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Uber CEO doubles down on self-driving tests

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Tempe, Arizona police released video of the Uber Self-Driving SUV crash that killed a woman on Sunday. It shows a woman push her bicycle on a dark road and the human back-up driver's reaction.This video includes images some may find disturbing. Although there as yet been no timetable for Uber's return to testing in San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Toronto, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi suggested it would be very soon. "We've got to get back on the road, but we have to be absolutely satisfied that we're getting back on the road in the safest manner possible," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at the Code conference here Wednesday. The chief executive said that after further tests confirm their cars can operate safely, "we will get back on the road over the summer," he added.


Steve Ballmer Provides Glimpse Of Los Angeles Clippers' New Personalized Viewing Experience

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The Los Angeles Clippers and Second Spectrum have partnered to bring a fan engagement tool that helps those watching at home to have the option to see the game like never before. During live action, stats and fantasy points appear above each player as the basket is scored off an alley-oop. There are animation options that enable users to make a custom highlight of Blake Griffin dunking a cloud as lightning strikes. A screen can be automatically identified. Recommended and trending highlights are available on-demand.


First look at the Essential phone from Android creator

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Based on a first look, it doesn't. We listened to Rubin speak and spent some time with the Essential phone at the Code conference here. We now have a better idea of what issues Rubin's new phone is trying to solve than the ones kind of buried on the new Essential website. Rubin says he wants to "solve consumer problems" with both his new phone, out in June starting at $699, and other products down the line, such as an Amazon Echo-like speaker. For the Essential phone, Rubin and staffers say you won't need to buy the accessory protection because it's not needed.


Google says it rarely sues -- but it made an exception with Uber

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

"So when we do sue, it's in our view so compelling, we have no option but to sue," said Porat at the Code conference here. Moderator Kara Swisher asked Porat how she wanted the suit to turn out. "The right way," said Porat. The case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall, but there has already been fallout. The engineer at the center of the Waymo v. Google lawsuit -- Anthony Levandowski, who Google alleges stole 14,000 sensor-focused documents before starting self-driving truck company Otto, which Uber bought for an estimated $680 million last summer -- was fired by Uber on Tuesday.


Video games are 'the motherlode' of ideas for tech innovation: Mary Meeker

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Want to know where tech innovation is headed? Venture capitalist and Internet soothsayer Mary Meeker unveiled her Internet trends for 2017 on Wednesday during the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Meeker's report on the state of the Internet is among the most anticipated events at Code, serving as a guide to the biggest trends on the Web. According to Meeker, interactive gaming bears "the motherlode" of ideas for tech innovation and evolution. "Video games are the most engaging form of social media," said Meeker during her presentation.


Flipboard on Flipboard

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It was just a friendly little argument about the fate of humanity. Demis Hassabis, a leading creator of advanced artificial intelligence, was chatting with Elon Musk, a leading doomsayer, about the perils of artificial intelligence. They are two of the most consequential and intriguing men in Silicon Valley who don't live there. Hassabis, a co-founder of the mysterious London laboratory DeepMind, had come to Musk's SpaceX rocket factory, outside Los Angeles, a few years ago. They were in the canteen, talking, as a massive rocket part traversed overhead. Musk explained that his ultimate goal at SpaceX was the most important project in the world: interplanetary colonization. Hassabis replied that, in fact, he was working on the most important project in the world: developing artificial super-intelligence. Musk countered that this was one reason we needed to colonize Mars--so that we'll have a bolt-hole if A.I. goes rogue and turns on humanity. Amused, Hassabis said that A.I. would simply follow humans to Mars. This did nothing to soothe Musk's anxieties (even though he says there are scenarios where A.I. wouldn't follow). An unassuming but competitive 40-year-old, Hassabis is regarded as the Merlin who will likely help conjure our A.I. children. The field of A.I. is rapidly developing but still far from the powerful, self-evolving software that haunts Musk. Facebook uses A.I. for targeted advertising, photo tagging, and curated news feeds. Microsoft and Apple use A.I. to power their digital assistants, Cortana and Siri. Google's search engine from the beginning has been dependent on A.I. All of these small advances are part of the chase to eventually create flexible, self-teaching A.I. that will mirror human learning. Some in Silicon Valley were intrigued to learn that Hassabis, a skilled chess player and former video-game designer, once came up with a game called Evil Genius, featuring a malevolent scientist who creates a doomsday device to achieve world domination.


Tech moguls declare era of artificial intelligence The Japan Times

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RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CALIFORNIA โ€“ Artificial intelligence and machine learning will create computers so sophisticated and godlike that humans will need to implant "neural laces" in their brains to keep up, Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told a crowd of tech leaders this week. While Musk's description of an injectable human-computer link may sound like science fiction, top tech executives repeatedly said that artificial intelligence was on the verge of changing everyday life, during discussion at a conference by online publication Recode this week. It is no secret that tech companies are diving into AI analytics research, an industry that will grow to $70 billion by 2020 from just $8.2 billion in 2013, according to a Bank of America report citing data from market researchers IDC. AI, which combs through large troves of raw data to predict outcomes and recognize patterns, is already used in web search systems, marketing recommendation functions and security and financial trading programs. The technology will spread to driverless cars and service robots in the future, the Bank of America report said.


Google CEO: Our AI is better because we've been doing it longer

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If the battle between rival digital assistants can be summed up by the NBA championships, then Google's take would be the Golden State Warriors. That's assuming, of course, the record-setting Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers to defend their NBA title. It's the analogy used by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who characterized the competition as more friendly than bloody. "This is not like'Game of Thrones,'" he said Wednesday at Recode's Code conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. Artificial intelligence is already a hot topic at the conference, and it's a big part of Google's future.


Amazon's Bezos: A.I.'s impact is 'gigantic'

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Where else but the Code Conference can you expect to hear from the Tech industry's biggest players like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai? Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version gave the wrong year Amazon won Emmys for Transparent. Speaking to the Code conference here, Bezos, whose company has a hit on its hand with the Echo connected speaker, said, "it's hard to overstate how big of an impact this will have on society over the next 20 years. It doesn't mean phones are going to go away or that voice actions will replace screens. As long as people have eyes, they have screens."


Elon Musk: Humans Must "Achieve Symbiosis With Machines"

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Elon Musk has been floating some very forward facing, futurist tech ideas lately such as how we'll make government on Mars, why we're all living in a simulation like The Matrix, and how he plans to launch a SpaceX rocket at the unprecedented rate of once every two weeks. But his thoughts on something called "neural lace" have to be the most far out. "Creating a neural lace is the thing that really matters for humanity to achieve symbiosis with machines," Musk tweeted late Friday night, which followed statements made earlier in the week on the topic at Recode's Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. So what is Musk saying when he talks about a neural lace? In the most basic sense, it's a mesh of electronic fibers that you would place on your head to improve human performance.