Instagram will now warn users before disabling account

Despite heavy automation of the entire process, content moderation on a social media platform like Instagram can be tricky, especially when there are a billion active users uploading images to it every single day. Previously, if a post was found to be in violation of Instagram’s content rules, the uploader’s account would be disabled without warning. Now, however, Instagram says it has revised some of its rules on account disabling. Instagram will now warn users if their account is in danger of being shut down.

In a recent news release, the Facebook-owned social networking service writes that it is introducing a new notification process to help users understand if their Instagram account is at risk of being disabled. “This notification will also offer the opportunity to appeal content deleted. To start, appeals will be available for content deleted for violations of our nudity and pornography, bullying and harassment, hate speech, drug sales, and counter-terrorism policies, but we’ll be expanding appeals in the coming months,” writes Instagram.

This is how the new notification will look.

Even in the past, Instagram has offered its users a chance to appeal if their account was shut down mistakenly by the service for any violatations but now, the difference is that users will first be warned about a possible account closure, giving them a chance either to appeal against Instagram’s decision or remove their offensive post(s). In the past, users have reportedly had their accounts disabled temporarily for posting images that portray breastfeeding, nudity in art, etc.

In addition to the notification feature for accounts that are on the brink of closure, Instagram is rolling out a new moderation policy. The company says, “in addition to removing accounts with a certain percentage of violating content, we will also remove accounts with a certain number of violations within a window of time.” The company believes that such policies are more in line with those followed by parent company Facebook and that they will be more effective in holding users accountable for what they share online.

Inline image courtesy: Instagram

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Microsoft Cloud Growth, Surface Revenue Beat Expectations as Xbox Sales Disappoint

Microsoft on Thursday posted quarterly earnings that trounced expectations, citing growth in partnerships with companies on technology and cloud computing services.

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Uplay+ Game Subscription Service to Include Over 100 Games Including Assassin's Creed Series, Ubisoft Classics, Upcoming Releases

Ubisoft's upcoming game streaming service will include many of the company's most-loved franchises and games, plus premium content

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Breakthrough Listen begins search for alien technosignatures using VERITAS telescope array

Breakthrough Listen is an ambitious project that is using a number of astronomical instruments over a period of ten years to detect signs for advanced extraterrestrial civilisations. There is an ongoing radio and optical survey of 1,000,000 million stars closest to the Earth, the galactic plane of the Milky Way and the 100 nearest galaxies for signs of technologies deployed by advanced civilisations, also known as technosignatures.  Technosignatures that can be detected over interstellar distances include communication beacons, rocket trails or Clarke exobelts - rings of satellites around planets. By contrast, finding alien life forms through bio signatures involves probing the atmospheres of exoplanets for signs of methane, or disequilibrium of the gases in the atmosphere, that cannot be explained by natural sources. Breakthrough Listen has announced a collaboration with the VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) array of four 12 meter telescopes, located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona. “Breakthrough Listen is already the most powerful, comprehensive, and intensive search yet undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. Now, with the addition of VERITAS, we’re sensitive to an important new class of signals: fast optical pulses. Optical communication has already been used by NASA to transmit high definition images to Earth from the Moon, so there’s reason to believe that an advanced civilization might use a scaled-up version of this technology for interstellar communication,” said Dr Andrew Siemion, who leads the Breakthrough Listen side of the collaboration from the University of California, Berkeley. 

The VERITAS telescope array. Image: N. Galante. 

The VERITAS telescope is one of the most powerful telescopes in the world for studying high energy astrophysics, and is typically used for observing gamma rays. However, turns out that the telescope array is suitable for the goals of the Breakthrough Initiative, even though the instrument was originally not designed for that purpose. The array will be used for detecting a very specific type of technosignature - laser pulses, or beacons that are of a short duration, a few nanoseconds. The VERITAS instrument has previously been used to scan for such short optical pulses from KIC 8462852, a star went through mysterious and periodic phases of dimming.  Lasers can be used in space by an advanced civilisation for a number of reasons, including transmitting data, controlling robotic probes, broadcasting a timestamp, measuring distances or to locate an object. These laser flashes, even if they last a billionth of a second, would outshine any nearby stars, provided they are aimed straight at the Earth. The VERITAS team has narrowed down the search to 120 target stars in particular. Each star will be observed for a duration of about fifteen minutes, and if there are any laser pulses detected, the observation time will be extended to rule out false positives. The important factor here is the confirmation from all four telescopes in the array.  Yuri Milner, founder of Breakthrough Initiatives said, “When it comes to intelligent life beyond Earth, we don’t know where it exists or how it communicates. So our philosophy is to look in as many places, and in as many ways, as we can. VERITAS expands our range of observation even further.” Breakthrough Listen, which was co founded by Stephen Hawking has collaborated with other observatories before, including the Jodrell Bank Observatory, The Green Bank telescope and the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope. Apart from looking for technosignatures, the initiative also contributes to finding exoplanets, detecting fast radio bursts and studying interesting objects such as ‘Oumuamua. 

