Netflix lost subscribers First: Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in a decade — 200,000 to be specific. That’s a far cry from the 2.5 million subscribers the company predicted it would gain just three months ago. It’s worth noting that Netflix is in the red on its subscriber count in part because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — it lost 700,000 accounts after shutting down its services in Russia....
The system uses machine learning to help the individual control a computer interface with just their brain. Unlike most brain-computer interfaces (BCI), the AI worked without requiring extensive daily retraining. The study’s senior author Karunesh Ganguly, an associate professor in the UC San Francisco Department of Neurology, described the breakthrough in a statement: [Read: These tech trends defined 2020 so far, according to 5 founders] The system uses an electrocorticography (ECoG ) array about the size of a Post-it note....
In what seems like dialogue lifted straight from the pages of a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Stanford claim they’ve developed an algorithmic framework that guarantees AI won’t misbehave. The framework uses ‘Seldonian’ algorithms, named for the protagonist of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series, a continuation of the fictional universe where the author’s “Laws of Robotics” first appeared. According to the team’s research, the Seldonian architecture allows developers to define their own operating conditions in order to prevent systems from crossing certain thresholds while training or optimizing....
The newcomer is a small asteroid that was apparently snagged in the Earth’s orbit where it now exists as a temporary “mini-moon.” Scientists discovered the new moon last week but wanted to confirm that it wasn’t an artificial satellite or random space junk. It may still turn out that the satellite is artificial but all indications so far indicate it’s the real deal. The Catalina team revealed the information in a tweet featuring an accompanying video showing Earth’s new follower making its way around us....
That might sound like something out of a science fiction B-movie, but it’s legit peer-reviewed research. Up front: Previous attempts at controlling the weather have paid off with minimum success. Currently, if we find some big fat rain clouds ready to burst, we can preempt them by seeding them to cause precipitation. But the RIKEN team is talking about an entirely different level of control. Per the team’s research paper: To get an idea as to how hard the “control of chaos” is these researchers are referring to, we have to use the kind of math only supercomputers can handle....
This hypothetical situation may sound as if it’s from some distant future. But automated voice-guided marketing activities like this are happening all the time. If you hear “This call is being recorded for training and quality control,” it isn’t just the customer service representative they’re monitoring. It can be you, too. When conducting research for my forthcoming book, “The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet,” I went through over 1,000 trade magazine and news articles on the companies connected to various forms of voice profiling....
Google’s Project Zero team, which uncovered the bug on September 28, said it only affects audio calls, as the video option needs to be manually enabled for all incoming calls. Signal has since patched the problem in its latest update of the app (version 4.47.7). “Using a modified client, it is possible to send the ‘connect’ message to a callee device when an incoming call is in progress, but has not yet been accepted by the user....
Yep, according to a report from Strategy Analytics, global smartwatch shipments have grown 20% over the past year. In terms of actual units, those from 11.4 million in Q1 2019, to 13.7 in Q1 2020. Let’s be honest, a 20% rise sounds far better than shifting an extra 2.7 million units, but hey, what can you do? To put this in perspective, IDC found that worldwide smartphone shipments went down by 11....
The company announced a program called Spotlight Challenges for creators to participate and win money up to $25,000: These challenges will be rolling out first to users older than 16 in the US. Creators will need to use specific sounds, hashtags, or lenses to be qualified for the competition. Snapchat will show these challenges on the trending page, and you can tap on a challenge to check out details like eligibility criteria, submission deadlines, and prize money....
My review unit actually arrived just a few hours before the publication of this article, so you can take this as a ‘hands-on’ piece as well. Unfortunately, Sony’s Android software had not yet bet updated to support the new headphones — required to customize the controls and access spatial audio — so my impressions are obviously incomplete. Notably, the WF-1000XM4 are a bit more expensive than their predecessors, at $280....
