Monday, February 17, 2020
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Adobe unveiled new video features coming to Adobe Creative Cloud that is reported to speed up production timelines, enable more seamless workflows and deliver powerful capabilities for filmmakers and video professionals. The updates include Adobe Sensei-powered animation, intelligent audio cleanup tools, selective color grading, advanced data-driven motion graphics templates and end-to-end VR 180 support.
These updates follow Adobe’s recent unveil of Project Rush, the all-in-one, cross-device video editing app designed specifically for online content creators. Project Rush delivers a streamlined and intuitive user experience that makes creating and sharing online content easier by harnessing the skills of Premiere Pro and After Effects, and Project Rush projects are seamlessly opened in Premiere Pro, as claimed by Adobe. Currently in beta, Project Rush will be available later this year.
New capabilities coming later this year to Adobe Creative Cloud include:
- You can mold layers into new shapes with new Mesh Sculpting tools that twist, bend and scale under your creative control in After Effects. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning technology in Adobe Sensei, you can also create and animate unique, stylized puppets using a webcam and reference artwork with Character Animator’s new Characterizer.
- It allows you to improve audio with intelligent clean up tools, DeNoise and DeReverb, in the Essential Sound panel in Adobe Audition. Dial down or remove background noise and reverb from a sound clip that’s been adjusted by adaptive algorithms.
- You can take the guesswork out of curve adjustments and bring simplicity and precision to selective color grading and color management with new Lumetri Color tools in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
- You can drag and drop spreadsheet files to Motion Graphics templates to generate visual representations of information within video projects using data-driven infographics in Premiere Pro.
- One can add new support features for 180-degree immersive video in Premiere Pro and After Effects, including optimized ingest, effects and output in Google VR 180 for viewing on YouTube or other platforms.
- The creator can invite groups and individual collaborators for Team Projects and easily access team members from your enterprise address book to choose collaborators and save groups.
- Moreover, you can also search and sort millions of curated, contemporary 4K and HD cinematic footage and professionally-designed Motion Graphics templates, right from the Essential Graphics panel in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
The new features for Adobe Creative Cloud announced at IBC will be available with the next version of Creative Cloud coming later this year and the monthly subscription start at Rs 676
These updates follow Adobe’s recent unveil of Project Rush, the all-in-one, cross-device video editing app designed specifically for online content creators. Project Rush delivers a streamlined and intuitive user experience that makes creating and sharing online content easier by harnessing the skills of Premiere Pro and After Effects, and Project Rush projects are seamlessly opened in Premiere Pro, as claimed by Adobe. Currently in beta, Project Rush will be available later this year.
New capabilities coming later this year to Adobe Creative Cloud include:
- You can mold layers into new shapes with new Mesh Sculpting tools that twist, bend and scale under your creative control in After Effects. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning technology in Adobe Sensei, you can also create and animate unique, stylized puppets using a webcam and reference artwork with Character Animator’s new Characterizer.
- It allows you to improve audio with intelligent clean up tools, DeNoise and DeReverb, in the Essential Sound panel in Adobe Audition. Dial down or remove background noise and reverb from a sound clip that’s been adjusted by adaptive algorithms.
- You can take the guesswork out of curve adjustments and bring simplicity and precision to selective color grading and color management with new Lumetri Color tools in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
- You can drag and drop spreadsheet files to Motion Graphics templates to generate visual representations of information within video projects using data-driven infographics in Premiere Pro.
- One can add new support features for 180-degree immersive video in Premiere Pro and After Effects, including optimized ingest, effects and output in Google VR 180 for viewing on YouTube or other platforms.
- The creator can invite groups and individual collaborators for Team Projects and easily access team members from your enterprise address book to choose collaborators and save groups.
- Moreover, you can also search and sort millions of curated, contemporary 4K and HD cinematic footage and professionally-designed Motion Graphics templates, right from the Essential Graphics panel in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
The new features for Adobe Creative Cloud announced at IBC will be available with the next version of Creative Cloud coming later this year and the monthly subscription start at Rs 676
Ayoub’s glove is an example of a trend as entrepreneurs, startups and companies like Microsoft and Google try to harness the power of AI.
