Donald Trump’s administration is planning to propose by early December tariffs on “all remaining Chinese imports” if an upcoming summit between the president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping does not work out, Bloomberg reported on Monday, a move that if enacted would virtually guarantee pain for companies like…
It’s Apple’s big day (again), and of course we’re preparing to look over all the new hardware. Before that happens, we’ll dig into important news about Sony’s retro console, Chevrolet’s electric race car and how…
Over the years we have seen how technology has evolved and improved, where thanks to those improvements the way we do certain things has changed. Take for example how faster internet speeds and the rise in digital distribution platforms has resulted in gamers starting to purchase more digital games versus buying physical copies.
We have also seen how musicians have launched apps to promote their latest albums, which is why it doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that author James Patterson has announced that for his upcoming novel, “The Chef”, he will be launching a preview of it via Facebook Messenger where fans and readers will be able to interact with the preview to get clues about the upcoming book.
According to Patterson, “Ten years ago, if you told me I’d see one of my novels come to life through scrolling chat bubbles, video and audio content, I would have laughed. But exploring new ways to connect with fans is important to me and Messenger’s experience for ‘The Chef’ not only makes the story more accessible to readers across new generations, but offers an enticing and thrilling read like never before.”
The book is currently set for a release on the 18th of February, 2019, but the preview should be live on the 30th of October.
Author James Patterson Will Preview New Book Via Facebook Messenger , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
The law offering citizenship to babies of non-citizens is “ridiculous” and “has to end,” the president said.
Apple is holding a keynote today at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House, and the company is expected to unveil a brand new iPad Pro as well as updated Mac computers. The event starts at 10 AM in New York (7 AM in San Francisco, 2 PM in London, 3 PM in Paris), you’ll be able to watch the event as the company is streaming it live.
If you live in Europe and already put a note in your calendar, make sure you got the time right as daylight saving time has yet to happen in the U.S. New York is currently 4 hours behind London, 5 hours behind Paris, etc.
Apple is likely to unveil a new iPad Pro to replace the 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Rumor has it that it’ll look nothing like your current iPad. The device should get rounded corners, thinner bezels and a Face ID sensor. Apple could also switch to USB-C instead of Lightning and refresh the Apple Pencil.
On the Mac front, the MacBook Air could get a refresh. This could be Apple’s new entry-level laptop. But it should sport a retina display for the first time. There could also be a new Mac Mini of some sort after all those years without an update.
Finally, maybe Apple will tell us why the AirPower charging mat is still not available. Apple might also update the AirPods. But maybe it’ll happen later.
If you have a recent Apple TV, you can download the Apple Events app in the App Store. It lets you stream today’s event and rewatch old events. Users with pre-App Store Apple TVs can simply turn on their devices. Apple is pushing out the “Apple Events” channel so that you can watch the event.
And if you don’t have an Apple TV, the company also lets you live-stream the event from the Apple Events section on its website. This video feed now works in all major browsers — Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge.
So to recap, here’s how you can watch today’s Apple event:
Of course, you also can read TechCrunch’s live blog if you’re stuck at work and really need our entertaining commentary track to help you get through your day. We have a big team in the room this year.
The arrival of foldable phones are inevitable. The question now is less of when but in what form. There might be some that would look like the hip grandchilren of flip phones. Arguably, the more interesting ones will be the phones that fold into a tablet and back again. There is still some doubt as to whether that will just … Continue reading
Big alert from the president: SICKO HOLLYWOOD LIBS have BANNED his Stephen Colbert interview because of something something something!!!
Jeff Dean, Google Senior Fellow, SVP, Google AI, presenting at Google AI for Social Good event – 10/29/2018
Today, we were invited at the Google Cloud HQ in Sunnyvale to hear more about the new AI for Social Good Program launched by Google and presented by Jeff Dean, Google Senior Fellow, SVP, Google AI.
These days, AI is one of the hottest topics in tech alongside Blockchain and a major source of anxiety, since it might destroy millions of jobs, without the certainty to replace all of them with more creative and less painful wage-generating occupations. Another dark side of AI that is intensely debated is its potential to be harmful to humanity, such as building AI-driven weapons (which Google stopped doing recently), Microsoft’s Twitter bot Tay turning misogynistic and racist, or Facebook’s misuse of user data and plan to sell predicted behaviors to advertisers.
To start with some positive AI vibes, Jeff Dean showcased the use of AI in detecting exoplanets across 40 billion data points from 200,000 stars collected by Kepler space telescope in 4 years (2009-2013). Google machine-learning technology helped to make Kepler even better, helping NASA discover two new exoplanets in 2017 – Kepler 90-I and Kepler 80g – on top of the 3,000+ the spacecraft already found. Using Google’s technology, researchers trained a deep neural network to recognize weak-lighting signal patterns, typical of exoplanets, not detected by conventional software which are only able to decipher stronger signals.
Launching the AI for Social Good Program might be Google’s attempt to demonstrate that AI technologies can be used for hugely beneficial activities, and will enhance humans rather than replacing them with robots. Coming from Google, this is a bold move, knowing the company’s love for robots.
