Topic: facebook
SD Times Open-Source Project of the Week: Opacus
This week Facebook has released Opacus, a new open-source project designed to train PyTorch models with differential privacy (DP). According to the company, differential privacy is a mathematical framework for quantifying the anonymization of sensitive data. It is meant to make PyTorch models more scalable and the adoption of machine learning easier. “With the release … continue reading
Facebook researchers develop Transcoder for migrating legacy codebases
Facebook has developed a new neural transcompiler system, Transcoder, to make it easier to migrate codebases to other languages. Transcoder uses self-supervised training, which Facebook explained is important for translating between programming languages. According to the company, traditional supervised-learning approaches are dependent on large-scale parallel data sets for the languages, but these don’t exist for … continue reading
EU rejects Facebook’s proposed online regulations
Facebook’s proposal to the EU to tone down what the company called “intrusive regulations,” was rejected. European commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton said that it was up to Facebook to adopt Europe’s standards, and not the other way around. The proposal came in the form of a whitepaper, which argued to ensure accountability … continue reading
premium Facebook now gives users control over off-Facebook activity
Facebook is attempting to be more transparent over the user data it possesses. Under intense public scrutiny this past year, the company has made a number of updates related to data privacy, including privacy checks, alerts for third-party logins, and the ability for users to have more control over off-Facebook activity. According to Facebook, off-Facebook … continue reading
Mark Zuckerberg sets long-term goals for 2030
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is no longer looking to set short term New Year’s resolutions. Instead, he has a vision for 2030, as explained in a lengthy Facebook post, that spans augmented reality glasses, a large investment in small businesses, and a generational change in how social media is used. For a company that has … continue reading
SD Times news digest: Facebook fined again for Cambridge Analytica scandal, Google’s privacy commitment and Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.4 preview 4
Brazil fined Facebook $1.6 million for their role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The country’s justice ministry said that the fines are tied to unlawful sharing of data from its users in Brazil. “It’s evident that the data of about 443,000 users of the platform were made available by the developers of the app ‘thisisyourdigitallife’ … continue reading
Facebook’s tumultuous times: new OS in the works amid another breach
In a year where data breaches at Facebook have seen no signs of slowing down, another blow has been dealt. A reported 267 million Facebook user IDs and phone numbers were exposed online for anyone to access without a password or any authentication. Most of the records affected users from the United States. The UK … continue reading
Facebook and Microsoft partner up on remote development
Facebook announced that Visual Studio Code is now the default development environment used at the company. It’s also teaming up with Microsoft to enhance their remote development extensions to do remote development at scale. “Given the scale of development at Facebook, supporting the efficiency and productivity of our engineers is key. Constant work is being … continue reading
Facebook’s Groups API causes data privacy concerns
Facebook wants to avoid another data privacy blunder. The company is quickly trying to address a problem it found with its Groups API access. Last year, in an effort to better protect users privacy, Facebook removed and restricted a number of developer APIs — Groups API was one of these restricted APIs. Before restrictions were … continue reading
Facebook and top law enforcement officials battle over end-to-end encryption
Top law enforcement officials are urging Facebook to stop its privacy initiative. In an open letter to Facebook, government officials from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia told Facebook it should not proceed with its plans without “including a means for lawful access to the content of communications to protect our citizens.” It also … continue reading
SD Times news digest: Progress announces new .NET capabilities, WhiteSource integrates with GitLab Core and Eclipse IDE, and PayPal leaves Libra
Progress announced a new release of Progress Telerik tools for .NET developers, adding full day-zero support for .NET Core 3.0 RC across the entire Telerik product line. New capabilities and features include over 25 native UI components for Blazor; new components and accessibility improvements in ASP.NET Core and ASP.NET MVC; as well as a new … continue reading
Facebook’s quest to the VR Horizon
Each year, the promised land for VR seems to be just on the horizon — always visible, yet too far to reach. However, Facebook is determined not to give up on VR with the launch of the aptly named Facebook Horizon. The company announced the virtual reality playground at this year’s Oculus Connect event in … continue reading
