Lifeboat Foundation

While facial recognition performs well in controlled environments (like photos taken at borders), they struggle to identify faces in the wild. According to data released under the UK’s Freedom of Information laws, the Metropolitan’s AFR system has a 98 percent false positive rate — meaning that 98 percent of the “matches” it makes are of innocent people.

The head of London’s Metropolitan Police force has defended the organization’s ongoing trials of automated facial recognition systems, despite legal challenges and criticisms that the technology is “almost entirely inaccurate.”

According to a report from The Register, UK Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said on Wednesday that she did not expect the technology to lead to “lots of arrests,” but argued that the public “expect[s]” law enforcement to test such cutting-edge systems.

Continue reading “London police chief ‘completely comfortable’ using facial recognition with 98 percent false positive rate” »

Some of the new weapons, which are set to enter service in Russia between 2018 and 2027, surpass the existing and even future weapons systems used by other nations, including the NATO member states, Borisov said as he listed what he called six Russian cutting-edge weapons.

The Russian Armed Forces are expected to get new state-of-the-art weapons systems, which have no equals anywhere in the world, a Russian government’s top official said. The new equipment is set to enter service within a decade.

Continue reading “Russian Army to get 6 unrivaled weapons in coming years – Moscow” »

Some scientists say we live in a multiverse, and that the universe we inhabit is just one of many — or perhaps an infinite number — in existence.

After having been given $1,000 by his grandma at only 13-years-old, Erik Finman, now 17, made the risky decision to invest in the notoriously volatile Bitcoin market.

When he was 15, only a year and a half later, he liquidated his Bitcoins, making a cool $100,000. He’s now crowdfunding his very own VR headset. He has been featured in Time Magazine, Mashable, CBS News, Business Insider, The Times, BBC, and more.

Continue reading “Teen Makes $100,000 Through Bitcoin, Crowdfunds VR Headset” »

Researchers at UC Berkeley have figured out a way to train robots by imitating humans, by showing them and not telling them what to do. This is a stride in being able to easily communicate with machines to hopefully usher in an age of robotic butlers and home assistants to serve humans’ needs.

Despite being wildly different from Earth in almost every way, Jupiter does feature some familiar phenomena—including aurorae, what we call the Northern and Southern lights. But Jupiter’s aurorae have something Earth’s don’t: strange features caused by the Jovian moons.

Scientists analyzing data from the Juno spacecraft spotted some of these anomalies in action. They saw swirls and spots caused by Jupiter’s moons Io and Ganymede. And, as is often the case, things weren’t what they seemed from far away.

Transistors are tiny switches that form the bedrock of modern computing; billions of them route electrical signals around inside a smartphone, for instance.

Quantum computers will need analogous hardware to manipulate quantum information. But the design constraints for this new technology are stringent, and today’s most advanced processors can’t be repurposed as quantum devices. That’s because quantum information carriers, dubbed qubits, have to follow different rules laid out by quantum physics.

Scientists can use many kinds of quantum particles as qubits, even the photons that make up light. Photons have added appeal because they can swiftly shuttle information over long distances, and they are compatible with fabricated chips. However, making a quantum transistor triggered by light has been challenging because it requires that the photons interact with each other, something that doesn’t ordinarily happen on its own.

Continue reading “Semiconductor quantum transistor opens the door for photon-based computing” »

Diamonds are prized for their purity, but their flaws might hold the key to a new type of highly secure communications.

Princeton University researchers are using diamonds to help create a communication network that relies on a property of subatomic particles known as their quantum state. Researchers believe such quantum information networks would be extremely secure and could also allow new quantum computers to work together to complete problems that are currently unsolvable. But scientists currently designing these networks face several challenges, including how to preserve fragile quantum information over long distances.

Now, researchers have arrived at a possible solution using synthetic diamonds.

Continue reading “Implanting diamonds with flaws offers key technology for quantum communications” »

You might assume that evolution gave Charles Darwin enough to ponder during his five year voyage on The Beagle.

But of all the phenomena the naturalist encountered circumnavigating the globe, it was the flight of spiders which continued to puzzle him.

Darwin noticed that hundreds of spiders would inexplicably land on the Beagle even on a calm day without any wind to blow them on board.

Continue reading “Mystery of Charles Darwin’s flying spiders solved — they harness electricity” »