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While there has been a heated debate over who should own newly created intellectual property, especially as it concern technology companies like Microsoft, who also operate in the customers’ markets and compete against the developers with the very technology they co-created.

Now, Microsoft has offered to let developers share ownership rights for intellectual property developed in partnership with the company in its Shared Innovation Initiative. And Microsoft pledges not to impose any contractual restrictions to prevent developers from porting new, shared innovations to other platforms.

The initiative according to analysts puts Microsoft ahead of the curve on the ecosystem in co-development of applications, which is perhaps becoming the preferred platform of the future.

Microsoft's Shared Innovation Initiative is based on a set of principles designed to address co-created technology and intellectual property (IP) issues that give customers clarity and confidence regarding their work with Microsoft.

According to the company, the initiative is designed to strike a healthy balance that will both help its customers grow their business through technology and enable Microsoft to continue to improve its platform.

The newly published Shared Innovation Principles will cover seven areas, including: Respect for ownership of existing technology, Support for open source, Transparency and clarity, among others.

Microsoft as an active contributor to open source development, welcome the opportunity to work with the community to contribute to work that they co-create if the developers chose to do so. And the above principles presents a path that will ensure that the co-creation of digital technologies creates new economic value to companies around the world.

Microsoft offer developers ownership right for Intellectual Properties developed with the company



There was a public backlash on Facebook for the purported retraction of Mark Zuckerberg's messages from recipients' inbox, which act was perceived by critics as utterly lacking merit as it portends lack of trust.

And Facebook confirmed that it had actually deleted some messages sent by some top executives, as well as those sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, from the inboxes of the recipients without disclosing it.

While at present the Facebook help maintains that in using messages on Facebook, sent messages can't be unsent or removed from the recipient's inbox.

But now, the company plans to roll out the “unsend” feature to its messaging service, and perhaps present the incidence as mere testing, as it vows that no such messages from its executives will be deleted again, until the feature has been extended to all users on the social network.

That means eventually all users will be able to set an expiration time for their messages, after which they’ll be automatically deleted from the recipient’s inbox.

However it remains unclear when the unsend feature will be ready for public release, and exactly how the system will operate; but at least having such an addition to the messaging system will be quite worth the while.

Facebook prepping to extend "Unsend Message" feature to all its users



Twitter in its biannual transparency report revealed that over 1.2 million accounts have been suspended for terrorist content Since August 2015, while the network is now fully resolved to stamping out the spread of misinformation and propaganda.

The company has also reaffirmed the commitment to permanently suspend terrorist accounts from the platform, with more granular data on country-withheld content policy, and expanded reporting on requests for account information.

According to the report, between the period of July 1, 2017 through to December 31, 2017, a total of 274,460 accounts were permanently suspended for violations related to the promotion of terrorism.

The promotion of terrorism represent less than 0.2% of all suspensions in the most recent reporting period and reflect a 50% reduction in accounts reported compared to the previous reporting period. And of those 274,460 accounts suspended in the last reporting period, 93% were flagged by internal, proprietary tools, and 74% of those accounts were suspended before their first Tweet.

Twitter attributed the feat to years of hard work in making the site an undesirable place for those seeking to promote terrorism, resulting in the shifting away of such activities from the platform.

Albeit, it has sought the public's input on how to fix the undesirable environment once and for all.

Over 1.2 Million Twitter Accounts suspended for Terrorist-related contents

Microsoft has announced the implementation of advanced malware detection and protection coming to its webmail service, Outlook.com with additional protection for sharing and reading of files stored on the cloud service, OneDrive.

While the most common malware attack is now the ransomware which infected PCs spread from file to file, thereby encrypting the documents stored on the machine and the bad guys will demand that you pay a stipulated amount of money for the digital key to decrypt the files.

Microsoft have added the ability to “roll back” the files stored in OneDrive to older versions of the same file up to a month ago, in order to help in the recovery of the lost files and return it to the state it were before the malware attack.

It was made possible through the Microsoft's automated threat-detection systems which helps to figure out the point at which the ransomware attack stated, and it alert the users on their mobile that an infection has been detected.

And it will notify you of possible infections by any of the pre-selected channels that Microsoft normally use to contact you, like: popup notification, email or text messages.



