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Vine releases a direct messaging feature

Apr03
by on April 3, 2014 at 7:32 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider, Social Media, vine

Vine today unveiled its direct messaging feature which will allow users to send videos in a private message to friends. Friends can also reply directly with more videos or text. The direct messaging feature also allows Vine users to send messages to anyone, even if they aren’t on Vine. These videos will end up as an SMS or email instead. Each direct message counts as a one-to-one conversation, but users can select multiple recipients when sending their Vine Message (VM). Conversely, Vine users can also opt to only receive private messages from added friends or followers. The addition of this…

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Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich steps down after controversy over gay marriage views

Apr03
by on April 3, 2014 at 7:24 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

Mozilla has announced that its CEO Brendan Eich has resigned in the wake of a controversy surrounding his prior support of an anti-gay marriage law. The company noted in a post that standing for equality and free speech at the same time is hard. Mozilla also apologized for not handling the situation well and taking too long to engage with the community on the issue. Mozilla’s Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker told Re/code in an interview that it was indeed Eich’s decision to leave, though he had faced “pressure from all sides.” Eich is credited with the creation of the JavaScript…

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Facebook paid 330 security researchers $1.5M in 2013; adds Instagram, Parse, Atlas, Onavo to Bug Bounty program

Apr03
by on April 3, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Social Media

A view of Facebook's logo May 10, 2012 i
Facebook today announced it paid out $1.5 million to 330 security researchers around the world in 2013 as part of its bug bounty program, which launched back in August 2011. In fact, the company has now paid out over $2 million in rewards, after passing the $1 million milestone back in August. In total, Facebook received 14,763 submissions in 2013 (each one reviewed individually by a security engineer), up 246 percent from 2012. Of those, only 687 (just 4.65 percent) were valid and eligible to receive rewards. The average reward was $2,204, and Facebook said the majority of bugs were…

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Apple has reportedly acquired speech recognition company Novauris Technologies

Apr03
by on April 3, 2014 at 6:13 pm
Posted In: Around the Web

Apple is looking to improve its Siri voice-recognition assistant through the acquisition of Novauris Technologies, according to TechCrunch. The deal appears to have taken place last year. Novauris had built a technology called “NovaSearch” that processed voice input at the phrase level, rather than a word or sequence-of-words. It is capable of matching up data in a set of over 245 million items without having to track grammar. Former Novauris CEO Yoon Kim now works as a manager on Apple’s Siri team, according to LinkedIn. Novauris had close ties to Dragon Systems, which produced the speech recognition system that Nuance…

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Gracenote brings Deezer’s arsenal of music into the metadata mix

Apr03
by on April 3, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

Media metadata company Gracenote has announced that it’s adding Deezer song IDs to its database, so third-party developers can build Deezer-based apps using data from Gracenote’s Rhythm and MusicID APIs. Back in January, we reported on the company’s new Rhythm API, a platform for developers to access a new set of music suggestion algorithms, which can then be weaved into apps and services that offer radio stations, or infinite playlists based on a specific artist, album, track or genre. MusicID, on the other hand, is a Shazam-esque tool for recognizing music that’s playing in the background. Gracenote says it will…

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