Sources: Breakthrough Initiatives, UC Santa Cruz, University of Delaware  Cover Image: A laser beam from the VLT's Yepun telescope. Credit: ESO/G. Hüdepohl

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Netflix will roll out less expensive, mobile-only plan in India by Q3 this year

Back in March this year, Netflix was reported to be working on cheaper, mobile-only plans for Indian users. The online media streaming platform got in touch with us and, in a statement, confirmed that this indeed was the case but the test is still going on in select countries. The company also noted that not all users might see the option to subscribe for the new plans and that there’s a possibility of the option never making it out of testing. However, the company has now confirmed that it would be rolling out a less expensive mobile-only plan in India, which will be made available alongside its existing plans. 

Netflix broke the news in an investor note where it stated that the new plan would be announced by Q3 this year. We reached out to Netflix for some additional information but the company didn't reveal much. Netflix says, "The mobile plan will be launched in India in Q3. We will share more details soon.” There are no additional details about this new plan but was previously reported to cost Rs 250. Even if this turns out to be true, the new plan by Netflix will be priced higher than the current competing services like Amazon Prime and Disney-owned Hotstar, which are priced at Rs 129 and Rs 199 per month. Additionally, local online content providers like AltBalaji and ZEE5 are even cheaper and recently, MX Player also announced some free-to-watch original shows.

"After several months of testing, we've decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-screen plan in India to complement our existing plans,” Netflix’s letter to shareholders reads. “We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay TV ARPU is low (below $5). We will continue to learn more after launch of this plan."

The shareholder report also noted that the online streaming platform is lagging behind in terms of subscriber additions. The company has been partnering with multiple internet and telecom providers like ACT Fibernet and Airtel to provide its services for free. Under the partnership with ACT Fibernet, the internet providers’ 6-month and 12-month ‘Entertainment Plan’, customers can pay for their monthly Netflix Subscription along with their ACT Fibernet bill to receive a cashback of Rs 350 per month. Airtel postpaid and V-Fiber broadband customers can get a three-month subscription to Netflix for free. 

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Twitter launches Hide Replies feature to give you more control over your conversations

While you can always report the tweet replies that are offensive, hateful or racist in nature, you will soon be able to hide those replies as well. Twitter is testing a feature called “Hide Replies” - which is a self-explanatory term - beginning with users in Canada. It will soon be rolled out globally. When you press the hide button, it will hide the reply and delete it. Hence, it is not a replacement of the delete button in any way. However, if your followers still want to see the hidden replies, they can press the icon and view those replies. 

 

We’re testing a feature to hide replies from conversations. This experience will be available for everyone around the world, but at this time, only people in Canada can hide replies to their Tweets. We want to know what you think. Please Tweet us your feedback and questions! https://t.co/H7iMtEhCUP

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) 17 July 2019

 

In a statement posted as a series of tweets, Twitter explained its goals around the new addition by saying, “We’re testing a feature to hide replies from conversations. This experience will be available for everyone around the world, but at this time, only people in Canada can hide replies to their Tweets…They’ll be hidden from the main conversation for everyone behind a new icon. As long as it hasn’t been deleted and/or is not from an account with protected Tweets, everyone can still interact with a hidden reply by clicking the icon to view. We want everyone on Twitter to have healthy conversations, and we’re working on features that will help people feel more comfortable. We’re testing a way for people to hide replies they feel are irrelevant or offensive.”

The aim is to have healthy conversations on the platform. However, there’s a downside to this feature as reported by TechCrunch, “For example, a user could choose to hide replies that simply disagreed with their views. This would then create a 'filter bubble' where only people who shared the original poster's same opinion would have their comments prominently displayed.”

A Twitter user can also hide replies that provide a fact-check or attempt to correct misinformation.

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Oppo A9 launched in India with waterdrop notch, dual rear cameras, 4020mAh battery, and more

Oppo has launched its mid-range smartphone, the Oppo A9 in India. It was launched in China in April. The key highlights of the Oppo A9 include the tall aspect ratio, Ultra Night Mode for low light photography, 4000mAh+ battery, and software tweaks like Hyperboost that enhance the gaming performance of the phone. It will go on sale from July 20 on Amazon.in, and at retail stores. 

The Oppo A9 features a 6.53-inch Full HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) display with 90.70 percent screen-to-body ratio and a waterdrop notch, which is under the protection of Gorilla Glass 5. It is powered by a Helio P70 chipset, paired with 4GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The phone runs ColorOS 6 based on Android 9 Pie. It also has a fingerprint scanner mounted on the back of the device.

In the camera department, the Oppo A9 sports a dual camera setup on the rear that has a 16MP primary sensor with an f/1.8 lens and a 2MP secondary sensor. The waterdrop notch on the front houses a 16MP selfie-camera that has f/2.0 lens. Oppo says the front camera can recognise over 130 forehead points and works with a face slimming feature.

On the connectivity front, the Oppo A9 includes 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v4.2, GPS/ A-GPS, and Micro-USB with OTG support. Coming to the sensors, it has an accelerometer, an ambient light, proximity, and a gyroscope sensor. The phone also packs a 4020mah battery. Lastly, it measures 162mm x 76.1mm x 8.3mm. 

The Oppo A9 is priced at Rs 15,490 in India. It comes in only one storage option, that is, 4GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It will be available to purchase in the country from both online and offline stores starting from July 20. 

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