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Indian artificial intelligence system which predicted the primaries says Trump will win

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Super-statistician Nate Silver has a rival - and it's not human. An Indian artificial intelligence system which correctly predicted the primaries as well as the last three U.S. presidential elections has forecast a win for Donald Trump. MoglA scans and analyzes internet information from sites including Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to make its predictions, CNBC reported. The technology is named after Mowgli, Rudyard Kipling's character in The Jungle Book, because it learns from its environment. Part of the technology's calculations is the amount of engagement a candidate gets online from the general population.


Apple MacBook Pro UK price pushed up £500 by Brexit-related currency chaos

The Independent - Tech

The new MacBook Pro was always going to be expensive. But it is very expensive indeed in the UK, after the prices were shifted because of the falling pound. The computers are as much as £500 more expensive than previous models, because of a combination of the currency changes and the upgrades introduced by Apple. Buying the cheapest version of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar that was released yesterday will cost customers £1,749. Customers can spend as much as £2,699 on stock models of the computer, if they buy the 15-inch version.


WhatsApp data sharing with Facebook must be stopped until it can be proved legal, European Union warns

The Independent - Tech

European privacy experts have sent letters to WhatsApp telling it to stop sharing people's data with Facebook. WhatsApp announced in recent weeks that it would start handing over information about the people who use it to Facebook, so that its parent company could use that data to better target ads. But the company didn't give a very easy way of opting out of it, and the deal has drawn the attention of customers and regulators. Now EU privacy watchdogs have told WhatsApp and Facebook that the deal must be stopped until it can be checked whether it is legal or not. Presumably if the deal is found to be illegal then it will be forced to stop.


AI system that correctly predicted last 3 US elections says Donald Trump will win

The Independent - Tech

The New York businessman with a penchant for celebrity television may suddenly find himself in love with artificial intelligence developed in India. The polls and simulations that involve the skills and insight of human beings suggest Donald Trump could be heading for something of a pasting. But an artificial intelligence (AI) system developed in Mumbai, and which correctly predicted the last three US presidential elections, puts the Republican nominee ahead of his rival Hillary Clinton in the battle to secure the keys to the White House. MogIA was developed by Sanjiv Rai, the founder of Indian start-up Genic.ai. It has taken 20 million data points from public platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter and analysed the information to create predictions, CNBC reported.


New Apple MacBook Pro: 10 things we learnt from trying the redesigned laptop

The Independent - Tech

Apple has launched its latest products in its headquarters in Cupertino, California. In the 24 hours since, I've been trying out the new MacBook Pro for size. First of all, I should point out that this is the entry-level MacBook Pro, not the more expensive MacBook Pro with TouchBar. TouchBar is the ground-breaking innovation where the top row of function keys is replaced with a long, touch-sensitive display strip. I tried this briefly and it's frankly pretty amazing. But I'll be reviewing that and the sapphire-crystal power and Touch ID button also found on the MacBook Pro with TouchBar in due course.


Our autonomous future: How driverless cars will be the first robots we learn to trust

ZDNet

In March 2015, an Audi SQ5 began its nine-day journey from the Golden Gate Bridge to midtown Manhattan. The 3400-mile drive involved the normal obstacles: construction, highways, city driving, lane-passing. Until recently, the concept of a driverless car seemed like the stuff of science fiction. But much has changed in just a few short years as the technology behind autonomous vehicles has taken huge strides. The cross-country driving Audi, powered by technology from Delphi, drove in autonomous mode 99 percent of the time. The US federal government has also begun to embrace autonomous vehicles as a coming reality. In February 2016, the US Department of Transportation (US DOT) announced that it considers the AI powering Google's driverless cars (which have already logged hundreds of thousands of self-driven miles) officially a "driver"--marking a groundbreaking moment in the history of transportation.


The human element of cybersecurity

Christian Science Monitor | Science

If you're inclined to think of cybersecurity as lending itself to clean, elegant, better-than-human, extremely secure solutions, you probably don't work in the field. But one bias held by many in information security is that much of the mess is because humans -- not hackers, shoddy software or poorly-built devices -- are the source of the vast majority of our digital vulnerabilities. Why extend the time and energy to hack into a heavily-guarded system, security experts might opine, if you can simply trick a user into clicking a link laden with malware? If businesses didn't have to deal with the "end user" (that is, you and I), this reasoning goes, all our problems would be solved. This represents a quiet bias against users in nearly every conversation about cybersecurity.


Video games become political as US election looms

New Scientist

Video games aren't just for fun – they can make a political point, too. Responding to current affairs is a growing trend in gaming, and it is more evident than ever in the run-up to the US presidential election. There are dozens of Donald Trump-themed indie titles on PC game store Steam. And bigger developers are also incorporating political themes in their games. Chris Baker, a former creative director at news and entertainment website Buzzfeed, launched GOP Arcade with a friend this year.


America is using AI to transform airport body scanning

#artificialintelligence

High-speed body scanners powered by advanced artificial intelligence are to be trialled across US airports and subway stations. According to The Guardian, documents filed by Evolv Technology with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show plans to test the new systems at Denver International airport, Los Angeles' Union Station metro and Union Station in Washington DC. Evolv's scanners use millimetre-wave radio frequencies to scan a person's body. This setup is currently used by the full-body scanners found in airports, but whereas those devices slow down the screening process, the new scanners can finish their work in a fraction of a second. This means individuals can simply walk through the gate without having to stop.


You are now data, and your doctors are becoming software

#artificialintelligence

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, recently announced a $3 billion effort to cure all disease during the lifetime of their daughter, Max. Earlier this year, Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker donated $250 million to increase collaboration amongst researchers to develop immune therapies for cancer. Google is developing contact lenses for diabetic glucose monitoring; gathering genetic data to create a picture of what a healthy human should be; and working to increase human longevity. The technology industry has entered the field of medicine and aims to eliminate disease itself. It may well succeed because of a convergence of exponentially advancing technologies such as computing, artificial intelligence, sensors, and genomic sequencing.