Facebook to unveil new cryptocurrency

Agencies
June 17, 2019

London, Jun 17: Facebook is set Tuesday to unveil a bid to bring cryptocurrency payments into the mainstream, reportedly with the endorsement of governments and financial giants.

The world's biggest social network is expected to outline details of a virtual currency launching next year that it hopes will avoid the rollercoaster volatility of "blockchain" technologies such as bitcoin.

Facebook is setting up a consortium called "Libra" which, according to the Wall Street Journal, has been joined by more than a dozen companies including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber.

The companies along with venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will reportedly invest around USD 10 million each into the consortium.

Facebook has been trying to ward off hostile regulatory scrutiny after a series of privacy abuses and the spread of fake news.

The consortium will be managed externally and will seek to build trust among consumers by pegging the virtual coin to a basket of currencies including the dollar and euro, the Journal said.

Facebook has already sought blessings from the US Treasury and the Bank of England, the BBC reported last month.

Regulators have been reticent about cryptocurrencies, not only due to potential abuse by criminals but the wild swings in their value harming consumers.

With more than two billion users across its platforms, which include WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook could have the clout to bring cryptocurrency out of the fringes and emulate the likes of WeChat in China, where the US site is banned.

WeChat allows its users to chat, shop and play games without leaving its platform, generating more revenue by offering a one-stop portal.

Buffeted by the privacy storms, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has promised a new direction for Facebook built around smaller groups, private messaging and payments.

But it will need to overcome questions of trust and privacy, not least over how financial data will be stored. Some analysts are betting that the heavyweight Libra consortium will help to do that.

Facebook's crypto initiative could facilitate shopping, applications and gaming, and would leverage its broad user base in Asia, RBC analyst Mark Mahaney said in a research note last week.

It "may prove to be one of the most important initiatives in the history of the company to unlock new engagement and revenue streams", he wrote.

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Agencies
April 4,2020

Kozhikode, Apr 4: In a bid to maintain the lockdown amid COVID-19 outbreak, Police in Kozhikode is monitoring the situation using drone cameras and making sure that people are not breaking the law.

The police have so far arrested 41 persons who were out on a morning walk on Saturday during the lockdown in the backdrop of coronavirus outbreak.

The SHO of Town South Police Station informed that the accused were later released on bail.
At least 295 cases have been reported in the state so far.

Talking about COVID-19 testing, State Health Minister KK Shailaja told media: "Nine labs are conducting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests in Kerala. We've received 2000 rapid test kits and will start rapid tests from tomorrow. If a person tests positive in rapid test, we need to confirm it with PCR test."

The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in India climbed to 3072 on Saturday, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

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Agencies
June 26,2020

Facebook will introduce a new notification screen on its platform that will warn users if the article they are about to share is over 90 days old, the company announced on Thursday.

“We’re starting to globally roll out a notification screen that will let people know when news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The social media platform had previously introduced a context button in 2018 that provides information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. Building upon that, the new feature will inform users about the timeliness of the article.

“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.

The social media giant stated that timeliness is important in understanding the context of an article and curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform.

“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labelling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.

Apart from this, the platform will also be testing a similar notification screen for information related to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The notification screen will provide information about the source of the link shared in a post if the link is related to information on Covid-19. It will also direct people to its previously introduced Covid-19 information centre for “authoritative” health information, it said.

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Agencies
May 15,2020

Kolkata, May 15: Veteran Bengali author Debesh Roy, who was conferred the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel 'Teesta Parer Brittanto', died at a private hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, his family members said.

Roy was 84 and he is survived by his son. His wife had died earlier.

He was admitted to the hospital near his residence at Baguihati, in the eastern fringes of the city, on Wednesday after having symptoms like sodium potasium imbalance, sugar problem and breathing problem, his family members said.

He suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died at 10.50 PM.

A regular contributor to a number of Bengali dailies, he was a staunch critic of the attacks on liberals by in the country in recent times and attended protest meetings despite his failing health.

He was born in Pabna in present-day Bangladesh on December 17, 1936. He had five decades of career as a writer.

Besides Teesta Parer Britanta', he will be remembered for books like Borisaler Jogen Mondal , Manush Khun Kore Keno and Samay Asamayer Brittanto . His first book was Jajati.

His last rites will be performed tomorrow.

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