Items tagged with (NASDAQ:FB)
Social media provides a lot of value to the world, but a new study suggests that we should start taking it in smaller doses - ideally no more than 30 minutes per day. The experimental study was conducted by Melissa G. Hunt and others at the University of Pennsylvania, and indications so far show that modest use of social media can directly improve our mental well-being. With the help of 143 participants, two groups were created. The first group was limited to 10 minutes of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat each day. The other group consisted of people who didn't have to change their habits...
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Facebook is the most popular social network out there, and seemingly the one with the most privacy issues. Last month a data breach impacted as many as 90 million user accounts with Facebook eventually claiming about 30 million accounts had been affected. Another security breach was announced in September with that breach affecting over 50 million users; a tool was offered to allow Facebook users to determine if their account was hacked. A new report has now surfaced that claims the private messages from 81,000 hacked Facebook accounts are for sale. Word of the hack surfaced from the perpetrators...
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Brendan Iribe, co-founder and former CEO of Oculus, is leaving the company to embark on whatever the next chapter in his life holds. His departure from the company that started the modern VR push (or at least gave it a major boost) creates a murky future for Oculus. Why did he leave, and how does this impact Facebook, which owns Oculus? Those are both questions he did not answer in his farewell post on Facebook. Instead, he spent most of words on praise for the team effort that "started a revolution that will change the world in ways we can't even envision." He ended the post by saying "this will...
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Facebook has faced scrutiny for its lapses in privacy protections, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal that prompted the US Congress to question Mark Zuckerberg about all aspects of the social network, along with Facebook's history of screwing up and later apologizing. So, some users may find it concerning that Facebook's new Portal and Portal+ smart camera devices can in fact be used to facilitate targeted ads. Portal and Portal+ represent Facebook's attempt to cash in on the smart device craze that was largely started by Amazon and its Echo line. Rather than go out completely on its own,...
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Earlier this year, Facebook came under fire when it was discovered that the company let a ton of user information fall into the hands of marketing companies. It's hard to say how that incident will affect Facebook in the long-run, but what we do know is that the aftermath has already led to the creation of a new feature. Around the time the Facebook security debacle went down earlier this year, users who were previously sent messages by company founder Mark Zuckerberg discovered that those messages were suddenly missing. As it happens, someone in charge decided to unsend those messages, which is...
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Being security conscious has always been important, but in recent years, it's become downright imperative. Hacks and leaks are happening at an alarming rate, which means we all need to be more cognizant about our digital security every day. When an incident does end up taking place, we also need to be on top of things, enacting recovery plans and swift damage control efforts. At the very least, it means a password change for the affected service would be in order. However, there are other steps you'll want to consider for social networking services like Facebook that stores a massive amount of...
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Although they are being announced a little later than previously thought, Facebook has announced new hardware products that we first told you about last month. The company is debuting two smart displays dubbed Portal and Portal+, which are similar to devices currently on the market like the Amazon Echo Show and the Lenovo Smart Display. The Portal, which will retail for $199, has a 10.1-inch display (1280x800) with an integrated speaker in its base. The Portal+, however, has a ginormous 15.6-inch display with a resolution of 1920x1080 and will retail for $349. Whereas the...
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Social media trends are like underwear, they change often and sometimes smell foul. If you're on Facebook, you might have noticed that some of your friends and family have posted scripted messages about accounts being cloned, and not to trust duplicate friend requests if you receive one. It sounds like a valid warning with Facebook's recent security breach, but is it for real? Probably not. Facebook really did fess up to a "security issue" a couple of weeks ago, and noted that almost 50 million accounts may have been affected by it. The attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook's code that...
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Facebook can’t seem to get out of its own way when it comes to security. The biggest security issue for the social network was the Cambridge Analytica fiasco that gave the company access to information on 87 million users. In June, Facebook had another security failure when private posts of 14 million users were shared publicly. Today we learn of yet another security breach that resulted in the theft of personal details on 50 million users. Facebook became aware of the breach on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 25 and said that the attack took advantage of the Facebook code for "View As"....
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Mark Zuckerberg is about to get “Zucc’d”. White-hat hackers usually help to plug security holes, but one hacker has promised to thrust Facebook into chaos. Taiwanese bug bounty hunter Chang Chi-yuan recently announced that he will livestream an attempt to hack into Zuckerberg's Facebook account. The 24 year-old hacker announced to his 26,000 Facebook followers that he will broadcast “the deletion of FB founder Zuck’s account”. The deletion is scheduled for Sunday, September 30th at 6pm NST (6am EST). Chang will stream the event on his own Facebook page. Chang...
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Oculus is moving swiftly along with the development of its virtual reality (VR) headsets. The company announced today that its next-generation, all-in-one VR headset will ship in Spring 2019 priced at just $399. Called the Oculus Quest, this VR headset will provide six degrees of freedom and will come with Oculus Touch wireless controllers. Oculus Quest represents the production release of the Project Santa Cruz that was first teased nearly a year ago by Facebook. The VR system supports inside-out tracking, and makes use of four ultra wide-angle sensors for real-time positioning in a...
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It looks as though Amazon is about to have some competition for its newly redesigned Echo Show. According to a new report, Facebook is set to announced next a week a new hardware device called "Portal". According to the report from Cheddar, the hardware device will available in two screen sizes (a la the Lenovo Smart Display), with prices starting at a hefty $300. The variant with the larger display is said to retail for as much as $400. The device will allegedly have a wide-angle camera up front, and will rely heavily on artificial intelligence technology to enhance the user experience....
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For better or worse, memes are a part of the online culture, and they are especially prevalent on social media sites. This presented a problem for Facebook, both in terms of tracking down content that runs afoul of its terms of service, and in deciding which content its users are likely to be interested in seeing. So, the company went and developed a large-scale machine learning system named Rosetta to better understand memes. As you might already known, Facebook relies heavily on algorithms to sift and sort through content. There are simply too many users and too many posts to lay content moderation...
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Facebook rolled out its new video platform called Facebook Watch about a year ago promising original programming for fans to enjoy. Initially, the service was only available in the U.S.; Facebook is changing that with the announcement today that Facebook Watch is rolling out globally. Facebook is also taking the opportunity to talk a bit about the tweaks it has made to the service since it launched. Facebook Watch has become more social over the last year making it easier for users to see what videos your friends liked or shared and is bolstering its feature set to take on the dominant YouTube....
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