Spokes Technologies

Sunday, August 28, 2016

The really interesting reason why ATM PINs have a 4 digit code

You walk into your friendly neighborhood ATM kiosk and swipe your card. You then punch in a 4 PIN code to authenticate yourself and proceed to withdraw money. You may have been doing this mechanically since the day ATM was introduced but have you given a thought why ATM PINs have a 4 digit code? No! Then read on.

Automated Teller Machines (ATM) were first introduced in 1967 and now have emerged as a best option to disburse cash. Instead of visiting your bank and waiting in a long queue to withdraw money, you just have to swipe your ATM card, punch in your secret 4 digit PIN and take away the money you require.

But if someone was to find or steal your card, the only barrier protecting your money is your 4-digit ATM PIN. Ever wondered why most PINs have only 4 digits? Given that an ATM dishes out money wouldnt the manufacturers of ATMS have been wiser to introduce a longish PIN say six digit or eight digit one. Isn’t that why our email passwords are also expected to be 6 letters or more?

You see there is a bit of story behind it. ATM was invented by a wellknown Scottish inventor John Adrian Shepherd-Barron, the man who pioneered the development of the ATM machine. Barron was born in Shillong and was son to a Wimbledon ladies doubles champion, Dorothy Barron. When testing out his invention, Barron had also proposed a 6-digit PIN.

However, the first person to use his invention was his wife, Caroline. We all know that behind every successful man is a woman, and Caroline apparently rejected the idea of using a six code PIN for her husband’s invention because she could only remember the numbers up to four.

When Barron came up with the idea when he realised that he could remember his six-figure army number. But he decided to check that with his wife, Caroline.

“Over the kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of her, four figures became the world standard,” he laughs.

Reportedly, 6 numbers stringed together were too much information for her to recall.

Although, there are many banks nowadays that offer 6 digit PINs for security purposes, shouldn’t those of us using 4 digit PINs be thanking Caroline? It gets tough to recall those 4 digits at times, imagine what 6 or more would do to us?

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Friday, August 26, 2016

Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14905 for PC & Mobile

Here’s what’s new in Build 14905 for Mobile

We are introducing a newly refined sound set in this build, uniting the best of our past and present. We aspire to set a new bar for mobile sound set quality, and are trying to make the soundscape of technology more beautiful and harmonious. This also helps align with new sound design direction of the Windows platform as a whole, so that mobile sounds will family with desktop and tablet and be feel instantly familiar to all Windows users. We will continue to evolve – head to Settings > Personalization > Sounds to see the updated list of available sounds and let us know what you think!

Improvements and fixes for PC

We have fixed an issue causing a large blank space to appear between the address bar and web content after the address bar moves back to the top when opening a new tab in Microsoft Edge.

We have updated Narrator Scan mode for table navigation to now support CTRL + ALT + HOME to go to the beginning of the table CTRL + ALT + END to go to the end of the table.

Microsoft Edge now supports the CTRL + O keyboard shortcut for setting focus to the address bar.

We fixed an issue resulting in Sketchpad and Screen Sketch crashing after trying to change the ink color twice in a row when the ruler was visible.

Improvements and fixes for Mobile

Missed call notifications are now more actionable, with inline options to call back, text or remind yourself to do something about it later.

We fixed an issue where videos played in Windows Phone 8 apps might not pause when an incoming call was received.

We fixed an issue where, if “Show my caller ID” is set to “My contacts”, the contact being called might still see a blocked caller ID.

We fixed an issue where the Lock screen might fail to update to the new time after a time zone change.

We fixed an issue resulting in music not resuming after a call was finished, if Turn-by-Turn directions were being read out from the Maps app when the phone call came in.

Known issues for PC

Support for kernel debugging over 1394 has been removed, but will be available in an upcoming kit release. A work-around will be posted to the Debugging Tools for Windows Blog shortly.

Adobe Acrobat Reader crashes when you try to launch it.

Cortana’s text to speech capabilities is not working in this build. For example, Cortana won’t be able to read text messages out loud for you, tell jokes, sing, or give verbal prompts.

When clicking on the power button on the Start menu, it closes the Start menu without opening the flyout with restart/shutdown options appearing. As a workaround – you can right-click on the Start button (or WIN + X) and choose to shutdown via this menu instead.

Apps such as Yahoo Mail, Trivia Crack, Google and the Skype Translator Preview app will crash in this build due to a compatibility issue from a recent platform change.

