Facebook could create new privacy positions as part of FTC settlement

The Federal Trade Commission is in the midst of negotiating a settlement with Facebook that would require the company to strengthen its privacy practices by creating new privacy-focused positions at the company, according to a new report from Politico.

The deal isn’t final, and the provisions of the settlement won’t be official until the FTC formally announces it. According to reports, Facebook has agreed to create a new privacy oversight committee that may include Facebook board members. Mark Zuckerberg may also take on a new role as the “designated compliance officer.” This would make him personally responsible for how Facebook upholds user data privacy.

The privacy committee would meet quarterly and review Facebook’s privacy…

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Google’s latest AI art project turns your face into a ‘poem portrait’

Yes, that’s Keanu; no, Keanu doesn’t work for us.

Google is always sponsoring weird and inventive projects with the help of artificial intelligence, and its latest is characteristically odd. Named PoemPortraits, the web app takes a word of your suggestion and combines it with a selfie to create the eponymous poem portrait. Basically, it’s an Instagram filter paired with a few lines of AI-generated poetry.

It’s fun and strange and worth a few minutes of your time to mess around with. I created the image above using the word “malfeasance” and a picture of Keanu Reeves (because looking at his face is undoubtedly preferable to looking at mine).

The app is the fruit of a longer collaboration between Google’s Arts & Culture Lab, the coder Ross Goodwin, and Es Devlin, an artist and renowned…

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