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IF YOU’RE INUNDATED with invites and requests to play the likes of Candy Crush Saga, Mafia Wars and other Facebook games, relief is on its way.
At a Q&A in India this morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was getting rid of those type of invites and are working on it.
“This is where these town hall Q&A are really useful”, joked Zuckerberg. “I saw this top-voted question on my thread and so I sent a message to the person who runs the team in charge of our developer platform, and I said… I think it would be good if we had a solution to this problem”.
So we do! She emailed me later that night and said there are some tools that are kinda outdated which allow people send invitations to people who never used a game… We hadn’t prioritised shutting it down as we had other priorities, but if this is the top thing people care about, we’ll prioritise that.
At the town hall meeting, Zuckerberg talked about other projects like internet.org, which has been renamed to Free Basics and has more than 15 million people accessing the web through it, and artificial intelligence, something Facebook has been working on behind the scenes for a while.
“We have this goal that in five to ten years, we want to be able to build computer systems that can be better than the main human senses that people use”, explained Zuckerberg. “That doesn’t mean we will have computers that are smarter than people anytime soon… the type of stuff we’re going to see, it’s less going to be new products and more increasing intelligence in a lot of the different things that we do”.
We take accessibility features very seriously… one of the things we can do is if you’re blind and you can’t see a photo, we have our AI look at the photo, figure out what’s in it and then read an explanation of the photo. It’s not 100%, it will get better in the future but I think that’s a really cool thing. Computers that can see the world in the same way people do.
Small changes
The other thing that Facebook is getting rid of has to do with its messaging service.
The ‘other’ folder, which was only accessible through Facebook’s site, is where all the messages sent from people you’re not friends with end up. It’s easily missable and it’s why Facebook is deciding to get rid of it entirely.
In its place will be Message Requests for Messenger. Its VP of messaging products David Marcus said the feature would allow you to “talk to virtually anyone in the world” with you only needing to know their name if you want to message them.
If someone sends you a message and they’re not friends, you will get a message request. You can either accept or ignore it and those sending the message won’t know if you’re read it or not.
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18 months later and they are still discussing antigen testing. This Country never fails to amaze me
@Maurice O Neill: more money in PCR tests
@potnoodle: more accuracy in PCR tests.
@Tommy Roche: they are not supposed to replace PCR tests. They are another measure to help catch cases that may not otherwise be caught. A strategy for using them should have been in place months ago.
Why not use both ? Denmark does this and are managing it quite well. Or does hiqa think antigen testing is just snake oil.
Glad to see that HIQA intend to review advice around masks in a few weeks. With our overcrowded classrooms making distancing impossible, and the fact that this is an airborne virus, masks are a cheap, simple and effective mitigation strategy.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
@Mac Muinteoir: Not for primary schools and rightly so.
@Franny Ando: not for the schools themselves, no. Just the kids.
@Mac Muinteoir: Not for use on primary school children if you want to be pedantic. They are not being recommended and won’t be getting children under 12 to wear them.
@Franny Ando: as things stand. But to be reviewed in a few weeks. Hopefully they will recommend that for all children that can manage them. Especially if other mitigation strategies are removed.
@Mac Muinteoir: Maybe re-read the article and listen to the news. It is not going to be reviewed. They are quite satisfied with the status quo. Masks will not be required for under 13′s.
@Franny Ando: “Given the evolving epidemiological situation it was considered prudent that the potential requirement for face masks in primary school-aged children should be kept under review. It was suggested that the evidence be reviewed six to eight weeks after the schools have fully reopened.” – p23 of the report. https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=https://www.hiqa.ie/sites/default/files/2021-09/Advice-to-NPHET-Facemasks.pdf
@Mac Muinteoir: Yet they announced today they have decided against it.
@Franny Ando: no, the report was published today, so it’s being reported on today. They decided against recommending masks for primary school kids back in August, wrongly in my view, but said they would review that advice six to eight weeks after schools reopened. It’s OK to be wrong Franny, everyone makes mistakes.
@Mac Muinteoir: I’ll forgive you this time though its not your first time getting confused. When questioned today regarding masks for under 13′s they categorically stated the would not be mandating them.
@Franny Ando: imagine you want to go for a walk after lunch. It’s dry out now, but pretty cloudy. It looks like it might rain later. Should you a) decide that you don’t wouldn’t need an umbrella right now, but you might need one later, so you go and get it from the boot of the car before your wife takes it to go shopping, or b) see that it’s dry right now, and so dig a really deep hole in your garden, set your umbrella on fire and bury the ashes? If you chose option b), congrats, you’ve chosen the HIQA approach. Make a decision now, but review it later when you have more information.
Thanks Journal…this is good to nose…will saves money an alls.
What is HIQA involved in this for?
have your say