Capitalism increased. Facebook throws us into the matrix

Caught in the turmoil, Mark Zuckerberg picks up the pace: he renamed Facebook Meta, and laid the foundations for the metaverse, "the future of the Net" according to him. A closed, 3D, immersive ecosystem that promises to isolate the user in virtual happiness and the firm from very real exponential profits.

M like Meta. Or like Mark - we thought you had to be President of the French Republic to dare to name your company or party with your initials - as a metastasis or even as a megalomaniac. Facebook's name and logo change (a blue M pulling on both the glasses and the infinity sign) can be a bit of a smile. But if Mark Zuckerberg is to be believed, the group no longer wants to be reduced to the social network where it was born. “Right now our brand is so tied to a single product that it is impossible for it to represent everything we do today, let alone what we will do in the future,” explained the CEO.

Metaverse: Niantic wants it in augmented reality

Technology: The publisher of Pokémon Go is raising 300 million to develop one of these virtual universes that have proliferated lately, in word at least.

What if the real metaverse was on the Pokémon side? The publisher of Pokémon Go, Niantic, is raising 300 million to develop one of these virtual universes that have proliferated lately, in word at least.

The company wants to create an organizational alliance, in the first place to affirm the vision of a “real world metaverse”. Understand here that the augmented reality star, with his Pokémon Go game which uses a smartphone camera to place virtual objects in the physical environment, does not hear that the metaverse looks like a Second Life accessible via a reality headset Virtual.

Facebook uses first-person videos to train future AIs

One of the obvious goals of almost every computer vision project is to enable a machine to see and perceive the world as a human does. Today Facebook started talking about Ego4D, its own effort in the field, for which it created a huge new dataset to train future models. In a statement, the company said it had recruited 13 universities in nine countries that had collected 2,200 hours of footage from 700 participants. This footage was captured from the user's perspective that can be used to train these future AI models. Kristen Grauman, lead researcher at Facebook, says this is the largest collection of data created specifically for this focus.
sunglasses, sunglasses: Ray-Ban Stories. © Karissa Bell Ray-Ban stories.

The footage focused on a range of common experiences in human life, including social interaction, hand and object manipulation, and predicting what will happen. For the social network, this is a big step towards better computing experiences, which until now have always been about getting data from the perspective of the viewer. Facebook has announced that the datasets will be released in November "for researchers who sign Ego4D's data usage agreement". And for the next year, researchers outside of this community will be challenged to better train machines to understand what exactly people are doing in their lives.

Of course there is the aspect that Facebook, which now has a camera glasses partnership with Ray Ban, would like to improve its own skills in the future. You probably already know the dangers of this potential surveillance and why someone might be a little suspicious of the announcement.

Facebook is developing new algorithms that can track everything you do @hotchat2000.com

Imagine a world where one of your devices can keep track of everything you do in your daily life. It can see, hear, and remember everything for you, and retrieve that information when you need it. This type of innovation is brilliant and could work wonders for devices like augmented reality (AR) glasses that can do it all - see, hear and remember. But it's also very scary. Add Facebook into the mix and the scary will be at its maximum. For years, Facebook has been the focus of various user privacy and security scandals. The latest news came from a whistleblower who revealed details about what Facebook knows about the toxicity of its apps and how its algorithms could encourage harmful content to encourage interactions.

It doesn't sound like comforting that this company is developing artificial intelligence (AI) that can see and hear the things around you and then remember everything. But the technology is still interesting. That's because said AI may be targeting a different type of product than Facebook's social networks. These are the AR glasses that the company is developing for the future.

Reddit is worth $ 10 billion

Reddit's text- and photo-based message boards have 52 million daily visitors.

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Reddit has been valued at $ 10 billion in a new round of funding. The company announced this on its blog. The $ 700 million funding round led by Fidelity Investments has increased the value of social news aggregator Reddit by 67 percent since the last round in February.

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The value of Reddit, with its traditional text and photo-based message boards, more than tripled in two and a half years. "We are optimistic and encouraged because we are not only equipped with the resources and capital to continue our growth path, but also because our investors want to support our vision and deepen their participation in our future," said the Reddit team.

Upon completion of the funding round, the privately held Reddit company has received a total of $ 1.6 billion in funding to date. More than 52 million people visited the platform every day in the fourth quarter of 2020 to exchange ideas.

Reddit has little advertising revenue

However, Reddit can generate far less advertising revenue with its special user base than other social media platforms of similar size. In the second quarter of 2021, advertising revenues are said to have reached 100 million US dollars for the first time. Even Twitter had $ 1.2 billion in revenue over the same period, with 206 million daily users. The revenue of the Facebook group amounted to 29.1 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2021.

Elon Musk railed heavily against Jeff Bezos on Twitter

Tesla boss Elon Musk has openly criticized former Amazon boss and billionaire Jeff Bezos. Following a lawsuit against space company SpaceX, Musk shared his displeasure with Bezos in a tweet.

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In early August 2021, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company Blue Origin sued NASA after losing a government contract to transport astronauts to the moon to SpaceX owned by Elon Musk: SpaceX is said to be $ 2.9 billion ( about 2.5 billion euros) from the US government agency to build the next lunar module. The process stalled the project, which launched in April 2021. Now this week, on August 25th, Blue Origin again protested against SpaceX decisions, whereupon the company's lunar module project was (again) put on hold. Much to the displeasure of Tesla boss Elon Musk, who, as usual, lets off his frustration on Twitter.

