Amazon will continue to sell its controversial facial recognition software to law enforcement and other entities after its shareholders shot down a proposal to reel the technology in. The vote effectively kills two initiatives brought before Amazon's board. One proposal would have required board approval to sell the software to governments, with approval only being given if the client meets certain standards of civil liberties. Another proposal called for a study on the technology's implications on rights and privacy. The exact breakdown of the vote is unclear and according to an Amazon representative it will only be made available via SEC filings later this week.

Facial recognition cameras prevent crime, protect the public and do not breach the privacy of innocent people whose images are captured, a police force has argued. Ed Bridges, an office worker from Cardiff, claims South Wales police violated his privacy and data protection rights by using facial recognition technology on him. But Jeremy Johnson QC compared automated facial recognition (AFR) to the use of DNA to solve crimes and said it would have had little impact on Bridges. Johnson, representing the police, said: "AFR is a further technology that potentially has great utility for the prevention of crime, the apprehension of offenders and the protection of the public." The technology maps faces in a crowd and then compares them with a watch list of images, which can include suspects, missing people and persons of interest to the police.

A shape-shifting drone can transform into a car once it touches down. The drone, called FSTAR, can move through a variety of surfaces and environments, making it a potentially helpful tool in search and rescue missions. FSTAR has a wheel and a propeller on each of its four legs. The prototype is about 35 centimeters long and 25 centimeters wide. During operation, a human pilot uses a controller to drive FSTAR and change its configurations.

Digit-diallers in Japan will be jumping for joy as the country plans 10 billion new phone numbers – that's 80 per person, which is probably enough. Researchers have used an X-ray laser to create the loudest possible underwater sound, at 270 decibels. Any louder, and the water would boil. In a battle of the blocks, Minecraft has become the best-selling video game of all time, beating Tetris with 176 million copies sold. The cryptocurrency hit a recent high of $8000, but, honestly, who knows what the price will be by the time you're reading this.

Amazon might want to consider placing more of its delivery drivers in uniforms, based on a comment from one of its higher-profile customers. Ice T, the rapper who later became a TV star on "Law & Order: SVU," posted a tweet on Tuesday claiming he almost shot one of the tech giant's drivers who was "creeping up to my crib" the night before to complete a delivery. "Message To Amazon: Now that you have regular people making your home deliveries.. Maybe they should wear a Vest with AMAZON DELIVERY on it," said Ice T on Twitter. In a follow-up tweet, Ice T said he wasn't mad at the delivery person but noted it's not safe for the drivers to operate without some type of uniform. Message To Amazon: Now that you have regular people making your home deliveries.. Maybe they should wear a Vest with AMAZON DELIVERY on it..... Amazon customer service reached out to Ice T on Twitter, saying his comments would be escalated to the company's logistics team for review.

May 17, 2019 -- Microsoft Corp. and global education provider General Assembly (GA) on Friday announced a partnership to close skills gaps in the rapidly growing fields of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and data engineering, machine learning, data science, and more. This initiative will create standards and credentials for AI skills, upskill and reskill 15,000 workers by 2022, and create a pool of AI talent for the global workforce. Technologies like AI are creating demand for new worker skills and competencies: According to the World Economic Forum, up to 133 million new roles could be created by 2022 as a result of the new division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms. To address this challenge, Microsoft and GA will power 2,000 job transitions for workers into AI and machine learning roles in year one and will train an additional 13,000 workers with AI-related skills across sectors in the next three years. "Artificial intelligence is driving the greatest disruption to our global economy since industrialization, and Microsoft is an amazing partner as we develop solutions to empower companies and workers to meet that disruption head on," said Jake Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of GA. "At its core, GA has always been laser-focused on connecting what companies need to the skills that workers obtain, and we are excited to team up with Microsoft to tackle the AI skills gap."

Many of the following statistical tests are rarely discussed in textbooks or in college classes, much less in data camps. Yet they help answer a lot of different and interesting questions. I used most of them without even computing the underlying distribution under the null hypothesis, but instead, using simulations to check whether my assumptions were plausible or not. In short, my approach to statistical testing is model-free, data-driven. Some are easy to implement even in Excel.

Deepfakes … made it possible for anyone to master complex machine learning; you just needed the time to collect enough photographs of a person to train the model. You dragged these images into a folder, and the tool handled the convincing forgery from there. The anonymous user had sparked "a war on what's real," Our FREE Tools can help! How are you planning to use AI?Join the conversation on our Facebook Page!

Python has conquered the machine learning and AI world. Here's an interesting article from Analytics India Magazine about why Python is on top. According to the Stack Overflow Survey 2018, Python is the most wanted language for the second year in a row, which means it is the language that developers who do not yet use it most often say they want to learn. It is also claimed to be the fastest-growing major programming language. Developers and pioneers around the globe are implementing this language for machine learning projects.

Welcome to Data Driven, the podcast where we explore the emerging field of Data Science. We bring the best minds in Data, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence right to you. In a world where Data is the new Oil, Data Science the new Refineries, consider this Car Talk for the Data Age*. Every week we bring the best minds in this emerging field straight to you. Our goal is to educate and inspire our listeners so that they can be prepared to thrive in a Data Driven world.