Hadeel Ayoub slips a black glove onto her hand before beginning the swish of sign language that is meaningless to the untrained observer. Then she pushes a button on her wrist, and a small speaker relays the message drawn in the air: “Let’s Dance!”
“My dream is to give a voice to those who can’t speak,” says the 36-year-old inventor who is developing her BrightSign glove while working toward a PhD in assistive technology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Ayoub’s glove is just one example of a bigger trend as entrepreneurs, startups and companies like Microsoft and Google try to harness the power of artificial intelligence to make life easier for people with disabilities. The initiatives come as the World Health Organization estimates that the number of people needing assistive devices ranging from wheelchairs to communication technologies will double to 2 billion by 2050.
Improvements in artificial intelligence, combined with the decreasing cost of hardware, are making it possible for inventors to develop new products without the need for the deep pockets of governments or corporations. With the help of 3D printers and the increased processing power of home computers, they are creating devices designed for people with motor, vision, hearing and cognitive impairments.
Microsoft and Google are trying to spur work in this area, offering a total of $45 million in grants to developers of assistive technologies. Microsoft says it hopes to identify promising projects that can eventually be incorporated into widely available services.
“We’re certainly seeing an explosion of new technology that is looking to support people with disabilities,” said Zvika Krieger, head of technology policy and partnerships at the World Economic Forum. “There are a lot of innovators out there ... who are looking to move beyond maybe a dating app or a social networking app and are looking to do something that really helps the disadvantaged.”
While Ayoub hopes her efforts pay off financially, she says she is driven by a desire to create a world where disabilities become meaningless. She is trying to raise 1 million pounds to bring BrightSign to the market, estimating her gloves will cost “a few hundred dollars” each, compared with $2,000 or more for existing technology.
“My dream for BrightSign is to be the extension of the senses for the people ... who want to voice their feelings and opinions without having to always look for someone to help them out — to give them the independence that they need and control over their own communication,” she said.
The need for such products is only going to increase as the world’s population ages, increasing the number of people with physical, cognitive, vision and hearing problems, according to a WHO report published this year. The challenge is to develop new technologies while also increasing the availability of simple devices like spectacles and wheelchairs that many people can’t afford.
Companies are starting to recognize the financial potential of the market, as these innovations can improve products sold more widely, said Hector Minto, who has the unusual title of “accessibility evangelist” at Microsoft.
For example, Microsoft last year launched its free Seeing AI app, which turns a smart phone into a “talking camera” that helps visually impaired people do things like scan and read aloud text, recognize faces and identify products bar codes. Similar technology goes into the company’s text Translator service, which costs businesses $10 to $45,000 a month, depending on the number of transactions.
“Absolutely I think there’s a unique business case on its own, but definitely there’s a much larger business case for Microsoft in that the tools of the future quite often will come through a disability lens,” he said.
It’s important to remember that all of us have impairments at times, says Robin Christopherson, head of digital inclusion at the British charity AbilityNet, which helps older people and the disabled use computers.
He explains it like this: a person with perfect sight might have a visual impairment when trying to read a smart phone in bright sunlight, or a person with perfect hearing can struggle to understand a phone call when on the street outside. As a result, technology that helps people with permanent vision or hearing problems also makes products better for everyone. In the past five years, AbilityNet’s team of experts who test products to ensure they work well for the disabled has grown from six people to 22.
Innovation has not yet produced products good enough to offer complete freedom for the impaired, said Tom Kamber, executive director of Brooklyn-based Older Adults Technology Services, a non-profit that helps the elderly use technology. But there is reason for optimism because investors are actively looking for the next big thing in technology, he said.
“There’s no shortage of people in Silicon Valley that will take your call,” Kamber said. “The sector has advanced to the point that a lot of money is going to be made.”
