Twitter May Soon Be Able To Read Your Photos, Too
Twitter just bought a machine learning company that uses software to extract data from images, which means it knows what Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest know: Pictures are important.
Madbits, a startup that hasn’t even launched publicly, announced it is joining Twitter on Wednesday. The announcement was first reported by Gigaom.
With Madbits technology, Twitter will be able to glean information like metadata and image content from pictures shared on the social network, and in turn figure out what’s visually popular and why.
We’re already sharing 140-character blasts of information on Twitter, and it’s fairly easy to figure out what people are talking about by analyzing text. For instance Twitter’s “firehose” of data provides a handful of companies access to all the tweets and activity streams going back to 2006. With his information, people can discern what was popular at any given time. It’s much harder, if not impossible at this point, with images.
“We developed our technology based on deep learning, an approach to statistical machine learning that involves stacking simple projections to form powerful hierarchical models of a signal,” the company said in a statement posted on its website.
Twitter has made significant strides to improve visual aspects of the social network. Thanks to explosive popularity of image-heavy sites like Pinterest and Tumblr, social networks that rely on text have had to play catch up on the Visual Web. Twitter has been relatively slow to adapt, but implementing features like in-line photos and, more recently gifs, show it’s focused on being a visual network, and giving photos as much importance as words.
And, as a result, figure out what humans want to look at.
Lead image courtesy of Camera Eye Photography on Flickr
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Surprise! Blockchain Bitcoin Wallet Returns To Apple App Store
More than six months after Apple’s controversial Bitcoin wallet ban, Blockchain is back in the App Store with a new wallet.
In February, Blockchain was the only Bitcoin wallet remaining in the App Store after Apple deleted Coinbase in November 2013 and BitPak back in 2012.
That is, until CEO Nicolas Cary got a message from Apple stating Blockchain had been “removed from the App Store due to an unresolved issue.”
See also: Apple Deletes Blockchain, The Last Remaining Bitcoin Wallet For iPhone
Apple never did elaborate further on that statement, but for reasons we can only speculate on, the tech giant relaxed its “purchasing and currency” policies this June immediately following its Worldwide Developer’s Conference 2014. The update states:
“Apps may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the territories in which the app functions.”
That shift was a signal to Cary to begin working on the next generation of the Blockchain wallet, he told Coindesk. Built from scratch, the new app not only allows users to exchange bitcoins from wallet to wallet like the former version, but also to make purchases from the growing list of merchants who now accept Bitcoin payments.
See also: Here Are All The New Ways To Spend Bitcoin While You Weren't Paying Attention
With 1.9 million users, Blockchain is the most popular Bitcoin wallet available. However, Apple’s newly relaxed policy may lure competitors into trying to create a better one.
(Apple has not yet returned ReadWrite's request for comment.)
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Facebook Makes Messenger Mandatory
Facebook’s plan to monetize Messenger through payments just got one step closer to reality. Now users who want to keep messaging their Facebook friends will be forced to download the standalone Messenger app.
In the next few days, Facebook will fade out the messaging option from its main iPhone and Android apps. Now users worldwide will experience what European Facebook users underwent in April, where Facebook first tested a standalone app for messaging.
The social network hasn’t exactly been subtle about its plans to monetize the messaging function. In June, the company snagged PayPal President David Marcus to oversee Messenger, and clearly expected Marcus to use his payments expertise.
See also: PayPal President David Marcus Is Taking His Talents To Facebook
Messenger hit 200 million active users and people now send 12 billion messages a day, Facebook said in a statement. It’s unclear so far how this would be monetized, but in the 2014 second quarter conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that “over time there will be some overlap between [Messenger] and payments.”
The move is similar to FourSquare’s corralling of some of its app’s functions into an exclusively check-in app Swarm. However, as tech companies continue to split up their apps into increasingly specific categories, the question that remains is whether users will be content to have multiple Facebook and Foursquare apps on their phones.
