In the headlines: Microsoft Santa Talks Dirty, New Intel Processors are Coming, and Facebook apologizes.
Facebook Apologizes
Facebook is in the news again regarding its controversial “social add” policy. You may remember from an earlier blog that Facebook implemented a new system that automatically tracked users interests and purchases and sent out ads to everyone in their list. Critics of the new system said that it violates users privacy and was implemented on the sly.
Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a small apology and talked about changed that are being made to the ad system, known as Beacon.
“We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature,” said Zuckerberg, “but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.”
New Intel Processors
Intel will be releasing new super processors, 45nm Penryn-based Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme dual core processors, according to the website DailyTech. The new processors will be released on January 6th. Speculation has it that these processors are being made for inclusion in new MacBook Pros, iMacs and possibly a new Apple product such as an iTablet or an iPad.
Microsoft Santa Talks Dirty
Microsoft just shut down it’s animated Santa program after it was found that the automated Kris Kringle was talking dirty to kids. The Santa program, which was launched last year and then re-lauched this month, worked when users added northpolelive.com to their Windows Live messenger lists. Kids could tell Santa what they want and then get back a response, thanks to an artificial intelligence program. But, when one reporter tried out the program with his underage nieces who invited Santa to eat pizza, Santa started talking about other inappropriate oral activities. Microsoft looked at the programming to make sure such vocabulary was eliminated from Santa’s list, but the company still did not feel comfortable reactivating it.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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