Ai.type’s Free Emoji Keyboard has suffered a breach that has affected 40 million users, Vine might be making a comeback, and artificial intelligence has learned to master chess in 4 hours.
 |  |  |
From Google Trends – It looks like not even free emoji keyboard apps are safe. Ai.type’s Free Emoji Keyboard has suffered a data breach that has affected 40 million users. The data leaked online includes user’s full name, email address, and precise location, while users with the paid version also had their device’s IMSI and IMEI numbers, smartphone make and model, as well as tech specs and the specific version of Android leaked. Some users also had their phone number and their cell phone provider leaked, and if you were connected to Wi-Fi while using the keyboard, their IP address and internet provider were also leaked. Some users even had their public Google profile leaked as well. Kromtech Security Center discovered the leak and said that it is logical that anyone who downloaded and installed the keyboard had ALL of their personal information leaked. And how did this happen? Apparently the founder of the app just did not password protect the server it was based on, allowing anyone access to the company’s data base. Shake my head.
Also from Google Trends – Vine might be making a comeback! Vine co-founder tweeted out a photo this week with a logo and caption that read ‘v2’ as a follow-up to his tweets last week that stated that he was going to work on a follow-up to Vine. This is exciting news for fans of the six-second looping video app that spurned countless viral moments. Vine was shut down by Twitter, who had acquired the app in 2012, this past January. In other social media news, Instagram is launching a direct messaging app called Direct that will move messaging off the Instagram app and into a separate second app. While many of us may wonder what the point is, Instagram says that direct messaging has accumulated 375 million monthly users by April this year and will benefit from a more focused approach. Instagram parent company Facebook does have experience with this type of move, so we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.
And from Reddit – Google’s DeepMind AI is at it again, this time mastering chess in four hours. The program that previously had mastered AlphaGo was taught the rules of chess with no strategies, and within four hours it had mastered the game to the point where it could best the highest-rated chess playing program Stockfish. Chess grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen told the BBC that he has always wondered how a superior species that landed on Earth would play chess, and now he knows. Now we just have to wonder what’s next for this AI.
That’s what’s trending today. Hashtag Trending is produced by IT World Canada. Today’s episode is sponsored by Cogeco Peer 1, the company that enables businesses to unlock their IT potential. Learn more at CP1.com.
