'Sulli Deals' form of hate speech in India, must be condemned: UN official

 Harassment of Muslim women in India through social media apps such as “Sulli Deals” must be condemned and prosecuted as soon as they occur, a UN Special Rapporteur has said

Harassment of Muslim women in India through social media apps such as “Sulli Deals” must be condemned and prosecuted as soon as they occur, a UN Special Rapporteur has said. UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Dr Fernand de Varennes took to Twitter to raise concern on the issue of minorities in India, saying Muslim women in India are harassed and sold in social media apps.

“#Minority Muslim women in #India are harassed & ‘sold’ in #socialmedia apps, #SulliDeals, a form of #HateSpeech, must be condemned and prosecuted as soon as they occur. All #HumanRights of minorities need to be fully & equally protected, Varennes said in a tweet on Tuesday. The Delhi Police last week arrested Aumkareshwar Thakur, 26, who is believed to be the creator of “Sulli Deals” app from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, the first arrest made in the case.

Oracle to take charge of TikTok’s US biz; may help ByteDance avoid ban

Microsoft announced Sunday that its bid to buy TikTok has been rejected

The owner of TikTok has chosen Oracle over Microsoft as its preferred suitor to buy the popular video-sharing app, according to a source familiar with the deal.Under the proposed deal, Oracle will be ByteDance’s technology partner and will assume management of TikTok’s U. S. user data, the sources said. Oracle is also negotiating taking a stake in TikTok’s U. S. operations, the sources added. Some of ByteDance’s top backers, including investment firms General Atlantic and Sequoia, will also be given minority stakes in TikTok’s U. S. operations under the proposed deal, one of the sources said.Microsoft announced Sunday that its bid to buy TikTok has been rejected, removing a leading suitor for the Chinese-owned app a week before President Donald Trump promises to follow through with a plan to ban it in the US.

Microsoft said in a Sunday statement that TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. The Trump administration has threatened to ban TikTok by mid-September and ordered ByteDance to sell its US business, claiming national-security risks due to its Chinese ownership. The government worries about user data being funneled to Chinese authorities. TikTok denies it is a national-security risk and is suing to stop the administration from the threatened ban….

TikTok will ‘strictly abide’ by new China export regulations: ByteDance

TikTok owner ByteDance has said it will abide by the new rules set by China for technologies that are subject to export bans or restrictions

TikTok owner ByteDance has said it will abide by the new rules set by China for technologies that are subject to export bans or restrictions. China updated the list of technologies that are subject to export bans last week amid pressure on the app’s parent company ByteDance by the White House to divest its business in the US quickly or face an effective ban.

The new list, released jointly by China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology, added 23 items to export restrictions while technical parameters of 21 items were revised. On Sunday, ByteDance said “the company will strictly abide” by the new export rules, reports CNBC. All technology transfers abroad, whether through trade, investment or other means, must strictly abide by relevant regulations on technology import and export of the country, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Friday. The update could affect a potential TikTok deal in the US.

“As a fast-growing innovative enterprise, ByteDance has many cutting-edge technologies in artificial intelligence and other fields, and some technologies may have been covered by the adjusted catalogue,” Professor Cui Fan at the University of International Business and Economics told Xinhua. Two new items under the category of information processing technology in the computer service industry were cited by Cui as relevant in the TikTok deal, which was the “personalized information push service technology based on data analysis” and “artificial intelligence interactive interface technology.”

Covid masks thwarting facial recognition tech, will investigate: US agency

Even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50% when trying to identify masked faces, says study

Technology News: Having a tough time recognising your neighbours behind their pandemic masks? Computers are finding it more difficult, too. A preliminary study published by a US agency on Monday found that even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50% when trying to identify masked faces. The mask problem is why Apple earlier this year made it easier for iPhone owners to unlock their phones without Face ID. It could also be thwarting attempts by authorities to identify individual people at Black Lives Matter protests and other gatherings.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology says it is launching an investigation to better understand how facial recognition performs on covered faces. Its preliminary study examined only those algorithms created before the pandemic, but its next step is to look at how accuracy could improve as commercial providers adapt their technology to an era when so many people are wearing masks.

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NIST, which is a part of the Commerce Department, is working with the US Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security’s science office to study the problem. It tested the software by drawing digital masks onto the faces in a trove of border crossing photographs, and then compared those photos against another database of unmasked people seeking visas and other immigration benefits. The agency says it scanned 6.2 million images of about 1 million people using 89 algorithms supplied by tech firms and academic labs.

Millions of dollars a year for content: Facebook’s offer to news outlets

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Facebook representatives had told news executives that they’d pay as much as $ 3 million a year to license stories, headlines and other material

International News: Facebook is reportedly in talks with news publishers to offer “millions of dollars” for the rights to publish their material on its site. The move follows years of criticism over its growing monopolization of online advertising to the detriment of the struggling news industry.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Facebook representatives had told news executives that they’d pay as much as $ 3 million a year to license stories, headlines and other material. Facebook declined to comment but confirmed that the company is working on launching a “news tab” for its service this fall. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began talking about a news section on the service in April.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed that Facebook has approached News Corp. about paying to license Wall Street Journal stories. The person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. The Journal report was not clear as to whether Facebook was offering $ 3 million to individual publishers or in total to all news organizations….