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President Obama To Kick Off Drone Privacy Guidelines
The Federal Aviation Administration no longer be able to stall on privacy guidelines for private drone operation in the United States.
President Barack Obama is set to issue an executive order to create privacy guidelines for private drones operating in U.S. airspace, according to Politico. If executed, this order would put the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an arm of the Commerce Department, in charge of developing these guidelines.
Until now, privacy guidelines for drones were considered to be under the domain of the FAA, which is currently embroiled in the lengthy process of crafting regulations for operating commercial drones in U.S. airspace. However, the FAA has yet to address photos and other personal information potentially collected by private drones, a move that's been criticized by both lawmakers and consumer groups.
See also: Why Commercial Drones Are Stuck In Regulatory Limbo
Brendan Schulman, a lawyer who specializes in litigation involving unmanned aircraft systems, told ReadWrite the measure lines up with the FAA’s earlier testimony.
“The FAA has never had a mandate concerning privacy, and in Congressional hearings has indicated that it would look to other agencies to develop any necessary privacy policies for commercial drones,” he said.
“There is no obvious agency to take this on, so it seems the President made a decision to specifically designate NTIA as the lead agency to study the issue. My understanding is that the result will be privacy best practices, not necessarily regulations.”
Congress has set a 2015 deadline for the FAA to develop its regulations. Internationally, drones are used for delivery purposes, crop surveying and maintenance, search and rescue, and more.
White House officials have not made it clear when the President will be issuing his order.
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Developers Are Starting To Chase After Apple's Swift
Apple really wants developers to switch to Swift. And it looks like the feeling is mutual.
Six weeks after Apple unveiled Swift, the new programming language for iPhone and Mac applications is attracting a noticeable level of interest from developers. Phil Johnson at IT World crunched the numbers, and at least on GitHub, developers are picking it up.
See also: Apple Wants Devs To Love Swift, Its Shiny New Language—But There's A Catch
Swift is now the 15th most widely used language on GitHub, with more than 2,600 new Swift repositories created since June, according to Johnson’s study. More significantly, Johnson believes that interest in Swift is directly replacing interest in Objective-C:
“From the beginning of January through the end of May, developers created about 294 new Objective-C repositories per day on GitHub. Since Swift was released in early June, that average has dropped to about 246 repos per day. That drop of 48 repos per day is pretty close to the average number of new Swift repositories created per day since its release and initial spike in interest.”
Apple has shown a marked interested in getting developers to adopt Swift, even going so far as to launch a surprisingly open and friendly development blog.
See also: Why Apple’s Blogging About Swift, Its New Programming Language For iPhones And Macs
From Apple’s perspective, Swift is a simpler, safer, faster-to-run alternative to the somewhat clunky and error prone language Objective-C now used to write apps for iPhones, iPads and Macs. But even if Swift is the magic bullet Apple conveys, it’s still going to have to rally developers to switch from the old way of doing things to an unproven new language.
The GitHub data shows that at least some developers are turning a new leaf.
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Forget Algorithms, Follow An Interest On Pinterest
2014 has been a tipping point for Pinterest, in which the site has gone from visual social network to visual search engine. Increasingly, Pinterest is not a site for socializing with friends but instead, a place to laser-focus in on your specific favorite things.
See also: How The Visual Web Could Achieve Its Potential
On Thursday, Pinterest launched a new way to track your interests in the form of a Follow button. Since the beginning of the year, Pinterest has had an “Explore” option in which the site’s algorithm attempts to suggest topics that are appealing to you, like hiking or climbing. Click on the Explore button and you’ll get a row of computer-generated related topics like “Ice Climbing.”
If you click on any related topics and press the red Follow button in the upper right hand corner. You’ll get Pinterest pins, or images, from that category regularly delivered to your main feed.
