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Jan 16, 2023

Paris to hold vote on shared scooters

Posted by in category: climatology

This weekend, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo told Le Parisien that Parisians will get to vote whether they want to ban free-floating electric scooters or not. As I explained last week, Dott, Lime and Tier, the three scooter companies currently operating in the city, have operating licenses that are set to expire on March 23rd, 2023. And the fate of those services could have wide implications across the micromobility sector.

“If Parisians want to own their own scooter, there’s no issue. But we have a real issue with free-floating scooters. It’s not climate-friendly. Employees working for these companies are not properly treated,” Mayor of Paris told Le Parisien.

“That’s why I’m going to ask a question to Parisians in a vote that is going to take place on Sunday, April 2nd so that I can understand what they want,” she added.

Jan 16, 2023

AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit

Posted by in categories: internet, law, robotics/AI

The suit claims generative AI art tools violate copyright law by scraping artists’ work from the web without their consent.

A trio of artists have launched a lawsuit against Stability AI and Midjourney, creators of AI art generators Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and artist portfolio platform DeviantArt, which recently created its own AI art generator, DreamUp.

The artists — Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz — allege that these organizations have infringed the rights of “millions of artists” by training their AI tools on five billion images scraped from the web “with­out the con­sent of the orig­i­nal artists.”

Continue reading “AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit” »

Jan 16, 2023

This US state wants to phase out EVs instead of ICEs by 2035

Posted by in categories: business, employment, sustainability, transportation

The state introduced the resolution as a tribute to its oil and gas industry.

A U.S. state has decided to swim against the tide with its proposal to phase out all-electric vehicles from the state by 2035. You heard it right. Wyoming’s legislature is debating a resolution introduced on January 13, intended to pay tribute to its oil and gas industry which has created countless jobs and revenues over the decades.

In 2021, the state had produced 85.43 million barrels of crude oil, making it the eighth largest producer of oil among states in the U.S. Wyoming has a total population of just 577,000 people.

Continue reading “This US state wants to phase out EVs instead of ICEs by 2035” »

Jan 16, 2023

Google’s Muse model could be the next big thing for generative AI

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, security

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here.

2022 was a great year for generative AI, with the release of models such as DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, Imagen, and Parti. And 2023 seems to follow on that path as Google introduced its latest text-to-image model, Muse, earlier this month.

Like other text-to-image models, Muse is a deep neural network that takes a text prompt as input and generates an image that fits the description. However, what sets Muse apart from its predecessors is its efficiency and accuracy. By building on the experience of previous work in the field and adding new techniques, the researchers at Google have managed to create a generative model that requires less computational resources and makes progress on some of the problems that other generative models suffer from.

Jan 16, 2023

Novel Neurofeedback Technique Enhances Awareness of Mind-Wandering

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Summary: Researchers have developed a novel neurofeedback technique based on Pavlovian conditioning that detects when a person’s mind is wandering.

Source: ATR Brain Information Communication Research Laboratory Group

Everyone knows the feeling. You are trying to concentrate on driving or studying, or paying attention in a boring meeting, but suddenly, you realize that you are thinking about something irrelevant to the task at hand.

Jan 16, 2023

The Last Of Us Brain-Controlling Zombie Fungi Is A Real Threat To Humans?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Real-world science may show that the brain-controlling zombie Fungi from The Last Of Us franchise may actually be a threat to humanity.

Jan 16, 2023

Infineon energy efficiency 3D experience — Infineon Technologies

Posted by in categories: climatology, economics, sustainability

Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. To slow down global warming, we need to rethink how we generate and consume energy. Facing significant structural changes in supply and demand, we are in the middle of an energy transition with a strong need for action.

To reach a net zero economy by 2050 we have to swiftly replace fossil fuels in power generation with renewable, clean and secure sources. At the same time technologies powered by fossil-fuels must be replaced by electrified applications such as those seen in electric vehicles or heat pumps. Microelectronics plays a decisive role in respective applications.

Infineon’s semiconductor solutions enable the provision of green energy as well as the electrification of applications in the industrial, mobility and consumer sectors. Our semiconductor solutions are vital to decarbonization, they are key elements in creating a better future.

Jan 16, 2023

AI in Education: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Confusing

Posted by in categories: education, mapping, robotics/AI

Words by pau aleikum & marta handenawer.

This article started as a discussion between friends, sparked by the release of ChatGPT last December. Instantly, our minds were racing with the massive amount of tremendously stupid and not-so-stupid applications it could have for our work at Domestic Data Streamers. It is clear that AI is a valuable tool you could use to finish assignments more quickly, but what would be lost in that process? Using ChatGPT feels like cheating; using a shortcut to finish your work, it’s so easy that it can feel as if you are not working at all. This obviously comes with a cost. If you don’t write those words, you are less likely to remember them and less likely to internalize knowledge or connect it to other fields of knowledge you already have. And that, friends, is a problem for education. The Atlantic recently declared that “The College Essay Is Dead,” and although I disagree, this calls for further exploration.

The use of ChatGPT to write academic projects has been a source of significant concern in academia. Three of the four universities we work with have already sent out emails asking that teachers acknowledge the existence of this technology and prepare for it. This is the next phase in our journey from manual calculation to technology-aided information recall, just as we evolved from adding up numbers in our minds to calculators and from basic orientation to Google Maps.

Jan 16, 2023

Black hole ‘spaghettified’ a star into a doughnut shape, and astronomers captured the gory encounter

Posted by in category: cosmology

The black hole wrapped the layers of the shredded star around itself to form the perfect doughnut of doom.

Jan 16, 2023

Gene Mutation Linked to Autism Found to Overstimulate Brain Cells

Posted by in categories: genetics, mathematics, media & arts, neuroscience

A new study led by scientists at Rutgers University has uncovered new insights into the underlying brain mechanisms of autism spectrum disorder.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disorder that affects how a person communicates and interacts with others. It is characterized by difficulty with social communication and interaction, as well as repetitive behaviors and interests. ASD can range from mild to severe, and individuals with ASD may have a wide range of abilities and challenges. It is a spectrum disorder because the symptoms and characteristics of ASD can vary widely from person to person. Some people with ASD are highly skilled in certain areas, such as music or math, while others may have significant learning disabilities.