Innovation is dying, WhatsApp copied Snapchat and Instagram Stories sharing feature..

The new WhatsApp Status feature allows users to share pictures, videos, and GIFs with their contacts, which will disappear after 24 hours. Sounds familiar? It should. The feature is an exact clone of Instagram Stories, which in turn emulated Snapchat's feature of the same name. Unlike the other two features though, the new WhatsApp Status will incorporate the same end-to-end encryption enjoyed by the app's traditional messages.

‘Status’ will receive its own tab, located between the ‘Calls’ and ‘Chats’ tabs, in the WhatsApp UI. Within it, users will be able to view their contacts' recent status updates and the replies they've received on their own status. Users also have the option to tweak their privacy settings to make their status visible only to specific people; and by deleting their status, users can remove it from their contacts' phones, regardless of whether they've already viewed it or not.

WhatsApp has initiated the roll-out of the new status feature in Europe and it will soon be made available to WhatsApp users on iOS, Android, and Windows platforms across the world.

Status update

WhatsApp Status, despite being the founding principle behind the app, is arguably the most inconsequential feature of the messaging platform. While certain users constantly update it with the same frequency they post Facebook status updates, a large number either select one of the default statuses like ‘Hey there, I'm using WhatsApp’ or ‘Available’, while others set it once and forget about it for a while. But the company, which will celebrate its eighth birthday on February 24, wants to change this.

Mark Zuckerberg has announced his vision of a video-first social media strategy and the recent revamping of Facebook and its subsidiaries reflects this paradigm-shift. Facebook Live and Instagram Stories have been a runaway hit and the Instagram feature, in particular, has stolen a large chunk of Snapchat's user base. A similar feature on WhatsApp — which, with a user base of over a billion, dwarves both Instagram and Snapchat in number of daily users — will probably spell doom for the company that came up with the idea in the first place.

The new WhatsApp Status feature also opens a new opportunity for its parent-company Facebook to increase revenue through advertising, which hit $5.7 billion in the first half of 2016. But the fact that WhatsApp is a no-nonsense messaging app, devoid of unnecessary frills, is its biggest appeal. How the new Status feature, which will predictably open the marketing and advertising floodgates, will play out with its users remains to be seen.

NASA found new solar system and predicting the possibility of life.

Today, scientists working with telescopes at the European Southern Observatory and NASA announced a remarkable new discovery: An entire system of Earth-sized planets. If that’s not enough, the team asserts that the density measurements of the planets indicates that the six innermost are Earth-like rocky worlds.

And that’s just the beginning.

Three of the planets lie in the star’s habitable zone. If you aren’t familiar with the term, the habitable zone (also known as the “goldilocks zone”) is the region surrounding a star in which liquid water could theoretically exist. This means that all three of these alien worlds may have entire oceans of water, dramatically increasing the possibility of life. The other planets are less likely to host oceans of water, but the team states that liquid water is still a possibility on each of these worlds.

Summing the work, lead author Michaël Gillon notes that this solar system has the largest number of Earth-sized planets yet found and the largest number of worlds that could support liquid water: “This is an amazing planetary system — not only because we have found so many planets, but because they are all surprisingly similar in size to the Earth!”

Co-author Amaury Triaud notes that the star in this system is an “ultracool dwarf,” and he clarifies what this means in relation to the planets: “The energy output from dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 is much weaker than that of our Sun. Planets would need to be in far closer orbits than we see in the Solar System if there is to be surface water. Fortunately, it seems that this kind of compact configuration is just what we see around TRAPPIST-1.”

REACHING ANOTHER WORLD

The system is just 40 light-years away. On a cosmic scale, that’s right next door. Of course, practically speaking, it would still take us hundreds of millions of years to get there with today’s technology – but again, it is notable in that the find speaks volumes about the potential for life-as-we-know-it beyond Earth.

Moreover, the technology of tomorrow could get us to this system a lot faster.

