Worth reading: this Wired article that discusses the potential impact of banning political ads on social media. Political Ads serve as entry point to phony astroturf communities. For example, the now infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA for short) purchased only 3400 Facebook and Instagram ads. Compare this to the over 61500 Facebook posts, 116000 Instagram […]
Author Archives: Martin Treiber
Converging Solutions: Artificial Networks Shed Light on Human Face Recognition
Humans are almost hardwired to recognize faces. It’s important for us to tell people apart and we barely think about it. But the recognition process is far from being understood. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have compared how deep neural networks recognize faces and compared this with activation pattern data from […]
Chatbots on Smartphones: It’s not a love story, but it’s worth trying
It’s easy, you might say. In fact, there are several ways to use chatbots on messenger platforms (WhatsApp, FB Messenger, etc.) or to integrate them on the mobile website or apps via widget. However, these methods have several problems: 1. Mix of business and private. If you use a messenger platform for your business, you […]
Why News-Pull is no Solution for WhatsApp Newsletters
With the approaching end of WhatsApp newsletters, companies are looking for alternatives to prevent the loss of their WhatsApp newsletter audience. One solution is the switch to News-Pull. Here the subscriber must open WhatsApp, switch to the newsletter channel and send a message (for example, a letter). Only then will the subscriber receive the newsletter […]
The End of Political Advertising on Social Media?
Twitter has announced to block all political advertising with November. Although it is still unclear how this is implemented in practice and what qualifies as a political advertising, one thing is clear: the times when political parties have simply bought advertising on social media sites are probably over. This also because of Cambridge Analytica, that […]
Google has reached “Quantum Supremacy”
Google has now officially made its proof of the so-called Quantum Supremacy public by publishing an article in Nature. According to Sundar Pichai on the company’s blog “We’ve shown that our newest quantum processor Sycamore with 53 qubits can perform a calculation within seconds that would take thousands of years even for the strongest supercomputers […]
How to be a slower and more thoughtful news consumer |
Digital minimalist Cal Newport advocates a moderated information consumption. Are you ready to join the attention resistance? It’s core principle is to embrace the concept of slow. It’s the right response to become more mindful in an age in which the digital attention economy is shoveling more and more clickbait toward us. Crucial to a […]
Machines Beat Humans on a Reading Test. But Do They Understand? | Quanta Magazine
We don’t have machines or programs that understand (as human understand). However, there are tools that surpass humans on a reading test. Read more here: Machines Beat Humans on a Reading Test. But Do They Understand? | Quanta Magazine Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels
Planting Tiny Spy Chips in Hardware Can Cost as Little as $200 | WIRED
Ever wondered how much it woud cost to add spy chips on a server motherboard? It can be as litte as $200. Of course, you need access to the hardware to do this. This comes after the Bloomber Businessweek bombshell article from last year, claiming Supermicro motherboards were bugged with tiny chips from Chinese hackers. […]
Most Deepfakes Are Porn, and They’re Multiplying Fast | WIRED
Two years ago, software was realeased that montaged faces of Hollywood actresses into pornographic video clips. This is now known as deepfakes and the technology has found a wide audience. While some of the manipulated videos are fun and mostly harmless like the picture above, a report by Deeptrace found 96% of deepfakes are pornographic. […]