of those who are already live on .app domains include Outdoor Voices, Cash App, Sitata, Albert, Picnic, Trail, BNEXT, Bark, CallApp, The Podcast App, Pickle, MenaVR and many others from around the world. (A list is here.)
The company also removed the requirement that limited the domain to app developers, though Google suggests the name makes the most sense in that market.
In an interview last month with Domain Name Wire, Google said that it aims to make .app domains affordable – it expects the pricing to be less than its other TLDs like .how or .soy, for example. The site said that would mean wholesale pricing would be around $10-12 and retail registrations would be $20. (Pricing was not detailed in today’s announcement, however.)
Interested .app domain shoppers can register their domain of choice on May 7, 2018 starting at 9 AM PDT, if they want to pay the additional fee for early access ahead of the domain’s launch to the public through other registrars.
More info is on the get.app website.
Source: TechCrunch
Google Cloud is launching the first public beta of Cloud Composer today, a new workflow automation tool for developers that’s based on the Apache Airflow project.
Typically, IT teams build their own automated workflow as needed, but the result of that is often a mess of different tools and Bash scripts that don’t always work together. Airflow and Cloud Composer allow teams to standardize on a single way of building and orchestrating workflows.
Google notes that its new tool, which uses Python as its default language, will allow teams to build workflows across on-premises tools and across multiple clouds and that the open source nature of the project will ensure that developers can take their workflows and use them across platforms. While the service is deeply integrated with the Google Cloud Platform, the team stressed that there is no lock-in.
“In building Cloud Composer, we wanted to combine the strengths of Google Cloud Platform with Airflow,” the Cloud Composer team writes in today’s announcement. “We set out to build a service that offers the best of Airflow without the overhead of installing and managing Airflow yourself. As a result, you spend less time on low-value work, such as getting Airflow installed, and more time on what matters: your workflows.”
In Airflow — and by extension in Cloud Composer, too — the different tasks and their expected outcomes (as well as what to do when things go wrong), are defined in a so-called Directed Acyclic Graph. These are standard Python files that define the workflow down to its details. You can find the full documentation here.
Google notes that it is actively participating in the Airflow community, too, and that it has contributed a number of pull requests already.
Source: TechCrunch
Last week at a conference in France, Amazon announced a new Alexa feature that makes it possible to use the smart assistant as repistory for small bits of information. That feature is starting to roll out today to users in the U.S. as “Remember This.”
The skill goes like this: say, “Alexa, remember Brian’s birthday is May 11,” and Alexa will respond, in kind, “Okay. I will remember that Brian’s birthday is May 11.” Then, when you need to remember Brian’s birthday (May 11), you say, “Alexa, when is Brian’s birthday,” to which Alexa will respond, “This is what you told me: Brian’s birthday is May 11.”
Not exactly a vote of confidence, but listen, Alexa is still learning here. For posterity, here are a bunch of other Remember This functions Amazon suggested in an email to TechCrunch earlier today,
Alexa, remember that my niece’s T-shirt size is a medium.
Alexa, make a note that Amy is going to China in October.
Alexa, remember that Laura’s dog’s name is Bruno.
Alexa, remember that I kept the extra blankets in the attic.
Alexa, remember Matthew’s teacher’s name is Ms. Sally.
The feature is a bit of catch up for Amazon’s smart assistant — Google Assistant has had a similar feature for a while now. But it’s a handy one, nonetheless, and beats sending emails to yourself or writing stuff down on scraps of paper you’ll inevitably lose — both of my own preferred methods.
Birthdays/t-shirt sizes are one piece in a big push to make Alexa smarter and more conversation that also includes context carryover, which uses recently asked questions to inform answers on new ones. It’s all part of Amazon’s work to compete on context, which has been an advantage for Google’s offering.
Source: TechCrunch
Nearly a year since his appointment as special counsel, Robert Mueller has accelerated the pace of his investigation.
Source: Wired
Oculus VR has debuted the Oculus Go headset on Amazon, but it’s not quite ready to ship yet. Within hours of making its debut on the online store, the headset had sold out, and it’s unclear when more units will appear.
The post $200 Oculus Go headset hits Amazon with December placeholder release date appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Apple’s rumored “Marzipan” project may not be as impactful as once hoped. New rumors suggest that it won’t help developers make their Apple apps cross-platform compatible, but will instead aid UI development.
The post Apple’s secret ‘Marzipan’ project may not bridge iOS and MacOS after all appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Women with high levels of testosterone—like Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya—must either compete against men or take medication.
Source: Wired