The Holy Grail is for such technology to be integrated into off-the-shelf products, so people with disabilities can get the help they need without extra cost, said Christopherson of AbilityNet. Christopherson, who is blind, cited the iPhone, which allowed him to swap a backpack full of equipment and cables for one device.
And then there’s the opportunity for technology to help people with impairments experience the world in completely different ways.
Ford Motor Co. worked with the Aedo Project, an Italian startup, to create a device that helps blind people “feel the view” outside a car window by turning light into vibrations that, when combined with audio description, convey a sense of the scenery passing by.
While the technology is only in the prototype stage, one blind man who worked on the project described his amazement when he tried out the device for the first time.
“My first sensation when my finger went from the mountain to the sky felt like I had ended up in cream, something milky, something soft,” Antonio Bruni said. “They told me: These were clouds.”
Hadeel Ayoub slips a black glove onto her hand before beginning the swish of sign language that is meaningless to the untrained observer. Then she pushes a button on her wrist, and a small speaker relays the message drawn in the air: “Let’s Dance!”
“My dream is to give a voice to those who can’t speak,” says the 36-year-old inventor who is developing her BrightSign glove while working toward a PhD in assistive technology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Ayoub’s glove is just one example of a bigger trend as entrepreneurs, startups and companies like Microsoft and Google try to harness the power of artificial intelligence to make life easier for people with disabilities. The initiatives come as the World Health Organization estimates that the number of people needing assistive devices ranging from wheelchairs to communication technologies will double to 2 billion by 2050.
Improvements in artificial intelligence, combined with the decreasing cost of hardware, are making it possible for inventors to develop new products without the need for the deep pockets of governments or corporations. With the help of 3D printers and the increased processing power of home computers, they are creating devices designed for people with motor, vision, hearing and cognitive impairments.
Microsoft and Google are trying to spur work in this area, offering a total of $45 million in grants to developers of assistive technologies. Microsoft says it hopes to identify promising projects that can eventually be incorporated into widely available services.
“We’re certainly seeing an explosion of new technology that is looking to support people with disabilities,” said Zvika Krieger, head of technology policy and partnerships at the World Economic Forum. “There are a lot of innovators out there ... who are looking to move beyond maybe a dating app or a social networking app and are looking to do something that really helps the disadvantaged.”
While Ayoub hopes her efforts pay off financially, she says she is driven by a desire to create a world where disabilities become meaningless. She is trying to raise 1 million pounds to bring BrightSign to the market, estimating her gloves will cost “a few hundred dollars” each, compared with $2,000 or more for existing technology.
“My dream for BrightSign is to be the extension of the senses for the people ... who want to voice their feelings and opinions without having to always look for someone to help them out — to give them the independence that they need and control over their own communication,” she said.
The need for such products is only going to increase as the world’s population ages, increasing the number of people with physical, cognitive, vision and hearing problems, according to a WHO report published this year. The challenge is to develop new technologies while also increasing the availability of simple devices like spectacles and wheelchairs that many people can’t afford.
Companies are starting to recognize the financial potential of the market, as these innovations can improve products sold more widely, said Hector Minto, who has the unusual title of “accessibility evangelist” at Microsoft.
For example, Microsoft last year launched its free Seeing AI app, which turns a smart phone into a “talking camera” that helps visually impaired people do things like scan and read aloud text, recognize faces and identify products bar codes. Similar technology goes into the company’s text Translator service, which costs businesses $10 to $45,000 a month, depending on the number of transactions.
“Absolutely I think there’s a unique business case on its own, but definitely there’s a much larger business case for Microsoft in that the tools of the future quite often will come through a disability lens,” he said.
It’s important to remember that all of us have impairments at times, says Robin Christopherson, head of digital inclusion at the British charity AbilityNet, which helps older people and the disabled use computers.
