Media
Boston Dynamics' scary robot videos: Are they for real?
If you've ever watched a YouTube video of a Boston Dynamics robot, you probably remember it. But you may not know what the videos leave out. Millions of people have watched the humanoid Atlas jogging through a field, or the intimidating, 6.5-foot-tall Handle zip back and forth swiftly (and ominously) on wheeled legs. Then there's the dog-like SpotMini dexterously opening a door -- a machine so unsettling it inspired a nightmarish episode of the TV show "Black Mirror" last year. All of these robots are real, but the videos can sometimes be misleading.
Cisco banks on AI-based workplace future
Above: Demonstrating how to use virtual reality integrated with meetings and collaboration tools in the workplace. Artificial intelligence (AI), digital assistants, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) will play a significant role in the future workplace, allowing employees new user experiences and more productivity in team collaboration. These emerging technologies also help organisations to communicate with their customers more efficiently and increase sales revenue. "For workers, meetings are the most tense and time-consuming sessions, but innovative technologies will enable stakeholders to have new experiences at meetings, allowing collaborative work efficiently," said Sandeep Mehra, managing director for collaboration sales at Cisco Systems. He said Cisco makes affordable, open and simple usage a part of its collaborative platform serving the changing work environment, where mobile has become a major tool and multi-generational workers can work together.
Sonos Beam: Everything you need to know about the smartest speaker your TV can have
Sonos has revealed the Beam, a speaker that sits under your TV. The company's pitch is that the device is really three different things all packed into one box: not only a soundbar, but also a music player and a smart assistant, as well. And in fact it is more than one smart assistant, with Sonos announcing at the same event that Siri will now be able to talk to Alexa, and that Google Assistant will also eventually be coming to its speakers. But another important point is that box all of that is crammed into is much smaller than its other devices. Until now, its only TV speakers have been the Playbase and the Playbar, which either sit beneath or in front of the television and sweep all the way in front of it.
Assessing the impact of machine intelligence on human behaviour: an interdisciplinary endeavour
Gรณmez, Emilia, Castillo, Carlos, Charisi, Vicky, Dahl, Verรณnica, Deco, Gustavo, Delipetrev, Blagoj, Dewandre, Nicole, Gonzรกlez-Ballester, Miguel รngel, Gouyon, Fabien, Hernรกndez-Orallo, Josรฉ, Herrera, Perfecto, Jonsson, Anders, Koene, Ansgar, Larson, Martha, de Mรกntaras, Ramรณn Lรณpez, Martens, Bertin, Miron, Marius, Moreno-Bote, Rubรฉn, Oliver, Nuria, Gallardo, Antonio Puertas, Schweitzer, Heike, Sebastian, Nuria, Serra, Xavier, Serrร , Joan, Tolan, Songรผl, Vold, Karina
This document contains the outcome of the first Human behaviour and machine intelligence (HUMAINT) workshop that took place 5-6 March 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. The workshop was organized in the context of a new research programme at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, which focuses on studying the potential impact of artificial intelligence on human behaviour. The workshop gathered an interdisciplinary group of experts to establish the state of the art research in the field and a list of future research challenges to be addressed on the topic of human and machine intelligence, algorithm's potential impact on human cognitive capabilities and decision making, and evaluation and regulation needs. The document is made of short position statements and identification of challenges provided by each expert, and incorporates the result of the discussions carried out during the workshop. In the conclusion section, we provide a list of emerging research topics and strategies to be addressed in the near future.
Color Sails: Discrete-Continuous Palettes for Deep Color Exploration
Shugrina, Maria, Kar, Amlan, Singh, Karan, Fidler, Sanja
We present color sails, a discrete-continuous color gamut representation that extends the color gradient analogy to three dimensions and allows interactive control of the color blending behavior. Our representation models a wide variety of color distributions in a compact manner, and lends itself to applications such as color exploration for graphic design, illustration and similar fields. We propose a Neural Network that can fit a color sail to any image. Then, the user can adjust color sail parameters to change the base colors, their blending behavior and the number of colors, exploring a wide range of options for the original design. In addition, we propose a Deep Learning model that learns to automatically segment an image into color-compatible alpha masks, each equipped with its own color sail. This allows targeted color exploration by either editing their corresponding color sails or using standard software packages. Our model is trained on a custom diverse dataset of art and design. We provide both quantitative evaluations, and a user study, demonstrating the effectiveness of color sail interaction. Interactive demos are available at www.colorsails.com.