Google allows controversial Parler app back on Play Store

New Delhi, Sep 3 (IANS) Google has finally allowed conservative social media app Parler to be back on its Play Store, after it removed the app in January 2021 for violating its policies following the US Capitol riots.

In April, Apple approved Parler's return to the App Store, following improvements the company made to better detect and moderate hate speech.

"Major news: We're back on the Google Play Store. Happy downloading, Android users," Parler app tweeted on Saturday.

Parler Chief Technology Officer Sam Lipoff said that while away from Google Play, "we have worked diligently to build a more feature-rich and dynamic user experience".

"Now is a perfect time to join Parler and rediscover the non-partisan platform where we enable people to speak freely," Lipoff posted.

Parler, an alternative to Facebook and Twitter that bills itself as a haven for free speech, was removed from major tech platforms in early January following the US Capitol riots of January 6.

Parler was kicked off of Apple and Google's app stores, as well as Amazon Web Services, which had been hosting the company's product.

Former US President Donald Trump's social media platform called Truth Social is also facing similar issues with both Apple and Google, and the company is now working "in good faith with Google" to get it back on Play Store.

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Zoom allows customers their own encryption keys to protect data

New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) Video-conferencing platform Zoom on Friday announced a new offering that will allow users to protect certain data stored at rest within the Zoom Cloud infrastructure using their own encryption keys.

The platform said its newest advanced security offering -- Customer Managed Key (CMK) -- is designed to help users address stricter compliance requirements.

"Every industry grapples with its own unique regulatory requirements -- the healthcare industry faces HIPAA, while financial services institutions must address Gramm-Leach Bliley Act, NY DFS, and more. All organisations have a different approach to safeguarding important information and remaining compliant, and some need tailored security solutions to do so," Karthik Raman, Group Product Manager, said in a statement.

"That is why we are excited to announce the launch of Zoom Customer Managed Key (CMK)," Raman added.

The company said that CMK is a paid offering and Zoom's Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) solution.

With Customer Managed Key, users can opt to use their own encryption keys to encrypt certain Zoom assets such as cloud recordings, voicemails, and calendar access tokens.

The list of assets covered by Zoom CMK includes -- Zoom Meeting cloud recordings (including transcripts and chat texts), Zoom Webinars cloud recordings, Zoom Phone voicemails and recordings, Calendar access tokens for Zoom Rooms, User calendar access tokens, Microsoft Teams access tokens, etc.

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Twitter bans over 45K accounts in India for violating guidelines

New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) Twitter, which is locked in a legal battle with the Indian government over content blocking orders, banned 45,191 accounts of Indian users in the month of July over violation of its guidelines, the microblogging platform said in its monthly compliance report on Friday.

Twitter suspended 42,825 accounts for promoting child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and similar content in India, while blocking another 2,366 accounts for promoting terrorism, it said in its monthly compliance report as per the new IT Rules, 2021.

The microblogging platform received 874 grievances in the country through its local grievance mechanism between June 26-July 25 and took action on 70 complaints.

In June, Twitter banned more than 43,140 accounts of Indian users.

"While we welcome everyone to express themselves on our platform, we do not tolerate behaviour that harasses, threatens, dehumanises, or uses fear to silence the voices of others," Twitter said in the report.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.

Twitter receives complaints in its Grievance Officer-India channel that relate to account verification, account access, or seeking assistance or information regarding an account or Twitter's enforcement actions.

In addition, Twitter processed 124 grievances which were appealing account suspensions.

"These were all resolved and the appropriate responses were sent. We overturned none of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation," said the company.

The compliance report came as whistleblower Peiter Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, alleged that the Indian government forced the platform to "hire a government agent on its payroll" and "grant access to sensitive user data", a claim which has been dismissed by Twitter.

In May, Twitter moved the Karnataka High Court against the Indian government's order to take down some content on its platform.

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Halo Infinite Campaign Co-Op, Forge Mode Delayed to November; Season 3 Set for March

Halo Infinite’s campaign co-op and Forge mode have been delayed to November 8. Furthermore, 343 Industries has pushed back Halo Infinite multiplayer’s season 3 content — titled “Echoes Within” — to March 7, while outright cancelling the promised split-screen co-op feature. The campaign co-op will not feature matchmaking options and was originally scheduled...

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NASA captures 1st direct image of exoplanet outside our solar system

New York, Sep 2 (IANS) For the first time, astronomers have used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of a planet outside our solar system.

The exoplanet called 'HIP 65426 b' is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable.

The exoplanet is about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter, and these observations could help narrow that down even further.

It is young, about 15 to 20 million years old, compared to our 4.5-billion-year-old Earth.

"This is a transformative moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy generally," said Sasha Hinkley, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Exeter in the UK.

The image, as seen through four different light filters, shows how Webb's powerful infrared gaze can easily capture worlds beyond our solar system, pointing the way to future observations that will reveal more information than ever before about exoplanets, the space agency said in a statement.

This image shows the exoplanet 'HIP 65426 b' in different bands of infrared light.

A set of masks within each instrument, called a coronagraph, blocks out the host star's light so that the planet can be seen.

Astronomers discovered the planet in 2017 using the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and took images of it using short infrared wavelengths of light.

Webb's view, at longer infrared wavelengths, reveals new details that ground-based telescopes would not be able to detect because of the intrinsic infrared glow of Earth's atmosphere.

Since 'HIP 65426 b' is about 100 times farther from its host star than Earth is from the Sun, it is sufficiently distant from the star that Webb can easily separate the planet from the star in the image.

"It was really impressive how well the Webb coronagraphs worked to suppress the light of the host star," Hinkley said.

Taking direct images of exoplanets is challenging because stars are so much brighter than planets.

The 'HIP 65426 b' planet is more than 10,000 times fainter than its host star in the near-infrared, and a few thousand times fainter in the mid-infrared.

"Obtaining this image felt like digging for space treasure," said Aarynn Carter, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In July, James Webb Space Telescope produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date.

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Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family Plan Pricing Details Confirmed for Ireland and Colombia

Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan is now official. Microsoft has revealed pricing details for the long-rumoured plan, which is now available in Ireland and Colombia. The subscription allows users to share their account benefits with up to four people in their gaming circle. Game Pass Friends & Family is priced at €21.99 (about Rs. 1,746) per month in Ireland, and...

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AI-generated artwork that won 1st prize stirs controversy

San Francisco, Sep 2 (IANS) A game designer has won the Colorado State Fair's fine art competition using an AI-generated piece of art in the US, which has created a stir among other artists who have accused him of accelerating the death of creative jobs.

According to The Verge, the artwork titled "Theatre d'Opera Spatial", which Jason Allen submitted for the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition under the category "Digital Arts/Digitally-Manipulated Photography", was made using the well-known text-to-image AI generator Midjourney.

Since most people are unfamiliar with how text-to-image AI generators function, many users claimed that Allen had been dishonest in submitting the work.

This claim was made in response to a widely shared tweet about Allen's victory.

However, Allen has defended himself and said: "I wanted to make a statement using artificial intelligence artwork."

"I feel like I accomplished that, and I'm not going to apologise for it," the report quoted him as saying to The Pueblo Chieftain.

Text-to-image AI systems are trained on billions of pairs of images and text descriptions, which they mine for visual patterns, the report said.

Users then feed them text descriptions known as prompts, and the software generates an image that matches this description based on its training data, it added.

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