The Hegemony Of The Visual Web
Following people has never been the focus of Pinterest. People come to Pinterest to find material and content on things they are interested in. A reinforced emphasis on topics was inevitable for Pinterest. Following another person on Pinterest has never been about adopting that person’s entire presence into your feed, but only the places where your interests overlap.
However, the follow button is also indicative of a Visual Web-wide trend. Tumblr, and just recently Imgur, give users the ability to follow topic tags they find interesting. As each of these sites comes to the same conclusion independently, it indicates that as the Visual Web comes into its own, each of its denizens is tackling a similar problem.
See also: In Challenge To Google, Pinterest Launches Guided Search
The problem here is clearly image overload. Without some way to discover specific images, like Pinterest's guided search or Imgur's new tags, users will only see the most popular topics and content. Imgur CEO Alan Schaaf sought to expose the “dark matter” of Imgur; Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann adds an element of serendipity. Silbermann said, “Pinterest at its heart is about discovering things you didn't even know were there.”
There are now more than 30 billion pins on Pinterest, so the possibility of relevant images never getting viewed by interested audiences is very real. Pinterest has a strong motivator—in the form of advertisers using its Promoted Pins tool—to make sure these images are seen.
For the first half of 2014, Pinterest focused on getting the algorithm to meet users halfway, assessing their passions both through the Interests tool and through guided search. Now, the Follow tool is putting the other half of the equation in users’ hands.
Perhaps the reason Tumblr, Imgur and Pinterest are finding follow tools helpful is because they don’t have to actually limit the amount of content there is to be shown. The ability to follow or unfollow, to narrow or expand their onsite experience, is in the user’s hands.
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12,500 In Nokia Division Laid Off By Microsoft
The job cuts are deep at Microsoft and Nokia got slashed the deepest.
Microsoft today announced that it will lay off 18,000 people (of about 127,000) over the next year with most of those cuts coming in the next six months. Of those cuts, Nokia will lose 12,500 employees that had come when Microsoft bought the cellphone manufacturer in a $7.17 billion acquisition that became official in April of this year.
“12,500 professional and factory positions will be eliminated through synergies and strategic alignment of the Nokia Devices and Services,” Microsoft said in a press release.
Microsoft did not go into specifics of which particular programs and departments are being cut in the Nokia division or in the remaining 5,500 positions that will be eliminated.
“[W]e are working to integrate the Nokia Devices and Services teams into Microsoft. We will realize the synergies to which we committed when we announced the acquisition last September. The first-party phone portfolio will align to Microsoft’s strategic direction. To win in the higher price tiers, we will focus on breakthrough innovation that expresses and enlivens Microsoft’s digital work and digital life experiences,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an email to employees published by the company.
The cuts at Microsoft are larger than most analysts predicted. The projection was that Microsoft would cut about 10% of the workforce with most of those cuts coming on the Nokia side and global marketing positions. The 18,000 positions that Microsoft cut about to almost 15% of its total workforce.
Lead image: Former Nokia CEO and current Microsoft executive Stephen Elop at Mobile World Congress 2014 by Dan Rowinski for ReadWrite.
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Google Wants To Make You An Android Developer—For Free
Android is the world’s most popular mobile platform—and now you can learn how to build Android apps for free.
See also: What Developers Need To Know About Android L
On Wednesday Google announced a free Android-app training course, one intended to give you up-close-and-personal experience with the mobile platform used in more than 190 countries and millions of mobile devices.
The course, "Developing Android Apps: Android Fundamentals," walks you through six lessons for building your first cloud-connected Android app. In a blog post, Google stresses that the course is designed for people with some programming experience, but not necessarily any Android or even mobile experience.
Of course there’s a catch. It costs $150 a month to sign up for Udacity, where Google is offering the course. There’s a two week free trial, but Google recommends you take eight weeks, working six hours a week, to practice the course’s six lessons. Though if you’re looking to save money, perhaps you could blast through that before the free trial ends.
Check out Google’s video to learn about the steps you’ll go through in the course:
Screenshot via Udacity
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