Facebook Wants You to Know It Loves Free Speech (Except When It Doesn’t)

After a Turkish court ordered Facebook to take down pages due to blasphemy, it put the social network in a tough position: Either disobey the law and risk being banned outright, or it allow the censorship its founder just decried. Facebook complied.

Here’s Zuckerberg’s statement, in which he bristled against the idea of extremists dictating what people share:

Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas. We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.

Yet as I reflect on yesterday’s attack and my own experience with extremism, this is what we all need to reject — a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world.

I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.
It looks awfully hollow reading it with the knowledge that Facebook kowtowed to extremism in the same month it was written. It does, however, fit with what Zuckerberg said in a recent Q&A about freedom of speech. Josh Constine paraphrased the remarks on why Facebook operates in countries that censor:

I can’t think of many examples in history when a company not shutting down in the face of a law and getting banned helped change that law. But continuing to operate can help the country in other ways, such as allowing people to connect with loved ones, learn, and find jobs. So I think overwhelmingly our responsibility is to continue operating.
Alright, fine. If Zuckerberg believes it’ll do more harm than good to allow censorship because people need his social network (and Facebook needs the ad money?), that’s shitty but his prerogative. This isn’t really about Turkey. It’s about China. Openly defying an international government’s censorship requests could seriously unravel Facebook’s attempts to get unblocked in China’s huge and potentially lucrative market.

But it’s dissembling to claim you’re staunchly committed to free speech despite extremists if you’re really mostly committed to continuing to operate despite censorship. Especially since people in countries that block Facebook are often still able to log on using VPNs and other workarounds. This is the case in Iran, where nearly 60% of Iranians use Facebook despite a ban.

The big issue isn’t that Turkish people won’t be able to access Facebook if Turkey blocks it. Very recent history indicates just how easy it is for people in Turkey to work around social media bans—Twitter traffic reportedly increased when Turkey last blocked it! So claiming Facebook has a responsibility to stay operating that is greater than its responsibility to free speech is particularly strange in this case, when Zuckerberg must know that most people in Turkey would not suddenly lose access in any meaningful way.

So what’s this about then?

Those Hebdo cartoons were infantile and racist. They punched down at a group of people consistently discriminated against and abused in France. But it doesn’t matter how offensive or inoffensive these images are. Censoring images at the request of a government notorious for punishing dissenting and offensive speech—a government led by a man who considers social media sites evil—is about keeping Facebook’s sense of responsibility to its shareholders, who want market growth and revenue, not about adopting an ameliorative censorship policy to help people in Turkey communicate.

Microsoft Is Developing Software That Converts Android Phones To Windows 10

Microsoft dropped an interesting piece of information today amid its confirmation that Windows 10 will go on sale this summer.

Near the end of its announcement, the Redmond-based company casually revealed that it is testing Windows 10 with “power users” of Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 4 Android smartphone. The initiative, which Xiaomi stressed is not a partnership but merely assistance with the trial, is an interesting one because it again shows Microsoft’s new ‘platform agnostic’ approach.

Neither Microsoft nor Xiaomi provided specific details of the Windows 10 software being trialled, but TechCrunch understands from sources that it effectively overrides Android, turning the Xiaomi phone into a Windows 10 device complete with Microsoft services. (Which the company hopes will dazzle Android owners into making the switch.)

That’s to say that the software doesn’t offer a dual boot option, which Microsoft has pushed in the past in India. This is a ROM, based on Windows, that operates much like software from Cyanogen — a company Microsoft was incorrectly linked with an investment in — and other custom ROMs developed by the likes of Tencent and Baidu in China.

The ROM is thus designed to go beyond Microsoft’s Android apps and offer a native-like Windows experience on Android phones.

That’s a pretty powerful concept, and it is no surprise to see Microsoft testing it in China, where consumers are more inclined to install ROMs. There’s a greater spirit of customization in China, particularly for Android users since third-party app stores are the norm as Google Play is severely restricted there.

Microsoft, of course, has big plans to make this software available on more devices in time. The company told The Next Web that full availability will be announced soon (update: full statement below), but it is starting out with Xiaomi — almost certainly because it has a strong community of users who provide feedback on the company’s weekly software updates. Xiaomi’s receptive audience is ideal for such a pilot.

A good idea though it may be, getting adoption for an Android ROM in China is no easy thing. Just ask Baidu, which recently shuttered its Android software efforts due to low interest — that’s despite the company’s vast reach and distribution potential as ‘China’s Google’.

As for Xiaomi, people are often quick to rush to the idea that it is at odds with Google since it doesn’t offer the U.S. company’s services on in MIUI platform in China. Xiaomi’s emphatic comment that its involvement in Windows 10 is not a partnership — coupled with Hugo Barra recent explanation that it is not pushing its suite of services to users outside of China — suggests that this is not tactical; Xiaomi is just giving it users another ROM to tinker with.

