Goto

Collaborating Authors

 Personal Assistant Systems


Chinese firm seeks to sell Grindr dating app over US security concerns

The Guardian

Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Limited is seeking to sell Grindr, the popular gay dating app it has owned since 2016, after a US government national security panel raised concerns about its ownership, according to people familiar with the matter. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has informed Kunlun that its ownership of West Hollywood, California-based Grindr constitutes a national security risk, the two sources told Reuters. CFIUS's specific concerns and whether any attempt was made to mitigate them could not be learned. The United States has been increasingly scrutinizing application developers over the safety of personal data they handle, especially if some of it involves US military or intelligence personnel. Kunlun had said last August it was preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) of Grindr.


US Is Forcing a Chinese Firm to Sell Gay Dating App Grindr

WIRED

The US government says a Chinese gaming company's ownership of the gay dating app Grindr poses a national security risk, according to a report from Reuters. Beijing Kunlun Tech acquired a 60 percent stake in Grindr in 2016 and bought the rest in 2018. But, Reuters reports, the Chinese firm didn't clear the acquisition with the agency known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which evaluates the national security impacts of foreign investments in US companies. Kunlun is now seeking to sell Grindr following the CFIUS assessment, according to Reuters. Grindr declined to comment; CFIUS and Kunlun did not respond to requests for comment.


What is AI? Everything you need to know about Artificial Intelligence ZDNet

#artificialintelligence

Video: Getting started with artificial intelligence and machine learning It depends who you ask. Back in the 1950s, the fathers of the field Minsky andMcCarthy, described artificial intelligence as any task performed by a program or a machine that, if a human carried out the same activity, we would say the human had to apply intelligence to accomplish the task. That obviously is a fairly broad definition, which is why you will sometimes see arguments over whether something is truly AI or not. AI systems will typically demonstrate at least some of the following behaviors associated with human intelligence: planning, learning, reasoning, problem solving, knowledge representation, perception, motion, and manipulation and, to a lesser extent, social intelligence and creativity. AI is ubiquitous today, used to recommend what you should buy next online, to recognise what you say to virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, to recognise who and what is in a photo, to spot spam, or detect credit card fraud. At a very high level artificial intelligence can be split into two broad types: narrow AI and general AI. Narrow AI is what we see all around us in computers today: intelligent systems that have been taught or learned how to carry out specific tasks without being explicitly programmed how to do so.


Samsung SmartThings Hub (2018) review: Samsung's smart hub finally goes wireless

PCWorld

Samsung SmartThings has been the leading product in the smart hub space pretty much since the day it was released, but one small problem has long held it back: It had to be tethered to your router with an ethernet cable. For many users, including myself, that one problem was a deal breaker. There are just two available ethernet ports on my router, and I'm just not interested in turning my living room into a server closet with switches and cables running all over the place. With the third-generation SmartThings Hub (Samsung model number GP-U999SJVLGDA), Samsung finally enters the wireless age in earnest. It still provides the option to connect the hub to your router via ethernet, but Wi-Fi connectivity is the default.


How To Put Machine Learning To Work For Your Business

#artificialintelligence

Machine learning has been driving innovation in product features for several years, becoming a vital component of enhancing the consumer experience. However, in terms of what machine learning (ML) -- and specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) -- can do, we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. As a business leader, you may feel a bit like Chevy Chase in Fletch trying to flub your way into appearing knowledgeable about machine learning (it's all ball bearings nowadaysโ€ฆ). Nevertheless, it's vital to understand what machine learning is and how to get the most out of it for your business. While it sounds technical, machine learning, in the simplest sense, is a branch of artificial intelligence that uses computer algorithms to learn from data and make better predictions.


Youper - AI Assistant For Helping You Feel Your Best

#artificialintelligence

Great people always have an assistant by their side. Through quick conversations, Youper helps you monitor and take control of your emotional health. Youper is a useful AI tool to help reformulate thought patterns, think through scenarios, emotions and arrive at healthier states of mind. AI is the way of the future. I really love this app.


Degenerate Feedback Loops in Recommender Systems

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Machine learning is used extensively in recommender systems deployed in products. The decisions made by these systems can influence user beliefs and preferences which in turn affect the feedback the learning system receives - thus creating a feedback loop. This phenomenon can give rise to the so-called "echo chambers" or "filter bubbles" that have user and societal implications. In this paper, we provide a novel theoretical analysis that examines both the role of user dynamics and the behavior of recommender systems, disentangling the echo chamber from the filter bubble effect. In addition, we offer practical solutions to slow down system degeneracy. Our study contributes toward understanding and developing solutions to commonly cited issues in the complex temporal scenario, an area that is still largely unexplored.


Smart talking: are our devices threatening our privacy?

The Guardian

On 21 November 2015, James Bates had three friends over to watch the Arkansas Razorbacks play the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Bates, who lived in Bentonville, Arkansas, and his friends drank beer and did vodka shots as a tight football game unfolded. After the Razorbacks lost 51โ€“50, one of the men went home; the others went out to Bates's hot tub and continued to drink. Bates would later say that he went to bed around 1am and that the other two men โ€“ one of whom was named Victor Collins โ€“ planned to crash at his house for the night. When Bates got up the next morning, he didn't see either of his friends. But when he opened his back door, he saw a body floating face-down in the hot tub. A grim local affair, the death of Victor Collins would never have attracted international attention if it were not for a facet of the investigation that pitted the Bentonville authorities against one of the world's most powerful companies โ€“ Amazon. Collins' death triggered a broad debate about privacy in the voice-computing era, a discussion that makes the big tech companies squirm.


Apple News includes 'LA Times' and 'Wall Street Journal' subscriptions

Engadget

At its streaming service event in Cupertino on Monday, Apple announced that in addition to more than 300 magazine titles (including TechCrunch) as part of its newly revealed News app, the company will also include subscriptions to the LA Times and Wall Street Journal. What's more, users will get access to the entire digital newsstand for $9.99 a year. Given that users would have to shell out more than $8,000 annually to acquire these magazines individually, that's a pretty good deal. Another interesting feature included in News is the app's recommendation engine. Unlike the recommendation algorithms you'd find on other streaming services like Netflix, News's feature runs on the device itself, rather than remotely on Apple's servers.


Alexa's new Song ID feature can announce what music is playing next

#artificialintelligence

Amazon today is launching a new feature called "Song ID" that aims to help users discover music they like by using Alexa. When enabled, Alexa will announce the title and the artist name before playing each song while you're listening to a radio station, playlist or new release on Amazon Music over your smart speaker. The optional feature for Echo devices can be enabled or disabled by voice at any time by asking Alexa to "turn on Song ID" or "turn off Song ID." When listening to music through mobile or desktop apps, it's easy to give a quick glance at your streaming app to note an artist's name or song's title. But when you're streaming music over a smart speaker, your device may be put away and not as easily accessible. And unlike on terrestrial radio, there's no DJ to announce what's coming up next as the music streams over an Amazon Echo.