He explains it like this: a person with perfect sight might have a visual impairment when trying to read a smart phone in bright sunlight, or a person with perfect hearing can struggle to understand a phone call when on the street outside. As a result, technology that helps people with permanent vision or hearing problems also makes products better for everyone. In the past five years, AbilityNet’s team of experts who test products to ensure they work well for the disabled has grown from six people to 22.
Innovation has not yet produced products good enough to offer complete freedom for the impaired, said Tom Kamber, executive director of Brooklyn-based Older Adults Technology Services, a non-profit that helps the elderly use technology. But there is reason for optimism because investors are actively looking for the next big thing in technology, he said.
“There’s no shortage of people in Silicon Valley that will take your call,” Kamber said. “The sector has advanced to the point that a lot of money is going to be made.”
The Holy Grail is for such technology to be integrated into off-the-shelf products, so people with disabilities can get the help they need without extra cost, said Christopherson of AbilityNet. Christopherson, who is blind, cited the iPhone, which allowed him to swap a backpack full of equipment and cables for one device.
And then there’s the opportunity for technology to help people with impairments experience the world in completely different ways.
Ford Motor Co. worked with the Aedo Project, an Italian startup, to create a device that helps blind people “feel the view” outside a car window by turning light into vibrations that, when combined with audio description, convey a sense of the scenery passing by.
While the technology is only in the prototype stage, one blind man who worked on the project described his amazement when he tried out the device for the first time.
“My first sensation when my finger went from the mountain to the sky felt like I had ended up in cream, something milky, something soft,” Antonio Bruni said. “They told me: These were clouds.”
The announcement marks a deeper foray into philanthropy for Bezos, whose fortune has soared to more than $160 billion
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc’s founder and the world’s richest person, on Thursday said he will commit $2 billion to helping homeless families and starting pre-schools for low-income communities.
The announcement marks a deeper foray into philanthropy for Bezos, whose fortune has soared to more than $160 billion thanks to his stake in Amazon, according to Forbes. Dominance in e-commerce and the nascent field of cloud computing has made Amazon the world’s second-most valuable public company.
Bezos solicited ideas on Twitter last year for ways to donate some of his wealth. While he has financially supported cancer research and scholarships for immigrants, among other causes, Bezos has primarily devoted his fortune to his Blue Origin rocket company, which he described Thursday as an “investment in the future of our planet through the development of foundational space infrastructure.”
His private ownership of The Washington Post, which has published articles critical of the White House, has also put him at odds with President Donald Trump.
The new philanthropic effort is called the Bezos Day One Fund, a nod to the executive’s management philosophy that organizations must view every day with the fervour of a new start, or face stagnation and decline.
Within this, the “Day 1 Families Fund” will support existing non-profits that offer shelter and food to young homeless families.
The “Day 1 Academies Fund” will start an organisation to operate a new network of full-scholarship pre-schools for low-income communities. Citing the Amazon mantra of customer obsession, Bezos said in a tweet, “The child will be the customer.”
Bezos has yet to join “The Giving Pledge” created by fellow billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, whose more than 180 signatories have promised to give more than half of their fortunes to philanthropy.
The Amazon chief’s wealth has become problematic for some.
Earlier this month, US Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, proposed a bill in Congress called the “Stop BEZOS” Act, which would make large corporations pay workers more or pay for public assistance programmes like Medicaid. Amazon has said the senator’s statements about the company are “inaccurate and misleading.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc’s founder and the world’s richest person, on Thursday said he will commit $2 billion to helping homeless families and starting pre-schools for low-income communities.
The announcement marks a deeper foray into philanthropy for Bezos, whose fortune has soared to more than $160 billion thanks to his stake in Amazon, according to Forbes. Dominance in e-commerce and the nascent field of cloud computing has made Amazon the world’s second-most valuable public company.
Bezos solicited ideas on Twitter last year for ways to donate some of his wealth. While he has financially supported cancer research and scholarships for immigrants, among other causes, Bezos has primarily devoted his fortune to his Blue Origin rocket company, which he described Thursday as an “investment in the future of our planet through the development of foundational space infrastructure.”
