1

Twitch bans Donald Trump, albeit temporarily

Video streaming service platform Twitch has temporarily banned US President Donald Trump’s account on account of alleged hate speech. Twitch was especially unhappy about Trump’s infamous kickoff rally where he made controversial remarks against Mexico. Twitch’s temporary ban is certainly by far the most severe action taken by a tech company against Trump. Trump is already engaged in a sort of cold war with micro-blogging website Twitter, where his tweets are either repeatedly getting censored or notified.

2

New York Times abandons Apple News

New York Times has quit Apple News app, citing that the news aggregator platform didn’t suit its direct-to-consumer business model. New York Times is the most high profile publication to exit Apple News, after The Guardian pressed the exit button few years back. Critics say that, unlike Google News, Apple News hasn’t had a very smooth run with news publications.

3

Youtube bans channels of white supremacist leaders

Taking cue from the raging anti-racism movement, Youtube has now banned couple of controversial political channels. Evidently, self-proclaimed white supremacist leaders – Richard Spencer, Stefan Molyneux and David Duke – operated these banned channels. Earlier, Youtube had also banned Gavin Macinnes – another prominent white nationalist leader.

4

Spotify to roll out real-time lyrics in 26 countries      

              Music streaming giant, Spotify, is all set to add a new exciting ‘lyrics feature’ to help their listeners fetch real-time lyrics. What is even better, this new feature won’t be available only in select countries but 26 countries. These countries include Southeast Asian, India and Latin American countries.

5

In a pilot test, Google adds local COVID-19 news coverage to its news app

Google is currently running small trial test to introduce comprehensive local news about the COVID-19 Pandemic into its Google News app. This trail test is been carried out in selected cities of U.S and Google has tied up with local publications for running this pilot test. If this test is successful, Google might soon add a separate ‘local COVID-19’ tab in its news app.

The post Twitch Temporarily bans Donald Trump for Hate Speech – Top Trending News appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

1

Starbucks to stop advertising on social media

Coffee chain major Starbucks has joined the growing chorus around racism, after the company announced on Sunday that it will no longer advertise on the social media. With this announcement, Starbucks has now joined rapidly increasing list of big corporates that have banned advertisements on social media platforms for their racist contents. The coffee chain major, however, said that it will continue to update posts on all social media channels and will also exclude Youtube from this ban.

2

From 2020, iPhone boxes won’t be all that heavy weighted

All those who are planning to buy an iPhone later this year might be surprised to find that their iPhone box isn’t all that heavy as it used to be in the past. This is because Apple is reportedly planning to stop offering a power adapter and Earpods along with iPhones from later this year. The company is reportedly planning to do this to offset its increasing cost particularly resulting from the 5G upgrading.

3

Facebook is planning to launch dark mode for mobiles

After launching a dark mode feature for desktops, Facebook is now planning to bring the handy feature for its mobile users. Known for making browsing easy in the low light environment, Facebook is reportedly already running a small pilot project for ‘dark mode’ feature on a small scale basis. The ‘night mode’ feature is already integrated in Facebook’s other platforms like Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger.

4   

Telegram to pay hefty fine to SEC and Investors as its ICO experiment fizzles out    

Telegram’s long-drawn battle with SEC has finally come to an end, with the former reportedly agreeing to pay $18.5 Mn to the latter and $1.2 Bn fine to the investors. Following this development, Telegram’s (which is best known for its instant messaging app) ICO experiment to raise capital has decisively proved to be a costly blunder. Telegram got loggerheads with the SEC in October last year after it raised funds in the capital market through token offerings.

The post Starbucks joins anti-racism bandwagon, stops Social Media Advertising – Top Trending News appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

1

Black side of Facial Recognition Technology 

The dark side of facial recognition technology is so dark that it is pitch black. This is to say that facial recognition technology’s criticism of racial bias is not totally unfounded. And the latest case of Robert Williams from Detroit reinforces the racial prejudice that the recognition technologies are very much prone to. Police arrested Robert Williams – an American black – in mid-January for a crime he did not commit. And his arrest was paved by facial racial technology. This is probably the first high profile case in America of racial discrimination allegedly promoted by Facial Recognition Technology and is receiving widespread media coverage in the U.S. To know more please click here.

2

Google tweaks Privacy policy for new users

Google on Wednesday announced new and more broad-changes in its privacy policy. Starting today, Google will automatically delete location and search data by default by new users after 18 months. This newly announced auto-delete feature will be applicable to search history (web as well as app), location history and voice command…click here.

3

California wants Uber and Lyft to stop classifying drivers as contractors

The long drawn  battle between gig companies and California State over ‘status of drivers’ may now seem to be heading towards conclusion. Going by things as they are panning out, gig companies like Uber and Lyft may soon have to reclassify their drivers as ‘employees’ or else risk getting banned in the state…click here.

4

Honeycode, the no-code app from Amazon

Amazon web services on Wednesday announced the launch of Amazon Honeycode. The company said that this new service will allow companies to instantly create mobile and web applications – without any programming requirement.

The post Black side of Facial Recognition Technology – Top Trending news appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

1

Facebook faces ad boycott from a prominent US company  

Become so big and enormous that nobody even thinks of boycotting you. The likes of Facebook, Twitter and Google indeed fall in these big leagues and therefore for advertisers to boycott these platforms is simply out of question. But a prominent American outdoor recreation company The North Face may have stroked a rebellion by deciding to commit to advertising boycott of Facebook. This, of course, has to do with the anti-racist movement that has swept the U.S over the last few weeks. Now the question remains will other U.S companies follow the suit to pressurize the social media giants to change their policies on hate speech and misinformation.

2

Samsung’s Blu-ray players are malfunctioning, but the company is apparently clueless

According to ZdNet, Samsung’s Blu-ray players are facing malfunctioning problems. The technology news portal has reported that users of Samsung Blu ray are facing strange problems – from getting stuck in an endless loop to hearing buzzing noise while playing. But the bigger complication is that Samsung is apparently still clueless about what is really driving these problems, leaving their customers to resolve the issue all by themselves (at least, for time being). By the way, Samsung was in news a couple of days back for denying reports that it is moving factory production out of China (but then that is just another story).

3

Uber’s Colombia logjam ends after court overturns restriction

For several months now Uber’s Colombian operations were facing existential problems, with the company being forced to briefly suspend its operation only to make a comeback with a different business model. This was all thanks to a decision passed by a Colombian regulatory body responsible for regulating competition in the country. But now Uber has got a reprieve from Colombian court, which has overturned these restrictions to allow the company to operate itself on the previous model.

4

Snapchat apologizes and this again has to do with the racism problem

Snapchat has tendered an apology for running a filter that was evidently offensive against the black community. The “Juneteenth” filter, which Snapchat has now taken down, was running a pan-African flag as a background theme and prompted people to smile. The filter immediately drew criticisms for promoting racism and Snapchat probably had little option but to take down the filter.

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