SpaceX NASA project in pause mode

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"Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX ..." .), so Musk on a tweet from his follower wapodavenport. However, according to The Verge, Amazon's latest complaint does not appear to be a formal lawsuit against the space company. Rather, it is supposed to be a letter of protest: Amazon asks the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject SpaceX's recently submitted plans to launch another satellite cluster to operate its Starlink satellite internet service. The letter of complaint shows that, technically speaking, it is not about SpaceX completely stopping the launch of further satellites, but rather that the service becomes clearer in its plans in this regard. Around 1,740 satellites in low-earth orbit fuel the Starlink service, which, according to The Verge, serves an estimated 90,000 customers worldwide. The company plans to launch 30,000 more satellites in the future to expand its Internet network. The dispute has consequences for the development of NASA's new lunar module. According to economictimes.com, court documents indicate that NASA is now voluntarily prepared to suspend its contract with SpaceX until November 1, 2021, while the U.S. Court of Federal Claims will rule the case between the parties.

Facebook Dating gets new features

Facebook has had a dating function for some time. It also works in Germany, but is not so heavily advertised by the social network - the whole thing is hidden in the app's menu. Now a product manager from Facebook has announced new functions on Twitter that should make dating even more interesting.

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There will be audio chats in the dating area, for example. That's exactly what you think: If you have a match with another person, you can invite them - or you - to an audio chat. Furthermore, there is also the more precise adjustment of the dating location. If you can previously search + x kilometers locally, it should be possible to expand your dating search to a total of three areas. Maybe you travel to two or three cities more often for work.

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Last but not least, there will be the lucky pick - here people are suggested who are a bit outside of your own specified preferences, but could still suit you.

This is how you find out what Google, Instagram and Facebook think they know about you

 Advertisers collect data about us and use it to display supposedly suitable ads. So far so good. But what do the platforms think they know about us? You can see that in advertising interests.

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Google and Facebook are considered Big Brother and data octopuses who practice user stalking. There is definitely something to it - nevertheless, the interests and characteristics that they assign to us are sometimes right wrong. That can be funny. Instagram thinks I'm interested in the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta, the US Army's special counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit (WTF?). Google thinks I own real estate, while Facebook certifies that I am “at the beginning of adult life”. You also want to check out what Google and the socials think who you are? Then take a look at your advertising interests - maybe there’s something to laugh about!

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1. Google: Personalized Advertising
Call up the menu in a Google app using the round button with your picture or your initials. Then select "Manage Google Account". Swipe the bar with the tabs a little to the left so that you see "Data and data protection". Below that you will find a section called “Advertising Settings”. If you allow personalized advertising, you can tap on it, and if you scroll down a bit, you will see small bubbles with your characteristics and interests. On Google you can see not only your alleged interests, but also characteristics: For example, whether they believe that you are in a relationship, have children and own a home. Then there are interests such as “limousines”, “resources and equipment for DJs” or “floor coverings”. Laminate for life!

2. Instagram: advertising interests

On the home screen, tap on your photo in the lower right corner to get to your profile. At the top right of the three parallel lines you will find the menu. Open the settings there. Then you go to "Security" - underneath there is a section called "Data and History", under which you select "View data". This will then invite you, two seconds - now you can scroll down to the bottom and tap on “View all” in the “Ads” section under “Advertising interests”. You can apparently click the "Show more" button an infinite number of times, and you will see more and more fun interests. Are you also passionate about "understanding", "I" or "manufacturing"?

3. Facebook: advertising interests

A rogue, who thinks badly, but Facebook has hidden the list of advertising preferences quite nicely. Open the side menu and scroll down. Open “Settings and Privacy” and you will find “Privacy at a glance”. Funnily enough, you don't get to your advertising preferences via the advertising preferences, but via the section below: "Your Facebook information". Here go to "Access your information." Here you have to scroll down quite a bit, to the section "Logged information". Open “Other logged information”, here you will first see your peer group - Facebook could, for example, place you “at the beginning of adult life”. With a tap on "Advertising Interests" you can view your list - including the possibility of deselecting unsuitable or undesirable interests. Something like "Carpe diem" for example, or chemical "organic compounds".

Facebook Messenger: New functions for birthday

Facebook is giving its Messenger a few additional features for its birthday. We reveal how old the messenger is getting and what's new.

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It's hard to believe, but Facebook Messenger has been around for a decade. For its tenth birthday, Faebook has "put together a birthday package with 10 functions ... that will help you share more memories with your friends and family and feel closer," said Loredana Crisan, Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook. in a blog post. We present the new features for the birthday that Facebook is currently rolling out piece by piece.

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Poll game: how do my friends see me?
Among other things, Facebook is starting a survey game in Messenger. This is reminiscent of the yearbooks of American schools: Who is most likely to become president later? Who is the first to start a family? The years vote on such questions and the result ends up in the yearbook. Similar surveys are now also available on Facebook Messenger, on topics such as: "Who is most likely to give presents for a birthday?" - "Who fights zombies while everyone else runs away?" - "Who is most likely to miss their flight?" The users can also think of questions themselves. If you want to start a poll game in your group chat, tap on "Polls" and select the tab with the desired question. Then specify the names of the chat participants who are eligible for the answer.

Is Microsoft replacing classic Xbox voice chat with Skype? According to a rumor, Microsoft systems will in future only communicate via the online service - including the Xbox 720.

Microsoft has owned the online communication service Skype since 2011 and operates a department in London that is exclusively concerned with the further development of the application. A specialist magazine now claims to have learned from the group's environment that in the future they want to use Skype universally for all online communication on Microsoft systems and that they intend to crush all existing services. This applies not only to PCs, tablets and services such as MSN Messenger, but also to the voice chat of the Xbox 720.

According to the media report, a job advertisement from Microsoft recently appeared confirming plans. The group is currently looking for an interface designer to work on the Xbox 360 successor. The job is therefore to be started in the company's Skype department, where the aim is to optimize the communication service for use on television with a focus on the next Xbox.