Reuters: “Uber to end post-trip tracking of riders as part of privacy push”

Uber Technologies Inc is pulling a heavily criticized feature from its app that allowed it to track riders for up to five minutes after a trip, its security chief told Reuters, as the ride-services company tries to fix its poor reputation for customer privacy.

The change, which restores users’ ability to share location data only while using the app, is expected to be announced on Tuesday and rolled out to Apple Inc iPhone users starting this week. It comes as Uber tries to recover from a series of crises culminating in the ouster of Chief Executive Travis Kalanick and other top executives.

Dustin Volz

I’m sure this has nothing to do with the FTC-imposed privacy audits – for the next 20 years no less – or with how iOS 11 will prevent apps from constantly accessing users’ location data, effectively negating this Uber “feature”. No connection whatsoever. 😏

Carlos Ruiz Zafón – Luminile din septembrie

După moartea capului familiei, Simone Sauvelle rămâne singură cu doi copii și o mulțime de datorii, în mediul ostil al Parisului. Printr‑un noroc neașteptat însă, un prieten îi face rost de o poziție de guvernantă la Cravenmoore, vila impunătoare de pe coasta Normandiei a fabricantului de jucării Lazarus Jann. După șocul pierderii unui tată și soț iubit, familia reușește să se acomodeze ușor la viața mai liniștită și intimă a satului de pescari de pe malul Golfului Albastru. Fiica ei Irene se împrietenește cu Hannah, tânăra bucătăreasă a conacului, și se apropie irezistibil de vărul taciturn al acesteia, Ismael, la rândul lui orfan. Fratele mai mic al lui Irene, Dorian, descoperă frumusețea coastelor în timpul verii și pasiunea pentru cartografie, în timp ce Simone se atașează cu duioșie de angajatorul ei Lazarus, care de ani buni trăiește singur în conac, îngrijindu‑și soția țintuită la pat de o boală misterioasă. Totuși, în spatele acestei imagini idilice par să se ascundă tot atâtea secrete sinistre pe câte automate se înșiră pe holurile întunecoase și interzise ale Cravenmoore.

După experiența fabuloasă citind Umbra vântului, trebuie să recunosc că nu mă așteptam deloc la ce am întâlnit în romanul de față. Ce‑i drept a fost publicat cu peste cinci ani mai devreme, și publicul țintă par a fi preponderent adolescenții, dar diferența e aproape ca de la cer la pământ. Se poate recunoaște stilul frumos al autorului în descrieri și unele pasaje lirice, dar povestea în sine este simplistă și dureros de previzibilă. După aluzii premature la povestea lui Barbă-Albastră, mai apoi se adaugă un pact faustian și un doppelgänger rău care se răzbună pe Lazarus și toți cei din jurul său. În esență ceea ce părea în introducere o poveste tragică de iubire se metamorfozează stângaci într‑un horror ieftin și fără sens.

Medium: “Let’s face reality: US Teens engage with iMessage more than any other social platform”

The Piper Jaffrey data shows how commanding iPhones are in today’s smartphone landscape for teens. This is in line with our various surveying here at Fam, in which we have approximated over the past year that 75% of US teens use iPhones. In terms of why this may be the case, there are several factors to consider: design, iTunes, network effects, and of course what we believe to be the most important one, iMessage.

By no means am I commenting on what device is better, more powerful, better looking, or any of that. Simply laying the groundwork for this thesis at large.

iMessage IS a social platform for teens. It’s currently the center of their immediate, social universe.

Giuseppe Stuto

Let’s face reality: the data in the article doesn’t actually support the sensationalist title. The author himself acknowledges that average time spent in iMessage is some two to three times smaller than time spent in other popular social apps like Instagram and Snapchat. This on itself contradicts his conclusion above.

Yoon Ha Lee – Povestiri din ‘Machineries of Empire’

De vreme ce tocmai terminasem Ninefox Gambit, m‑am gândit să continui cu două povestiri din același univers. Acestea relatează evenimente mult mai vechi, de pe vremea când Hexarhat‑ul conținea o a șaptea facțiune, Liozh, între timp epurată pentru erezie, și Shuos Jedao era încă în viață, ca asasin și spion Shuos. Scenele de aici nu impactează semnificativ povestea principală din roman, și bănuiesc că ar fi greu de urmărit fără să cunoști contextul, așa că eu aș recomanda să le citiți după primul roman, chiar dacă cronologic îl preced.

The New York Times: “Artificial Intelligence is Stuck. Here’s How to Move it Forward.”

