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Pentagon Intel Chief Seeks Same Unity of Effort as Military Services

#artificialintelligence

With Congress revisiting how Pentagon units share authority under the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, the intelligence agencies under the next presidential administration should likewise review their own unity of effort to become more agile and able to integrate, the top Defense intelligence official said Thursday. "The integration of intelligence of the past 15 years is a journey that is not finished," said Marcel Lettre, undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, at a banquet for agency and industry professionals in the nonprofit Intelligence and National Security Alliance. "I hope the new administration finds clear progress from the last 15 years and takes it on with a mantle of seriousness, or even sees an opportunity to redouble the effort." Lettre, who was sworn in in December to preside over a 17 billion budget, eight components and 110,000 employees, said he also hopes the next administration will "institutionalize and make irreversible" the intelligence community's digital data sharing modernization effort known as the Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise (pronounced "eyesight"). "Key critical data sets are the coin of the realm for the intel community," he said.


Fight against credit card fraud gets help from learning machine

#artificialintelligence

In a blitzkrieg attack that took place over 12 hours in late 2012 and early 2013, criminals stole 45-million (U.S.) from two banks by hacking into credit card processing firms in India and the United States, then withdrawing money from ATMs in 27 countries. "In the place of guns and masks, this cybercrime organization used laptops and the Internet," New York attorney Loretta Lynch said at a news conference. "Moving as swiftly as data over the Internet … they became a virtual criminal flash mob, going from machine to machine, drawing as much money as they could, before these accounts were shut down." The mob infiltrated credit card processing firms, stole prepaid Visa and MasterCard debit card account numbers issued by the banks in the Middle-East and programmed them with extreme balances. The account numbers were emailed or texted to cohorts on the ground, who used a device to encode the account numbers onto the magnetic stripes of dummy cards.


Seattle Week in Review: Facing Displacement from AI Xconomy

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When will the technology arrive that makes you obsolete in your current job? It's no idle question, and one that none other than Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took up this week in remarks to hundreds of Seattle technology and business leaders. We'll explore his comments, a new offering from Textio, the media's failures in covering the presidential primaries; have some fun with drones, Star Wars, Disney's Frozen, and STEM education; and wash it down with a cold home brew in this edition of Xconomy Seattle's Week in Review: He shared his view of Microsoft's unique culture, and how that gives the company an advantage. One aspect is Microsoft's global mindset, which Nadella, born in Hyderabad, India, talked about in a personal way. "I wouldn't be CEO of Microsoft if it was not for Microsoft's technology being a global force," Nadella said.


WLTM Bumble – A dating app where women call the shots

The Guardian

Still in the depths of sleep, I reach out and grab it, knocking a cold cup of coffee over the unread mountain of books on my bedside. I swear loudly, mop up the mess with one hand and look blearily at the message on my screen. It's from Otis, 27, who I have apparently just matched with on Tinder: "Hey sexy like ur curls. Wanna come over n get naked and I'll show you my curls." There is no denying that the pursuit of love in the 21st century has become littered with digital landmines. There are now more than 91 million people around the world on dating apps – and most of that is thanks to Tinder.


FTD Companies' (FTD) CEO Robert Apatoff on Q1 2016 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

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At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Jandy Tomy, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. With me today on the call are Robert Apatoff, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Becky Sheehan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, please remember that, during the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws that address the Company's expected future business, financial performance, and financial condition. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. In addition to the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, please refer to the text in the Company's press release issued today for a discussion of the risks and uncertainties associated with such forward-looking statements. Also, please note that, on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and free cash flow. The Company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors. Please refer to today's press release for definitions and calculations of these non-GAAP performance measures, as well as reconciliations of the non-GAAP performance measures to the Company's GAAP financial results. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Robert Apatoff, President and Chief Executive Officer. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will provide a brief overview of our business highlights, integration efforts, and strategic and operating initiatives. Following my comments, our CFO Becky Sheehan will review our financial results and outlook for 2016 in more detail. Finally, I will provide a few closing remarks, and then we'll open up the call to take your questions.


Belief Merging by Source Reliability Assessment

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Merging beliefs requires the plausibility of the sources of the information to be merged. They are typically assumed equally reliable in lack of hints indicating otherwise; yet, a recent line of research spun from the idea of deriving this information from the revision process itself. In particular, the history of previous revisions and previous merging examples provide information for performing subsequent mergings. Yet, no examples or previous revisions may be available. In spite of the apparent lack of information, something can still be inferred by a try-and-check approach: a relative reliability ordering is assumed, the merging process is performed based on it, and the result is compared with the original information. The outcome of this check may be incoherent with the initial assumption, like when a completely reliable source is rejected some of the information it provided. In such cases, the reliability ordering assumed in the first place can be excluded from consideration. The first theorem of this article proves that such a scenario is indeed possible. Other results are obtained under various definition of reliability and merging.


Simulating Evolution: How Close Do Computer Models Come to Reality?

Huffington Post - Tech news and opinion

Darwin's theory of evolution is a simple but powerful framework that explains how complexity can come from simplicity: how everything biological around us - from the microbial biofilms on your teeth to the majestic redwood trees - emerged from the very simplest of beginnings. How exactly this happened is, of course, a matter of intense research. Each species is finely adapted to thrive in its environment, which in turn has shaped that species' evolutionary history. But those environmental forces exerted on a species occurred over a very long period of time, in the often very distant past. How can we understand which environmental features were responsible for which adaptations we see today?


Uncharted 4 single-player review - a rollicking, globetrotting adventure

The Guardian

There have been very few video game characters as well conceived as Nathan Drake. Exuding charm and determination, strength and vulnerability, he is the sort of male lead great Hollywood screenwriters aspire to create, but that video games have tended to bypass in favour of gritty, cynical sociopaths on mindless quests for retribution. Nathan is a character you care for and want to protect, even when he makes awful decisions that will hurt the people he loves. In Uncharted 4 he gets the conclusion he and his fans deserve – a rollicking, globe-trotting adventure that manages to be funny and exciting, yet also touched with sadness. We soon begin to realise that Nathan's quest to discover Libertalia, the fabled anarchist utopia set up by pirate Henry Avery, is symbolic of his whole career as a treasure hunter.


AI's working in healthcare

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As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more of a talking point in esoteric circles, two organisations working on a project based in Pittsburgh are using it to expand personalised healthcare. Teams from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh are part of project financed by a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for six years at between 10 million and 20 million per year. Computerworld has a report that the project's taking data from EHRs, diagnostic imaging, prescriptions, genomic profiles, insurance records and wearable devices to create healthcare plans by disease and specific types of people. These personal traits are seen as foundation to develop apps, machine learning tools and services from the project. A smartphone app for people to use to live healthier lives and ward off some diseases and condition's scheduled for release in about a year.


Samsung's Raspberry Pi-like Artik 10 is priced higher than Pi at 150

PCWorld

Samsung's Artik 10 developer board will compete with the Raspberry Pi 3, but not on price. The Artik 10 is priced at US 150, and can be ordered from Digi-Key's website. That's a much higher price than the 35 Raspberry Pi 3, but the Artik 10 offers a better GPU and more storage. The Artik 10 has all its components mashed onto a circuit board, much like Raspberry Pi. The board is targeted at enthusiasts looking to make smart gadgets, appliances, robots, drones, sensor devices, and industrial automation equipment.