His private ownership of The Washington Post, which has published articles critical of the White House, has also put him at odds with President Donald Trump.
The new philanthropic effort is called the Bezos Day One Fund, a nod to the executive’s management philosophy that organizations must view every day with the fervour of a new start, or face stagnation and decline.
Within this, the “Day 1 Families Fund” will support existing non-profits that offer shelter and food to young homeless families.
The “Day 1 Academies Fund” will start an organisation to operate a new network of full-scholarship pre-schools for low-income communities. Citing the Amazon mantra of customer obsession, Bezos said in a tweet, “The child will be the customer.”
Bezos has yet to join “The Giving Pledge” created by fellow billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, whose more than 180 signatories have promised to give more than half of their fortunes to philanthropy.
The Amazon chief’s wealth has become problematic for some.
Earlier this month, US Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, proposed a bill in Congress called the “Stop BEZOS” Act, which would make large corporations pay workers more or pay for public assistance programmes like Medicaid. Amazon has said the senator’s statements about the company are “inaccurate and misleading.”
Spotify is increasingly attracting viewers as well as listeners to its free music streaming service and is finding new ways to target adverts and podcasts at customers, its head of global advertising sales told Reuters.
The Swedish company, which has risen 39 percent in value since it floated in New York in April, is seeing growth in video outpace audio ads and is broadening its audience with rapid growth in sponsored podcasts, Brian Benedik said at the dmexco digital marketing fair in Cologne, Germany.
“Video is our fastest-growing format, which is counter-intuitive for an audio-led platform,” Benedik said in an interview.
Spotify runs an ad-free ‘freemium’ model, with 83 million users paying a monthly subscription - more than its nearest rival Apple. Another 100 million or so listeners opt for a free service that is interrupted by advertising breaks.
With the company now worth $33 billion, analysts say it needs to justify its valuation by hitting ambitious growth targets of its founder Daniel Ek - who wants to grow revenue as much as 35 percent a year.
Most customers of the free service use mobile devices, which account for the majority of ad revenues where video is the fastest-growing advertising product.
Spotify tracks online behavior and, if it figures out customers are looking at the Spotify app, it runs a video ad. If they are listening passively, the ad would be audio.
Spotify is also ramping up its offering of podcasts and, although these don’t go to commercial breaks for premium subscribers, shows can be sponsored in much the same way that TV coverage of major sporting events is backed by major brands.
Benedik said he saw potential for Spotify to deploy its algorithms to recommend podcasts, along the lines of its ‘Recommended for You’ feature for music, that will get to know users’ interests and keep them coming back for more.
In Germany, podcast listening on Spotify has increased 150 percent, year-on-year. Growth rates globally are 367 percent.
“If we can figure out a recommendation around podcasts and serve them up to users, that would be great,” said Benedik, adding that if Spotify can get the user experience right this would open the way to make more revenue from podcasts
The Swedish company, which has risen 39 percent in value since it floated in New York in April, is seeing growth in video outpace audio ads and is broadening its audience with rapid growth in sponsored podcasts, Brian Benedik said at the dmexco digital marketing fair in Cologne, Germany.
“Video is our fastest-growing format, which is counter-intuitive for an audio-led platform,” Benedik said in an interview.
Spotify runs an ad-free ‘freemium’ model, with 83 million users paying a monthly subscription - more than its nearest rival Apple. Another 100 million or so listeners opt for a free service that is interrupted by advertising breaks.
With the company now worth $33 billion, analysts say it needs to justify its valuation by hitting ambitious growth targets of its founder Daniel Ek - who wants to grow revenue as much as 35 percent a year.
Most customers of the free service use mobile devices, which account for the majority of ad revenues where video is the fastest-growing advertising product.
Spotify tracks online behavior and, if it figures out customers are looking at the Spotify app, it runs a video ad. If they are listening passively, the ad would be audio.
