Lifeboat Foundation

Parler’s ability to be a safe haven for hate speech may not last long.

HyperloopTT announced new partnerships with Hitachi Rail, Altran and Ferrovial to speed up development of the technology for commercial use.

Despite the inherent challenges that voice-interaction may create, researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology recently found that deaf and hard-of-hearing users regularly use smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri in homes, workplaces and mobile devices.

The work highlights a clear need for more inclusive design, and presents an opportunity for deaf and hard-of-hearing users to have a more active role in the research and development of new systems, according to Johnna Blair, an IST doctoral student and member of the research team.

“As smart assistants become more common, are preloaded on every smartphone, and continue to provide benefits to the user beyond just the ease of voice activation, it’s important to understand how deaf and hard-of-hearing users have made smart assistants work for them and the realistic challenges they continue to face,” said Blair.

Over the past few years, computer scientists have developed increasingly advanced and sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which can tackle a wide variety of tasks. This includes generative adversarial networks (GANs), machine-learning models that can learn to generate new data, including text, audio files or images. Some of these models can also be tailored for creative purposes, for instance, to create unique drawings, songs or poems.

Researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai in China and the University of Delaware in the US have recently created a GAN-based model that can generate abstract artworks inspired by Chinese calligraphy. The term Chinese calligraphy refers to the artistic form in which Chinese characters were traditionally written.

“In 2019, we collaborated with a restaurant based in Shanghai to showcase some AI technologies for better customer engagement and experience,” Professor Harry Jiannan Wang, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “We then had the idea to use AI technologies to generate personalized abstract art based on the dishes customers order and present the artwork to entertain customers while they wait for their meals to be served.”

23 nov 2020.

A new analysis of the cosmic microwave background shows that its polarization may be rotated by exotic effects indicating beyond-standard-model physics.

Hale — “Surviving Corona.”

Produced by Gary Jesch of CHOPS Live Animation.
with Peter Cummings — Contagious Productions.
COVID-19 Animation by Fusion Medical Animation.

Continue reading “CHOPS — ‘CyberHuman on a Performance System’ meets COVID-19 and learns there is a new book out” »

In this episode of Sci-Fi UI, we’ll find out whether the computer interfaces in The Expanse can actually be built in the real world. In Sci-Fi UI, we deep-dive into the UI of tomorrow to see if we can learn anything about building better UI today.

Narrated by:
AJ Campbell.

Continue reading “Sci-Fi UI Episode 1: The Expanse” »

Last week, we talked about asteroid versus ocean mining. In fact, in this channel, I have evangelized asteroid mining quite a bit as the future. However, this week, we will take a look at the business barriers to the realization of asteroid mining.

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Continue reading “Business Barriers to Asteroid Mining” »

A new study led by researchers at the Universities of Bristol, Exeter, and Bath helps to shed light on the winter weather we may soon have in store following a dramatic meteorological event currently unfolding high above the North Pole.

Weather forecasting models are predicting with increasing confidence that a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event will take place today, 5 January 2021.

The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere from around 10-50km above the earth’s surface. SSW events are some of the most extreme of atmospheric phenomena and can see polar stratospheric temperature increase by up to 50°C over the course of a few days. Such events can bring very cold weather, which often result in snowstorms.