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Fortnite down today as latest v6.21 update arrives

The Independent - Tech

Fortnite has gone down ahead of its latest update. Players are unable to get into the game as developers Epic deploy the latest updates. When it does arrive, it will bring a whole host of new features and bug fixes. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.


Google walkout: Employees to stop work in protest of company's treatment of sexual misconduct

The Independent - Tech

Hundreds of members of Google staff are going to leave the company and stop working in protest at the search giant's treatment of sexual misconduct. Engineers and other workers will walk off the job to try in opposition to what they say is the company's overly lenient treamtent of executives accused of abusive behaviour. It comes amid increasing anger from women in Silicon Valley over the way the male-dominated technology industry continues to tolerate unsavoury and problematic behaviour. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.


We Are Still Here: A Story from Native Alaska

Al Jazeera

It is the same plane, with the same pilot, that she has flown in almost every year of her childhood. The 50-minute flight will take her over a snowy mountain range, a volcano and an elaborate tundra of blueberries and mushrooms, tea leaves and caribou moss, wildflowers and spider webs. She is heading to her mother's childhood home and the place where she spends her summers - the remote Alaskan village of Iliamna. Without any roads connecting it to the outside world, this is her only way of going'home'. Iliamna, which is an Athabascan word meaning "big ice" or "big lake" sits on the shore of the lake that shares its name.


AI wades into the debate on age of ancient Chinese cave murals

New Scientist

Artificial intelligence is joining a long-running debate about art in the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. Bored out of the cliffs above the Dachuan river, along the ancient Silk Road in northern China, this collection of 735 caves has outlived the various dynasties that built and filled them with over a millennia of Buddhist art. Amongst the artworks are thousands of murals that have been dated according to their creation, but with some of them art historians can't agree.


As high-rise farms go global, Japan's Spread leads the way

The Japan Times

In the hills between Kyoto, Osaka and Nara prefectures, surrounded by technology companies and startups, Spread Co. is preparing to open the world's largest automated leaf-vegetable factory. It's the company's second vertical farm and could mark a turning point for vertical farming -- keeping the cost low enough to compete with traditional farms on a large scale. For decades, vertical farms that grow produce indoors without soil in stacked racks have been touted as a solution to rising food demand in the world's expanding cities. The problem has always been reproducing the effect of natural rain, soil and sunshine at a cost that makes the crop competitive with traditional agriculture. Spread is among a handful of commercial firms that claim to have cracked that problem using a mix of robotics, technology and scale.


World's top consumer drone maker scores U.S. wins despite security concerns as China trade war takes toll

The Japan Times

SAN FRANCISCO/BEIJING – DJI, the world's top seller of drones for consumers, has snagged a pair of wins in its effort to court businesses. SZ DJI Technology Co. said its latest industrial gadget -- the Mavic 2 Enterprise -- will soon survey power grids for U.S. utility Southern Co., while American Airlines Group Inc. will test the craft for plane inspections. Those are important alliances for the Chinese company, which is grappling with a U.S. government shut-out, a potentially damaging patent lawsuit and rising American tariffs. Privacy is a particularly thorny issue for DJI -- one of the few Chinese technology giants that's made major strides abroad. Escalating U.S. tensions are fueling concerns about the dominance of a Chinese company in unmanned flying craft.


Lenovo already has a cheaper slider phone

Engadget

Oh no, we're not done with Chinese slider phones just yet. Following the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and Honor Magic 2, today Lenovo unveiled the Z5 Pro which is another notch-free Android slider made for China, but with the main difference being its price point -- starting from about $290 instead of $475 and above. This is mainly due to the fact that the device houses Qualcomm's mid-range Snapdragon 710 chipset, but you still get a 6.39-inch 2,340 x 1,080 AMOLED screen, in-display fingerprint reader, 6GB of RAM, a 3,350 mAh battery, dual Nano SIM slots and NFC. There's also Dolby Atmos support through both speakers, but for wired headphones, you'll need to plug in the bundled USB-C to 3.5mm adapter. On paper, the cameras shouldn't be too bad, either.


Artificial intelligence: the upside of robotics

#artificialintelligence

Reports of a looming jobs bloodbath have done the reputation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology no favours. A 2016 study by Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, for instance, fanned apprehension because the researchers found that two-thirds of jobs in SA were at risk of being automated. But some in the industry are more sanguine about the technology's possible effect on the country's fragile labour market. They argue that AI is an opportunity for countries that have a high emotional intelligence quotient (EQ). Ryan Falkenberg, co-CEO of Somerset West-based AI firm Clevva, says SA can use the technology to build a sizeable call centre industry.


Detection of cognitive impairment using a machine-learning algorithm NDT

#artificialintelligence

However, the Korean Dementia Screening Questionnaire (KDSQ) is an easier and more reliable screening method. Instead, other clinical variables and raw data were used for this study without the consideration of a cutoff value. The objective of this study was to develop a machine-learning algorithm for the detection of cognitive impairment (CI) based on the KDSQ and the MMSE. Patients and methods: The original dataset from the Clinical Research Center for Dementia of South Korea study was obtained. In total, 9,885 and 300 patients were randomly allocated to the training and test datasets, respectively.


Honor Magic 2 with retractable camera module, in-display fingerprint scanner, launched in China

#artificialintelligence

Honor Magic 2 comes with Yoyo, its own digital assistant, that can be commanded to fly a drone. Honor Magic 2 has been launched in China, and features an in-display fingerprint scanner as well as a sliding design that houses the front camera. The phone offers AI-based features, like its own digital assistant, Yoyo, and connectivity across a range of devices. Honor Magic 2 has been priced from 3799 yuan and is available in three colour variants: Gradient Red, Gradient Blue and Gradient Black. Featuring a 6.39-inch AMOLED display, the Honor phone offers a resolution of 2140 1080 pixels, and a screen-to-body ratio of 91.5 per cent.