These new discoveries ultimately mean that TRAPPIST-1 is of monumental importance for future study. The Hubble Space Telescope is already being used to search for atmospheres around the planets, and Emmanuël Jehin, a scientist who also worked on the research, asserts that future telescopes could allow us to truly see into the heart of this system: “With the upcoming generation of telescopes, such as ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, we will soon be able to search for water and perhaps even evidence of life on these worlds.”

Europe's 'travel ban',

US President Donald Trump is expected to sign a new executive order this week that would temporarily halt travel from citizens of seven nations he says pose a high risk of terrorism.

Before it was halted in the courts, his initial order caused chaos at airports and prompted noutrage around the world. German chancellor Angela Merkel warned against imposing a "general suspicion" on all Muslims; French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that welcoming refugees was "a duty of solidarity."

But the reality is that many European countries have curbed their own refugee programs.

Since the arrival of over one million migrants and refugees in Europe in 2015, governments across Europe have sought to fortify their countries' borders with fences, walls and guards against future mass migrations.

"The year 2015 must not be allowed to be repeated," said Austria's Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil.

This month, representatives from 15 countries met to discuss fortifying their borders to make it harder for migrants to reach central and western parts of Europe.

And earlier this year, EU leaders outlined plans to "stem the flow" of migrants traveling across the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, and boost the ability of the EU to send people back.

"The key priority is reducing the flow without any consideration for the causes of migration," said Dr Nando Sigona, an expert in migration at Birmingham University's School of Social Policy, told CNN.

"By closing down the routes they are making people even more vulnerable to danger and violence."

The UK government recently announced it was halting a program to resettle lone refugee children, after 350 had been brought to Britain. Campaigners had hoped that 3,000 children would benefit from the scheme, introduced last year.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the House of Commons the government did not want the so-called Dubs amendment to act as a "pull factor" encouraging unaccompanied minors to travel to Europe: "We do not want to incentivize perilous journeys to Europe, particularly by the most vulnerable children."

Alfred Dubs, who came to the UK as a child refugee on the "Kindertransport" from the Czech Republic in 1939 and who designed the program, expressed his dismay at the decision. "It's bitterly disappointing," the Labour politician told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "I think they wanted to shut the thing down and found any excuse to do it."

NGO Help Refugees is taking legal action against the government over their handling of the Dubs amendment. In a statement, they allege that the Home Secretary's "failure to implement her Dubs duties towards unaccompanied children in Calais ... contributed to [them] being exposed to serious human rights violations." The case will be heard in June.

The government's move is just the latest in a series of measures designed to reduce the number of child refugees eligible to come to the UK.

In November 2016, the Home Office issued new guidance barring unaccompanied refugees from Afghanistan, Yemen and Eritrea older than 12, who were living in the now-demolished "Jungle" camp at Calais in northern France, from entering the UK if they have no family there.

The following month the government ended the process of transferring children from France after resettling 750 of the 1,900 registered minors, according to Human Rights Watch. Rudd said she was "proud" of the UK government's "active approach to helping and sheltering the most vulnerable."

More than 250,000 people were given refugee status in Germany in 2016, many of whom had arrived the previous year when Chancellor Angela Merkel threw the country's doors open to refugees, but there are signs that attitudes are hardening.

In accordance with European Commission recommendations, from March, Germany will begin returning asylum seekers to Greece, if that was the first safe country in which they arrived, a spokeswoman for the German Ministry for the Interior told CNN. This process was halted in 2011 due to "systemic deficiencies in the Greek asylum system."

Pro Asyl, a German organization that advocates for the rights of refugees criticized the decision to send "more people into the miserable conditions" in Greece and condemned the transfer system as "inhumane."

A recent report by Amnesty International highlighted the "dire conditions" in Greek camps, citing "overcrowding, freezing temperatures, lack of hot water and heating, poor hygiene, bad nutrition, inadequate medical care, violence and hate-motivated attacks."

In a further sign of changing views, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere recently announced that border controls with Austria -- introduced as a short-term measure in September 2015 -- would continue indefinitely.

