Artificial intelligence and machine learning are poised to have a breakout 2018 in the world of media and entertainment. During the recent IBC show, Adrian Drury, group technology strategy and insight director at Liberty Global, called AI "something that's transforming our business today." "It will disrupt pretty much all areas of the market," agreed David Mowrey, head of Product & Business Development for IBM Watson Media. "We're just scratching the surface on how transformative AI will be." AI often refers to any machine or computer that exhibits cognitive functions similar to those shown in human beings.

After 3 hours of Googling, I have to ask you guys. I'm looking for an app or command-line tool that is able to increase resolution using AI. Something like Let's Enhance but free. I know about Alex J. C.'s neural-enhance but my PC is not able to run Docker. And without Docker, the installation is super complex.

As technology becomes indispensable from everyday life, humanity and tech will merge to the point they are indistinguishable, predicts communication and marketing firm PHD. Its research into the forces shaping marketing's future produced Merge: The Closing Gap Between Technology And Us, a documentary and book on how technology and human evolution had progressed since the 1950s and how technological advances over the next 25 to 35 years would reshape society and the marketing industry. The research drew on experts' insights and foresights, including inventor and author Ray Kurzweil, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, futurologist Dr Ian Pearson and Microsoft UK chief envisioning officer Dave Coplin. PHD Malaysia head Eileen Ooi said the year ahead would bring a host of new technologies that would challenge the industry but also present new opportunities for those willing to invest in innovation and take a bold first step. She cited four key trends: chatbots, sentient virtual personal assistants, next wave of wearables, and intelligent data layers that give you additional info when viewing things.

Big River Steel, based in Arkansas, makes extensive use of sensors, control systems, and machine learning-based optimization. Working with the AI consulting firm Noodle.ai, Big River has developed a variety of technologies to improve the practice and profit of steelmaking.

There is a movement underway to ban involuntary pornography, videos that use machine learning libraries like TensorFlow to superimpose faces of unwilling participants onto porn actors' bodies. Yesterday as TC's Taylor Hatmaker noted, Reddit published a content policy banning such images and video, while also shutting down a series of subreddits devoted to the practice. Pornhub and other social media sites have similarly published such policies in recent weeks. Porn, though, is merely the harbinger of a world of involuntary, fake content. Earlier this week, political scientist Henry J. Farrell and Nixonland author Rick Perlstein wrote a column in the New York Times titled, "Our Hackable Political Future."

Hopefully my title isn't too poorly worded.. I am currently upgrading a client's old transaction-based DB to something a bit more modern that locks down their flow a bit better so problems like this hopefully don't arise in the future. To give a brief overview, they use this to track hours on tubes and capacitors used in transmitters to calculate average lifespans and perform other calculations. Devices are tied to meters whose readings are updated daily. I've got the old data transformed and loaded into the new system, but running through some basic sanity checks I'm finding there is quite a bit of data that simply doesn't make sense. On a very basic level, there are transactions with IN Dates that are higher values than OUT Dates.

In 2015, Google announced it would release its internal tool for developing artificial intelligence algorithms, TensorFlow, a move that would change the tone of how AI research and development would be conducted around the world. The means to build technology that could have an impact as profound as electricity, to borrow phrasing from Google's CEO, would be open, accessible, and free to use. The barrier to entry was lowered from a Ph.D to a laptop. But that also meant TensorFlow's undeniable power was now out of Google's control. For a little over two years, academia and Silicon Valley were still the ones making the biggest splashes with the software, but now that equation is changing.

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically machine learning, being used for less-than-worthy causes has come to public attention this past week via viral videos of Nicolas Cage in movie clips. What is so interesting about Nicolas Cage movie clips, I hear you ask. Well, Cage is the star of movies he never made. You can find clips of him as Indiana Jones, James Bond and, um, Lois Lane. Finally, Face/Off makes so much sense.

The Cloverfield Paradox isn't the only sci-fi movie Netflix has saved from Hollywood purgatory. Variety has discovered that Netflix bought the worldwide rights to Extinction, a sci-fi thriller from Universal starring Lizzy Caplan and Michael Pena. The studio was originally slated to have released the alien invasion flick on January 26th, but took it off its release schedule just two months prior -- not exactly a resounding vote of confidence. The title is expected to premiere on Netflix sometime later in 2018. The movie stars Caplan and Pena as a couple, with Pena plagued by recurring nightmares of losing his family.

Amazon announced today that Amazon Music listeners will now be able to ask Alexa to make a playlist through their Alexa-enabled devices. Commands like "Alexa, add this to my playlist" and "Alexa, create a new playlist" can be used and users can ask the assistant to add songs to a specific playlist or to create a new playlist from the current song being listened to. Last month, Amazon added support for SMS messaging through Alexa-enabled devices as well as voice control to its Alexa app for Android. It introduced Alexa support to its Amazon Music app for iOS and Android last September and the company says that playlist creation has been one of its most-requested voice features. Prime Music listeners and Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can use the few feature as can those with the Amazon Music Unlimited Echo Plan, which makes the premium streaming service available on a single Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show or Amazon Tap.