Month: April 2020
Instagram ‘pods’ game the algorithm by coordinating likes and comments on millions of posts
Researchers at NYU have identified hundreds of groups of Instagram users, some with thousands of members, that systematically exchange likes and comments in order to game the service’s algorithms and boost visibility. In the process, they also trained machine learning agent to identify whether a post has been juiced in…
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Microsoft Teams jumps 70 percent to 75 million daily active users
Microsoft said last month that Teams usage had grown to 44 million daily active users during the coronavirus pandemic, and it’s now jumped another 70 percent. During an investor call today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Teams usage has increased to more than 75 million daily active users. Nadella…
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Workers prepare to strike May 1, amid strained pandemic working conditions
The global pandemic has tested the bounds of businesses across the world and transformed the way many of us live our lives. For those among us who are unable to leave our homes at all as COVID-19 virus rages, online retail and food services have been a kind of lifeline.…
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The lockdown is driving people to Facebook
The quarantine lockdown is driving a record number of users to Facebook’s products. On a conference call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed a number of new metrics highlighting a significant bump in Facebook usage during the broader quarantine lockdown. In the past month, more than 3 billion internet users logged onto…
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Lenovo’s new ThinkPad keyboard is the best way to get the infamous nub on your desktop
The ThinkPad mouse nub — i.e., the TrackPoint — is a controversial piece of technology. People tend to either despise the red dot-shaped substitute for a real mouse, or adore it as the single best mouse solution around. For those in the second camp is Lenovo’s new $99 ThinkPad TrackPoint…
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Tesla turns Q1 profit on cost reductions, rising car margins, credits
Tesla reported Wednesday that it earned $16 million and generated $5.985 billion in revenue in the first quarter, results buoyed by improved automotive margins and reductions in operating expenses. Tesla’s first quarter earnings were lower than the previous period as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted operations and dampened sales. But the…
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