The news could be taken in a cynical way in the U.S. — where what’s good for the users is often convenient because it’s good for the business too — but Xiaomi really has cultivated a sizable and trusted community, so we’re inclined to believe its rhetoric on this occasion.

Update: Here are more details from Microsoft.

Update 2: Microsoft has reworded its original statement to “keep things concise” so we’ve switched the quote below. (Two things worth noting about its initial comment though: it confirmed Mi 4 owners can “flash their phones with the new Windows 10 OS” and that “availability will be announced in the months to come.”)

Through a new program with Xiaomi Inc., one of the top smartphone distributors in the world, a select group of Xiaomi Mi 4 power users will be invited to help test Windows 10 and contribute to its future release later this year. They will have the opportunity to download the Windows 10 Technical Preview, install it and provide their feedback to Microsoft.

The new Galaxy S6 will screen resistant reflection and metal body

Finally, we welcome the first official photos of the new Galaxy S6, so although not reveal too much, enough for us to awaken the imagination and certainly not excited before the official unveiling at MWC fair in Barcelona.

We already knew, but the video and prove it, Galaxy S6 will have a metal body, like the Alpha series of Samsung, which should contribute to a very luxurious feel in the hand, but stronger and better chassis. Rounded edges will provide easy operation with the phone, while the thickness is expected to be 6.9 mm, just like the iPhone 6 / 6S.

But thin metal body with rounded edges have already seen with many other phones. Therefore, the new S6-Ka has a completely new front end, the glass is bent and the right and left end and it looks as if it embraces the phone. As they say from Samsung, this way you will not know the limit of metal to glass and back, or you get a design that will associate the smart phone sculpted from a single piece.Also, thanks to the small curvature of the glass, will dramatically reduce reflection, together with OLED technology by Samsung, you will need to enable extremely high visibility in the sun or other strong light source. The screen has a resolution of 2560h1440 pixels, which is a step forward in terms of his predecessor.

Besides major improvements in design, the new Galaxy will be driven by the currently most powerful processor in the world and it Exynos 7420 by Samsung, with a 64-bit architecture, 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage data. The camera will have a completely new sensor and lens, 20 megapixels and can record 4K, or Ultra HD video.

New, more powerful components will be accompanied by much easier TouchWiz skin, which should provide much smoother and faster operation with the operating system, as well pominimalistichki design, which debuted with Android Lolipop.

The new S6 will be presented on 1 March, the fair mobile technology (MWC) in Barcelona, ​​but we are confident that by then there will be some new leaked

Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Be The Leader In Autonomous Cars

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was on stage at Nivdia’s 2015 GPU Technology Conference, chatting with CEO Jen-Hsun Huang about autonomous cars and the hurdles standing in the way of self-driving tech. Musk said that a fully autonomous driving system might actually only be as little as a year away, but noted that regulation will lag several years behind tech that actually makes such a system possible. Still, he said that Tesla wants to be the leader in autonomous cars, even though it’s currently seen as an electric vehicle maker.

Musk also said we’ll actually start taking self-driven cars “for granted” much faster than many may realize, and noted that one of the key areas of focus for the company is actually on protecting any future self-driving software from malicious attacks. In addition to physical controls for manual override, Musk says there will be additional levels of security on driving systems, so that even if infotainment software is hacked, vehicle drive systems remain unaffected.

The Tesla executive was discussing autonomous vehicle tech at Nvidia’s event because Nvidia is putting resources into processor and system-on-a-chip technology that can be used as the brains of in-car intelligence systems. At this year’s CES, Nvidia showed off two brand new computing platforms for vehicles, including Drive CX and Drive PX, which focus on the infotainment and object recognition and imaging portions of vehicles respectively.

Musk’s parting message was about how committed Tesla is to providing the right kind of security necessary to protect autonomous vehicles from malicious attacks, and the impression left by its focus on that aspect of the forthcoming tech does indeed suggest they’re further along than many may realize to practical implementations of self-driving cars. The Tesla chief executive also stressed that offering self-driving tech will save a lot of motorist lives down the road.

During the Q&A, Musk also teased the announcement that Tesla is making tomorrow, which he previously tweeted will eliminate “range anxiety” for all Model S vehicles. He’s been quiet about any further details, noting only that said announcement is not about the rollout of Tesla’s quick battery swap facilities, which continue across the U.S. after an initial pilot.

Your Fitness App Is Making You Fat

Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal is the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and blogs about the psychology of products at NirAndFar.com.Fitness apps are all the rage. A raft of new companies and products want to track your steps and count your calories with the aim of melting that excess blubber. There’s just one problem — most of these apps don’t work. In fact, there is good reason to believe they make us fatter.

One study called out “the dirty secret of wearables,” citing that “these devices fail to drive long-term sustained engagement for a majority of users.” Endeavour Partners’ research found “more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a modern activity tracker no longer use it. A third of U.S. consumers who have owned one stopped using the device within six months of receiving it.”

While the report mentioned several reasons why people don’t stick with these tracking devices, my own theory is simple: They backfire. Here are three surprising reasons why fitness apps may be making us less happy and more flabby.

It’s not as simple as calories in, calories out

The first reason fitness apps make us fat is that almost all of them are based on a pervasive myth. Most of these gadgets and apps attempt to push people to eat less and exercise more. They ask users to track what they eat and record their physical activity in order to quantify whether dieters intake a surplus of calories for the day. Eat too much or move too little, the thinking goes, and you’ll get fat, right? Not exactly.

Evidence that the calories in, calories out theory is too simplistic is plentiful. For example, doctors have known for some time that certain medications cause patients to gain or lose weight by changing hormone levels in the body. If putting on pounds was just a matter of “energy balance” then these medications shouldn’t make people heavier. But they do.

Drugs aren’t the only things that can change hormone levels. Certain foods prompt the body to store fat by spiking the release of hormones like insulin. According to Dr. Peter Attia, co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative, “All calories are not created equally … The energy content of food (calories) matters, but it is less important than the metabolic effect of food on our body.”

To most fitness apps, a calorie of high-fructose corn syrup is the same as a calorie of protein despite the fact that science, and our bodies, tells us otherwise. Clearly, a calorie isn’t just a calorie and by perpetuating this untruth, fitness apps help people tack on the pounds instead of shedding them.

You won’t exercise yourself thin

Exercise is probably bad for you. Did you read that right? Let it sink in. Exercise, for many people, is a waste of time if not outright harmful.

Let’s start with the fact that according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in 2012, “more than 1.9 million individuals had a sports-related injury that was treated in emergency departments.” But that statistic only accounts for those people who went to the hospital. Millions more suffer from sprains, cuts, and impacts that often lead to health complications, not to mention pain and misery.

There are other reasons exercise hurts us. According to science writer Gary Taubes, “The one thing that might be said about exercise with certainty is that it tends to makes us hungry. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.”

Though Taubes cites extensive evidence backing his claim in his multiple books on the topic, the idea also makes intuitive sense. However, most fitness apps ignore the fact we work up an appetite.

When we exercise, the blood stream is drained of glucose so the body activates an uncomfortable sensation to get us to refuel. Hunger pangs, or the fear thereof, drive our search for sustenance. If you’ve ever been in the semi-psychotic state my wife calls “hangry” (a mix of hungry and angry), you know people will do almost anything to get fed (including eating leftover baby food, but I swear that was just once).

For roughly 95 percent of the 200,000 years our species has existed, food was relatively hard to come by. Today, however, sugar-laden calorie bombs are cheap, delicious and readily accessible. Whereas our ancestors laboriously cracked nuts with their hands and primitive tools or gnashed animal carcasses with their powerful jaws, we sip pre-masticated Mega Mango Smoothies at Jamba Juice (with 52 grams of sugar in the smallest 16 ounce size, by the way).

Exercise does us in by making us hungrier throughout the day and since our food is so full of stuff that makes us fat, we become more likely to over-consume without noticing. A few extra bites at lunch and an extra piece of fruit after dinner and we’ve negated the 300 calories we burned running for 30 minutes on the treadmill.

There’s also a much more subversive reason exercise causes us to overeat. It not only increases hunger but it gives many of us the permission to indulge. The phenomenon is called moral licensing — the psychological tendency to splurge in one area of our life when we’re being good in another.

Moral licensing is why a study found people “are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing [environmentally] green products as opposed to conventional products.” It’s why other studies found participants who believed multivitamin pills provided significant health benefits also exercised less, were less likely to choose healthy food, and smoked more cigarettes.

The phenomenon accounts for why many runners gain fat while training for a race. They expend more calories during their runs, but by rewarding themselves with indulgences throughout their day like an insulin-spiking post-workout “sports drink,” they ultimately negate many of the health benefits of exercise.

People don’t live in a behavioral vacuum and there are deeper physiological and psychological influences that make us gain weight after we exercise. Not only are we hungrier but we are more likely to yield to temptation thinking we’ve already paid for our sins in the gym. Unfortunately, most fitness apps perpetuate behaviors that backfire in ways we don’t even notice and certainly don’t intend.

Want to, not a have to

I should note that exercise isn’t bad for everyone, just those who hate doing it (which is most everyone who is not already doing it). My beef with most fitness apps comes down to the fact that they miss a critical component of long-term behavior change.

I studied some of the most successful consumer technology companies in the world. I looked into what makes Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the iPhone so good at changing user behavior. My hope was that what I learned could be utilized by those who seek to change habits for good. I discovered these products and services had several common attributes, among them the fact that using them is fun.

In contrast, by and large fitness apps are a drag. The psychological phenomenon of reactance tells us people tend to resist doing things they feel coerced into doing. Attempting to form habits for behaviors people feel they have to do instead of want to do just doesn’t work over the long-term. Sure, we can starve ourselves for a while or pay homage to the elliptical machine for a few weeks but eventually we give up if it’s not fun. That’s why the only people who sustain using these bossy services are those who were already tracking their activity and nutrition before they started using the app, or the relatively few who somehow learned to enjoy the behaviors for their own sake.

Unfortunately, to date, the burgeoning industry has relied too heavily upon game-like incentives to motivate behavior — but games invariably come to an end. When the novelty of extrinsic prizes like points, leaderboards and step counts wear off, the experience becomes monotonous and users quit. The next generation of fitness apps need to focus on helping users enjoy the activity itself instead of making artificial and often frivolous goals the aim.

Though I’ve taken fitness trackers to task, herein lies the opportunity for the future of health tech. By finding ways to help people learn to love physical activity, moral licensing is kept at bay and users are more likely to continue to do the activity in the future. In addition, products that help us eat the right foods, not just fewer calories, are needed.

Someday, a host of new technologies will finally fulfill the promise of helping us maintain a desirable weight and conceivably live better, longer lives. We’re just not quite there yet.

Author’s note: I will be speaking at this year’s Habit Summit on March 24th. TechCrunch readers can get $50 off tickets to the Habit Summit using the discount code

New York Times: Albanians are the most beautiful nation in Europe

“Albanians are the most beautiful race in Europe”, said the latest article published by the “New York Times”. Material prepared by Adrian Lazaj evaluated Albanians and their physical features, focusing on the intellectual abilities and talents. The article published by the “New York Times” focused on the Albanian traditions, culture and folk dances.

“Physically Albanians are the most beautiful race in Europe. Albanian women are very beautiful, with dark hair, and mostly colored eyes. Their way of walking is another element that makes them steal your heart, especially their way of dancing. First time I saw their dances, they gave me a special pleasure, “says the article.

It further says that “Albanians are smart and strong also. It is true, they are very beautiful and very talented. They are like the Scots in the seventeenth century. And I mean that they are the finest race in the Balkans, intellectually and physically. Even in Constantinople, you will see that the best soldiers and officers are Albanians “.

HTC announced the One M9 several weeks ago

HTC announced the One M9 several weeks ago, and the response has been tepid from most corners of the Internet. Samsung is getting much more attention for the big changes it’s making to the Galaxy S6 this year. HTC needed an angle to get people excited about the M9 again, and now it might have one: HTC Uh-Oh Protection will offer one free phone replacement within the first year, no questions asked. Is it a little desperate? Maybe, but it’s also potentially awesome if you’ve got a bad case of butter fingers.

Let’s imagine you have a Samsung Galaxy S6 and break the screen. You just made a multi-hundred dollar mistake, unless you’re paying monthly for phone insurance (which has its own drawbacks). With the One M9, you can give HTC support a ring, and a new phone will be dispatched with overnight shipping to replace your busted one. You send the old one back after you get it. This requires a $299 hold on your credit card, but you don’t have to go without a phone.

It doesn’t matter why you need the replacement — cracks, water damage, phone sawed in half for fun, and anything else that might come up. Even iPhone owners who buy AppleCare+ have to pay a little bit to get a cracked screen replaced.

Free replacements are the selling point for HTC, but Uh-Oh Protection has some other facets that are actually much more clever. For example, you can take advantage of Uh-Oh Protection if you decide to switch carriers, too. So you can swap a Verizon M9 for the AT&T model, thus saving you from buying a new phone. HTC knows if you’re changing carriers, there’s a chance you won’t buy another M9, so Uh-Oh helps protect HTC’s market share.



HTC also knows most people don’t break their phones within the first year. That’s why this program comes with one other feature that only kicks in after the year is up. If you don’t get a replacement, HTC will give you $100 toward the purchase of your next One phone. This is really smart, because if you don’t buy another HTC phone next time, you’re basically throwing away $100. Again, good for HTC’s market share.

No other Android OEM has bonus features that are quite this compelling. Samsung offers a dozen premium subscriptions to services you probably won’t use, while LG has been known to give away spare batteries to G3 buyers. At the same time, it’s starting to look like HTC doesn’t have anyplace else to go. The company has been making great phones, but it can’t seem to stand out from high-end competitors like Samsung. And the rise of budget OEMs like Huawei and Xaiomi could only worsen the situation.

So what does HTC really have left to lose? Maybe it gives away some phones, but it gains goodwill, which is what it really needs right now. Uh-Oh Protection makes a modest phone upgrade like the M9 feel more substantial. Maybe it’s desperation, but it’s still great for consumers.