Here Is The Way To Check If Your Facebook Data Was Leaked

Recently, there has been a huge uproar on social media on how Facebook revealed information about millions of users that was used to influence politics. It is now known as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook made a move that allows the users to check if they were the victims of this scandal.

(Source: FB News Post)

Millions of users chose to deactivate their Facebook accounts after the scandal came to light. Here are the simple steps you can follow to check if your personal data was revealed:

First of all, go to the top right corner and click the “Help” button.

(Source: FB News Post)

After clicking the help button, you will see a menu. In the menu, click on “Help Center”.

(Source: FB News Post)

Once you are there type in “Cambridge Analytica” and select the page “How can I tell if my info was shared with Cambridge Analytica?”.

(Source: FB News Post)

It will then tell you if your data was shared or not. The message suggests that only a small number of people who had the app “This Is Your Digital Life” had their data shared and it was not millions of users but it is just another stunt to save face.

(Source: FB News Post)

Many people are still not convinced and are still choosing to stay away from Facebook after the recent scandal.

Source : Wonderful Engineering

Scientists Develop Brain Prosthesis That Boosts Memory

A study funded by DARPA increased the possibility of memory-enhancing brain prosthetics. The animal research done previously showed successful results after which the study was conducted on patients at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. The patients there were already having brain implants as a part of their epilepsy treatment. They experienced major improvements in both short-term and long-term memory. The patients were asked to play a memory-related computer game in which they were asked to remember specific things.

When the patients were trying to remember those things, the researchers recorded various patterns of neural firing in the brain’s hippocampus area. The hippocampus area of the brain is responsible for the memory. They also paid attention to neural patterns that resulted in the correct memory being encoded. After that, they made the patients play the game again and electrically simulated each patient’s brain by using the encoding patterns studied earlier. They were hoping to use those electrical simulators to trigger more effective memory storage of the data which they have.

The method worked successfully and showed results that were better than what the team was expecting. The results on the short-term memory tests jumped by a huge 37% and the long-term memory tests enhanced by 35%. Robert Hampson, the lead author of the study said, “We showed that we could tap into a patient’s own memory content, reinforce it and feed it back to the patient. Even when a person’s memory is impaired, it is possible to identify the neural firing patterns that indicate correct memory formation and separate them from the patterns that are incorrect. We can then feed in the correct patterns to assist the patient’s brain in accurately forming new memories, not as a replacement for innate memory function, but as a boost to it.”

The research has opened the door to the memory-enhancing brain implants. These implants might give a button which can be pressed when looking at something to increase the chances of remembering it later. The researchers are looking at this as a potential medical device to help the patients with Alzheimers, stroke or traumatic brain injury patients. The implant will help them re-start the process of forming new memories using their brain’s own activity patterns. The team is also hoping that the technology might be able to assist people in keeping memories which they have encoded already. Hampson says, “In the future, we hope to be able to help people hold onto specific memories, such as where they live or what their grandkids look like when their overall memory begins to fail.”

source : wonderful engineering

These Smart Glasses Convert Text To Sound For The Visually Challenged

A Japanese company is developing a pair of smart glasses to help the visually impaired to read the written text more easily. The smart glasses called Oton Glass are meant to translate text into audio using two cameras and an earpiece, both fitted to the frame of the glasses.

Half of the lens is a mirror reflecting the wearer’s eyes back to the first camera, which tracks eye movement. The camera can detect blinking while the other one is used to capture text. The wearers used the smart glasses by staring at the text they can’t read and blinking in order to trigger the glasses.

(Source: The Verge)

A Rasberry Pi is used as the glasses’ computer and the text captured by the glasses is sent to Raspberry Pi cloud system which converts the text into audio and the audio is played through the earpiece. In the case that the text is not identified by the computer, it is sent to a remote worker who can decipher it.

The Oton Glass is a little like Google Translate but you don’t have to pull out your phone and swipe over the text. This makes Oton glass much easier to use. Keisuke Shimakage, the lead designer, started working on the glasses in 2012 to aid his father who had developed dyslexia. His father eventually recovered but he continued developing the glasses to help others suffering from the disorder.

(Source: Hypestation)

The Oton Glass is a Campfire (Japanese version of Kickstarter) project and you can get a pair of glasses for around $47. Smart glasses have not been a success in the past but that has been due to the fact that the developers wanted to include literally everything in the glasses and this led to steep prices. The Oton Glass is simple to use and comes at a much lower price and should be a huge convenience for people who have trouble reading the text around them.