Asia
Team uses 'Deep Learning' to assist overburdened diagnosticians
Some 2 billion X-rays are performed around the world every year. But the average radiology clinic is understaffed. Radiologists are burdened with a growing workload, allowing little time to comprehensively evaluate images--leading to misdiagnoses and more serious consequences. Now a Tel Aviv University lab is engineering practical solutions to meet the demands of radiologists. Prof. Hayit Greenspan's Medical Image Processing Lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the TAU Faculty of Engineering has developed a wide variety of tools to facilitate computer-assisted diagnosis of X-rays, CTs and MRIs, freeing radiologists to attend to complex cases that require their full attention and skills.
The world's best theme park dark ride just got better
Theme park fans are in for a treat when Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey officially opens on Thursday inside Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios Hollywood. For those who have never been on the world's best dark ride, Forbidden Journey literally turns the traditional dark ride experience on its head by placing riders on the end of a unique robotic arm as they travel past domed projection screens and animatronic characters. For those who have visited Universal's Islands of Adventure, the West Coast version of Forbidden Journey adds 3-D imagery to the domed screen segments that were only 2-D when the ride debuted in 2010 at the Florida theme park. Candlesticks float above riders aboard Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride at the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood. Candlesticks float above riders aboard Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride at the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Women in technology: the stakes keep getting higher
The transformative power of technology is increasingly impacting all other industries. The impact of these new technologies promises to usher in a future with endless possibilities and new opportunities. Disruptive technologies, including the rise of robots and artificial intelligence, will result in a net loss of 5.1 million jobs by 2020 in 15 leading countries according to the World Economic Forum's latest The Future of Jobs report. And while the report stresses that these job losses will be offset by the creation of 2 million new jobs, it also acknowledges that women will suffer the most as many of their jobs are concentrated in areas that can be automated relatively easily, such as sales, office, administrative roles etc. Within the tech industry itself there has been little movement in the last year despite vows to address issues of #gender #diversity and women representation in leadership.
NASA Is Finally Sending a Hotel Magnate's Inflatable Habitat to the ISS
When humans leave Earth for good, they're going to need somewhere to stay. Something like a big bouncy castle for kids, but built to house astronauts and solar system colonists and tourists looking for an out-of-this-world vacation. It sounds like a sci-fi fever dream, but it's becoming reality. On Friday, SpaceX will launch a so-called "expandable"--a prototype called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module--to the International Space Station. It will remain there, attached to the Tranquility module, for two years.
Scarlett Johansson lookalike robot created by Hong Kong man in his flat
A Hong Kong man has built a robot version of Scarlett Johansson in his flat. Ricky Ma, a 42-year-old designer, has poured more than 34,000 and over a year of work into the catchily-named'Mark 1' humanoid robot. Speaking to Reuters, Ma said he decided to model the Mark 1's appearance on a Hollywood star. He didn't say which, but it's fair to assume Scarlett Johansson may have given him a lot of inspiration. The robot can move its limbs, alter its facial expressions, and even reply when spoken to by Ma through a microphone. Mark 1 has a special talent for responding to compliments.
The Future of Wildlife Conservation Is … an Electronic Vulture Egg
The vultures of Britain's International Centre for Birds of Prey don't know it, but they're dupes. Every day, the giant birds carefully tend to their eggs, rotating them periodically so they incubate just right. But…take a closer look at that nest. Not every egg in there is made of calcium carbonate, and they don't always contain baby birds. No, at this conservation center, some of those eggs are actually 3-D printed.
The Army Wants You to Make Its Soldiers Pocket-Sized Drones
Drones first glided into the public imagination in the early 2000s when the US Air Force and the CIA started using school bus-sized Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and airstrikes in the Middle East. These days, the US Army wants something a bit smaller: Pocket-sized drones that soldiers can use in battle zones to see around corners, over hills, or behind trees to aoid ambushes and other surprises. Ideally, soldiers will be able to launch such a nano-drone quickly, the Army says. "It will send real-time video back to the operator to give them real-time situational awareness of what's in the immediate vicinity," says says Phil Cheatham, the deputy branch chief for electronics at the Army's Maneuvers Center for Excellence (MCOE). The Army wants something affordable that can be ordered in bulk to provide a drone to each squad. The Army already uses satellite imagery and larger drones to provide broader battlefield intelligence, Cheatham says.
12 things you didn't know about Google DeepMind
Today (15 March 2016) concludes the five'Go' matches played by AlphaGo, an AI system built by DeepMind and South Korean champion, Lee Sedol. AlphaGo managed to win the series of games 4-1. 'Go' is a strategy-led board game in which two players aim to gather and surround the most territory on the board. The game is said to require a certain level of intuition and be considerably more complex than Chess. The first three games were won by AlphaGo with Sedol winning the fourth round, but still unable to claim back a victory.
Botego - Virtual Intelligent Agents - Facebook bots
Botego develops software solutions based on its proprietary language processing technology. We're an R&D partner in various EU funded projects with offices in New York City, Dubai and Istanbul. Our mission is to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction by automating various processes. Our vision is to make world a better place by creating seamless interaction experience for brands and individuals.
The AI political algorithm - digital's quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
It's been fascinating to watch the storm over Microsoft's AI Twitter chat bot, Tay, which learned extreme racism, homophobia, and drug culture from internet trolls and was hastily taken offline. As one commentator put, it went from saying "humans are super cool", to extolling Nazi values in less than 24 hours – a useful analog of extremism's connection with ignorance in a meme-propelled culture. But were trolls solely to blame? As journalist Paul Mason noted in his Guardian blog, Tay was essentially feeding off the deep undercurrents of prejudice and hate speech that lurk near the surface of many social platforms. Or at least they do in the West.