Tesla Inc. has parted ways with another senior leader on its self-driving technology team, adding more turmoil to a program that is under pressure to meet the grand ambitions of Chief Executive Elon Musk.

The nation's top-level intelligence office, the Director of National Intelligence, wants to find "the most accurate unconstrained face recognition algorithm." A branch of the office, which oversees the nation's spy agencies, is holding a contest toward that end, with submissions due no later than 2pm ET June 15. "Have you developed software to identity faces in general web photographs? Can your software verify that a face in one photograph is the same as in another?" asks a posting on challenge.gov The goal of the Face Recognition Prize Challenge is to improve core face recognition accuracy and expand the breadth of capture conditions and environments suitable for successful face recognition.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted all sorts of strange features on the Martian surface, from deep pits to reptilian-looking craters. But, in a recent observation, the instrument caught a glimpse of something far more familiar. A stunning new image shows a look at the rocky mountainside terrain of Mars' Mount Sharp – and, appearing as a bright blue speck at the center, the Curiosity rover can be seen as it presses onward in its uphill mission. In a recent observation, the instrument caught a glimpse of something familiar. A stunning new image shows a look at the rocky mountainside terrain of Mars' Mount Sharp – and, appearing as a bright blue speck at the center, the Curiosity rover can be seen as it presses onward in its uphill mission Curiosity's top speed is 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) per second.

Thanks to recent improvements in internet connectivity and the emergence of numerous global big-hitters, South Africa has finally made a name for itself in the technological space. But while one might expect the country's'next big thing' to be found in tech-centric cities like Stellenbosch, it's in fact in an unassuming corner of Bloemfontein where the foundations for South Africa's own Silicon Valley are being laid. Founded in 2014, Bloem-based performance marketing company Xineoh is making waves internationally thanks to its unique vectorization algorithm, which has already generated in excess of $30 million in revenue for clients across the globe, attracting the interest of investors, with $2million received in backing to date in 2017. A pioneer in the AI and machine learning space, Xineoh's distinctive algorithm bears similarities to those used by the likes of Amazon.com and Netflix, tapping into user behaviour to predict potential purchasing behaviour and serve users bespoke information likely to incite conversion. Yet unlike these tried and tested models, Xineoh's algorithm relies on available rather than inputted information, creating associations based on the way other users have interacted with the same product or service, thus enabling it to be used across a wide variety of industries and generate uncannily accurate recommendations.

Abstract: We are increasingly surrounded by artificially intelligent technology that takes decisions and executes actions on our behalf. This creates a pressing need for general means to communicate with, instruct and guide artificial agents, with human language the most compelling means for such communication. To achieve this in a scalable fashion, agents must be able to relate language to the world and to actions; that is, their understanding of language must be grounded and embodied. However, learning grounded language is a notoriously challenging problem in artificial intelligence research. Here we present an agent that learns to interpret language in a simulated 3D environment where it is rewarded for the successful execution of written instructions.

I want to create music generated by mathematical algorithms, or even turning big data files into sound files, just like NASA turned electromagnetic signals from space into music. Producing artificially generated music is a popular subject, see for instance Composing Music With Recurrent Neural Networks, or Using Machine Learning to Generate Music. My question is how to access my laptop's speaker from a script written in Python or Perl. I used to do it long ago in C language, using the command sound available in the Borland package. Today I tried various system calls from within Perl, or directly from the command line, to non avail.

Accenture Report: Artificial Intelligence Has Potential to Increase Corporate Profitability in 16 Industries by an Average of 38 Percent by 2035 NEW YORK; June 21, 2017 – Businesses that successfully apply artificial intelligence (AI) could increase profitability by an average of 38 percent by 2035, according to a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN). The introduction of AI could lead to an economic boost of US$14 trillion in additional gross value added (GVA) across 16 industries in 12 economies. To capitalize on the opportunity, the report identifies eight key strategies for successfully implementing AI that focus on adopting a human-centric approach and taking bold and responsible steps to applying the technology within businesses and organizations. "Artificial intelligence will revolutionize how businesses compete and grow, representing an entirely new factor of production that can ignite corporate profitability," said Paul Daugherty, chief technology & innovation officer, Accenture. "To realize this significant opportunity, it's critical that businesses act now to develop strategies around AI that put people at the center, and commit to develop responsible AI systems that are aligned to moral and ethical values that will drive positive outcomes and empower people to do what they do best – imagine, create and innovate."

That said, I would have thought he was a bit young for a "Director" role. Most other big tech companies have directors of his professors' generation. Not doubting his skill, ability to communicate, or his passion, it just seems a pretty surprising move from a large company. Has Andrej ever managed a team before (beyond running a course or supervising some students)? And does he have any serious SDC experience?

Paramount Pictures has retooled its decade-old "Transformers" franchise with a new mythology that ties the giant alien robots to the legend of King Arthur, Stonehenge and World War II. Still, after four previous movies, the Michael Bay franchise may be looking rusty to American audiences. The fifth in the series, "Transformers: The Last Knight," should gross $70 million Wednesday through Sunday in the United States and Canada, according to people who have reviewed audience surveys. Though that number will almost certainly be enough to unseat "Cars 3" from the No. 1 chart position, it will represent a steep drop from the previous installment. "Transformers: Age of Extinction," released in 2014, opened with $100 million in its first three days.

This is a class in data visualization. But before we leap into making charts and maps, we'll consider the nature of data, and some basic principles that will help you to "interview" datasets to find and tell stories. This is not a class in statistics, but I will introduce a few fundamental statistical concepts, which hopefully will stand you in good stead as we work to visualize data over the next few weeks -- and beyond. We're often told that there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics." But data visualization and statistics provide a view of the world that we can't otherwise obtain. They give us a framework to make sense of daunting and otherwise meaningless masses of information. The "lies" that data and graphics can tell arise when people misuse statistics and visualization methods, not when they are used correctly. The best data journalists understand that statistics and graphics go hand-in-hand. Just as numbers can be made to lie, graphics may misinform if the designer is ignorant of or abuses basic statistical principles. You don't have to be an expert statistician to make effective charts and maps, but understanding some basic principles will help you to tell a convincing and compelling story -- enlightening rather than misleading your audience. I hope you will get hooked on the power of a statistical way of thinking. As data artist Martin Wattenberg of Google has said: "Visualization is a gateway drug to statistics." Download the data for this session from here, unzip the folder and place it on your desktop.