Africa
The Feds Just Made It Way Easier to Use Drones for Profit
Federal regulators just opened the skies to commercial drones, with guidelines that include more than a few caveats designed to encourage entrepreneurs while protecting everyone else. The FAA, which announced the rules today, hopes to facilitate innovative uses for the technology like bringing the Internet to remote areas while avoiding the idiocy of drones interfering with firefighting operations or delivering contraband to prisons. "We are taking a careful and deliberate approach that balances the need to deploy this new technology with the FAA's mission to protect public safety," says FAA chief Michael Huerta. The rules let anyone 16 or older who wants to make a business of flying a drone simply do so. In the past, pilots who hoped to make a buck with drones by, say, inspecting power lines, needed FAA permission, a process that could take months.
How should Uganda embrace artificial intelligence?
The intelligence exhibited by machine also known as Artificial Intelligence is an area that very many large technology companies are investing into these days. Apple made its mark in artificial intelligence by introducing its digital assistant Siri, google and Microsoft also followed. Social media giants; Facebook and amazon have shown indications of investing in Artificial Intelligence. The interest of these companies in this field of computer science is an indicator that Artificial Intelligence is an area that offers a lot of promise. The country has tried to use AI in some areas for example KCCA introduced the smart traffic lights at Wandegeya.
IoT decision making improved with impact-sourced human experts
Drowning in data is a real hazard with the Internet of Things (IoT). How should decisions be made with this flood of sensor data? A hybrid approach combining human intelligence and computing power works well. People are good at making decisions that require nuance and judgement, such as identifying hate speech in online postings. Computerized analytics is better at quickly processing large volumes of data.
AI just got a big boost in its ability to understand the news
Soon you could be chatting with your computer about the morning news. An AI has learned to read and answer questions about a news article with unprecedented accuracy. Creating AI systems that can learn in the background from humanity's existing stores of information is one of the big goals of computer science. "Computers don't have the kind of general knowledge and common sense of how the world works [from reading] about things in novels or watch[ing] sitcoms," says Chris Manning at Stanford University. To get a step closer to this, last year, Google's DeepMind team used articles from the Daily Mail website and CNN to help train an algorithm to read and understand a short story.
ARM's Bifrost Steps Up Graphics, Bridges to Machine Learning EE Times
The architecture includes maths capabilities that could be used by other software as part of a heterogeneous system architecture. That could include neural network software but ARM executives stressed that Bifrost is first and foremost an architecture for raster, tile-based graphics processing units (GPUs). The previous architecture โ Midgard โ is the one that underlies ARM's T-series Mali GPUs and has up to 16 unified shader cores and SIMD [single-instruction multiple data] instruction set architecture. Bifrost supports up to 32 unified shader cores with a scalar ISA, full hardware cache coherency and something called clause execution. The primary goal, according to Sean Ellis, GPU architect with ARM, was to achieve more performance per square millimeter of silicon and per line of "real-world" shader code. Whereas Midgard GPUs use SIMD vectorization Bifrost GPUs will use quad vectorization in which four scalar threads from a 2 by 2 pixel are executed in lock step.
Flaunt Magazine Art: Silicon Assets
Where does true power reside? Is it waving at you from a stage-lit, Presidentially-sealed podium? Or tucked away inside a billionaire's wallet? Can you smell it in a mahogany-clad clubroom at Yale in the smoke of a Bonesman's cigar, or catch a glimpse of its dark feathers perching on the advisory council of a transnational bank? One thing we know for sure: the nature and location of power is changing, and the agents of that change are the Californian technology companies that have the taken the 21st century by the throat.
GE Uses Machine Learning To Restore Italian Power Plant - InformationWeek
GE unveiled a machine data system for power plants it claims can increase a facility's efficiency of operation by 1.5%, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3%, and reduce coal consumption by 67,000 tons for each megawatt of electricity produced. GE's Digital Power Plant for Steam suite was introduced at the Minds Machines conference in Paris June 14, where GE executives also revealed the results of a hardware and software upgrade using the technology at the Chivasso power plant in Northern Italy. The plant, run by A2A Group, was restarted in November 2015 after a three-year shutdown. Digital Power Plant for Steam is one of the first application suites to sit atop GE's Predix machine data analytics platform and yield practical, industrial results. The reference to "steam" in the product's name reflects the fact that gas and coal-fired power plants produce steam to drive the turbines that generate electricity used in households and industry in most societies.
Synthetic Intelligence Might Flip Poachers Into PreyTrue Viral News
Abstract: A newly developed system might quickly assist to foretell the place poachers are more likely to strike in wildlife parks. USC pc scientist speaks at a White Home-sponsored workshop on expertise and social good. Poachers hunt tigers with traps and weapons. That prime-tech software is in improvement due to USC laptop scientist Milind Tambe, the Helen N. and Emmett H. Jones Professor in Engineering on the USC Viterbi College of Engineering. Since 2013, he's been working with worldwide businesses to check software program he hopes will sooner or later predict the place poachers are prone to strike inside wildlife parks.
Computers Gone Wild: Impact and Implications of Developments in Artificial Intelligence on Society - FLI - Future of Life Institute
The second "Computers Gone Wild: Impact and Implications of Developments in Artificial Intelligence on Society" workshop took place on February 19, 2016 at Harvard Law School. Marin Solja?i?, Max Tegmark, Bruce Schneier, and Jonathan Zittrain convened this informal workshop to discuss recent advancements in artificial intelligence research. Participants represented a wide range of expertise and perspectives and discussed four main topics during the day-long event: the impact of artificial intelligence on labor and economics, algorithmic decision-making, particularly in law, autonomous weapons, and the risks of emergent human-level artificial intelligence. Each session opened with a brief overview of the existing literature related to the topic from a designated participant, followed by remarks from two or three provocateurs. The session leader then moderated a discussion with the larger group.
Drive into the future with Rolls Royce's land-yacht of a concept car - MarketWatch
The future of luxury cars will be entirely personalized, fully autonomous and exceedingly comfortable -- at least if Rolls Royce has anything to do with it. On Thursday, the venerable British automaker, which is now owned by BMW Group BMW, 0.53%, unveiled its first self-driving car, the Vision Next 100 concept car, a spectacularly ornate, futuristic land yacht that wouldn't look out of place in the sci-fi classic "Tron." At nearly 20 feet long and 5 feet tall, the car features a zero-emissions powertrain, glass canopy roof and virtually invisible wheels, which are tucked inside the sleek chassis (Got a flat? The robot will fix it). But it's inside where the Vision Next 100 really shines, sporting a silk sofa -- or as Rolls puts it, "a beautifully textured, ivory-coloured luxurious throne upon which our passengers are conveyed" -- deep wool carpet, hand-crafted Madagascar wood paneling and a big-screen TV.