The Amazon Fire TV Stick is our runner-up pick in our guide to the best media streamers. Chris Heinonen wrote, "Improved search features and an overhauled interface make the Amazon Fire TV Stick our new runner-up. You can't customize the interface as much as you can with the Roku, and its app selection is more limited, but it includes Amazon's Alexa voice-controlled assistant, letting you make queries far beyond just a movie's title. It's starting to offer direct access to titles inside your favorite streaming services without having to launch the corresponding app, but it still does push Amazon content over other companies' offerings and it isn't quite as fast as the Roku."

SIAT professors Steve DiPaola and Kate Hennessy, together with Taylor Owen from UBC's journalism school, received a Google/Knight Foundation grant to carry out the research. They presented the work to international journalists at a Journalism 360 demo event honoring grantees in New York on July 24, and the next day at a full conference held across the street from the New York Times headquarters. "Our goal is to create a working technique that would be much better at conveying emotional and knowledge information than current anonymization techniques," says DiPaola, a pioneer in AI/VR facial recognition processes. Based on its research, the team has created an updated pixelating technique using an AI "painting" approach to anonymization. "When artists paint a portrait, they try to convey the subject's outer and inner resemblance," says DiPaola, who heads SFU's Interactive Visualization Lab.

Why are so many AI researchers so worried about lethal autonomous weapons? What makes autonomous weapons so much worse than any other weapons we have today? And why is it so hard for countries to come to a consensus about autonomous weapons? Not surprisingly, the short answer is: it's complicated. In this month's podcast, Ariel spoke with experts from a variety of perspectives on the current status of LAWS, where we are headed, and the feasibility of banning these weapons. Guests include ex-Pentagon advisor Paul Scharre (3:40), artificial intelligence professor Toby Walsh (40:51), Article 36 founder Richard Moyes (53:30), Campaign to Stop Killer Robots founders Mary Wareham and Bonnie Docherty (1:03:38), and ethicist and co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, Peter Asaro (1:32:39). You can listen to the podcast above, and read the full transcript below. You can check out previous podcasts on SoundCloud, iTunes, GooglePlay, and Stitcher. If you work with ...

Fans are the primary source of income for idols and producers, for whom it is imperative to understand their needs, demands, and interests. The gaming industry, for example, is in dire need of fan-related information.[iv] Fans of books and TV series which are currently on hiatus, such as "Game of Thrones", are constantly demanding new content.[v] Sports fans are turning to swarm intelligence to make their bets,[vi] while music streaming services such as Spotify rely heavily on machine learning to create personalized music playlists.[vii] The list goes on and on.

This is small of me, but I can't help myself. Someone says they're obsessed with the TV version of Game of Thrones--or The Expanse, Altered Carbon, The Shannara Chronicles, The 100, The Magicians, whatever. I tilt my head forward, peer over my non-existent glasses, and inquire, with what I like to imagine is a sparkle of menace: Yes, but have you read the books? The hiccup of guilt is so pure. Of course they have not.

There was so much compelling news in the world of VR and AR this July I couldn't possibly cover it all with the usual depth and relish to which readers have become accustomed. This is one of those cases where by the time I returned from vacation most of the July recap below wasn't really news anymore but this news, taken as a group, is a testament to the continued entrepreneurial energy being lavished on immersive tech and illustrates how things come over the transom to me in no particular order. From upper left, "Jurassic World" at Dave & Busters, the new AR Looking Glass, "The Art of Burning Man", and the Lenovo Smart Display.Universal, Looking Glass, Lenovo, Smithsonian This story contains news and commentary about new tricks from old dogs, like Dave & Busters, and new companies we've never heard of, like Looking Glass, with extraordinary innovations in 3D object creation and review.developments in virtual assistants, AR, VR, Motion Capture, AI, LBVR. Let's talk about what they really mean. Dave & Busters launched Jurassic World VR motion platform experience at all 111 Dave & Buster's domestic locations. I spent an hour in Dave & Buster's in Times Square last Wednesday and went through the simulation twice.

Alexa, how will voice technology impact my business? Voice technology may be relatively new, but as the global popularity of Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant and Alexa shows, consumers are more than ready to move on from their keyboards. As technology improves on smartphones and speakers, the concept of physically using a device will soon become a last resort and the digital assistant will reign supreme. Voice control is the epitome of a universally intuitive and lifestyle-friendly interface. The functional practicality and simplicity of talking, not typing, will appeal to all, regardless of age, ability or generation.

"Space is big," wrote Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Adams's assertion comes repeatedly to mind when reading David Sumpter's Outnumbered, which attempts to reckon with the sheer scale of the systems that manage much of our digital lives. It's easy, when faced with the numbers at hand, to succumb to a kind of vertigo: Facebook has two billion users, who make tens of millions of posts every hour.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In a year when artificial intelligence and machine learning became a very hot topic in the media industry, the IBC Best Conference Paper Award goes to a team from BBC R&D which has investigated practical applications. The award is made to the technical paper which, according to the team of peer reviewers, delivers not just the most significant new research, but does so in an accessible way. The paper, 'AI in production: video analysis and machine learning for expanded live events coverage', will be presented at midday on Sunday 16 September as part of a new initiative at IBC2018 – 'Tech Talks'. 'Tech Talks' ensures that the highly respected technical papers remain an integral part of IBC and its conference, bringing the latest ideas to all delegates in a fresh and accessible form. Talking of the new innovation, Dr Nick Lodge, executive producer of technical sessions in the conference, said "Senior technologists and researchers who have been responsible for original and thought-provoking advances in media technology will talk about their own work, and audiences will have the rare opportunity to question these world experts. "The technologies that impact the media industry are broad," he added. "This year's'Tech Talks' will cover emerging areas like artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, 5G and blockchain." In the award-winning paper a team of BBC researchers covering a wide range of skills, under project lead Mike Evans, discuss a project known as'Ed'. This prototype system is used to create near-live content with minimal crew. An example might be a set of three unmanned 4K cameras, from which'Ed' would produce a number of properly framed HD pictures, cutting between them as appropriate. "The point of the work is to allow coverage of more events, to reach places we otherwise could not reach," Mike Evans said. "With conventional production we cover only about six of the nearly 100 places music is performed at the Glastonbury Festival, for example, or just a tiny fraction of the 50,000 performances in 300 venues at the Edinburgh Fringe." "But with'Ed' we can reach many more of these and do so with production techniques which are much less intrusive for the event itself," he explained. "This technology will be suitable not just for major production companies like the BBC, but for a whole range of use cases, like minor sports which need to increase visibility, and even vloggers who want to improve their online presence." Dr Paul Entwistle, Chair of the IBC Technical Papers Committee which provides careful peer review of the many papers proposed for IBC, said "The detail in this paper is absolutely fascinating.

Chinese online search giant Baidu today said net profit for the second quarter jumped 45 percent, fuelled by growth in its personalised news app and artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The firm logged a net income for April-June of 6.4 billion yuan (USD 967 million). "We had another strong quarter in Q2 with search exhibiting robust revenue growth driven by AI-powered monetisation capabilities, and Baidu feed continuing strong traffic and monetisation momentum," said Robin Li, chairman and chief executive. The Beijing-based company said its total revenues swelled 32 per cent and about three-quarters of its profit came from mobile revenue. Baidu App, which offers personalised news feeds and search, saw daily active users rise 17 per cent year on year to 148 million in June.