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Sep 6, 2023

“We’re not ‘gatekeepers,’” Apple and Microsoft tell European Union

Posted by in category: futurism

Companies would have to offer users alternatives to iMessage, Bing.

The legislation imposes new responsibilities on tech companies, including sharing data, linking to competitors, and making their services interoperable with rival apps.

Platforms with an annual… More.

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Sep 6, 2023

Connected cars are a “privacy nightmare,” Mozilla Foundation says

Posted by in category: transportation

Data privacy protections are almost nonexistent when it comes to automobiles.

Mozilla looked at 25 car brands and found that all of them collected too much personal data, and from multiple sources—monitoring not just which buttons you push or what you do in any of the infotainment system’s apps but also data from other sources like satellite… More.


Today, the Mozilla Foundation published its analysis of how well automakers handle the privacy of data collected by their connected cars, and the results will be unlikely to surprise any regular reader of Ars Technica. The researchers were horrified by their findings, stating that “cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy.”

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Sep 6, 2023

Chinese AI chatbots want to be your emotional support

Posted by in categories: government, robotics/AI

Finally approved for public release, Baidu’s Ernie Bot app now needs to make itself valuable for new users.

As I reported last week, Baidu became the first Chinese tech company to roll out its large language model—called Ernie Bot—to the general public, following a regulatory approval from the Chinese government. Previously, access required an application or was limited to corporate clients.

I have to admit the Chinese public has reacted more passionately than I had expected.

Sep 6, 2023

New 3D-printed ‘living material’ could purify water

Posted by in categories: chemistry, nanotechnology, sustainability

Researchers have created a new 3D-printed substance dubbed “engineered living material.”

Removing pollutants from water is a crucial and arduous process to ensure that it is free from harmful contaminants. In recent years, several approaches and technologies for water pollution remediation have been developed and employed, including filtration, nano-materials, and chemical treatment, to mention a few.

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Sep 6, 2023

The curious ways your skin shapes your health

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Weathered or unhealthy skin is emerging as a major risk factor for almost every single age-related disease, from Parkinson’s to type 2 diabetes.

Sep 6, 2023

VC Spotlight: Generative AI and Healthcare

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, robotics/AI

Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Vijay Pande, who oversees the firm’s health and bio fund, joins Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow to discuss his AI strategy, and how generative AI can help safely engineer medicines at scale, support doctors and patients, and drive greater efficiency and better outcomes.
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Sep 6, 2023

We’re All Programmers Now

Posted by in categories: business, information science, robotics/AI

Generative AI and other easy-to-use software tools can help employees with no coding background become adept programmers, or what the authors call citizen developers. By simply describing what they want in a prompt, citizen developers can collaborate with these tools to build entire applications—a process that until recently would have required advanced programming fluency.

Information technology has historically involved builders (IT professionals) and users (all other employees), with users being relatively powerless operators of the technology. That way of working often means IT professionals struggle to meet demand in a timely fashion, and communication problems arise among technical experts, business leaders, and application users.

Citizen development raises a critical question about the ultimate fate of IT organizations. How will they facilitate and safeguard the process without placing too many obstacles in its path? To reject its benefits is impractical, but to manage it carelessly may be worse. In this article the authors share a road map for successfully introducing citizen development to your employees.

Sep 6, 2023

Large Language Models in Molecular Biology

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, internet, robotics/AI

Will we ever decipher the language of molecular biology? Here, I argue that we are just a few years away from having accurate in silico models of the primary biomolecular information highway — from DNA to gene expression to proteins — that rival experimental accuracy and can be used in medicine and pharmaceutical discovery.

Since I started my PhD in 1996, the computational biology community had embraced the mantra, “biology is becoming a computational science.” Our ultimate ambition has been to predict the activity of biomolecules within cells, and cells within our bodies, with precision and reproducibility akin to engineering disciplines. We have aimed to create computational models of biological systems, enabling accurate biomolecular experimentation in silico. The recent strides made in deep learning and particularly large language models (LLMs), in conjunction with affordable and large-scale data generation, are propelling this aspiration closer to reality.

LLMs, already proven masters at modeling human language, have demonstrated extraordinary feats like passing the bar exam, writing code, crafting poetry in diverse styles, and arguably rendering the Turing test obsolete. However, their potential for modeling biomolecular systems may even surpass their proficiency in modeling human language. Human language mirrors human thought providing us with an inherent advantage, while molecular biology is intricate, messy, and counterintuitive. Biomolecular systems, despite their messy constitution, are robust and reproducible, comprising millions of components interacting in ways that have evolved over billions of years. The resulting systems are marvelously complex, beyond human comprehension. Biologists often resort to simplistic rules that work only 60% or 80% of the time, resulting in digestible but incomplete narratives. Our capacity to generate colossal biomolecular data currently outstrips our ability to understand the underlying systems.

Sep 6, 2023

ADHD: A risk factor for serious mental health issues, research finds

Posted by in categories: food, health, neuroscience

The hyperactivity disorder, usually referred to as ADHD, is an independent risk factor for several common and serious mental health issues, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health.

It is associated with , post , the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, and , the findings show, prompting the researchers to recommend vigilance by health professionals in a bid to ward off these disorders later on.

Attention-deficit/ (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition in children and teens that extends into adulthood in up to around two thirds of cases. Worldwide, its prevalence is estimated to be around 5% in children/teens and 2.5% in adults.

Sep 6, 2023

Harnessing AI in the energy transition

Posted by in categories: climatology, robotics/AI, sustainability

Belinda Howell, Non-Executive Director at Digital Catapult, walks Reuters Plus through the potential that AI has to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.