Instagram is stepping up its efforts to stomp out bullying on its platform, Juggalo makeup, it turns out, can block facial recognition technology, and IBM finally closes its acquisition of Red Hat.
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Instagram says they’ve injected some additional artificial intelligence into its platform, meaning users about to post offensive material will be greeted with a message asking them “Are you sure you want to post this?”. The added AI capabilities, currently a hot topic on LinkedIn, flags text most often reported as offensive or inappropriate. Instagram also added another feature called Restrict, which is designed to help users filter abusive comments without notifying users that they’ve been muted.
Trending on Reddit, the latest defence against facial recognition technology it turns out is – Juggalo face makeup? That’s right, it turns out Juggalo makeup prevents facial recognition tech from scanning the most common areas of identification, such as the eyes, nose and chin. The black bands obscures the mouth and cover the chin, fooling facial scans completely. But this trick won’t work on all facial recognition tech – while most common software uses areas of light contrast to identify facial features, Apple’s Face ID instead uses depth perception.
And lastly, trending all over social media, is the closing of IBM’s landmark acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion. First announced last October, the large software acquisition to date is a critical part of IBM’s ongoing efforts to enhance its cloud offerings which haven’t managed to gobble up much market share in recent years. Executives from both companies have frequently mentioned that only 20 per cent of enterprise companies are in the midst of moving their aging legacy equipment to the cloud, meaning it’s a perfect time for the two powerhouses to come together and deliver innovative software to help the other 80 per cent get on track as well.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing.