Facebook Retorted to Apple’s & Microsoft’s Digital Assistance with ‘M’

Image source: 9to5mac.com

Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana are examples that how artificial intelligence can assist humans on their handheld devices. But, Facebook has surpassed both of them with its recent announcement of new ‘M’, a digital assistance that is more than just artificial intelligence. Though, for now it is accessible by only few hundreds of Bay area Facebook users, but it is likely to roll out soon in pockets of all Facebook users. As per the recent updates, the company has introduced some effective technical advancements to keep M ahead of its rivals.

David Marcus, vice president of messaging products, Facebook stated that “It won’t take long for messenger user’s to realize M can accomplish much more than your standard digital helper”. In another statement he said that “it can perform tasks that none of the others can, this is because in addition of using artificial intelligence, M is powered by actual people.” Seems like after leading the market of social media platforms, it is ready to take on digital assistance.

Image Source: engadget.com

What all ‘M’ can do

• M can do anything you ask for, it can make a reservation for you at hotel or restaurant.

• It can tell you about the most famous restaurants or burger points in an area.

• M can guide you like a local by proving information about the most famous tourist spot, the specialty of that area or the most famous food joint etc., if you visit somewhere as a tourist.

• It can help in finding a birthday gift for your spouse.

• If you are planning small trip for weekend, M can suggest for locations and make reservations as well.

• M can purchase essentials for you, it can also help surprise your loved ones with delivery of gifts.

The most important feature that gives an edge to M over its competitors is that M is a hybrid, unlike Siri and Cortana that only work on the basics of artificial intelligence, M is backed by human knowledge as well. Facebook has hired sufficient manpower to monitor that none of the query should remain unanswered. And, along with that they will also answer such trickier calls that are difficult for a software to answer.

Well, this again becomes a reason for query in most of the users’ mind that as the usage will increase in future, number of queries will also go up, so how will Facebook manage this task? But, Facebook is having a solution for that. According to Facebook officials, the system is having the capability to improve with time, it will learn from human behavior and act smarter with time. It would not be wrong to say that army of Facebook or M trainers are initially working as a support system to establish the software, but their burden will reduce with time and M will take care of everything by itself.

M’s ability to improve with time and to learn or understand things from human behavior makes it an indubitable leader of future. M will be able to better relate with people and thus provide better assistance. Unlike its competitors such as Siri, Cortana, Google Now etc. that work in a more mechanical manner and provide rote answers, M is way better.

How it Works

• To send a message to M, users only have to tap a button at the bottom of the messenger, in exactly the same way they send message to anyone else on Facebook messenger.

• M asks for follow-up questions in the same thread and also sends update once the task is done.

• M can organize dinner parties, search the specialty of a place for you, as it is doing for the Facebook employee testers.

How it can Benefit Users

• Improved artificial intelligence coupled with brilliance of humans will definitely lay a foundation of better user experience. 

• Users would be able to make easy reminders, reservations, and important bookings just with a smart handy device.

• It can help find the suitable restaurant or food point, or any other destination a user desires for at a tourist destination.

• Users will get the answers of even most complicated queries.

• Most importantly, M will learn new things and this experience will keep on improving with time.

What Disadvantage may come across M

One and only disadvantage that Facebook M may have to face is that unlike Apple and Microsoft, Facebook does not have its own operating system, one has to download an app, ‘Facebook Messenger’ to enjoy the assistance of M. Although, the number of Facebook messenger users have tripled in less than two years, so the scope of growth for M is immense. But, it may come as a task for those who are not using the messaging app of Facebook.

How it may affect the Market

Facebook has just arrived to compete in the field of digital assistance and it may give a tough competition to its rivals. Number of users of Facebook messenger has increased significantly in less than two years, and introduction of new unbeatable digital assistance of messenger ‘M’ is soon likely to become the reason for further increased downloads.

Facebook keeps thriving the market from time to time with its latest technological updates, it is also just an introduction of what all ‘M’ can do. But, experiencing the technology in real will make you fall in love with M. We will keep an eye on other recent updates, so stay tuned.

All About Apple’s Disclosure of App Store Malware Attack and Steps to Detect Infected Device

Apple, the world’s leading brand is always supposed to have set the great degree of safety & security measures while performing any activity or launching any app on App Store. In fact buyers consider security as one of the reasons to prefer to buy Apple devices instead of Android or any other smartphones especially the professional folks. But since Apple has disclosed about the malicious attack on its app store it has disappointed its  several users and future customers. Apple exposed this breaking news after several cyber security firms pointed out malware on several of the Apple apps.

This malware arises from a malicious program dubbed XcodeGhost. Xcode is an Apple’s official software for developing iOS apps. According to cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks Inc. XcodeGhost has infected various legitimate apps. The list includes WeChat, Popular smartphone chat App, some music apps & car-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and many more. Prior to this malicious attack, total of just 5 apps were found malware affected in Apple’s history.