The new program aims at focusing Google’s AI expertise on solving humanitarian and environmental challenges while empowering the ecosystem with tools and resources to help develop solutions. During the presentation, spokesperson Jeff Dean insisted on Google’s overall commitment to developing AI responsibly, according to 7 principles, and the official refusal to pursue AI applications that can cause harm – read the document here.
Jacqueline Fuller, VP, Google, President, Google.org presenting Google AI Impact Challenge, part of the AI For Social Good program
Part of the initiative and announced by Jacqueline Fuller, President, Google.org, the Google AI Impact challenge, is a global call for organizations from around the world to submit proposals on how they could use AI to solve some of the world’s most critical challenges. Google will provide selected projects with AI expertise and Google.org funding from a $25 million pool, and credit and consulting from Google Cloud.
Applications just opened today, and the winners will be announced at Google I/O 2019. Organizations can find educational resources to get started with AI in Google’s guide of educational resources and in upcoming live sessions that the internet giant will hold around the world.
Jay Yagnik, VP & Engineering Fellow, Google AI, presenting Flood Prediction
Google’s presenters showcased a few existing projects that are now included in the AI for Social Good initiative, such as the flood forecasting application that provides more accurate flood predictions in the most vulnerable areas in the world, starting with the Patna region in India.
Other demos included the Acoustic Detection of Humpback Whales using a convolutional neural network, a project that aims to protect this endangered species by better understanding its migration patterns and breeding locations. A collaboration with NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the research was unveiled at today’s Google event. It analyzed 170,000 hours of ocean audio recordings (collected in the past 15 years) using AI and machine learning to locate the humpback whales accurately, to help inform maritime companies of their geographical locations and reduce collisions.
According to Google, it would have taken 19 years for someone to listen to it 24h per day. Google teamed up with NOAA to train a deep neural network to automatically identify which whale species are calling in the recordings, starting with the Humpback Whales, which are more difficult to recognize, due to the complexity of the sounds they produce.
The Google team had to turn the ocean sound recordings into a visual representation of the audio data called a spectrogram. Then, they trained the algorithm to recognize the correct species by showing it multiple spectrograms of the humpback whales. See below an example of the spectrograms:
One of the top demo at the event was the AI-driven microscope assistive technology. The idea is to feed to a computer the same view as what the doctor is looking at in the microscope. The AI will detect would-be tumorous cells and overlay their location by tracing a colored contour for the medical staff to look more closely.
The goal is to save the doctors time by having them focus on interesting areas, instead of scanning perfectly healthy tissues in search of a problem. The human remains in control of where and what to look at but gets a boost from the artificial intelligence.
The workflow remains identical for the human operator, and the analysis and color highlights are done in real-time, at about ~5 frames per second, which is enough for a real interactive process. A single powerful PC, with one GPU, can do such work. In the future, faster computers can easily replace the current ones, if needed.
After the presentations, we met Brian Sullivan (Geo for Good, Sr. Program Manager) who explained to us how Google’s technology helps monitor fishing patterns on our planet for Global Fishing Watch, an independent non-profit organization they co-founded with Oceana, an international ocean conservation organization and Skytruth, a team of experts in using satellite data to protect the environment.
By making publicly available the data, tools and near real-time tracking of global fishing activities, Global Fishing Watch hopes to improve ocean sustainability. In that partnership, Google provides the systems for processing big data, including some AI (machine learning) to study transshipment patterns for example.
Displaying a single ship navigation patterns with identification data (on the right of the screen)
According to Brian Sullivan, understanding transshipments locations and patterns could help detect slave labor on ships (among other things), a common practice in some countries fishing fleets.
Besides transshipments, the Global Fishing Watch system monitors individual fishing ship navigation patterns using signal data coming from its Automatic Identification System (AIS).
Most importantly you can highlight or turn off different data set on the organization’s interactive maps, to see fishing patterns by countries’ fleets and fishing locations by species and by country: see photo below with Mexico’s tuna fishing territory. In that example, the Mexican fishing territory mapped by Global Fishing Watch helped to convince the fisherman’s that restricting a small area in their huge territory would not harm the industry and the jobs, according to Google spokesperson.
Visit the Global Fishing Watch map that has been recently updated with new features (October 25th) to visualize the data yourself.
Google Announced AI for Social Good Program , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
The CNN host said the president was paying “lip service to unity.”
Want your kids to get maximum candy this Halloween? Make something like this Mechwarrior costume, and they’ll intimidate every house into filling their trick or treat bag to the brim. This awesome kid’s mech costume was built by YouTuber Griddlock Cosplay for his kids, nieces, and nephews to show off at the Edmonton Comic Expo 2018.
This model is a Stalker J1 Mechwarrior. It can’t kill you, but it does look deadly. It has a “fully functional” cockpit, with a joystick for “navigation and control,” a cabin light, and there is even a cooling fan and a padded seat for a comfortable ride. It has a decorative 5-barrel minigun, working headlights, and a non-functional spinning radar.
The costume hides dad inside, so he can carry around one kid at a time. It looks like it probably has a lot of room on board to store all of that candy too. This will be the best costume in the neighborhood and will win you and your kids some prizes during costume contests as well.
[via Netgeek via Mike Shouts]
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
