Anyway, I very rarely use the social network, but am amused enough by it to keep an eye on its evolution. Specifically, the way its UX design has shifted. [Read: 4 ridiculously easy ways you can be more eco-friendly] As haphazard as lots of the design is, there does appear to be a goal: driving up in engagement. That makes sense, but where the real joy comes from is the batshit way this is approached....
Microsoft, a company with numerous military contracts, has brazenly admitted it intends to train an artificial intelligence agent to become “unbeatable” by humans in war simulations. Feel free to run amok in a fugue state of panic at your own discretion, but I should point out it’s for a video game. Of course, that doesn’t really make it any less scary. Up front: an upcoming real-time strategy game titled Age of Empires 4 is set to release on Xbox Game Pass at the end of October....
If you’re curious as to what it all looks like and how it works, the good folks over at EV advocate channel Fully Charged got a first look at the Grideserve station in Braintree, Essex. As we’ve covered before, the service station will be able to charge 30 EVs at the same time, and has chargers with a peak power output of 350kW. In other words, it should have enough power to fast charge EVs that aren’t even released yet....
The company sells a ton of phones priced under $300 worldwide, and that has helped it get ahead in the volume game. But it hasn’t earned its stripes in the flagship device arena. Perhaps that’s why it has included almost every top-end feature you can think of in its latest Xiaomi 12 Pro phone. I’ve been using it for the last few weeks, and it was really fun. The 12 Pro had me playing games and watching videos for hours a day because of its top-notch screen....
If you’ve never tried any B&O tech before, you can find out what the excitement is about with a set of their Beoplay H4 Wireless Headphones. You can get ‘em while saving some serious cash, knocking over $150 off their retail price right now with the use of limited-time coupon ‘WEEKEND15’ from TNW Deals. The Beoplay H4s are engineered to deliver the company’s signature sound while adhering to the artist’s aural intentions....
Corporate organizations are huge, startups are tiny. They’ve probably been around for decades or even centuries and they’ve got millions of customers whereas startups are new and probably lack clients. So, how should startups go about procuring corporate clients? We spoke to Adrien Cohen, president and co-founder of Tractable, a London-based insurtech startup that develops AI to assess damage and estimate repair costs in ‘real time,’ who shared his cheat sheet to help anyone looking to navigate the corporate jungle....
Over the past few months I’ve been aboard the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX, a no-holds-barred race bike, as my daily training and road riding machine. I wrote my initial thoughts down after a joyous few weeks of riding the iridescent beauty, but now, I’ve put over 2,500 fun-filled miles (4,020 km) on the machine and it’s time to figure out how I really feel about riding a $5,000 race bike 5 days a week....
In what might be my favorite demonstration of just how much we can benefit from recycling, students at the Eindhoven University of Technology have unveiled Luca, a cute electric car made largely from plastic you threw away years ago. The team of 22 students first revealed its design back in December 2019, and have now completed its construction using a range of recycled materials. The project has taken a total of 18 months, and also involved numerous companies who helped with various materials needed to build it....
The system was developed by Largo Films, a Swiss firm that provides data-driven analytics to the movie industry. The company used machine learning to predict which of the thespians will capture the public’s hearts — and which ones will have them dreaming of the guillotine. The AI analyzes movie scripts and footage from Largo’s database of films to create a ‘DNA footprint’ for each actor comprised of more than 1,000 on-screen attributes, such as character typology and story elements “The system also knows how the audience reaction was for those films from the financial results and trend parameters,” Sami Arpa, CEO of Largo, told TNW....
But a new AI project has rewritten tennis folklore, by recreating the point to hand King Roger the crown. The system converts broadcast video of tennis matches into controllable players that look and behave like the stars. The AI generates the graphics by analyzing historical points. This “shot cycle” begins with a player approaching an incoming ball. They then hit it back to a location on the court, and move towards a recovery position where they await the return....
