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Tim Cook Challenges Graduates to 'Think Different' in Duke University Commencement Address
Facebook suspends ~200 suspicious apps out of “thousands” reviewed so far
Nintendo's NES Classic Will Be Back In Stock Soon, Here's When

Tim Cook Challenges Graduates to 'Think Different' in Duke University Commencement Address

Posted: 13 May 2018 08:41 AM PDT

Apple CEO Tim Cook today delivered the 2018 commencement address at his alma mater Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Cook challenged students to "think different" rather than accept the status quo, and to leave the world better than they found it, by following in the footsteps of leaders like Steve Jobs, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.

He also reflected on Apple's commitment to the environment, privacy, immigration, and gun control, supporting the Me Too movement against sexual harassment and students involved in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

An excerpt from his speech:

The pace at which progress is possible has accelerated dramatically. Aided by technology, every individual has the tools, potential, and reach to build a better world. That makes this the best time in history to be alive. Whatever you choose to do with your life, wherever your passion takes you, I urge you to take the power you have been given and use it for good. Aspire to leave this world better than you found it.
I didn't always see life as clearly as I do today. But I've learned that the greatest challenge of life is knowing when to break with conventional wisdom. Don't just accept the world you inherit today. Don't just accept the status quo. No big challenge has ever been solved, and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved, unless people dare to try something different. Dare to think different.
I was lucky to learn from someone who believed this deeply—someone who knew that changing the world starts with following a vision, not a path. He was my friend and mentor, Steve Jobs.
Steve's vision was that great ideas come from a restless refusal to accept things as they are, and those principles still guide us at Apple today. We reject the notion that global warming is inevitable—that's why we run Apple on 100 percent renewable energy. We reject the excuse that getting the most out of technology means trading away your right to privacy. So we choose a different path: collecting as little of your data as possible, and being thoughtful and respectful when it's in our care.

Cook's commencement address was similar to those he has delivered at a number of other universities in recent years, including at his undergraduate alma mater Auburn University in 2010, at George Washington University in 2015, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year.

Cook is a 1988 graduate of Duke's Fuqua School of Business and a member of the university's Board of Trustees.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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Facebook suspends ~200 suspicious apps out of “thousands” reviewed so far

Posted: 14 May 2018 04:43 AM PDT

Did you just notice a Facebook app has gone AWOL? After reviewing “thousands” of apps on its platform following a major data misuse scandal that blew up in March, Facebook has announced it’s suspended around 200 apps — pending what it describes as a “thorough investigation” into whether or not their developers misused Facebook user data.

The action is part of a still ongoing audit of third party applications running on the platform announced by Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal where a third party developer used quiz apps to extract and pass Facebook user data to the consultancy for political ad targeting purposes.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the app audit on March 21, writing that the company would “investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity”.

Apps that would not agree to a “thorough audit” would also be banned, he said then.

Just under two months on and the tally is ~200 ‘suspicious’ app suspensions, though the review process is ongoing — and Facebook is not being more specific about the total number of apps it’s looked at so far (beyond saying “thousands”) — so expect that figure to rise.

In the Cambridge Analytica instance, Facebook admitted that personal information on as many as 87 million users may have been passed to the political consultancy — without most people’s knowledge or consent.

Giving an update on the app audit process in a blog post, Ime Archibong, Facebook’s VP of product partnerships, writes that the investigation is “in full swing”.

“We have large teams of internal and external experts working hard to investigate these apps as quickly as possible,” he says. “To date thousands of apps have been investigated and around 200 have been suspended — pending a thorough investigation into whether they did in fact misuse any data. Where we find evidence that these or other apps did misuse data, we will ban them and notify people via this website. It will show people if they or their friends installed an app that misused data before 2015 — just as we did for Cambridge Analytica.”

Archibong does not confirm how much longer the audit will take — but does admit there’s a long way to go, writing that: “There is a lot more work to be done to find all the apps that may have misused people’s Facebook data – and it will take time.”

“We are investing heavily to make sure this investigation is as thorough and timely as possible,” he adds.

Where Facebook does have concerns about an app — such as the ~200 apps it has suspended pending a fuller probe — Archibong says it will conduct interviews; make requests for information (“which ask a series of detailed questions about the app and the data it has access to”); and perform audits “that may include on-site inspections”.

So Facebook will not be doing on site inspections in every suspicious app instance.

We’ve asked Facebook a series of follow up questions about the ~200 suspicious apps it’s identified, and more broadly about the ongoing audit process and will update this post with any response.

For instance it’s not clear whether the company will publish a public list of every app that it suspends or deems to have misused user data — or whether it will just notify affected individuals.

Given the likely scale of data misuse by developers on its platform there is an argument for Facebook to publish a public list of suspensions.

Update: A Facebook spokeswoman told us the company intends to provide more details about any apps it decides to ban after concluding each case-by-case investigation. Although she also said the company has not yet decided how it will share information about these apps. So it’s not clear whether or not it will provide a public list of apps it bans for misusing user data — or whether banned apps will only be visible to logged in users whose personal data was specifically misused.

The spokeswoman also declined to specify how many thousands of apps Facebook has reviewed at this stage; how long it believes the full investigation process will take; nor how large a quantity of user data it’s using as its benchmark to trigger individual app investigations. So the process remains pretty shrouded and caveated — making its rigor and value hard to quantify.

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Nintendo's NES Classic Will Be Back In Stock Soon, Here's When

Posted: 14 May 2018 08:24 AM PDT

If you were not able to grab an NES Classic during the retro console's initial run, the good news is that it'll be back in stock next month. Nintendo has announced that the hard-to-find mini-console will be available again starting on June 29.

The NES Classic ($60), and the more recently released SNES Classic ($80), should remain available to buy through the end of the year, Nintendo added.

Last year, Nintendo announced that the NES Classic would return to store shelves in Summer 2018, so the June 29 timing matches up. The NES Classic first arrived last November. Pre-orders sold out in advance of launch, and those available on release day similarly disappeared in the blink of an eye, quickly leading to a price spike on sites like Ebay. Additional shipments delivered in subsequent months also rapidly sold out--this resulted in a frustrating loop where it would briefly come back in stock but be gone long before everyone could get one. Nintendo ultimately discontinued the NES Classic in April 2017 before announcing its return.

The NES Classic has 30 games, including some of Nintendo's most famous games like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. The SNES Classic is a micro-sized version of the iconic Nintendo console. It comes with 21 games, including the previously unreleased Star Fox 2.

The SNES Classic has shipped more than 4 million units, while the NES Classic shipped 2.3 million units before it was initially discontinued.

Given the huge success of the NES and SNES Classic consoles, many are wondering if Nintendo might release an N64 Classic next. Interestingly, a trademark filing suggested that this might be happening, though no official announcement has come as of yet. Nintendo's E3 2018 briefing is taking place in early June, and we're expecting some big news.

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