Democracy Sausage
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| Democracy Sausage | |
| Number | 2805 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 10, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 32:26 |
| Hosts | Peter Wells |
| Guests | Justin Gibson |
Microsoft bets the company on AI, Facebook discusses censorship, and Electronic voting, yes or no?
Guest
Top Stories
- Over on the Verge, Casey Newton has a great article on Satya Nadella "betting the future of Microsoft on AI" - The Article is well worht a read, but most interesting for me is the tidbit that Microsoft already has a very popular and bot in the Chinese megachat app, WeChat. Quote: Xiaoice, which Microsoft introduced on the Chinese messaging app WeChat in 2014, can answer simple questions, just like Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana. Where Xiaoice excels, though, is in conversation. The bot is programmed to be sensitive to emotions, and to remember your previous chats. Going through a breakup? Xiaoice may check in to ask you how you're doing.
- Following the successful run with the NFL, Twitter is looking to expand into more sports. The company is in talks with the NBA, Major League Soccer and cable network Turner about acquiring digital streaming rights for content related to live sports and events, according to several sources familiar with the discussions. Recode is confident in their sources, although representatives for Twitter, Turner and both sports leagues declined to comment.
- A Facebook spokesperson has told Techcrunch the site will only remove content from Live Video if it quote: celebrates or glorifies violence, not if it’s only graphic or disturbing, according to a spokesperson. Techcrunch has a full list of the guidelines around video censorship on the site. Facebook’s censorship rules focus on the glorification of violence, such as videos posted to promote or celebrate terrorism. The policy does not make distinctions about the cause of death, the relationship between the video’s creator and its subjects or the involvement of law enforcement. As with all content posted on Facebook, the creator retains ownership.
- Sticking with Facebook, the company took to Motherboard to explain why encryption is not on by default in the Messenger app. Quote: The short answer is that it’s easier to roll-out encryption by default for WhatsApp because it lives on only one device (you can’t use it on multiple places, except by syncing it on the web), while Facebook Messenger lives on multiple devices, and people use it both via the web (on not one but two different sites, Facebook.com and Messenger.com) as via the app. That’s the big challenge here: people use Facebook Messenger via those websites, and doing encryption via the browser is notoriously hard. Facebook also conceded part of the decision that Facebook users also hate change: "We wanted to not disrupt how people are used to using our products.”
- Samsung have created a new little memory card to replace the aging MicroSD card format. - the UFS, which stands for UFS - Universal Flash Storage. The UFS cards have sequential read speeds of up to 530 megabytes per second — five times faster than the best microSD cards. That means reading a 5 gigabyte, full HD movie in roughly 10 seconds, says Samsung, compared to a UHS-1 microSD card which manages the same feat in around 50 seconds.
- The reward for mining bitcoin has just halved per block - a mined block will now be worth 12.5 bitcoins, down from 25. But don't panic, this was all part of the plan. When the code for Bitcoin was written, it was designed to be a currency with no more than 21 million bitcoins ever in circulation. And to encourage people to mine (which is what validates and supports the entire bitcoin network), Satoshi created a reward that went along with each block. And, the code specified that every 210,000 blocks mined that reward would be cut in half, until it eventually is reduced to zero after 64 halving events.
Discussion
- Why we need electronic voting now
- Statement from the Australian Electoral Commissioner: Need for accuracy in democracy, regardless of the century
Sunday Stars
- Peter's Stars
- Justin's Star
Links
| Preceded by: "Signed, Entangled, Encrypted, I’m Yours" |
Democracy Sausage |
Followed by: "DRM: Digital Recipe Management" |