Jigsaw
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Google's Jigsaw open sources its anti-harassment tool to help protect journalists
It can help users easily detect, document and hide toxic comments on social media.
Google parent Alphabet is pruning its 'other bets'
Alphabet is changing. The Silicon Valley super-company, which serves as an umbrella for Google and smaller, riskier subsidiaries known as "other bets," was established in August 2015. Executives hoped that the reshuffle would satisfy investors, who wanted a better understanding of Google's expanding business portfolio, and encourage each division to become financially successful and independent. At the time, Alphabet had 10 companies under its purview: Google (Search, Android, YouTube and more), Access (Fiber broadband), Calico (aging), Capital (late-stage investment), DeepMind (artificial intelligence), Google Ventures (startup investment), Life Sciences (health), Nest (smart home appliances), Sidewalk (smart cities) and Google X, which still looked after Boston Dynamics (robots), Waymo (self-driving cars), Loon (internet balloons), Wing (delivery drones) and other so-called "moonshot" projects. That list has been amended over the last four and a half years. Many Alphabet companies have simply rebranded -- Life Sciences has become Verily, for instance, Google Ventures is now GV and Google X has dropped the word Google from its name. Of greater importance, however, are the "other bets" that Alphabet has created, killed and casually moved under Google management. Surprisingly, these decisions have accelerated over the last 12 months, highlighting Alphabet's changing ambitions and just how difficult it is to turn a moonshot into a billion-dollar business.
Alphabet’s Jigsaw created a tool that detects doctored images
As image editing software and AI-assisted tool become increasingly powerful, journalists need a way to spot doctored images. Jigsaw, which is owned by Alphabet, forecasts emerging technology-based threats and works to curb their effects. Its latest creation, Assembler, spots the signatures of image manipulation using seven different "detectors," helping reporters to vet the authenticity of the images they publish.
Recommended Reading: Apple's ambitious TV plan
Can Apple hack it in Hollywood? We talk to the man behind Apple TV+ Stuart McGurk, GQ UK Apple officially revealed it's TV streaming service in March, but it won't debut for the masses until this fall. There have been all kinds of reports swirling about content, including reports that Apple executives were micromanaging creative direction. GQ sat down with senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue to find out more about TV+, and get some clarity on a few of those rumors.
Alphabet subsidiary Jigsaw paid a Russian troll to spread disinformation
In the name of research, Alphabet subsidiary Jigsaw and a partner security firm paid a Russian troll $250 for a disinformation campaign. As Wired reports, the experiment was meant to prove how easy it is to purchase social media propaganda campaigns. But the experiment has attracted plenty of critics.
Reddit's 'Change My View' community becomes a dedicated site
Reddit is known for a handful of communities that have taken on a life of their own, and that includes communities taking their efforts off Reddit entirely. The creator of the popular r/changemyview subreddit, Kal Turnbull, has launched a Change My View site that expands his concept of civil discourse beyond what Reddit could offer. It uses the basic forum structure and rules, but relies on paid moderators, a log of moderation actions, and the Perspective comment ranking system from Alphabet's tech incubator Jigsaw (which also provided a degree of funding) to automatically scrub some abusive behavior.
Alphabet's AI-powered Chrome extension hides toxic comments
Alphabet offshoot Jigsaw is launching a Chrome extension designed to help moderate toxic comments on social media. The new open-source tool, dubbed "Tune," builds on the machine learning smarts introduced in Jigsaw's "Perpesctive" tech to help sites like Facebook and Twitter set the "volume" of abusive comments. Using "filter mix" controls, users can either turn toxic comments off altogether (what's known as "zen mode") or show selective types of posts containing attacks, insults, or profanity. Tune also works with Reddit, YouTube and Disqus.
Google's Jigsaw is giving European politicians free DDoS protection
Political organizations in Europe can now get free protection from web flooding attacks from Google's cybersecurity incubator Jigsaw. For the first time, European operators will be able to use Project Shield, a tool that helps protect political operations and websites from being taken offline by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The technology was previously only offered to campaigns in the US.
Alphabet made a quiz to help you detect phishing scams
For decades, phishing has proven an effective method for attackers to dupe just about anyone into clicking on malicious links so they can wreak havoc on personal and professional lives. Just ask John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chief. Phishing scams can be tricky to spot, and Alphabet hopes to help you figure out whether links in your emails genuinely will lead to untold riches or help you lose weight with a magic pill (hint: probably not).
Alphabet's Project Shield expands DDoS protection to politics
Today, Alphabet announced that Project Shield is widening its scope. The free service is now expanding to include protecting any registered political organization from DDoS attacks. This includes candidates, political action committees and campaigns.
Google’s comment-ranking system will be a hit with the alt-right
A recent, sprawling Wired feature outlined the results of its analysis on toxicity in online commenters across the United States. Unsurprisingly, it was like catnip for everyone who's ever heard the phrase "don't read the comments." According to "The Great Tech Panic: Trolls Across America," Vermont has the most toxic online commenters, whereas Sharpsburg, Georgia, "is the least-toxic city in the US." There's just one problem.
