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With 'Miss Peregrine,' Tim Burton is just the latest director to shirk a responsibility to diversity
Apparently, director Tim Burton would be fine if you retitled his movie "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children but Only if They're White." In an interview with the website Bustle, Burton was asked why, given the pervasive, ongoing discussion of diversity in Hollywood, the overwhelming majority of the characters (and, hence, actors) in his latest fantasy film are white. "Nowadays, people are talking about it more," Burton said. He went on to talk about how, as a kid, he would've been dismayed to see an Asian kid or a black kid on "The Brady Bunch," or more white actors in blaxploitation movies. Burton's statements are just the latest from a celebrated, veteran filmmaker unable to wrap his mind around why diversity matters.
Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie strike a temporary child-custody deal
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have come to a temporary, three-week agreement on custody of their six children, a person familiar with the negotiations said Friday. The deal was voluntary and doesn't reflect any ruling from the court regarding permanent custody, legal or physical, the source said. Both Pitt and Jolie agreed to get individual counseling, the source said, and Pitt offered to submit to drug and alcohol testing, which was not required. The couple agreed that Pitt's first visit with the kids would include a therapist, but there was no requirement for a monitor during subsequent visits. Decision-making for Maddox, 15; Pax, 12; Zahara, 11; Shiloh, 10; and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne will follow a structured plan agreed to by both parents.
This Chinese-American cartoonist forces us to face racist stereotypes
The first comic that cartoonist Gene Luen Yang ever bought was a two-in-one issue that featured a man made out of rocks and an intergalactic cyborg. He loved comics, especially the kind that featured space aliens. So he started making his own. He and a friend drew comics and sold them for 50 cents each. Among their earliest creations were the "Trans-Smurfers," Smurfs who transformed into robotic fruit. They also flew and fought crime.
Amazon.com: Cognitive Computing: Theory and Applications, Volume 35 (Handbook of Statistics) (9780444637444): Vijay V Raghavan, Venkat N. Gudivada, Venu Govindaraju, C.R. Rao: Books
Prof Raghavan also serves as the Director of the NSF-sponsored Industry/ University Cooperative Research Center for Visual and Decision Informatics. In this role, he co-ordinates several multi-institutional, industry-driven research projects and manages a budget of over 500K/year. From 1997 to 2003, he led a 2.3M research and development project in close collaboration with the USGS National Wetlands Research Center and with the Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technical Information on creating a digital library with data mining capabilities incorporated. His research interests are in Big Data, data mining, information retrieval, machine learning and Internet computing. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed research papers --appearing in top-level journals and proceedings - that cumulatively accord him an h-index of 31, based on citations.
Could Cortana 2.0 be a chatbot? Microsoft's new AI chief hasn't ruled it out
Cortana has a new boss, and he has a problem: If Google's turning its Google Now digital assistant into a chatbot, should Microsoft do the same with Cortana? In 2014, Microsoft first unveiled Cortana, the digital assistant within Windows 10. Interacting with Cortana was simple: You asked a question, she responded. In the last few months, however, Google's Assistant has offered an alternative: a chatbot that interacts with users via an ongoing stream of text and images. In an interview with PCWorld, Shum said he hasn't ruled out adding a Cortana chatbot to its roster of digital assistants.
The Anthropology & Future Of Chat-Bots & Conversational-Commerce: An Interview With Toby Shapshak
In July of 2013 Toby Shapshak, the South African speaker, strategist and editor of Stuff Magazine, did a TED talk called You Don't Need An App For That. Business leaders, innovators and experience designers would soon realize how profound this TED talk was to the rest of the world. Shapshak's astute observations and message to the rest of the world was years ahead of a revolution that Forbes would call "the new way we'll be interacting with computers." Toby's 2013 Ted talk touted that "while the rest of the world is updating statuses and playing games on smartphones, Africa is developing useful SMS-based solutions to everyday needs". Since 2013 his TED talk has been viewed 1,438,046 times as of July 19, 2016. Fast forward a couple of years and we see more apps than anyone knows what to do with, as well as a notable decrease in usage and app-downloads. This has businesses confused and frustrated.
'NCIS' executive producer Gary Glasberg has died
Gary Glasberg, executive producer and show runner of CBS' hit "NCIS" and the creator and executive producer of its spinoff, "NCIS: New Orleans," has died. A statement from the network said that Glasberg, who was born in New York City, had died in his sleep. No other information was given. Glasberg joined "NCIS," which revolves around a team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, in 2009 as a co-executive producer and writer. He became its show runner in 2011.
AI & The Law: Q&A With Jay Leib
I started my career in 1997 with the advent of modern eDiscovery. In fact, it was not even called eDiscovery when I developed my first applications for processing data in the context of eDiscovery. I founded Advocate Solutions, Inc around that same time and we developed Discovery Cracker - one of the first eDiscovery processing applications. Producing documents was a different game back then as the price for processing was incredibly high. I Joined kCura, known for its legal database application Relativity, in 2010 and saw firsthand how fast the amount of data involved eDiscovery was rising.
Toasting life with Shimon Peres - VIDEO: Eric Shawn reports โ Shimon Peres
Dream, imagine, don't be afraid to take a risk." That life advice came from Shimon Peres as I sat with him in his Tel Aviv apartment for a Fox News interview just two months ago. The former Israeli Prime Minister and President who was a founding father of the Jewish state died at age 93 Tuesday night, but as we met this summer he was full of life, optimistic, insightful, and wise. I felt as if I was sitting with a loving and kind grandfather who just happened to be one of the founding fathers of his nation and an iconic world statesman, as he shared his views in a very personal way about what he had learned over decades. I was in Israel to shoot interviews focusing on the anniversary of the raid on Entebbe and Israel's experience fighting terrorism. I had interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the day before, and I was scheduled to sit down with Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak later on the day I met Peres. In a nearly one-hour interview, Peres not only expounded on the legacy of his nation, but philosophically spoke about the human spirit. "Look for new answers," he said. "Look for new questions, we have to have new questions.