Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label France24 Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France24 Technology. Show all posts

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Facebook says investigating data exposure of 267 million users


Issued on: Modified: 
ADVERTISING
San Francisco

by Tamara Kachelmeier and Biodun Iginla, France24 Technology reporters
Facebook on Thursday said it is investigating a report that a database containing names and phone numbers of more than 267 million users was exposed online.
The database was made available for download last week on an online hacker forum that apparently belonged to a crime group, according to a blog post on the website Comparitech.
"We are looking into this issue, but believe this is likely information obtained before changes we made in the past few years to better protect people's information," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.
Comparitech said that security researcher Bob Diachenko spotted the database, which was openly accessible and contained Facebook users' names, user IDs and phone numbers.
The discovery was reported and the database was no longer available by Thursday, according to Comparitech.
Revelation of the exposed data comes as the social network strives to rebuild trust and alleviate concerns over protection of people's information.
US regulators earlier this month said that British consultancy Cambridge Analytica -- at the center of a massive scandal involving Facebook data hijacking -- deceived the social network's users about how it collected and handled their personal information.
The Federal Trade Commission said its investigation launched in March 2018 concluded that the now-defunct political consulting firm "engaged in deceptive practices to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting."
The FTC said the British firm, which worked on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, made "false and misleading" claims when it offered Facebook users a "personality quiz" -- stating it would not download names or any personally identifiable information.
The case created a firestorm over data protection when it was disclosed that Cambridge Analytica was able to create psychological profiles using data from millions of Facebook users.
Facebook's own investigation found that some data from 87 million users in the United States and elsewhere had been compromised by the firm, and claimed the practices violated the social network's terms of service.
Facebook paid a record $5 billion penalty early this year in a settlement with the regulator over mishandling users' private data.
© 2019 AFP
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Quibi: the new mobile-centric short-form streaming service


Issued on: 
ADVERTISING
Los Angeles 
by Tamara Kachelmeier and Biodun Iginla, France24 Technology reporters
Quibi, the Hollywood-backed streaming service set to launch next April, will offer people on the go short-form content that can be viewed in 10-minute increments only on mobile phones.
Created by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the longtime Disney executive and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation, the new app drew inspiration from Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," which has more than 100 chapters averaging five pages each.
The idea behind the innovative service that has the entertainment world abuzz is to attract younger viewers who are always on the move and who may not have long stretches of time to watch a series episode or a movie in one shot.
ADVERTISING
"We created a new platform for on-the-go viewing able to (attract) a hard-to-reach audience," Quibi CEO Meg Whitman explained at a recent conference in Los Angeles.
"Millennials, that's our target audience."
Major studios have pledged $1 billion in funding for the service, which has already attracted big Hollywood names such as Steven Spielberg, Guillermo Del Toro and Jennifer Lopez.
Whitman said Quibi, which stands for "quick bites," will offer Hollywood-quality videos in short form designed exclusively for mobile.
"Everything is being optimized for mobile, whether it's how the content is shot, how we render it," she said.
"We're telling stories in chapters," she said, adding that one of the core features of the streaming service will be 90-minute to two-hour movies told in 10-minute increments.
"The best analogy I have for you in another medium is 'The Da Vinci Code,'" she said, referring to Brown's blockbuster. "The book is 464 pages and every chapter is five pages long because Dan Brown said people didn't want to read for 40 minutes at a time anymore."
Such a format is key to luring the target audience of younger viewers during their daily activities from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, she said.
One exception will be a horror series in the works by Spielberg that users will only be able to see come nightfall.
Quibi will initially only be available in the United States and Canada and will cost five dollars monthly with ads and eight dollars ad-free.
- Will millennials bite? -
Six months before its launch, the service has already sold out the entire $150 million advertising inventory for its first year.
The big question now is whether subscriptions will follow.
"Candidly, I think there's already proof with YouTube Red that that business model doesn't work," said Tom Nunan, lecturer at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, referring to YouTube's paid service.
"So to me, of all of the new streamers, Quibi is the one that carries the highest risk because they've made this commitment to short form content when there's really no proof that people are willing to subscribe for that content."
But Gene del Vecchio, a marketing and entertainment expert, said he believes Quibi could be viable if younger people are willing to fork out up to eight dollars a month for a new streaming service.
"It fits the lifestyle of today's millennials," he said. "They want quick bites, they want five-minute episodes so that they can watch it in between college classes.
"They can watch it on the go and then they can come back."
Whitman said one added value to Quibi was the fact that the service, which pays the cost of a show plus a 20 percent production fee, licenses the episodes for a set time.
"We license it to our service in its short form for seven years and at the end of seven years, those creators own their own IP," she said.
"They can re-edit that movie into a shorter form... and they can sell it to another window," she added. "So they could sell it to a streaming service, after it's become popular on Quibi! And we're actually fine with that because we don't really think we're competitors."

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Monday, August 5, 2019

ANALYSIS: Privacy watchdogs warn Facebook over Libra currency


Date created : 
The letter follows a chorus of warnings about Facebook's entry into the shadowy world of digital banking
AFP/File
ADVERTISING
Sydney 
by Louise Healy and Biodun Iginla, France24 Technology and Financial News Analysts
Global privacy regulators joined forces Tuesday to demand guarantees from Facebook on how it will protect users' financial data when it launches its planned cryptocurrency, Libra.
The watchdogs from Australia, the US, EU, Britain, Canada and other countries issued an open letter calling on Facebook to respond to more than a dozen concerns over how it will handle sensitive personal information of users of the digital currency.
The letter follows a chorus of warnings about Facebook's entry into the shadowy world of digital banking, including at a meeting last month of finance ministers and central bankers from the G7 group of most developed economies.
ADVERTISING
The watchdogs said that Facebook and its subsidiary Calibra "have failed to specifically address the information handling practices that will be in place to secure and protect personal information".
Facebook's handling of user data, highlighted by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, had "not met the expectations of regulators or their own users", they said.
The social media giant's latest project faced similar risks, they said, adding that the "combination of vast reserves of personal information with financial information and cryptocurrency amplifies our privacy concerns about the Libra Network's design and data sharing arrangements".
The regulators demanded Facebook provide guarantees that user information, such as transaction histories, will not be shared without explicit consent and that all personal data will be adequately secured by all parties in the Libra network.
Facebook announced the launch of Libra in June, with Calibra slated to run a digital wallet and provide financial services using blockchain technology.
The currency is to be overseen by a Geneva-based Libra Association of companies, and Swiss authorities have also pledged tight oversight of the operation.
Libra is widely regarded as a challenger to dominant global player bitcoin.
Expected to launch in the first half of 2020, Libra is designed to be backed by a basket of currency assets to avoid the wild swings of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)