Wellness
Spotify joins up with Headspace to help people practice mindfulness and meditation
Spotify is looking to make people better, as well as more entertained. The company has launched a new partnership with Headspace, an app meant to help people live "healthier and happier lives". In the new deal, people will be able to suscribe to both of the services for a reduced price. Together, the two apps will sell for ยฃ14.99 -- or roughly the same price in other currencies -- rather than the ยฃ10 or so that each of them costs. A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.
Photoreceptor found in worms 50 times better at detecting light rays than human eye
The modest eyeless roundworm appears to have the remarkable superhero-like ability to taste light. A new type of cell has been discovered in the taste receptors of these creatures which is about 50 times more efficient at capturing light than the human eye. Scientists say that the unusual characteristics of the receptor could be used in a range of applications, including creating more effective sunscreens. It might sound like a power only superheroes could have, but the modest eyeless roundworm has the ability to taste light. Animal photoreceptors usually have two components โ a base protein, and a light-absorbing chromophore.
Artificial Intelligence Robots: Why Human Baby Brains Are Smarter Than AI
Machines are capable of understanding speech, recognizing faces and driving cars safely, making recent technological advancements seem impressively powerful. But if the field of artificial intelligence is going to make the transformative leap into building human-like machines, it'll first have to master the way babies learn. "Relatively recently in AI there's been a shift from thinking about designing systems that can do the sort of things that adults can do, to realizing if you want to have systems that are as flexible and powerful and do the kinds of things that adults do, you need to have systems that can learn the way babies and children do," developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, told International Business Times. "If you compare what computers can do now to what they could do 10 years ago, they've certainly made a lot of progress, but if you compare them to what a four year old can do, there's still a pretty enormous gap." Babies and children construct theories about the world around them using the same approach scientists use to construct scientific theories.
Chatbots as your Personal Finance Assistant - Maruti Techlabs
As described in our earlier blog on "Here's all that you need to know about Chatbots", ChatBots are software programs that are present in our messaging apps to perform different tasks. How about having a Bot that tracks our daily expenses and prevents unnecessary spending? Fintech companies have already started their path towards this trend. As Bots can be programmed for virtually anything, it would be possible for financial service organizations to build a financial advisor, broker, investment manager and virtually any other bot. Chatbots/ Virtual Assistants are going to change the way we live radically.
Uber uses trip data to recommend popular restaurants
As you might expect, a lot of Uber riders use the service to get to and from restaurants and bars. Thanks to its customer base, the ride-sharing company has a lot of info on which spots are popular in the cities where it operates. Uber announced this week that its putting all of those trip details to use with a new restaurant guide. The ranking system divides restaurants into six different categories: most popular, local favorites, up-and-coming, brunch spots, weekend picks and date-night destinations. All of those are pretty self-explanatory and the lists can be viewed on this web page.
Meet the Woman Pioneering Work To Make AI Emotionally Intelligent
Humans are already forming relationships with their artificial intelligence (AI) assistants, so we should make that technology as emotionally aware as possible by teaching it to respond to our feelings. That is the premise of Rana el Kaliouby, cofounder and CEO of Affectiva, an MIT spinout company that sells emotion recognition technology based on her computer science PhD, which she spent building the first ever computer that can recognise emotions. The machine learning-based software uses a camera or webcam to identify parts of human faces (eyebrows, the corners of eyes, etc), classify expressions and map them onto emotions like joy, disgust, surprise, anger, and so on, in real time. "We are getting lots of interest around chatbots, self-driving cars, anything with a conversational interface. If it's interfacing with a human it needs social and emotional skills. This tech is already being integrated into robots," el Kaliouby tells Techworld.
Fifty Startups Join TechCode's First Global Artificial Intelligence Accelerator
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 16, 2016) - TechCode, a global network of startup incubators and entrepreneur ecosystems, today announces the first cohort for its new accelerator program named the Global AI Accelerator. The accelerator will help startups build their product, streamline their supply chain, find and hire the right talent, syndicate and close funding rounds, strengthen their IP portfolio and gain access to global distribution channels. The cohort comprises fifty startups from ten countries, including the United States, China, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Israel, Korea, Mexico and Spain, who are integrating artificial intelligence in their technology, such as voice recognition, machine learning, natural language processing and more. Calibrate Education, Inc. creates tools that will allow students to learn in new ways and develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter Eggcyte builds personal cloud devices that let users store, search and privately share photos and videos Jasper is an AI-powered bot which is an evolution from a freelance marketplace into an on-demand recruiting service Sereneti Kitchen uses its robotic chef, Cooki, and food ecosystem, Foodi, to help users cook fresh, modern cuisine Slick is a motorized 3-axis stabilizer for GoPros, allowing action sports lovers to better capture their experiences Smartypans, a 2017 CES Innovation Award honoree, is a pan that computes nutrition, teaches users how to cook and documents recipes via an accompanying mobile app Solidface enables teams to create 3D designs, edit and collaborate in real time through its 3D CAD solution Sutro monitors water quality in pools or spas and allows users to administer chemicals or connect with a pool technician via a mobile app Titanium Falcon is a smart ring that uses motion or gestures to control apps on smart devices Yono is the first in-ear basal body temperature thermometer to collect data comfortably and accurately Calibrate Education, Inc. creates tools that will allow students to learn in new ways and develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter "International expansion is becoming more of a priority for today's startups, especially within the artificial intelligence field as the technology grows rapidly across the globe," said Luke Tang, Head of the TechCode Global AI Accelerator Program. "Our first-of-its-kind accelerator program enables our startups, who are from all over the world, to tap into our global resources to quickly commercialize their technologies and scale up their business. In doing so, we hope to further advance the artificial intelligence industry and help these promising startups find new ways to solve existing problems."
Making data science accessible - Markov Chains
A Markov chain is a random process with the property that the next state depends only on the current state. For example: If you have the choice of red or blue twice the process would be Markovian if each time you chose the decision had nothing to do with your choice previously (see diagram below). How can Markov Chains help us? To start with we need to define some basic terminology. The changes of state within the system are called transitions, and the probabilities associated with various state-changes are called transition probabilities.
suitX's modular exoskeleton can prevent work-related injuries
Now, the company has officially launched another product: one that can prevent people from needing that exoskeleton in the first place. The modular suit is composed of three modules: one supports the back, another supports the shoulders, while the third one supports the legs. Businesses can buy each one separately, and workers can wear just one or any combination of the three. The company envisions it preventing injuries in people working in construction, airports, assembly lines, shipbuilding, warehouses, delivery services and factories. Researchers from UC Berkeley conducted a study to find out how effective the back module actually is, for instance, and found that it reduced muscle activity in the lower back by 60 percent.
Hello, Alexa? Call your Hyundai car from home
USA TODAY's Chris Woodyard gets a look at Hyundai's new Blue Link connection through Amazon's Alexa at the Los Angeles Auto Show. LOS ANGELES -- Sometimes, even the most diehard couch potato needs to leave the house. For them, Hyundai has come up with a system to ease the pain -- with a little help from Amazon's Alexa. Starting today, Tuesday, Hyundai vehicle owners who subscribe to the Blue Link connectivity service will be able to sign up to use it in conjunction with Amazon Echo. You can call your car hands-free from inside the house on a cold morning, start the car and have it all warmed up by the time you go outside.