A monthly payment for PS Now has dropped from $19.99 to $9.99, the same price as Xbox’s Game Pass (and Google’s Stadia Pro). A quarterly subscription has gone from $45 to $25, and yearly is $60 from $100. Now that they’ve been reduced, the previous prices look extra absurd, especially considering PS4 users are likely already paying for PS Plus subscriptions (incidentally, the prices for PS Now and PS Plus are now identical as well)....
On Thursday, an NFT artwork co-created by Sophia the robot snatched almost $700,000 at an auction in Hong Kong. The winning bidder took home a 12-second MP4 file showing how the work evolved, as well as a physical “self-portrait” of the humanoid. A post shared by Andrea Bonaceto (@andreabonac_art) A number of other digital artworks were sold at the auction. Each was linked to a non-fungible token (NFT), a digital certificate of ownership secured by blockchain tech....
The company said these launches will be scheduled and will not wait for a primary payload. This gives a chance to a small company to launch its satellite on time without waiting for a space agency’s mission. It added that these missions won’t be delayed if a co-passenger is not ready. According to the program’s site, the first launch will take place anytime between November 2020 and March 2021. The company hasn’t provided any details on how large a payload it aims to carry during these launches....
Thankfully, Spotify is rolling out a feature that lets you search for a song with just their lyrics, and hearing the tracks right within the app.. Spotify designer Lin Wang tweeted about the feature, stating that it’s available on both iOS and Android apps. [Read: Instagram begins to label posts from ‘state-controlled media’] The process is simple: type the lyrics of the song you want to find in the search bar and the app will show you results with the label “lyrics match....
Previously, quality was thought of something that QA engineers would take care of. Quality and user focus didn’t used to be a shared responsibility. Now, what experience shows is that this model can be one of the key reasons for cross-department conflicts leading to a product that fails user experience. Today, companies that rely on this old mantra are likely to find themselves lagging behind the new approaches businesses apply to stay ahead....
With Remote Play Together, users can (as the name suggests) play any kind of multiplayer game with their friends. Steam oversimplified it a bit by saying in its release video that the other users’ controller acts as their point of connection, but the long and short is that audio, video and voice chat is streamed to their PCs. Only the player hosting needs to actually own the game. To sweeten the pot, Remote Play Together is also available now on iOS and Android....
Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and New York found that tweets and Facebook posts about opposing political parties are far more likely to be shared than content containing emotional language. Up front: Social media platforms have long been accused of algorithmically promoting divisive content, because it’s more likely to go viral and thereby attract ad revenue. The researchers sought to quantify how dunking on one’s enemies can maximize this engagement....
But leaving Facebook isn’t just good for your privacy, you’ll probably feel better for it too. A study published this week in the journal “Experimental Economics,” found that people who spent a week away from Facebook consumed less news, and ultimately experienced greater well-being. The study titled “The Economic Effects of Facebook,” studied 1,769 US undergraduates in 2017, who usually spent a total of 1.9 hours on the platform per day, of which they spent around 15 to 30 minutes consuming news....
Spinning the story a bit… Researchers at Durham University developed supercomputer simulations, showing how this ancient collision may have unfolded. The velocity of Theia and the angle of impact affected the collision, as did the rotational rate of the body. The team of investigators examined a wide range of possible conditions, ranging from no spin to a quick rotation, and from glancing blows to more direct impacts. Interestingly, when simulations tested the effect of a non-spinning version of Theia, the impact resulted in a satellite with roughly 80 percent of the mass of the Moon....
In fact, between 1980 and 2020, heat waves have caused 77,000 to 129,000 deaths in the 32 member states of the European Economic Area, the European Environmental Agency (EEA) estimates. This represents 86%-91% of the total fatalities caused by climate-related extreme events. And with heat waves expected to be more intense and frequent than ever before, the agency warns that the EU is facing a crucial sustainability challenge: how to adapt its buildings in a way that ensures the citizens’ protection — and sticks to the EU’s objectives towards energy efficiency, energy independence, and climate neutrality in a socially just way....
