Recommender systems help users find relevant items of interest, for example on e-commerce or media streaming sites. Most academic research is concerned with approaches that personalize the recommendations according to long-term user profiles. In many real-world applications, however, such long-term profiles often do not exist and recommendations therefore have to be made solely based on the observed behavior of a user during an ongoing session. Given the high practical relevance of the problem, an increased interest in this problem can be observed in recent years, leading to a number of proposals for session-based recommendation algorithms that typically aim to predict the user's immediate next actions. In this work, we present the results of an in-depth performance comparison of a number of such algorithms, using a variety of datasets and evaluation measures. Our comparison includes the most recent approaches based on recurrent neural networks like GRU4REC, factorized Markov model approaches such as FISM or FOSSIL, as well as simpler methods based, e.g., on nearest neighbor schemes. Our experiments reveal that algorithms of this latter class, despite their sometimes almost trivial nature, often perform equally well or significantly better than today's more complex approaches based on deep neural networks. Our results therefore suggest that there is substantial room for improvement regarding the development of more sophisticated session-based recommendation algorithms.

Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) has been successfully applied in many sequence learning problems. Such as handwriting recognition, image description, natural language processing and video motion analysis. After years of development, researchers have improved the internal structure of the RNN and introduced many variants. Among others, Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) is one of the most widely used RNN model. However, GRU lacks the capability of adaptively paying attention to certain regions or locations, so that it may cause information redundancy or loss during leaning. In this paper, we propose a RNN model, called Recurrent Attention Unit (RAU), which seamlessly integrates the attention mechanism into the interior of GRU by adding an attention gate. The attention gate can enhance GRU's ability to remember long-term memory and help memory cells quickly discard unimportant content. RAU is capable of extracting information from the sequential data by adaptively selecting a sequence of regions or locations and pay more attention to the selected regions during learning. Extensive experiments on image classification, sentiment classification and language modeling show that RAU consistently outperforms GRU and other baseline methods.

The 25 best gifts for men that they'll actually want (Photo: Reviewed.com) If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. Shopping for guys can be tricky business. Though "traditional" men's gifts--think neckties and whiskey stones--seem like safe bets, in truth, men have a wide variety of tastes and those "safe" gifts rarely get real use.

Even as it pledges to do good things with AI, Microsoft is pursuing a massive U.S. military contract that prompted an open letter earlier this month from a purported group of Microsoft employees worried the company might be betraying its own artificial-intelligence principles. Microsoft reaffirmed its resolve to win the military contract in its own blog post last week, promising to address any ethical concerns that may arise if it ends up working on the project.

AI'deep fake' software that can be used to make bogus videos that'threaten democracy' is being funded by a UK government research body. The AI technology - which has been described as a'propaganda weapon' - can mimic facial expressions and make it look like someone is saying something they're not. People are concerned it could be used to create fake news clips that falsely put words into the mouths of politicians or other powerful figures. The British firm developing this technology received £70,000 ($90,000) from a government-funded organisation this year, a new report has revealed. The AI technology (stock image) - which has been described as a'propaganda weapon - can mimic facial expressions and make it look like someone is saying something they're not Damian Collins, who chairs a UK select committee on fake news said deep fakes were'one of the most serious threats that democracy faces'.

Most leading phones offer the same basics: Big screens, decent battery life and good cameras. So when a newcomer brings something innovative to the party, why is it difficult to break through a phone market dominated by Apple and Samsung? One such smartphone comes out this week from Red, a company with roots in digital cameras for movie productions. The new Hydrogen One has a holographic screen that produces 3-D visuals without needing special glasses. The new Hydrogen One has a holographic screen that produces 3-D visuals without needing special glasses.

Humans have a '50/50' chance of finding life on the red planet within three years, according to an astrobiologist working on the next Mars rover. The ExoMars rover is scheduled to land on the red planet in August 2021 and will be part of a mission to investigate how the planet evolved and whether it has conditions for life. Scientists working on the project believe plans to excavate below the surface of the red planet greatly increase their chance of finding life. Humans have a '50/50' chance of finding life on the red planet within three years, according to an astrobiologist working on the next Mars rover (artist's impression) Due to launch in 2020, the ExoMars rover will be the first of its kind to travel across the martian surface and drill-down to determine if evidence of life is buried underground. Dr Susanne Schwenzer, the astrobiologist on the ExoMars rover told the Daily Telegraph that the'chances are just about 50/50'.

At Alion, we combine large company resources with small business responsiveness to design and deliver engineering solutions across six core capability areas. With an 80-year technical heritage and an employee-base comprised of more than 30% veterans, we bridge invention and action to support military readiness from the lab to the battle space. Our engineers, technologists, and program managers bring together an agile engineering methodology and the best tools on the market to deliver mission success faster and at lower costs. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards; as such, Alion is ISO 9001:2008 certified and maintains CMMI Level 3-appraised development facilities. Based just outside of Washington, D.C., we help our clients achieve practical innovations by turning big ideas into real solutions.

Cord-cutters are no longer second-class citizens in TiVo's world with the new $250 TiVo Bolt OTA DVR, which is based on the same hardware platform that TiVo offers cable-TV subscribers--less the CableCARD slot. TiVo's previous antenna-only DVR, the Roamio OTA, launched more than four years ago and is based on a cable box from 2013. The new Bolt OTA includes such features 4K UHD video support, voice control, and built-in streaming to smartphones. And while you can technically use the regular Bolt with an antenna, the Bolt OTA's DVR service is less than half the price. Still, the Bolt platform remains outdated in several ways, especially compared to networked DVRs that send video to modern streaming boxes, including Nuvyyo's Tablo, SiliconDust's HDHomeRun, and Amazon's forthcoming Fire TV Recast.

Amazon's Echo speakers represent the Next Big Thing in whole-home wireless audio: speakers that let you find and play music using only voice commands. And some of them sound quite good, although all of them are somewhat lacking when it comes to deep bass. To solve that problem, Amazon recently unveiled the Echo Sub, a subwoofer designed specifically to mate with the second-generation Echo and Echo Plus speakers, adding much deeper bass to their sonic palette. Is the Echo Sub worth adding $130 to your budget for smart speakers? The Echo Sub is quite diminutive as subwoofers go. The cylindrical, molded-plastic enclosure measures a mere 8 inches tall and 8.3 inches in diameter.