In the fall of 2017, Sam Bowman, a computational linguist at New York University, figured that computers still weren't very good at understanding the written word. Sure, they had become decent at simulating that understanding in certain narrow domains, like automatic translation or sentiment analysis (for example, determining if a sentence sounds "mean or nice," he said). But Bowman wanted measurable evidence of the genuine article: bona fide, human-style reading comprehension in English. So he came up with a test. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop ments and trends in mathe matics and the physical and life sciences.

Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos walks next to an operator carrying a drone used to deliver medical specimens after a flight in March at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, N.C. Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos walks next to an operator carrying a drone used to deliver medical specimens after a flight in March at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, N.C. Underneath it is a metal box -- smaller than a shoebox -- with vials of blood samples inside of it that are now heading across the campus to the lab for analysis, guided by a drone operator on the ground. "This facility happens to be across a very busy road from our main campus hospital," says Stuart Ginn, an ENT surgeon and medical director of innovations at WakeMed. But when taken by carrier on foot or by car, he says "the logistics of getting those samples across often resulted in about a 45-minute time of delivery."

Oscar-nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson is lending his iconic voice to Amazon's Alexa – profanities and all. During Amazon's event to unveil new products and services Wednesday, the online shopping giant announced that Jackson will be the first celebrity voice for its Alexa virtual assistant and was created using neural text-to-speech technology. There will be both an explicit version and a clean version when the feature launches later this year. The Alexa "skill" will cost 99 cents as an introductory offer. After the introductory period, the price will be $4.99, according to the product page.

Yale University researchers have developed a way to leverage neural networks to reveal patterns of activity of individual cells from multiple individuals. Researchers at Yale University have developed a method of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) neural networks to reveal larger patterns of activity of individual cells that come from several individuals. The AI neural network, called SAUCIE (Sparse Autoencoder for Clustering, Imputation, and Embedding), can reveal minute cellular differences within individuals, as well as broader patterns that describe how the body functions. The new method will allow researchers to identify larger clusters of cellular activity that could shed light on the basis of a host's pathogens. For example, the team used SAUCIE to analyze 20 million cells from 60 patients and identify rare Gamma-Delta T cell types that regulate how the body responds to the virus that causes Dengue fever.

One of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's autonomous Astrobee robots is operating on the International Space Station. A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrobee robot is now up and running on the International Space Station (ISS). The goal of the robot, named Bumble, for its first autonomous mission was to undock itself, follow a flight plan consisting of a list of waypoints and objectives uploaded to the robot from the ground, and then return to its dock in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) on the ISS. So far, the biggest hurdle to the robot accomplishing its goals has been getting its localization to work in a robust way. The robot navigates visually, but it is dependent on preexisting maps rather than doing simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

"This is an interesting and positive step forward, but it is really important not to exaggerate it," said Ken Goldberg, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who explores similar techniques. A robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube is not new. Researchers previously designed machines specifically for the task -- devices that look nothing like a hand -- and they can solve the puzzle in less than a second. But building devices that work like a human hand is a painstaking process in which engineers spend months laying down rules that define each tiny movement. The OpenAI project was an achievement of sorts because its researchers did not program each movement into their robotic hand.

This video covers the action of the 2018 League of Legends World Championship and previews the 2019 event. Riot Games, publishers of "League of Legends," is looking to expand its lore. For starters, there are some new features coming to the super-popular online video game, which turns 10 this month. Beyond that, Riot Games announced Tuesday it is working on several other projects including new shooter and strategy games, as well as a trio of new video games set in the "League of Legends" universe. The game publisher announced these developments as part of its 10th anniversary livestream Tuesday night.

Fueled by improvements in speech recognition, machine learning, better algorithms, cloud processing, and more powerful computing devices, the quality of machine translations is improving. Learning another language has never been a simple proposition. It can take months of study to absorb the basics and years to become fluent. Of course, there's the added headache that learning a language doesn't help if a person encounters one of the world's other 7,000 or so languages. "There has always been a need for human translators and interpreters," says Andrew Ochoa, CEO of translation technology firm Waverly Labs.

Whether it's dubious viral memes, gaffe-prone presidential debates, or surreal TikTok remixes, you could spend the rest of your life trying to watch all the video footage posted on YouTube in a single day. Researchers want to let artificial intelligence algorithms watch and make sense of it instead. A group from MIT and IBM developed an algorithm capable of accurately recognizing actions in videos while consuming a small fraction of the processing power previously required, potentially changing the economics of applying AI to large amounts of video. The method adapts an AI approach used to process still images to give it a crude concept of passing time. The work is a step towards having AI recognize what's happening in video, perhaps helping to tame the vast amounts now being generated.

Artificial intelligence can now solve a Rubik's cube one-handed. The task requires so much dexterity that even humans find the movements difficult. The system was developed by researchers at OpenAI, a technology firm that has previously created an AI that could outplay humans at the video game Dota 2. The team taught an AI to control a commercially available robotic hand developed by the Shadow Robot Company. The AI learned using a technique called reinforcement learning, which involves trial and error. "It starts from not knowing anything about how to move a hand or how a cube would react if you push on the sides or on the faces," says Peter Welinder, part of the team.