The Settings app may crash on certain editions of Windows 10 when navigating to different settings pages due to a missing .dll file. We are working on getting this fixed soon.

Known issues for Mobile

If you move apps between a SD card and internal storage (either direction), those apps will get stuck in a pending state. The workaround to get your apps working again is to uninstall the app through Settings > System > Storage (apps cannot be uninstalled from All apps list). Then you can re-install the app from the Store.

Cortana’s text to speech capabilities is not working in this build. For example, Cortana won’t be able to read text messages out loud for you, tell jokes, sing, or give verbal prompts.

A few months ago, we set out to design a new T-shirt for the Windows Insiders Program – and what better source for ideas than Windows Insiders themselves! So, we organized a design competition with a few simple rules:

1. Come up with a design that reflected the innovative spirit of the Windows Insider Program

2. Include the Windows logo and a call out to Windows Insiders.

In just a few weeks, we received some absolutely amazing designs from around the world. After a long – and often heated – selection process (including a vote by the Windows Insider community), our judges narrowed it down to five finalists before picking the ultimate winner: a beautiful design concept by E. Bautista from the United States. The final design below (zoom in to see the finer details) will soon be available on the eCompanyStore. We’ll let you know when it’s ready. Thanks to everyone for participating and congratulations to our finalists – and ultimate winner!

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Facebook is trying to get rid of bias in Trending news by getting rid of humans

Facebook will no longer employ humans to write descriptions for items in its Trending section, which attracted controversy over allegations of political bias in May. Topics appearing in the Trending section will now appear solely as a short phrase or single word, with an indication of the number of people discussing it on the social network.

Quartz confirmed from multiple sources that Facebook has laid off the entire editorial staff on the Trending team—15-18 workers contracted through a third party. The Trending team will now be staffed entirely by engineers, who will work to check that topics and articles surfaced by the algorithms are newsworthy.

Facebook maintains that trending items have always been selected by algorithms; the former editorial staff was only responsible for writing the story descriptions seen in the Trending section, according to the company. This was disputed by former contractors hired by the tech giant who told Gizmodo in May that they were instructed to manually add some stories by hand. Stories on conservative topics were routinely excluded from the Trending list even though they were popular among Facebook users, Gizmodo reported.

Facebook investigated the claims and said it found “no evidence of systematic bias,” but that hasn’t stopped the company from making changes to the feature.

A new group of humans will still be involved with Trending, although they’ll be asked to focus on correcting the algorithm’s mistakes, like preventing mundane or repetitive stories from appearing as news, according to a Facebook blog post. The retooled Trending feature will now automatically pull excerpts from news articles, a feature that may force Facebook to compensate news publishers in the European Union in the future, under proposed new rules from the European commission.

According to sources, the Trending team’s editorial staff were alerted at 4pm that they were being fired—as the news of Facebook’s switch to algorithms first broke—and were asked to leave the building by 5pm. The contractors (all of whom were at the company less than 1.5 years) were given severance equal to pay through September 1, plus two weeks, sources say.

However, removing human writers from Trending doesn’t necessarily eliminate bias. Human bias can be embedded into algorithms, and extremely difficult to strip out. That’s one of the conclusions from a study (pdf) of a popular algorithm used for processing language from Princeton University and the University of Bath released as a draft yesterday (Aug. 25). It’s currently under review for publication in a journal.

“Language itself contains recoverable and accurate imprints of our historic biases,” the authors write. “Whether these are morally neutral as towards insects or flowers, problematic as towards race or gender, or even simply veridical, reflecting the status quo for the distribution of gender with respect to careers or first names.”

Facebook’s increased reliance on automation reflects the company’s growing faith in machine intelligence. But even machines may fail to overcome some the most fundamental problems that humans face, like operating fairly in the face of embedded bias.

As Gizmodo reported in May, Facebook’s primary reason for hiring human curators appeared to be to train their algorithms in what was newsworthy—and so it’s very likely their human biases were recorded and potentially amplified by the AI.

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The iPhone 7S may ditch the iconic home button

With seemingly few mysteries left surrounding the iPhone 7 attention is already turning to the iPhone 7S, and one big change we might see in next year's phone is the removal of the home button.

This is a rumor we've heard before, but now Bloomberg is making the same claims, citing "a person familiar with the matter."

The site doesn't go into any more detail, other than to say that the changes to the phone are designed with a focus on the display in mind, with possibly ultrasonic frequency used to identify the finger.

This adds up with earlier rumors, which suggested that a future iPhone would have a fingerprint scanner built into the screen, allowing the display to be bigger, with less bezel above and below it.