According to Kirk Koenigsbauer, the corporate vice president for Microsoft Office, with the growing presence and sophistication of online threats like viruses, ransomware, and phishing scams, it’s increasingly important to have the right protection and tools to help protect your devices, personal information, and files from being compromised.

Microsoft is pitching its cloud storage service, OneDrive as the solution to ransomware attacks: given that when you upload your critical files before your PC gets infected, you’ll still be able to access all your files, albeit an older uninfected version.

The Files Restore capability was previously only for OneDrive for Business customers and now extended to Office 365 subscriptions for home users. Though, the Outlook protection is not yet available to the Office 365 version of Outlook.

Microsoft's webmail, Outlook.com getting ransomware protection



Snapchat have introduced several new features, which includes the ability to tag friends in Stories, with the "Mentions" feature allowing users to tag friends in their Stories uploaded to the platform.

The tagging feature in ephemeral 24-hour snaps is perhaps something "influencers" will be particularly excited about because it will allow these class of users the ability to tag a brand for promotional purposes with a click-through link to their huge number of followers.

Though borrowed from Instagram, given that Instagram had formerly been accused of ripping off the Story feature from Snapchat, but ironically Snapchat is now reportedly adding the ability to tag other users in stories with a link to their profile akin to Instagram.

It works as you type out a username in the text field on image or video in Stories starting with "@" character, and viewers will be able to tap on it to bring up a new menu. The viewers will be able to swipe up and add the person as a friend or watch their public stories. And the person you tag will be notified in the chat window.



Other feature announced is the group video chat, which will allow about 16 friends to conduct a video chat simultaneously. And it allow a maximum of up to 32 people to join a group voice chat, If you have more number of participants.

The company had initially introduced one-on-one voice and video calling back in 2016, which it claims users made millions of calls each day.

The new group video/voice call and tagging features will be rolling out globally to all users on bother Android and iOS over the next couple of weeks.

How Snapchat's new feature of tagging in Stories can help brands promotions



Google's effort to make surfing on Windows computers “safer ” with basic antivirus features introduced last year, Chrome Cleanup Tool for Windows, which runs on ESET’s antivirus engine is raising some privacy concerns.

The Cleanup Tool is supposed to scan through your computer for malware, which it sends to Google with the metadata of the malware software, including some system information, and then asks your permission to remove the suspected malicious file.

But some findings from a security expert at SecurityScorecard, a cyber-security startup revealed that Chrome also scan private files in the Documents folder of Windows computer.

While Google's intentions are obviously to ensure security of users, but the rather lack of transparency on how it goes about it seems to violate their own policy for ‘user-friendly software’ that gave rise to the Chrome Cleanup tool.

The Chrome Cleanup Tool (CCT) is not a general purpose anti-virus, as its sole purpose is to detect and remove unwanted software that could affect the browser's performance. Albeit, the goal is to ensure Windows computers are free from malware, which install dangerous extensions, or manipulative ads serving to the unsuspecting users.

According to Justin Schuh, Chrome’s head of security there's 'potential data collection and associated consents as described in the Chrome Privacy Whitepaper, and every cleanup action requires an explicit user approval'.

Justin added that the tool runs weekly, and only has normal user privileges (which means it does’t scan deep into the system); its code is isolated from other programs (sandboxed), and users have to explicitly remove the files.

The Chrome team, however is investigating more opt-outs options, to balances against any potential for abuse.

Google may be scanning private files via Chrome's built-in anti-virus tool

The Cambridge Analytica privacy furore brought increasing pressure on Facebook to reexamine its privacy settings and to make it easy for users to control the extent to which third party apps can access their data.

Now Facebook has responded by releasing sets of tools aimed at tackling the privacy rows, with a bulk deletion tool which removes third party apps permission, instead of the former instance of removing them one after the other.

Facebook users can simply tick the apps they want to get rid of and click "remove" to have them deleted at a go, which tool can be found at the settings menu and navigating to "apps" then you'll have the options.



As part of its steps to thwart abuse of users data, it will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity, with a ban penalty for any developer on the platform that does not agree to the audit. Further more, Facebook will restrict the apps access to users data to prevent abuse, and it will remove developers' access to users data if they haven't used their app in 3 months.

