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Mercedes-Benz and James Cameron built an Avatar-inspired car perfect for Pandora
Speaking of concept cars, Mercedes-Benz channeled the world of James Cameron’s hit movie “Avatar” for its latest — an electric autonomous vehicle covered in bionic flaps that aims to show how man and machine can merge and live responsibly in nature.
Facebook bans deceptive deepfakes and some misleadingly modified media
In a policy update announced January 6th 2020, Facebook’s Monika Bickert wrote that moving forward, the social network will take a stricter line on manipulated media content — removing content that’s been edited or synthesized “in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say.”
However, edits for quality or cuts and splices to videos that simply curtail or change the order of words are not covered by the ban. So, as Natasha Lomas notes, a more subtle form of political fakery will still be allowed.
Following what the company described as years of back-and-forth, Sonos has filed suit against Google for alleged patent infringements related to the company’s smart speakers. Sonos said that Amazon was also infringing on their IP, but that they can only afford to take on one tech titan.
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Los Angeles and for the United States International Trade Commission, specifically calls out Google for five alleged patent violations, including technologies that allow their speakers to wirelessly communicate and synchronize with each other. Sonos tells The New York Times that both Amazon and Google are currently violating “roughly 100” of its patents.
Flashmag January 2020 www.flashmag.net
Tik-Tok Banned for US Military Personnel as Questions Continue to Swirl Around the App
One of the biggest social media news stories of the holiday break was the announcement that the US military has banned all of its personnel from using the Chinese-owned app TikTok on government-issued devices. The US Navy instituted a similar ban earlier in December 2019.
As per Military.com:
"The guidance directs all Defense Department employees to "be wary of applications you download, monitor your phones for unusual and unsolicited texts etc., and delete them immediately and uninstall TikTok to circumvent any exposure of personal information."
Twitter has confirmed that it is indeed removing its Audience Insights tab from Twitter Analytics at the end of this month.
Initially launched back in 2015, Audience Insights provides more in-depth data on your profile followers, including demographic profiles, purchase behavior insights, mobile device usage stats and more. These data points can be helpful in mapping out more effective tweet and Twitter ads strategies, giving you more perspective on who, exactly, you need to reach.
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