Spotify is also ramping up its offering of podcasts and, although these don’t go to commercial breaks for premium subscribers, shows can be sponsored in much the same way that TV coverage of major sporting events is backed by major brands.
Benedik said he saw potential for Spotify to deploy its algorithms to recommend podcasts, along the lines of its ‘Recommended for You’ feature for music, that will get to know users’ interests and keep them coming back for more.
In Germany, podcast listening on Spotify has increased 150 percent, year-on-year. Growth rates globally are 367 percent.
“If we can figure out a recommendation around podcasts and serve them up to users, that would be great,” said Benedik, adding that if Spotify can get the user experience right this would open the way to make more revenue from podcasts
Uber Technologies Inc is spending millions of dollars in Toronto to open an engineering hub and expand its self-driving car operations, the strongest indication yet that the company is not retreating from autonomous vehicle development despite recent setbacks.
Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said on Thursday that Uber will invest more than USD 150 million over five years to bolster the ride-hailing company’s engineering capabilities, with a new office opening in early 2019, and expand its work in artificial intelligence. The San Francisco-based company expects to hire hundreds of new employees, boosting its overall headcount in Toronto to more than 500.
The investment will allow Uber the opportunity to expand its work on self-driving technology, an area where the company has lagged competitors. Uber opened a self-driving car research center in Toronto last year, and named University of Toronto associate professor Raquel Urtasun as head of the organization.
However, Uber’s self-driving car business stalled after one if its autonomous SUVs killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, in March. Uber quickly removed its robot cars from the road, laid off hundreds of test drivers and shuttered operations in Arizona, its autonomous testing hub.
Since the Tempe crash, Khosrowshahi, who took over Uber a year ago, has explored options that include more partnerships with companies developing autonomous cars and a potential sale of the self-driving business, sources have told Reuters. The investment in Toronto is a strong signal that Uber will continue to build its own self-driving technology, at least in the near term.
It also follows a USD 500 million investment from Toyota Motor Corp to jointly work on developing self-driving cars, providing the Uber business a badly needed boost.
However, the company still faces battles with regulators and local officials who have raised concerns over the safety of Uber’s program.
Six months after the fatal crash, Uber has not resumed testing its cars on public roads, although Khosrowshahi said he expects the company will by the end of the year after undergoing a safety overhaul.
The self-driving unit is a significant contributor to Uber’s losses, which in the second quarter were $891 million. Uber said it will not raise additional financing for the Canada investment.
The separate engineering office set to open early next year is Uber’s eighth such office outside of the United States, and will be used for building technology infrastructure for Uber’s products, such as ride-hailing and food delivery
Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said on Thursday that Uber will invest more than USD 150 million over five years to bolster the ride-hailing company’s engineering capabilities, with a new office opening in early 2019, and expand its work in artificial intelligence. The San Francisco-based company expects to hire hundreds of new employees, boosting its overall headcount in Toronto to more than 500.
The investment will allow Uber the opportunity to expand its work on self-driving technology, an area where the company has lagged competitors. Uber opened a self-driving car research center in Toronto last year, and named University of Toronto associate professor Raquel Urtasun as head of the organization.
However, Uber’s self-driving car business stalled after one if its autonomous SUVs killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, in March. Uber quickly removed its robot cars from the road, laid off hundreds of test drivers and shuttered operations in Arizona, its autonomous testing hub.
Since the Tempe crash, Khosrowshahi, who took over Uber a year ago, has explored options that include more partnerships with companies developing autonomous cars and a potential sale of the self-driving business, sources have told Reuters. The investment in Toronto is a strong signal that Uber will continue to build its own self-driving technology, at least in the near term.
It also follows a USD 500 million investment from Toyota Motor Corp to jointly work on developing self-driving cars, providing the Uber business a badly needed boost.
However, the company still faces battles with regulators and local officials who have raised concerns over the safety of Uber’s program.
Six months after the fatal crash, Uber has not resumed testing its cars on public roads, although Khosrowshahi said he expects the company will by the end of the year after undergoing a safety overhaul.
