Lifeboat Foundation

Salesforce is leading a financing round in Hugging Face, one of the most highly valued startups helping businesses use artificial intelligence, at a valuation north of $4 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The roughly $200 million funding round more than doubles the share price and private valuation of the New York–based company, one of these people said.

Salesforce is paying a high price for a piece of Hugging Face, which runs a service that helps companies store and use AI software, similar to the way GitHub lets developers store software code. The new funding valued the startup at more than 100 times its annualized revenue, a measure of how much revenue the company would generate over the next 12 months at its current rate, one of the people said.

The researchers had to look at light mechanically to begin seeing similarities in properties usually seen in quantum states.

In 1,673, Christiaan Huygens wrote a book on pendulums and how they work. A mechanical theorem mentioned in the book was used 350 years later by researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology to explain the complex behaviors of light, a university statement said.

Although known to us for eons, humanity has found it difficult to explain the very nature of light. For centuries scientists have been divided on whether to call it a wave or a particle and when there seemed to be some agreement on what light could actually be, quantum physics threw a new curveball by suggesting that it existed as both at once.

People living in dry but foggy areas can benefit from this technology.

Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a system that captures fog in the atmosphere and simultaneously removes contaminants while running using solar power.

The harvesting and water treatment system consists of a metal wire mesh with a solar-light-activated reactive coating that captures the fog. The droplets of water then trickle down into a container below. The mesh is coated with a mixture of specially selected polymers and titanium dioxide, which acts as a chemical catalyst and breaks down the molecules of the pollutants into harmless particles.

The Ring Nebula reveals intricate structures symbolizing a dying star’s final phases.

The James Webb Space Telescope has released new detailed images of the iconic Ring Nebula in never-before-seen detail. This planetary nebula’s intricate structure and composition can be seen in the new compelling images obtained by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

The Ring Nebula was discovered in 1,779 by astronomers Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix and Charles Messier. It is one of the most prominent and luminous objects in our night skies, approximately 2,500 light-years from Earth.

High-resolution 3D retina images have specific markers that can indicate the risk of Parkinson’s in a person. A new AI program can identify these markers and tell whether or not you have the disease.

Although Parkinson’s disease (PD) is incurable, a non-profit National Council of Aging report suggests that early detection and treatment could help patients live a long and productive life even with the disease.

Continue reading “AI can detect Parkinson’s 7 years before clinical diagnosis” »

Researchers use a mix of less expensive, safer, and sustainably available components to create long-lasting bi-functional air electrodes.

We have all heard the line; the future is electric. But are we fully equipped to handle a full-scale transition to all-electric power? One thing standing in the way is the lack of cleaner and more affordable battery technologies to store energy.

Compared to commonly used Lithium-ion cells facing challenges related to cost, finite resources, and safety concerns, rechargeable zinc-air batteries (ZABs) are pitched as cost-effective energy storage devices and display high-energy density, especially for application in EVs.

The report further says 40 percent of workers will need to polish their skills due to the implementation of AI.

Artificial intelligence (AI) won’t replace employees anytime soon. But people who use AI will replace people who don’t, said tech giant IBM in its report, which talks about the implications of AI in businesses.

Companies are rapidly introducing AI into their workings to free up their employees’ time so they can focus on issues that require their personalized attention. The thing about AI is that it will do exactly what you train it to do. So, the hyperboles around the latest technology snatching away people’s jobs and taking over humanity can calm down.

In its quest to develop AI that can understand a range of different dialects, Meta has created an AI model, SeamlessM4T, that can translate and transcribe close to 100 languages across text and speech. Available in open source along with SeamlessAlign, a new translation dataset, Meta claims that SeamlessM4T represents a “significant breakthrough” in the field of AI-powered speech-to-speech and speech-to-text.

“Our single model provides on-demand translations that enable people who speak different languages to communicate more effectively,” Meta writes in a blog post shared with TechCrunch. “SeamlessM4T implicitly recognizes the source languages without the need for a separate language… More.

Hermeus’ audacious plan to build a passenger plane able to travel at Mach 5 is a longshot, but it’s won Pentagon backing.

Earlier this month, a curved aluminum skeleton 40 feet long sat waiting in Hermeus’ cavernous Atlanta factory. It was the prototype of a drone called Quarterhorse. It will never fly. Instead, it’s scheduled for ground-testing starting in September. Hermeus CEO AJ Piplica and his cofounders believe it’s the first step on a long road to an audacious goal: building a plane capable of carrying 20 passengers at hypersonic speed — five times faster than sound, or 3,850 miles per hour.

Imagine New York to Paris in 90 minutes. Quite an upgrade from the seven-and-a-half hours of a… More.