Facebook’s disappearing message saga is the act of a company in turmoil

Facebook’s disappearing message saga is the act of a company in turmoil

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Facebook’s disappearing message saga is the act of a company in turmoil

Tech

via Technology Review Feed – Tech Review Top Stories https://ift.tt/1XdUwhl

April 6, 2018 at 11:24AM

Watch Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceshipTwo take flight

Watch Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceshipTwo take flight

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As Virgin Galactic continues its quest to "open" space flight, it completed its first powered test flight since the 2014 crash that killed one of its pilots. Now we have video of the new SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, separating from its carry vehicle and using its rocket to reach supersonic speeds. It hit Mach 1.87 during its 30-second rocket burn and then coasted until reaching an altitude of 84,271 ft before preparing for its return.

Source: Virgin Galactic, Virgin Galactic (YouTube)

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

April 5, 2018 at 10:03PM

Hot-air dryers suck in nasty bathroom bacteria and shoot them at your hands

Hot-air dryers suck in nasty bathroom bacteria and shoot them at your hands

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Researchers found these spewing bacteria and spores.

Washing your grubby mitts is one of the all-time best ways to cut your chances of getting sick and spreading harmful germs to others. But using the hot-air dryers common in bathrooms can undo that handy hygienic work.

Hot-air dryers suck in bacteria and hardy bacterial spores loitering in the bathroom—perhaps launched into the air by whooshing toilet flushes—and fire them directly at your freshly cleaned hands, according to a study published in the April issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The authors of the study, led by researchers at the University of Connecticut, found that adding HEPA filters to the dryers can reduce germ-spewing four-fold. However, the data hints that places like infectious disease research facilities and healthcare settings may just want to ditch the dryers and turn to trusty towels.

Indeed, in the wake of the blustery study—which took place in research facility bathrooms around UConn—”paper towel dispensers have recently been added to all 36 bathrooms in basic science research areas in the UConn School of Medicine surveyed in the current study,” the authors note.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

April 6, 2018 at 01:34PM

Facebook admits Zuckerberg wiped his old messages—which you can’t do

Facebook admits Zuckerberg wiped his old messages—which you can’t do

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Enlarge /

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2017.

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook has been quietly deleting old messages from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg out of their recipients’ Facebook Messenger inboxes, the company has acknowledged. This isn’t an option available to ordinary users. Users can delete their own copy of a Messenger conversation, but if they do the other party will retain his or her own copy.

“Three sources confirm to TechCrunch that old Facebook messages they received from Zuckerberg have disappeared from their Facebook inboxes, while their own replies to him conspicuously remain,” Techcrunch’s Josh Constine wrote.

Facebook argues that it has done nothing wrong.

“After Sony Pictures’ emails were hacked in 2014, we made a number of changes to protect our executives’ communications,” the company told Techcrunch. “These included limiting the retention period for Mark’s messages in Messenger. We did so in full compliance with our legal obligations to preserve messages.”

While deleting the messages may not have been illegal, it is going to raise some eyebrows. For weeks, Facebook has faced criticism for appearing to put its own financial interests ahead of the privacy interests of users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now we’re learning that Facebook has essentially created a two-tier system of privacy for Messenger users: Zuckerberg and a handful of other Facebook executives enjoy a limited “retention period” of their messages, whereas the embarrassing messages of ordinary users live on as long as their recipients want to keep them.

Zuckerberg has a history of having old, embarrassing instant messaging conversations come back to haunt him.

“Yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard just ask,” Zuckerberg wrote shortly after the site’s 2004 launch as a social network for Harvard students. “I have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns.”

“How’d you manage that one?” the friend asks.

“People just submitted it,” Zuckerberg replied. “I don’t know why. They ‘trust me.’ Dumb fucks.”

Presumably Zuckerberg has become more circumspect in recent years, so the deleted Messenger messages probably don’t contain anything quite that embarrassing. But with ever-increasing scrutiny into Facebook’s business practices, it’s not hard to see why Zuckerberg would want to minimize his paper trail.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

April 6, 2018 at 10:58AM