Facebook Had Special Deals That Gave Companies Access To Data Past 2015

According to Facebook, they claimed that they had cut off developer access to data of users and their friends in 2015 following the discovery that Cambridge Analytica had abused its access. However in a new report from The Wall Street Journal, it seems that Facebook was still allowing some companies to continue to access user data and those of their friends.

The report claims that Facebook had entered into “special deals” with a handful of companies that allowed these companies to continue access user data well past 2015. These were supposedly companies that were under Facebook’s “whitelist”, which allowed them to see user data such as phone numbers and even how close users were to each other.

These deals are also said to be separate from those struck up with 60 or so device makers, which was revealed earlier this week. The report also revealed some of the companies that were part of this whitelist, which for the most part appeared to be huge companies that were either advertisers or Facebook partners, such as Nissan and RBC Capital Markets.

According to Facebook, they told The Wall Street Journal that this access was given to improve user experiences, test new features, and for companies to finish up ongoing tests. They also confirmed that this went past the 2015 cutoff date for weeks and months.

Facebook Had Special Deals That Gave Companies Access To Data Past 2015 , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Trump Further Provokes Allies By Calling For Russia’s Reinstatement To G-7

Donald Trump And Kim Jong Un Look-alikes Meet In Singapore, Confuse Onlookers

This box sucks pure water out of dry desert air

For many of us, clean, drinkable water comes right out the tap. But for billions it’s not that simple, and all over the world researchers are looking into ways to fix that. Today brings work from Berkeley, where a team is working on a water-harvesting apparatus that requires no power and can produce water even in the dry air of the desert. Hey, if a cactus can do it, why can’t we?

While there are numerous methods for collecting water from the air, many require power or parts that need to be replaced, what professor Omar Yaghi has developed needs neither.

The secret isn’t some clever solar concentrator or low-friction fan — it’s all about the materials. Yaghi is a chemist, and has created what’s called a metal-organic framework, or MOF, that’s eager both to absorb and release water.

It’s essentially a powder made of tiny crystals in which water molecules get caught as the temperature decreases. Then, when the temperature increases again, the water is released into the air again.

Yaghi demonstrated the process on a small scale last year, but now he and his team have published the results of a larger field test producing real-world amounts of water.

They put together a box about two feet per side with a layer of MOF on top that sits exposed to the air. Every night the temperature drops and the humidity rises, and water is trapped inside the MOF; in the morning, the sun’s heat drives the water from the powder, and it condenses on the box’s sides, kept cool by a sort of hat. The result of a night’s work: 3 ounces of water per pound of MOF used.

That’s not much more than a few sips, but improvements are already on the way. Currently the MOF uses zicronium, but an aluminum-based MOF, already being tested in the lab, will cost 99 percent less and produce twice as much water.

With the new powder and a handful of boxes, a person’s drinking needs are met without using any power or consumable material. Add a mechanism that harvests and stores the water and you’ve got yourself an off-grid potable water solution going.

“There is nothing like this,” Yaghi explained in a Berkeley news release. “It operates at ambient temperature with ambient sunlight, and with no additional energy input you can collect water in the desert. The aluminum MOF is making this practical for water production, because it is cheap.”

He says that there are already commercial products in development. More tests, with mechanical improvements and including the new MOF, are planned for the hottest months of the summer.

This broccoli latte is Australia’s strange superfood solution

Australia’s national science agency CSIRO teamed up with Hort Innovation to create a new kind of latte: one made with broccoli. The beverage is said to offer more health benefits than your average cup of joe, packing around one serving of broccoli per two tablespoons of the powdered beverage. Sound unappealing with your morning coffee? Researchers say it could be … Continue reading

House Republicans Try To Come Up With An Immigration Proposal

But its prospects are still looking bleak.

Austria Plans To Close Seven Mosques, Expel Dozens Of Imams

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is cracking down on foreign-funded Muslim groups.

Anthony Bourdain strove to be better.

It’s hard to evolve. It’s harder, still, to do it in public, in real time, like Bourdain did.

Trump’s Policies Paying Off For Man Who Helped Make Him President: Putin

The fraying of the alliance between the United States and Western Europe has been a longtime Russian goal.

The U.S. Is In The Midst Of A Suicide Crisis

The rate of people dying by suicide has increased in nearly every state since 1999.