Ryan Olson, director of threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks had revealed the reason for the infection of Xcode. He said hackers embedded the legitimate code in developer’s software and infected the machine and convincing developers to use the software (Xcode) to develop iOS and Mac apps.

Most of the Chinese developers downloaded this infected version of Xcode hosted elsewhere because china’s widespread censorship of the web, connections to servers are comparatively faster than other countries. Not only developers but internet users also prefer an alternative domestic source for large downloads which results into insertion of malicious code into the apps. Apple developer’s believe that many of app developers might have ignored the Gatekeeper warning (Apple’s security software) in order to run malicious Xcode.

Here is how developers ignore a warning which indicated the software was damaged and should be moved to the trash:

But the Apple intelligence team has assured that malware attack was not so effective and till now there is no information of any kind of harm due to data theft been recorded. In fact Apple has removed all the infected apps from the app store that have been created by the malicious software Xcode. As well, authorities are working hard with the developers of legitimate apps to make sure they are using the official version of Xcode to rebuild the apps said by Apple spokeswoman Christine Monaghan.

The full official statement by Apple is as follows:

The XCodeGhost has been published by it’s the Author on github - 

The brief analysis shows that the above information is sent to a unique URL via a HTTP POST request.

If we see, Apple did not reveal how many apps it uncovered that are found infected or how many users have downloaded those apps. But many researchers are predicting that the list is long. According to Palo Alto Networks it has published a list of 39 of the affected iOS apps . While, Qihoo360 Technology, Chinese Security Company said on its blog that it had detected 344 apps that were infected. 

A researcher at the Sans Institute provides the following useful information for the iOS users on its blog – It lets you know how to check whether your device is infected or not.

So, don’t waste a minute and check your iOS device whether it is safe from malicious attack or not.

I will keep updating the post with latest news regarding the same . Keep visiting the blog for recent updates & do take all the safety measures before any infected app hits your device.

Is Yahoo Ready to Experiment its Search Results from Google? Find Out

Internet is a market whose success completely depends on user experience and behavior. Google is the search engine that is leading this competition by providing top notch search results to users. But, a latest news in the market created a buzz that now Yahoo is also looking forward to avail the search engine services of Google. No news of any final deal has come yet from both the companies, but the partnership is still in a testing phase. Yahoo is testing its users’ behavior and response by providing the search results powered by Google. Or, we can say that Yahoo is experimenting with Google powered search results.

As the news came out, one of the spokesperson of Yahoo interacted with media and said that “we work to create absolute best experience to Yahoo users, from time to time we run small tests with a variety of partners including search providers.”

Yahoo generally provides search results powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. According to the recent report generated by NetMarketShare, Google is enjoying the highest share of search engine market worldwide, i.e. of 71%. Google is followed by Microsoft with 10% share and then comes Yahoo with 9.6% share. If we talk about U.S, Google is having 64.4% market share, Microsoft 20.1% and Yahoo 12.7%. Google is also the most trusted search engine among users.

According to the latest amendment of agreement that took place in April, 2015 between Yahoo and Microsoft, allows Yahoo to power its search results with different search engine companies as well. Although, a big part of Yahoo search results, i.e. of 51% would still be delivered by Microsoft’s Bing.

Why Yahoo is Experimenting with Google?

This new move of Yahoo clearly indicates that it wants to experiment something new with its search results. As, Google is the most widely used search engine among users, it can help Yahoo in building a better trust factor and increase market share. 

Google search uses very smart algorithms to deliver exactly the same result a reader desires for. If Yahoo will use Google’s search results, it will help in improving user-experience and thus its overall reputation in search engine market.

Another and the most important benefit that Yahoo wants to achieve with its partnership with Google is to increase its share and profit returns in search engine market. Yahoo is currently having the lowest market share among the three giants, which is a matter of concern, and to improve the same Yahoo is ready to develop a partnership with Google.

What Google will get out of this?

Google will get an expansion of business, better revenues, reach to more and more people, improved relations with users and much more. Which company will not like to expand its business by teaming up with another tech giants? It will not only increases the business of Google, but will also increase its access to more people. By combining goals, Yahoo and Google want to achieve a huge success and user experience.

How Users will enjoy this Association?

If in future an association will occur between Google and Yahoo, it is assured that it will be of great benefit to the users who usually access Yahoo search engine. When the services of two tech giants will combine, it will definitely improve the user experience to up to several times. Services of Yahoo and trust of Google will give users the best available results on internet.

Overall, we can say that Yahoo and Google can make a good combination, we are looking forward for the further updates and we will also keep you updated about the same. Let’s hope that this step will work out in favor of both, the companies and the consumers.

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