'Sideways Dictionary' simplifies tech jargon for the masses
If you ever get confused about tech jargon (or want to clear up said confusion), a new tool from Google's Jigsaw incubator and the Washington Post may help. The "Sideways Dictionary" uses analogies and metaphors to help regular, non-techy people understand terms like "zero-day," "metadata," "net neutrality" and other jargon. Users will be able to access analogies online like a regular dictionary or find them in the Post, where they'll accompany articles that contain "technobabble."
Typos are kryptonite to Alphabet's anti-trolling API
"Don't read the comments" is a cardinal rule of the internet. They're often hotbeds of toxicity and abuse, and rarely does a person come away from them feeling enlightened. Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Alphabet, is working to combat this problem through a project called Perspective, an API that uses machine learning to spot harassment online. But, researchers have discovered that it's easy to game the system.
Alphabet fights 'toxic' comments with machine learning
If you've spent any time at all on the internet, you know that finding civil conversation can be a real challenge. Whether on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or your favorite news site, trolls can often dominate and derail the conversation. Today, Alphabet company Jigsaw has announced that it is using its machine learning chops to combat the problem. Perspective, which launches today, is an "early-stage" technology using machine learning to identify "toxic" comments. Furthermore, publishers will have access to an API to include this technology on their sites in the hopes that it'll lead to better conversations.
Recommended Reading: How Russia hacked the US
The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the US Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, The New York Times Within the last week, the CIA, Obama administration and FBI have all agreed that Russian intervened in the presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump. The White House went so far as to say that the cyberattacks were directed by president Vladimir Putin himself. The New York Times offers a detailed look at the Russian hack of the DNC which led to emails and other documents making it into the hands of WikiLeaks and other websites.
Recommended Reading: A closer look at Nike's self-lacing shoes
The Secret Lab Where Nike Invented the Power-Lacing Shoe of Our Dreams Scott Eden, Wired Nike announced this week that it's self-lacing HyperAdapt shoes will go on sale November 28th. They're sure to be crazy limited, but the company invited Wired in for a behind-the-scenes look at the shoe's development. You might have a hard time grabbing a pair of your own, but at least you can take a closer look at the design process via some leisurely reading.
Google aims its terrorist-dissuading ads at North America
As radical terrorists ramp up their online recruitment, social media services like Twitter often bear the brunt of criticism for failing to curb their outreach. But sometimes Google gets an earful too, leading them to research how to counter to the narrative ISIS spreads online. To that end, the search giant's subsidiary incubator Jigsaw has spent the last year building a program that uses its own advertising tech to persuade potential recruits not to join the extremist organization. Their next phase, beginning this month, will deploy it in North America to target both possible terrorist sympathizers and white supremacists.
Analyze YouTube war footage with the new 'Montage' app
Where information from warzones used to trickle in, the internet has brought a flood of user-generated media. And though there are some tools available that can quickly parse through that data in real-time, they mostly work only with static documents, as videos are harder to analyze. Today, though, Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, is releasing Montage, a curation tool that turns masses of video into conclusive data for humanitarian groups, journalists and news junkies.
Nokia toys with context-aware smartphone settings switch, Jigsaw provides better context for apps like this
If Intel prognosticated correctly, context is the future of apps -- your device's array of sensors will determine where you are and what you're doing, and clever programs will guess from there. Problems arise, however, when one tries to run those accelerometers, microphones, radio antennas and GPS tracking devices constantly on the battery life of an average smartphone and determine what the raw data means, and that's where a group of Dartmouth researchers (and one Nokia scholar) are trying to stake their claim. They've got a bundle of algorithms called Jigsaw for iPhone and Symbian that claims to be able to continually report what you're up to (whether walking, running, cycling or driving) no matter where you place your device, and only pings the sensors as needed based on how active you are. (For better or for worse, Jigsaw also dodges the privacy concerns Intel's cloud-based API might raise by storing all personal data on the phone.) Of course, we've had a very basic version of context-aware functionality for years in apps like Locale for Android and GPS-Action for Symbian -- which modifies your smartphone settings under very specific conditions you specify. Now, Espoo's doing much the same with an app called Nokia Situations. Presently in the experimental stage, Situations is a long ways away from the potential of frameworks like Jigsaw, but here you won't have to wait -- you can download a beta for Symbian^3, S60 5th Edition and S60 3.2 at our source links without further delay.
First Saw trailer fails to frighten, teases Konami event
Saw developer Zombie Studios apparently doesn't want us to see much of the movie license-based game it's working on. At least, that's what this first teaser trailer implies, as it features a maddeningly cheap shot of "gameplay," though it does suggest we'll see more on April 9 at Konami Gamer's Night from the newly confirmed publisher. Of course, that means another torturously long week of waiting. But, hey, at least that beats even one long day of waiting in a tortuously cruel room full of people you're loosely connected to in real life, eh?%Gallery-49262%