Facebook will going forward require all developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask permission from users to access their posts or other private data.

The third party apps management tool will eventually be made available to every user at the top of their News Feed with the apps they've used and an easy way to revoke those apps' permissions to their data.

Removing third-party apps permission now easier with Facebook's new tool

Facebook in a move to show more transparency about its efforts to combat Russian trolls, have publicly shared the removal of 70 Facebook accounts, 138 Facebook Pages, and 65 Instagram accounts believed to be operated by Russian government-backed trolls.

While the social network has been on the hot seat in recent times following cases of election manipulations using data sourced from the platform, the company hope to be able to convince people that it’s not sleeping at the wheel of its affairs.



Facebook have shared both stats about the account deletions and samples of the content they removed, detailing the specifics of its efforts aimed at combating the menace of IRA’s election interference ploys. The company further explained that its analysis of un-paid organic posts revealed about 126 million people seening the propaganda group’s posts, with another 20 million haven seen the posts shared on Instagram.

Other steps it has taken to prevent rogue nations from interfering in foreign elections, include the deployment of advanced AI tools to remove fake accounts and doubling its security and content review staff from 10,000 to 20,000 this year, with about 15,000 staffers working on tackling fake contents alone.

Facebook also identified a large network that IRA is using to manipulate users in Russia itself.

The IRA network totaling 95 percent of the accounts, which are operated from Russian; targeted Russia or Russian-speakers in neighboring countries including Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

The company promise to continue in its effort to make it harder for foreign nation states to interfere in outside elections, and perhaps this is the first step towards a true transparent security procedures for the social network.

Facebook's shutdown of Russian government-backed IRA accounts



Mozilla has undertaken what is perhaps the first from any major browser vendor, as it announces plan to create a browser that's specifically built for virtual reality (VR) enabled devices, dubbed Firefox Reality.

The nonprofit organization is at the forefront of revolutions coming through the emerging technologies, and now, it is positioning itself to compete with the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple to become the dominant force in the virtual reality market.

According to the company, Firefox reality is built "from the ground up" to work with new VR and AR headsets, which bring computer images so close to your eyes that they trick your brain into thinking you're in a virtual world.

While the most profound argument against virtual reality is the lack of compelling contents, Mozilla hopes the new Firefox Reality browser would help to some extent in solving the content problems.

And as one of the pioneer of virtual reality technology, with its WebVR project that allow web developers build content that works on any VR device, and Mozilla is working on a bigger offshoot dubbed WebXR to handle augmented reality.

Also, its A-frame project makes it easier to build WebVR sites, though it's limited by the general lack of headset outside the VR gaming industry.

Mozilla recommends the Within site to explore WebVR sites, albeit it's building own alternative, which includes a platform for 3D content experiences on the web.

The Firefox Reality browser is expected to arrive this summer, according to Mozilla, and would support the following headsets: HTC Vive Focus, Google Daydream and Samsung GearVR.

Mozilla pitches Firefox Reality for virtual reality enabled devices

Rust 1.25, the latest version of the programming language feature changes in the Cargo CLI command-line interface, with cargo new the default for generating a binary, rather than just part of the library.

While developers try to keep the CLI stable, as it's unlikely to result in breakage with cargo new accepting these two flags: --lib (for building libraries) and --bin ( for building binaries), as with previous versions of Cargo, developers would default to --lib, if they did not pass one of the flags.

As each binary depends on other libraries; making the library case more common, albeit this behavior is actually incorrect, with many binaries dependent on each library.



This latest version of Rust also brought improvements for the stabilization of library and an upgrade to the Low-Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) compiler infrastructure which provide support for the WebAssembly portable code format.

The upgraded to LLVM 6 from LLVM 4 ensures that the programing language keeps abreast of the upstream WebAssembly back end and able to pick up new features when available. Also, it fixes some SIMD-related compilation errors.

Mozilla claims, Rust brings improved security and reliability to IoT devices; which is far better than the C/C++ languages commonly used to write micro-controller firmware. And for Internet of Things (IoT) development, LLVM 6 brings Rust closer to supporting the AVR micr-ontroller family, leveraged in the Arduino Uno board.

To run Rust, you can install it using your terminal and entering the following command: curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh.

Rust 1.25 brings improvements for the Cargo command-line interface

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