Technology Mania : 12/15/16

Fake news: Facebook is rolling out new tools to identify and report stories

Image: Which.co.uk

By tech2 News Staff / 16 Dec 2016 , 10:13

Facebook has announced the rollout of new tools that will help the company fight the menace of ‘Fake News.’ This comes right after the company came under fire from US President Barak Obama and governments across the world to accountability for the inaccurate or fake news that is shared on the platform.

Facebook has pointed out that the tools will allow users to quickly report any fake news story using the ‘Report’ feature already present for the posts on Facebook. The company has added a new “It’s a fake news story” in the options and allows the users to mark the story as Fake and message the person who posted the story to notify about the story. Apart from relying on crowdsourcing to report the potential ‘Fake news stories,’ the company has also announced a partnership with third-party fact-checking companies.

Facebook detailed that it is working with five companies about the fact-checking organisations which include ABC News, AP, FactCheck.org, Snopes and Politifact as reported by The Guardian. All the third-party fact-checking websites are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles. If a news story is pointed out as inaccurate, the post will include “Disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers” providing a link to the article refuting the original news article.

One interesting thing to note is that both the features, Third-Party Fact Checkers and Crowd-sourcing to report articles do not work in isolation. The news articles are sent to the face checking websites after the original article has been reported as ‘Fake Story’ by sufficient amount of users. People sharing the disputed articles will get a warning sign informing them about the disputed status of the article.

According to the company, the ‘Disputed’ articles will figure lower on the newsfeed and the publisher or the person who posted the article can not promote the article. The company announced that it had removed the ability to spoof domain names to stop confusion caused by such domains.

Facebook Messenger apes another feature from Snapchat in new update: Camera

By tech2 News Staff / 16 Dec 2016 , 12:04

Facebook’s Messenger team today announced a new feature and it involves the launch of a new camera. The new camera that’s now available inside the Messenger app lets you add special effects that should add some colour to your holiday conversations.

The roll out as always is gradual, and will be arriving on smartphones globally over the coming days. The update is a move by Facebook to turn Messenger into more of visual experience and this adds to the 2.5 billion emojis, photos, stickers and videos that are sent across every day on Messenger.

Another reason for Facebook to switch to a new camera, is to replace the keyboard in an effort to make sharing photos and videos faster, simpler and obviously more fun and interactive.

The new camera packs in quicker access to capture and share your moments as they happen. It can be activated with a single tap on the shutter button, post which a short tap clicks a photo and a long tap (press) starts recording a video.

And with every new camera this year, comes new art and special effects. This time we also have 3D masks and special effects that let you add your artistic touches to the photos and help your express more.

There’s even a palette icon that’s placed next to the shutter that will let you take you to a blank canvas where you can add art and stickers to your text.

Indeed these are similar to what Snapchat already has on offer. Facebook has been copy pasting features from the messaging service for some time now. While the features often get ripped off from one platform to the another, it is the user who gains the maximum flexibility at the end of the day.

Instagram now has 600mn users; last six months saw 100mn new users

By tech2 News Staff / 16 Dec 2016 , 11:29

Popular photography focussed social media network Instagram has just announced that it has reached 600 million users. Of this number, around 100 million users were added just in the last six months.

Thanking its users on its blog, Instagram release said, “You now have more ways to share than ever before with Instagram Stories, live video and disappearing photos and videos in Direct. Additionally, with updated safety tools that give you more control over comments and other parts of your experience, we’re working to make Instagram safer than ever for connection and self-expression.”

This number is also double that of its user base in 2014. Instagram which was bought by Facebook back in 2012 for $1bn, which was a huge amount of money at the time, has been seeing exceptional growth as compared to other social media networks. Its numbers are more than double that of Twitter, almost three times that of Snapchat. In Facebook’s bouquet of properties, Instagram is still behind Messenger, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Earlier this year, in May, Instagram completely redesigned its logo and added a black and white theme to the app. Since then, we have been seeing a lot of updates being added to Instagram, a lot of the more recent ones just lifted from Snapchat.

It has added features such as Live Videos and messages, which also disappear – just like Snapchat. Instagram Stories was another feature that was added on earlier this year – again, something that Snapchat has been doing for quite a while now. It has added Saved Posts as well. People clearly seem to be loving these features.

“Nintendo’s holding Peach to ransom”: The internet reacts to Super Mario Run

Image: Reuters

By tech2 News Staff / 16 Dec 2016 , 11:14

It’s been more than 30 years since Mario first made his NES debut and almost 10 years since the launch of the iPhone. But now, at long last, Mario has finally made his way to mobile.

You can download the game right now on iPhone, but you Android users will have to wait a few months.

Super Mario Run is an endless runner, platforming hybrid from Nintendo and it’s hoping to take the gaming world by storm. Unfortunately, the game’s design and high asking price don’t seem to be sitting well with gamers, as you can well see: