Facebook clears the air on rumors about its new Messenger application

If think you should be annoyed about all those rumors surrounding the new Facebook Messenger app, that’s nothing compared to what the company’s feeling. Not only has its recent and most irritating move to split its mobile version seen a lot of backlash, stories about it using the chat application to spy on users have also popped up.

In case you’re not in the loop, Facebook recently started coaxing people to download a separate tool called Messenger in order to make full use of chat that is already present within the social network’s mobile app. Since the company is trying to go big in the mobile applications’ scene, it made sense for it to try and coerce folks into downloading a standalone option for chats.

You can picture what it must have been like when those who were already feeling harassed by the need to install two separate Facebook apps on their phone, saw user reviews implying that the company was spying on them. Rumors about the software requesting permission to employ the concerned device’s camera and microphone for ‘sinister purposes’ starting snowballing.

This prompted Facebook’s Peter Martinazzi to tell those silly mortals to ‘Get the Facts About Messenger’ right. The post which sounds thoroughly unrepentant about dismantling the wholesome Facebook experience on mobile notes that it does ask leave to run features such as making calls and sending pictures, videos or voice messages.

But it’s only because when you send a photo via the application, it requires permission to turn on your handset’s camera and click the intended image. Martinazzi is assuring worried folks about the camera and microphone being left untouched by Messenger when it’s not running. He also had something to say about splitting theFacebook application.

Never mind that we want to expand our opportunity to serve you ads, was not what Martinazzi said. Instead, he chose to tell everyone about how people usually respond almost 20% faster when they have Facebook Messenger.

Google Glass app called SHORE detects human emotions in real time [Video]

How people will use Google Glass is a touchy issue for many though apps such as SHORE which detects human emotions in real time, may actually be helpful to those with disabilities. Created by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, SHORE which stands for Sophisticated High-speed Object Recognition, employs the Google Glass camera to analyze a person’s facial expressions and guess what they are feeling.

‘Guess’ may be the appropriate word to use since SHORE’s calculations are based on understanding structure-based features, learning algorithms and a data-set consisting of over 10000 annotated faces. The potential that Google Glass has to provide the wearer personal information of anyone walking down the street by simply scanning their faces and streaming their online information, has been troubling a lot of people.

The future of dating is set to get creepy indeed, and this Vimeo video called Sightsums it up very nicely. So the Fraunhofer researchers have emphasized on SHORE’s inability to determine a person’s identity. They’re not saying it’s impossible for the software to be modified to pull up the subject’s online data, but just that it doesn’t do this. The app is capable of detecting an individual’s gender and age too.

On the positive side, SHORE in combination with Google Glass, can help the visually impaired, those with disorders like autism and others who find it difficult to gauge emotions through facial expressions. Whatever information is incomprehensible to the wearer could be superimposed in their field of vision or via transmitted audio through the glasses. Fraunhofer thinks interactive games and market researchers will be able to benefit from applications like this one too.

Since Google Glass is not commercially viable yet, it will be some time before regular folks can get their hands on a pair and test SHORE and other such useful apps for themselves.