Has your company IT team ever employed a business translator? How about a network guardian? Or maybe a network detective? Probably not, but according to Cisco, that day may not be too far away. In their 2020 Global Networking Trends Report, the hardware and software giant projected into the future of networking, even speculating on a handful of new IT roles that may develop soon. Cisco says the new jobs will likely be hybrid posts that better service the link between commerce and technology....
Alongside the two BEVs, the company is also launching a new plug-in hybrid. Sadly, that’s all the info we get from the latest announcement. Toyota seemed more keen in its announcement to bang on about the virtues of all-electric drivetrains and plug-in hybrids, than share more details of what we’ll get to drive next. It’s a bit of a change of tune considering that the Japanese marque has rigidly stuck to hybrid tech, with a smattering of hydrogen on the side with its Mirai....
Sometimes, it’s best to just try and erase every possible reason for procrastinating or not moving forward on a project all in one fell swoop. Like saying to yourself that the reason you haven’t started learning Italian yet is because those headphones you’ve got are really crummy and make listening to online classes difficult. Well, you just lost that excuse with this Lifetime Language Learning Bundle ft. uTalk and xFyro ($49....
No? Not ringing a bell? Me neither. That’s what you get when you spend your high school years learning calculus and icing pi on cookie cakes instead of doing sports. It’s time you never get back. Unless, of course, you figure out a way to use that high school math to become a better athlete. Which is what we’ll be looking at today. In this article, I’ll show you how to use machine learning to analyze your performance in your sport of choice (as an example, I’ll be using my tennis serve, but you can easily adopt the technique to other games)....
People in the US can pre-order the app of this social network, which claims to fight the “the tyranny of Big Tech.” The former US President first announced this app and the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) that will run it, last October. But apart from this date on the app store, we know little about the actual platform or how people can join it. TMTG had said that in the initial phase, people willlog-in to the network on an invite-only basis....
The ban will encompass any news-media organization found to be “financially or editorially controlled by the state.” Cue the jokes about CNN and Fox News from their respective political detractors. The blog post announcing the ban states: To determine which outlets fall afoul of the new policy, Twitter’s compiled a list of state-sponsored media outlets based on information provided by “Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Freedom House, the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, the European Journalism Centre’s Media Landscapes Report, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and UNESCO’s framework to assess media development and independence....
The $40 billion hedge fund, which is a major activist investor (the kind of investor that acquires a stake in a company in order to influence its direction in business) led by billionaire Paul Singer, isn’t keen on Dorsey serving as CEO at both Twitter and Square simultaneously. Read: Jack Dorsey on Twitter’s edit button: “We’ll probably never do it” With a 4% stake in the firm that it acquired at a cost of roughly $1 billion, it’s aiming to place new board members at the company; three positions will become available this year, and Elliott has nominated four directors....
The court ruled that it is unlawful for a Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) Operator to act as an ‘agent’ between the driver and passenger, meaning that all operators must contract directly with both drivers and riders. What’s the importance of being classified as an Uber employee? Being classified as an employee gives you a range of rights unavailable to ‘gig economy’ casual workers. These typically include: National minimum mage A statutory minimum level of paid holiday Protection against deductions from pay Protection against discrimination Whistleblower protection A notice period for retrenchments...
The funds were part of $1.2 million paid by a Canadian insurance company that had fallen victim to a malware strain known as BitPaymer, which locks computer systems and demands Bitcoin in exchange for a decryption tool. Once systems had been brought back online, researchers tracked the funds to find some had immediately been laundered, but 96 BTC ($860,000) had made its way to Bitfinex, presumably to be sold. According to court documents published January 17, the UK’s High Court demanded Bitfinex (a company registered to the Virgin Islands) provide details of users involved in that Bitcoin transaction, and lock the funds if they were still accessible....
The attack, which was likely orchestrated by state-sponsored actors, began in July, according to reports from The New Humanitarian and the Associated Press. A leaked internal document, obtained by The New Humanitarian and reviewed by AP, revealed the hackers compromised at least a dozen servers belonging to the UN. The extent of the breach remains unclear, but reports suggest the hackers pulled a 400GB trove of data. The attack affected the servers of the UN’s Vienna and Geneva offices, as well as its Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which collects sensitive data....