It sounds like an ambitious change, but with the iPhone 7 likely to be a fairly modest upgrade we're expecting big things from the iPhone 7S, especially as it will mark the iPhone's tenth anniversary.

One step at a time and the removal of the home button might not be a sudden change, as there have also been rumors that Apple will redesign the button for the iPhone 7, making the button pressure-sensitive rather than having it physically click.

That's one of the things we're less sure we're going to see on the iPhone 7, as it's not been as heavily rumored as other changes, like the removal of the headphone jack, but it would make sense as a step towards the total removal of the button.

We'll know soon, as the iPhone 7 is expected to launch on September 7. The iPhone 7S is likely still over a year away, so we'll have a much longer wait to find out whether Apple is getting rid of the home button entirely, but one way or another the iPhone 7S is likely to be a big change, with a massive curved screen and a glass back also rumored.

for more development and traing cum Webiste Development call +919568180808 or go to SPOKES TECHNOLOGIES

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy is unfair, but legal

WhatsApp has always made huge promises of safeguarding privacy, whether through the introduction of end-to-end encryption or through its promise of no compromise with privacy following its acquisition by Facebook. The sweeping changes to its privacy policy announced yesterday naturally came as a huge shock to its users. The chief changes being made are that WhatsApp will now share customer information with Facebook, in order to provide targeted ads and better friend suggestions, and with other third parties to allow businesses to communicate with users. WhatsApp has given its users a time limit of 30 days to opt-out of the new privacy policy. While the sudden announcement seems like a U-turn on every promise ever made by WhatsApp, the change is unfortunately legal.

WhatsApp can now share all information collected with anyone

Two years ago when WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook, WhatsApp put up a blogpost which assured its users that the acquisition will leave its privacy practices unchanged. WhatsApp’s previous privacy practices were extremely user friendly. Basically the only information that WhatsApp collected was its customers’ contact number, their device information, and the contact numbers on their friends list. The old Privacy Policy made express promises that no information would be shared with anyone else, there would be no third-party ads, and no information shared for commercial or marketing purposes. WhatsApp’s new Privacy Policy now gives a vast list of information which it collects:

Information on your online status such as when you were last seen online, when you updated your status message, etc.

Information from third party services that are integrated with WhatsApp, for example, if you share any article from the web using WhatsApp.

Information on who is messaging you, calling you or which groups you belong to.

Under the new Privacy Policy, there is no restriction being placed on what type of information is shared with whom.

Yet another change is while the new Privacy Policy keeps the promise of no third party banner ads, it now says that in future if WhatsApp changes its mind, it can have these ads through a change in the privacy policy.

WhatsApp’s changes to privacy maybe unfair, but is legal

While the sweeping changes made to WhatsApp’s privacy policy makes it appear that WhatsApp is deceiving its users, unfortunately, legally, WhatsApp can do this. All it needs to do is inform its customers of the change, and obtain their consent for the same. Had the changes been made without informing the customers or without offering an opt-out mechanism, then WhatsApp would have fallen afoul of privacy legislations. In fact, following Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, the US Federal Trade Commission sent a letter to Facebook warning Facebook against making changes to its privacy practices without informing its customers.

Is asking customers to opt-out adequate as consent to the changes?

Obtaining adequate and legal consent of the customers is a very important part of a valid change to privacy practices. All online terms and conditions, as also WhatsApp’s old Privacy Policy, state that changes will be made from time to time to the terms, and your continued use of the app will amount to consent. Usually, users need not even be informed of the changes made. In the case of changes to privacy practices, particularly when your personal information is being transferred to third parties, like WhatsApp is here, the case is different. In such a case, the customer needs to be informed of the change, and must specifically consent to that change.

Why didn’t WhatsApp adequately inform users of the change?

The only questionable part of WhatsApp’s changes is whether it adequately informed its customers about the changes. When WhatsApp introduced end-to-end encryption, every user was informed of this change on their chat screens. Surprisingly, now when a change of this scale has been made to its privacy practices, there is no similar notice on the chat screens. The only source of information is the blogpost, and it is questionable how many WhatsApp users actually take the trouble to check WhatsAp’s blogs. The blogpost itself outlines only some of the changes being made. It doesn’t inform customers of the extent of the changes being made. The new Privacy Policy, which WhatsApp claims has been written to make it easier for the people to understand, is actually even more confusing to understand, and leaves vast scope for misinterpretation and misuse.

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