The self-driving unit is a significant contributor to Uber’s losses, which in the second quarter were $891 million. Uber said it will not raise additional financing for the Canada investment.
The separate engineering office set to open early next year is Uber’s eighth such office outside of the United States, and will be used for building technology infrastructure for Uber’s products, such as ride-hailing and food delivery
Vietnam has asked Facebook to open a local office as the Communist-ruled country increases pressure on global technology firms to abide by a controversial cyber security law.
Critics of the law, which takes effect on January 1, 2019, say it gives Hanoi more power to crack down on dissent because it would require Facebook, Google and other global technology firms to store locally personal data on users in Vietnam and open offices in the country.
“Acting information minister Nguyen Manh Hung suggested Facebook, given its successful business in Vietnam, should reserve revenue to invest in research and development and soon open an office in Vietnam,” the official government website said late on September 13.
A spokeswoman for Facebook said she had no comment.
Despite sweeping economic reforms and growing openness to social change, the ruling Communist Party tolerates little dissent and exercises strict control over media in Vietnam.
Global tech firms have pushed back against the provisions for locally-stored data, but they have not taken the same tough stance on the parts of the law which bolster the government’s ability to crackdown on online political activism.
Company officials have, however, privately expressed concerns that local data centers and offices could make it easier for the authorities to seize customer data and expose local employees to the threat of arrest.
Simon Milner, Facebook’s vice-president of public policy for Asia Pacific, met on September 13 with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Hanoi.
Phuc said Facebook should be responsible for the security, safety and protection of its 60 million user accounts in Vietnam, the government website quoted the prime minister as saying at the meeting.
Gil Kaplan, Under Secretary for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce, said on September 10 he would raise the cyber security issue in his meetings this week with Vietnamese government officials, including the Prime Minister.
In July, seventeen US lawmakers urged the chief executives of Facebook and Google to resist changes stipulated by the new law.
Last week, acting information minister Hung said Vietnam should promote home-grown social networks in order to compete with Google and Facebook and capture more of the social network market share in Vietnam, state media reported.
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Critics of the law, which takes effect on January 1, 2019, say it gives Hanoi more power to crack down on dissent because it would require Facebook, Google and other global technology firms to store locally personal data on users in Vietnam and open offices in the country.
“Acting information minister Nguyen Manh Hung suggested Facebook, given its successful business in Vietnam, should reserve revenue to invest in research and development and soon open an office in Vietnam,” the official government website said late on September 13.
A spokeswoman for Facebook said she had no comment.
Despite sweeping economic reforms and growing openness to social change, the ruling Communist Party tolerates little dissent and exercises strict control over media in Vietnam.
Global tech firms have pushed back against the provisions for locally-stored data, but they have not taken the same tough stance on the parts of the law which bolster the government’s ability to crackdown on online political activism.
Company officials have, however, privately expressed concerns that local data centers and offices could make it easier for the authorities to seize customer data and expose local employees to the threat of arrest.
Simon Milner, Facebook’s vice-president of public policy for Asia Pacific, met on September 13 with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Hanoi.
Phuc said Facebook should be responsible for the security, safety and protection of its 60 million user accounts in Vietnam, the government website quoted the prime minister as saying at the meeting.
Gil Kaplan, Under Secretary for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce, said on September 10 he would raise the cyber security issue in his meetings this week with Vietnamese government officials, including the Prime Minister.
In July, seventeen US lawmakers urged the chief executives of Facebook and Google to resist changes stipulated by the new law.
Last week, acting information minister Hung said Vietnam should promote home-grown social networks in order to compete with Google and Facebook and capture more of the social network market share in Vietnam, state media reported.
WELCOME TO IN MY SITE FOR TECHNICAL UPDATES FOR DAILY TECHNICAL UPDATES VISIT OUR SITE REGULAR AND REVIEW ON COMMENTS AND SUGGEST ME FOR WHICH TYPES OF UPDATES YOU WANT