Новости за 12.03.2021

Yann LeCun, Facebook’s world-renowned AI guru, had some problems with an article written about his company yesterday. So he did what any of us would do, he went on social media to air his grievances. Only, he didn’t take the fight to Facebook as you’d expect. Instead, over a period of hours, he engaged in a back-and-forth with numerous people on Twitter. No it doesn't. Apparently, one can write about AI fairness without paying attention to journalistic fairness.One of those cases where one knows the reality... Читать дальше...

Welcome to Adventures with AI, a column exploring what happens when artificial intelligence takes control of everyday tasks. Eating out is one of my great pleasures; cooking is not.  Unfortunately, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been doing a lot of the latter and almost none of the former. Preparing meals has become paricularly tedious during London’s latest lockdown. So like an unhappy couple in a sexless marriage, I’ve been trying to spice things up in my domestic life. Only instead of strapping on a gimp mask and a ball gag... Читать дальше...

DNA has been considered the gold standard of forensic evidence for more than 30 years, even as various types of junk science have fallen out of use. But in recent years, police and crime labs have stretched and expanded how they use genetic material to pin suspects—from tapping into private ancestry websites to creating police sketches of suspects’ faces. The latest practice to come under scrutiny is an obscure technique, “probabilistic genotyping,” that takes incomplete or otherwise inscrutable DNA left behind at a crime scene... Читать дальше...

TLDR: The All-In-One Microsoft Excel Certification Training Bundle explores how to use the popular data tool to its fullest abilities across 10 courses and over 50 hours of training. Microsoft Excel has been around for over three decades, but it wasn’t until last month that it became perfect. Well, at least enough for computers to recognize it as perfect anyway. Long the foundational spreadsheet program for any and all digital data organization, Microsoft’s latest additions to the venerable app make Excel equations Turing-complete. Читать дальше...

Ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft are reportedly going to share the names of drivers that have been banned in relation to “serious” safety incidents — including sexual assault. The relationship will be managed by a company that specializes in background checks. Naturally, sharing the names of banned drivers is focused on improving rider safety, and ensuring that bans from platforms for serious safety incidents carry across companies. Unfortunately, this collaboration is only going to apply to the US. Читать дальше...

“Buy Zoom.” That’s what a good friend of mine told me he’d instructed his investment broker to do last March. I was impressed and irked. Why had I lacked the foresight and why had he not tipped me off? 12 months later, his monetary investment is probably equal to the number of hours I’ve spent on the video conference platform. My ROI? A stronger contact lens prescription, his… well, best not think about it. Zoom is the ultimate overnight success, a victor of circumstance. Imagine Facebook’s 2006-08 growth charts... Читать дальше...

The giant prehistoric Carcharocles megalodon (or Otodus megalodon for some researchers) was the largest predatory shark to ever swim in Earth’s seas. Scientific evidence points to megalodon having lived between 16 million and 2.6 million years ago, going extinct at the end of the Pliocene Epoch when the world’s oceans were much colder than today’s. Over the years, several research papers have estimated meg’s size. Its teeth are shaped like large, flat triangles with serrated edges — much like the teeth of living white sharks. Читать дальше...

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. Google Maps is a great way to find your way around cities and towns of the world. However, it’s not perfect. You might find yourself at a dead-end in the app, while there’s a perfectly good road in front of you in reality. I know, I’ve been there. As someone who lives in complex geography like India, I’ve seen more roads than I could count that are not listed on Google Maps. Читать дальше...

The Netherlands, despite its small size, is rich in culture, history, and beautiful sights. The country is famous for its canals, colorful tulip fields, picturesque windmills, traditional clogs, a great variety of cheeses, and its bicycling culture. The Netherlands is also one of the leading electric vehicle markets, both in Europe and globally. In 2020, 21% of all newly registered cars were battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and 4% were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). This high rate of uptake... Читать дальше...

It’s Friday, folks, and I’ve discovered a great way to get in the weekend mood that I think you’ll enjoy. Earlier in the week, Google Arts & Culture created a new digital exhibit celebrating different pioneers of electronic music. It also released an interactive 3D synth tool as a part of that — and it’s highly addictive. You can head to the site on your phone or desktop browser and line up five well-known syth machines to play music using pre-defined grids and dials. These synths include the Moog Memorymoog... Читать дальше...

Not a year goes by that a phone maker doesn’t try some kind of gimmick with the camera system. But Oppo‘s new Find X3 Pro has a gimmick that’s actually pretty rad: a camera that is practically a microscope. Well, Oppo is calling it a ‘Microlens’ camera, but whatever you call it, it’s able to magnify objects up to 60x. That puts it more the territory of a basic microscope (40x, 100x, and 400x are common magnifications) than, say, the cheesy macro lenses on some cameras, where you’re often just better off cropping a higher resolution. Читать дальше...

It’s a fact of life: Netflix passwords get shared. At this point, I’m pretty sure half of New York City has borrowed my Netflix password at one point or another, and so far, the streaming service has been rather nonchalant about password sharing. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has even gone on the record multiple times to say sharing a login is “a positive thing.” Now it seems the company is considering tightening the reins a little. As first reported by The Streamable, some Netflix users began to see... Читать дальше...