To get computers to think like humans, we need a new A.I. paradigm, one that places “top down” and “bottom up” knowledge on equal footing. Bottom-up knowledge is the kind of raw information we get directly from our senses, like patterns of light falling on our retina. Top-down knowledge comprises cognitive models of the world and how it works.

Deep learning is very good at bottom-up knowledge, like discerning which patterns of pixels correspond to golden retrievers as opposed to Labradors. But it is no use when it comes to top-down knowledge. If my daughter sees her reflection in a bowl of water, she knows the image is illusory; she knows she is not actually in the bowl. To a deep-learning system, though, there is no difference between the reflection and the real thing, because the system lacks a theory of the world and how it works. Integrating that sort of knowledge of the world may be the next great hurdle in A.I., a prerequisite to grander projects like using A.I. to advance medicine and scientific understanding.

Gary Marcus

Almost exactly what I wrote a couple of months ago in response to a long article about Google’s AI initiatives. The research cannot go forward if it’s tied to commercial, short-term goals, where each company is trying to protect its own data and methods, instead of collaborating as researchers in fundamental physics do.

Super Ventures Blog: “Why is ARKit better than the alternatives?”

All the above use the same VIO system (Tango & ARKit even use the same code base originally developed by FlyBy!). Neither Hololens or Tango use the Depth Camera for tracking (though I believe they are starting to integrate it to assist in some corner cases). So why is ARKit so good?

The answer is that ARKit isn’t really any better than Hololens (I’d even argue that Hololens’ tracker is the best on the market) but Hololens hardware isn’t widely available. Microsoft could have shipped the Hololens tracker in a Windows smartphone, but I believe they chose not to for commercial reasons (I.e. it would have added a fair bit of cost & time to calibrate the sensors for a phone that would sell in low volumes, and a MSFT version of ARKit would not by itself convince developers to switch from iOS/Android)

Google also could easily have shipped Tango’s VIO system in a mass market Android phone over 12 months ago, but they also chose not to. If they did this, then ARKit would have looked like a catch up, instead of a breakthrough. I believe (without hard confirmation) that this was because they didn’t want to have to go through a unique sensor calibration process for each OEM, where each OEMs version of Tango worked not as well as others, and Google didn’t want to just favor the handful of huge OEMs (Samsung, Huawei etc.) where the device volumes would make the work worthwhile.

Matt Miesnieks

I’ve seen way too much excitement around ARKit on Twitter since Apple announced it and not enough useful demos.

I think there are two key questions developers should answer before investing in new technologies:

The New York Times: “Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent”

Search Apple’s website for a letter from Mr. Cook issuing a public rebuke of China’s intrusion into his customers’ privacy and freedom of expression — you won’t find it. The company has not fully tested its political and economic leverage in China. It hasn’t tested the public’s immense love of its products. It hasn’t publicly threatened any long-term consequences — like looking to other parts of the world to manufacture its products.

The company’s silence may be tactical; the Chinese government, the conventional thinking goes, does not take well to public rebuke. Yet Apple’s quiet capitulation to tightening censorship in one of its largest markets is still a dangerous precedent.

Farhad Manjoo

What a different Apple than the company that last year took a stance against government intrusion by refusing to break iOS encryption at the request of the FBI. I for one think the explanation is simple enough: back then, Apple figured there was little cost to resisting the US government, that they will eventually back down, while the public image benefit would be high, especially considering their armies of fans in the US, ready to defend their every decision.

TechCrunch: “Grab gets $2B from Didi and SoftBank to fuel bid to defeat Uber in Southeast Asia”

Essentially, both Didi and SoftBank are doubling down on the belief that Grab has what it takes to defeat Uber in Southeast Asia, the same way that Didi did in China when Uber agreed to sell its local business last August. That hope of defeating the U.S. firm was reignited this month when Uber agreed to sell its business in Russia to local rival Yandex.

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Grab operates in 36 cities across seven countries in Southeast Asia, where it claims over 50 million downloads from users and 1.1 million drivers on its platform. Its services are primarily focused on licensed taxis and private cars, but Grab also offers motorbike taxis, shuttle bus services and carpooling in a selection of countries.

Jon Russell

Interesting dynamic in the ride-sharing market: after trying to hyperexpand and control the worldwide market, Uber is being forced into a series of tactical retreats across the board. After ceding China to Didi, Russia to Yandex, the latest news show rivals are challenging Uber in Southeast Asia and Didi is also investing in Taxify, an Eastern European startup. The Chinese company seems intent on challenging Uber on multiple fronts, now that their American rival is hampered by internal scandals, lost its CEO and is dealing with a complicated lawsuit brought on by Waymo.