New EU regulations on AI seek to ban mass and indiscriminate surveillance. For many, that is the good news. The'not so good' news is that the proposed prohibitions are considered by some as being too vague, with serious loopholes. Most recently, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), called for a ban on the use of AI for the automated recognition of human features in "publicly accessible spaces" as well as other uses that might lead to "unfair discrimination". Broadly speaking, this reflects the response to the EU's attempt to set a standard on how tech is regulated around the world.

Exo, pronounced "echo," raised a fresh cash infusion of $220 million in Series C financing aimed at commercializing its handheld ultrasound device and point-of-care workflow platform, Exo Works. The round was led by RA Capital Management, while BlackRock, Sands Capital, Avidity Partners, Pura Vida Investments and prior investors joined in. The new funding gives the Redwood City, California-based company over $320 million in total investments since the company was founded in 2015, Exo CEO Sandeep Akkaraju told TechCrunch. This includes a $40 million investment raised in 2020. Ultrasound machines can cost anywhere from $40,000 to $250,000 for low-end technology and into the millions for high-end machines.

Now, with mining jobs hard to find, he's cleaning up the mess the industry left behind. The 68-year-old operates a bucket loader scraping away red, rocky waste dumped years ago by failed coal mine operators in a valley in the town of Clinchco, Virginia. The $17.50 an hour before overtime he makes cleaning up massive "gob piles," as the locals call them, is less than what he earned in decades as a miner. "If this work goes away, I don't know what I would do," Mullins said. Appalachia, long the heart of the U.S. coal-mining industry, may be set for a surge in jobs like Mullins' if President Joe Biden is successful in his ambitions to transition the United States to a cleaner energy economy to fight climate change.

Welcome to our July 2021 monthly digest where you can catch up with any AIhub stories you may have missed, get the low-down on recent events, and much more. In this edition we cover ICML 2021, celebrate award winners, check out new AI reports and strategies, and find out who won the AI Song Contest. This month saw the running of the thirty eighth International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). There were a huge variety of events, including talks, workshops, tutorial, and socials. We were in (virtual) attendance and managed to catch all of the invited talks.

SAN FRANCISCO--July 28, 2021-- The American College of Radiology Data Science Institute (ACR DSI) and the American Academy of Ophthalmology today announced a collaboration that will expand ACR DSI's groundbreaking AI-LAB platform to include eye care. Leveraging use cases and data from the Academy, this collaboration will accelerate the use of machine learning in the ophthalmic industry to the benefit of patients across the globe. "We've now made it easier for the ophthalmology community to access real world examples for our own use cases. By working together with ACR, we are leveraging a platform developed for the radiology community to educate our own community about AI development and encouraging new AI to be developed that will benefit our specialty," said Tamara R. Fountain, MD, president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The Academy will provide the ophthalmology content and the ACR will provide the IT infrastructure to integrate the use cases and datasets into the landmark AI-LAB.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking public input on what to include in forthcoming guidance that will set rules of the road for fielding trustworthy artificial intelligence in and out of government. NIST, following the recommendations of the National Security Commission on AI, is working on an AI Risk Management Framework that will set voluntary standards for agencies and industries to consider when adopting AI solutions. NIST, in a request for information posted Wednesday, said the upcoming framework will define trustworthy AI in terms of transparency, fairness and accountability. The agency plans to release the framework as a "living document" that adapts to changes in technology and practices. "Defining trustworthiness in meaningful, actionable, and testable ways remains a work in progress," the agency wrote in its RFI.

Across the world, mapping technology with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning allow users to have a variety of choices on their travels. Be it driving, flying, or walking, GPS systems are now a lifesaver in keeping users on track. Before this, most of us often used old maps or would buy travel maps whenever we wanted to move around. Today, map applications are not only available on GPS devices, but also on our mobile phones and are even built into our vehicles to provide better route directions. Despite this, there are still some challenges when it comes to mapping and location tagging.

This weekend, Jungle Cruise heads upriver towards the deep, dark heart of box office success, marking the eleventh feature film or TV movie based on an attraction at a Disney theme park. The studio's return on these projects has been, let's say, uneven: The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been wildly successful, but the second-tier of Disney rides adapted for the big screen is a parade of embarrassments like The Haunted Mansion, oddities like Mission to Mars, and outright weirdness like the 1997 Tower of Terror TV movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Steve Gutenberg, a kid-friendly riff on The Shining that I promise actually exists: As Disney tries once again to create cinematic greatness out of amusement park rides, here are some of the Disney attractions that are most overdue for screen adaptations. Look, you can't create something as unholy and terrifying as the Donald Trump figure in the Hall of Presidents and not make a movie where it kills people, that's just mad science. The obvious choice for a Hall of Presidents movie would be a riff on Westworld or Five Nights at Freddy's, but this might work best as a Frankenstein-type story, as the audio-animatronic Trump cuts a bloody swath through the Imagineering department trying to find his creator and get him to admit he began life as Hillary Clinton. Maybe the Trump robot could team up with what's left of the original "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" figure from the 1964 New York World's Fair, who looks like he'd like to have a word or two with whoever stole his clothes: Verhoeven would knock this out of the park.

The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA), the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), and machinery manufacturer John Deere have once again pushed back on the proposal that any right to repair changes need to be introduced in Australia. In its response to the Productivity Commission's right-to-repair draft report, IGEA knocked back support for several of the recommendations that were put forward. These include enabling the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to develop and publish estimates of the minimum expected durability for products, such as video game consoles and devices, and requiring manufacturers to include additional mandatory warranty text that state entitlements to consumer guarantees under Australian Consumer Law (ACL) do not require consumers to use authorised repair services or spare parts. It repeatedly cited in its latest submission [PDF] that making changes would "cause confusion for consumers", pointing out for instance that additional text may "erroneously cause consumers to believe that their entitlements under the voluntary warranty (as opposed to the guarantees) do not require consumers to use authorised repair services or spare parts (which may not necessarily be true)". As part of providing additional information to the Productivity Commission, IGEA added that if manufacturers were required to make additional repair information available where they could bypass Trusted Platform Modules, it would open up the potential for the information to be "weaponised" by malicious actors, particularly as there are no licensing or certification schemes for electronic repairers that would help manufacturers discern between legitimate and illegitimate repairers. IGEA also took the opportunity to defend video game console manufacturers saying that it is in the "financial interest" of console makers that customers have "well-functioning and reliable devices that last for years".

In order for you to succeed and thrive in this position we believe you possess at least 5 years proven experience as a Senior Software Engineer with industrial background. This includes extensive experience in software development, scripting and project management and that you have excellent programming skills (e.g., C, C, Java and Python). As a person, we see that you are curious, goal-oriented, flexible, and communicative. You have an analytical mind with a problem-solving attitude. You are skilled in presenting and documenting your work, as well as work from your research colleagues both in English and Swedish, i.e., to describe the problem, the solution, and the approach in an understandable manner. You have at least a Master's Degree in computer science or a related degree.