ISRO sends 104 satellites in one go, breaks Russia's record, Proud moment for Indian people. Congratulations.

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday scripted history by successfully launching a record 104 satellites, including India’s earth observation satellite, on a single rocket from the spaceport here.

This is the highest number of satellites ever launched in a single mission.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C37 blasted off at 9:28 am from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and first injected Cartosat-2 series satellite into orbit followed by the other 103 nano satellites, including 96 from the U.S, in a gap of about 30 minutes.

As the scientists at the Mission Control centre broke into cheers, ISRO Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar announced: “All 104 satellites successfully placed in orbit. My hearty congratulations to the entire ISRO team for the wonderful job they have done.”

Earlier, the Russian Space Agency had launched 37 satellites in one go.

ISRO had earlier launched 23 satellites in a single mission in June 2015.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Team ISRO for the successful launch.

In today’s complex mission after the end of 28-hour countdown, the PSLV-C37 injected the 714 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite followed by ISRO’s nano satellites INS-1A and INS-1B in an 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

This was followed by launch of the other 101 nano satellites of overseas customers in blocks in a series of separations.

INS-1A and INS-1B will carry a total of four different payloads from Space Applications Centre (SAC) and Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems (LEOS) of ISRO for conducting various experiments, ISRO said

Cartosat-2 series satellite, with a mission life of five years, will send images that would cater to coastal land use and regulation, road network monitoring, distribution of water, creation of land use maps among others

PM lauds launch

Meanwhile, ISRO chief A.S. Kiran Kumar said at the mission control centre at Sriharikota that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated the space agency team for the successful launch.

“Congratulations to @isro for the successful launch of PSLV-C37 and CARTOSAT satellite together with 103 nano satellites!,” Mr. Modi said in a tweet.

“This remarkable feat by @isro is yet another proud moment for our space scientific community and the nation. India salutes our scientists,” he said.

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Home Ministry website hacked? Officials said no.

HM

The website of the Union Home Ministry was non-functional on Sunday and officials said cyber experts were trying to ascertain if it had been hacked.

The website's landing page was drawing a blank and the site, which is accessed by hundreds of visitors daily and contains non-sensitive documents of the ministry, central paramilitary forces, visa-related information and contact details of the ministry officials, itself had become inaccessible.

The problem most probably began early in the morning but officials were not yet certain.

"I don't know when the site developed the snag," ministry spokesperson K.S. Dhatwalia told IANS. "Details will be available after we find out the glitches.

"We are checking," Dhatwalia said, adding that he was not sure when the website would become functional.

The spokesperson had earlier said it was not a case of hacking as the site was being reconstructed.

The site, like all government websites, is maintained by the National Informatics Commission (NIC).

Deputy Director General NIC B.N. Shetty denied there was any malicious activity behind the snag and said it was "very funny" to call it a cyber attack.

"There was no hack or anything. The site was pulled down for auditing," Shetty told IANS.

"Actually, there was a data base problem. Sometimes it occurs. People thought that the site has been hacked. We have done the complete auditing. There is no malicious activity. We have now given green signal to release the site."

However, the site remained down till late Sunday evening.

Indian government websites have often come under attack from suspected Pakistani hackers.

In January, suspected Pakistan-based operatives had hacked the website of National Security Guard (NSG) and defaced it with anti-India content and comments against the Prime Minister.

Last week, the government informed the Lok Sabha that over 700 websites linked to the central and state governments were hacked in the past four years.

Experts attributed the frequent hacking of Indian websites to lack of adequate security measures in the virtual world.

All In: Artificial Intelligence Beats the World's Best Poker Players:

 

The world's best artificial intelligence poker player seems to know exactly when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.
An artificial-intelligence program known as Libratus has beat the world's absolute best human poker players in a 20-day No-Limit Texas Hold'em tournament, defeating four opponents by about $1.77 million in poker chips, according to Pittsburgh's Rivers Casino, where the "Brains vs. Artificial Intelligence" poker tournament was held.
 At the end of each day, at least one of the human players was beating the AI program. But in the end, it was not enough.
"We appreciate their hard work, but unfortunately, the computer won," said Craig Clark, general manager of Rivers Casino.
Computer scientists can now add Texas Hold'em to a growing list of games — including chess, Go and "Jeopardy!" — in which AI can beat the best human competitor in the world. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

Artificial-intelligence strides

Since IBM's Deep Blue bested chess player Garry Kasparov in 1997, the robots have been gaining on humans. Last year, AI shocked the world by trouncing the world's best Go player in a set of matches in the strategy game involving black and white stones. The task was so difficult because Go contains more potential moves than atoms in the universe. To tackle that problem, the computer, known as AlphaGo, used a deep-learning strategy, a spookily powerful method that involves computing calculations at one layer and then feeding those up to another layer in the algorithm.
And yet, in many ways, Texas Hold'em is even harder, said Tuomas Sandholm, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who helped design Libratus and helped organize the tournament. (In Heads-Up Texas Hold'em, two players each hold two cards and then have to make the best hand from the five cards that are eventually placed face-up on the table over several rounds of play. After each card is turned, players can call, or match, another player's bet; raise the bet; or fold their cards, or give up.)
It turns out, cracking this type of play may be even trickier than mastering Go, where each player knows the other's position perfectly. [5 Intriguing Uses for Artificial Intelligence (That Aren't Killer Robots)]
"In incomplete-information games like poker, it's much harder," Sandholm told Live Science.
For instance, imagine you're playing a hand against an opponent. You need to not only think about the ace-ace in your hand but also consider what's on the table, what the other player could be holding, what his bet tells you about his cards and what he is trying to learn with his bets.
So Sandholm and his colleagues relied on a different concept to program Libratus. Known as Nash equilibrium, it is a mathematical way of determining the best game strategy to maximize your own payoffs while minimizing those of your opponent. In any one hand of poker, random chance dictates that the Nash equilibrium play may lose, but over the course of many hands, Nash equilibrium translates to the "unbeatable play" strategy, Sandholm said.
However, "the game has 10 to the power of 160 different situations," meaning it has many, many more computational possibilities than Go. As a result, the program can't calculate the perfect Nash equilibrium solution, but must instead approximate.
In the past, that's been a stumbling block. Libratus was involved in a poker tournament in 2015 and couldn't beat the humans, with the match ending in a statistical tie. However, the souped-up version of Libratus used in the recent tournament has a better end-game solving strategy, Sandholm said.

The tournament

For the "Brains vs. Artificial Intelligence" tournament, four of the world's best poker players faced off one-on-one against Libratus in 120,000 hands of poker. At stake was a $200,000 pot, which the human players received even if they lost.
"They are professionals, so they were fighting to the bitter end, really hard," Sandholm said. "They were studying really hard every night on their computers, trying to find holes in the AI."
In the end, it was no contest: The AI prevailed.
As part of the program, bluffing naturally emerged as a mathematically sound strategy, Sandholm noted.
Its win also involved some surprising moves. For instance, AI was more likely than humans to make huge overbets — meaning that they would bet three, five or even 20 times the amount of chips in the pot. Interestingly, those overbets sometimes made mathematical sense in two very different situations.
"With a very strong hand and with the weakest hands, you want to make those big overbets," Sandholm said.
Libratus was also more likely than the humans to underbet in certain surprising situations, Sandholm said. And every night, it went home and adapted its strategy based on the hands it had played.
"The adaptation was not to learn to exploit the opponent, but rather to determine what holes the opponent had found in the AI strategy and automatically patch those holes," Sandholm said.
Still, there's some hope for the mere mortals. In Heads-Up Texas Hold'em, two players compete. But Libratus would have no idea how to beat players in a poker game with five or six players. There, Nash equilibrium solutions don't work, Sandholm said.
"I would say the top humans in something like that would probably do better than the best AI," Sandholm said.
Originally published on Live Science.