Earlier in December, the internet was abuzz with news of Tumblr’s declaration that it would ban adult content on its platform starting December 17. But aside from the legal, social and ethical aspects of the debate, what’s interesting is how the microblogging platform plans to implement the decision. According to a post by Tumblr support, NSFW […]
Read More
Insect defecation may not seem like one of the pressing scientific inquiries of our time, but in fact the faeces of these wee creatures serves an extraordinary variety of functions in bug and human life. Unlike most animals, many insect species actually use their excrement. They utilize it as their home, for feeding, in predator-prey […]
Read More
The flurry of anti-dockless electric scooter headlines reached critical mass last summer. “This town seriously hates electric scooters,” screamed the link to a story focused on Santa Monica, Calif. “San Francisco Is Fighting the Scooter Trend With Poop and Vandalism,” blared another. There’s even an Instagram account devoted to images of destroyed rideshare scooters. And, of […]
Read More
This article is part of Demystifying AI, a series of posts that (try to) disambiguate the jargon and myths surrounding AI. History shows that cybersecurity threats evolve along with new technological advances. Relational databases brought SQL injection attacks, web scripting programming languages spurred cross-site scripting attacks, IoT devices ushered in new ways to create botnets, and the internet in […]
Read More
This year, I served on the judging panel for The Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Year. On Dec. 18, we announced the winner: 90.5 percent, the amount of plastic that has never been recycled. Okay – but why is that such a big deal? Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” […]
Read More
As a birder, I had heard that if you paid careful attention to the head feathers on the downy woodpeckers that visited your bird feeders, you could begin to recognize individual birds. This intrigued me. I even went so far as to try sketching birds at my own feeders and had found this to be […]
Read More
Welcome to my insidious trap. We all know it’s never the best or the most important articles that get clicks. It’s always ‘THE ANSWER WILL SHOCK YOU’, celebrity gossip, and cute cats that hog all of that sweet sweet traffic. I usually cover ‘boring’ (yet incredibly important) regulation stuff, like EU’s highly contested Copyright Reform […]
Read More
Until yesterday, upskirting was almost completely legal. The practice involves taking sexually intrusive photos up people’s clothing without their consent. But now, in England and Wales, it’s punishable by up to two years in prison — and it’s about time. Prior to this, most serious upskirting incidents would put the perpetrator on the sex offenders […]
Read More
Female research scientists are more productive than their male colleagues, though they are widely perceived as being less so. Women are also rewarded less for their scientific achievements. That’s according to my team’s study for United Nations University – Merit on gender inequality in scientific research in Mexico, published as a working paper in December […]
Read More
Best Tech DealsThe best tech deals from around the web, updated daily. 4K GoPro footage and Nintendo Switch games take up a ton of space, but you could hold plenty of both with these discounted microSD cards. The most exciting deal of the bunch is on this gargantuan 400GB card, now down to $84. […]
Read More
Facial recognition technology has progressed to a point where it now interprets emotions in facial expressions. This type of analysis is increasingly used in daily life. For example, companies can use facial recognition software to help with hiring decisions. Other programs scan the faces in crowds to identify threats to public safety. Unfortunately, this technology […]
Read More
The hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. There seems to be no shortage of sensationalist news about how AI could cure diseases, accelerate human innovation and improve human creativity. Just looking at the media headlines, you might think that we are already living in a future where AI has infiltrated every […]
Read More
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) cut off internet access in the run-up to elections during December 2018 — other telecommunications services such as SMS were also suspended in the country. The reason given by authorities in the DRC for the internet shut down is they wanted to curb “rumor mongering” ahead of the much-awaited elections. This is […]
Read More
Should we be afraid of artificial intelligence? For me, this is a simple question with an even simpler, two letter answer: no. But not everyone agrees – many people, including the late physicist Stephen Hawking, have raised concerns that the rise of powerful AI systems could spell the end for humanity. Clearly, your view on […]
Read More
Nvidia threw open the doors on its new robotics laboratory in Seattle last week, ushering in a new era for the company. In doing so it’s put the competition on notice. The 13,000-foot Seattle facility is an innovation center designed for a staff of 50. Among its first projects is a joint-endeavor with IKEA featuring […]
Read More
It’s an age-old question – what makes someone attractive? We often say things like “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but while this romantic notion may bring comfort to those dealt a poor hand in life, it also gives the impression that the foundations of attractiveness are elusive and unpredictable. It suggests that […]
Read More
A team of researchers from Tel-Aviv University developed a neural network capable of reading a recipe and generating an image of what the finished, cooked product would look like. As if DeepFakes weren’t bad enough, now we can’t be sure the delicious food we see online is real. The Tel-Aviv team, consisting of researchers Ori […]
Read More
IBM sent its AI to Las Vegas this week to argue with people. And, since arguing is something humans do well, the company wants your help. ‘Project Debater – Speech by Crowd,’ as IBM calls it, is a “new and experimental cloud-based AI platform for crowdsourcing decision support.” It solicits arguments for and against a […]
Read More
The “Doodle For Google” contest is open for submissions from US children in grades K-12 again, this year with more than $80K in prizes for the national winner. The annual contest kicked off earlier this week with a performance by everyone’s favorite muppet… and a felt frog. If you’re a kid, this happened way past […]
Read More
IBM unveiled the world’s “first universal approximate quantum computing system installed outside of a research lab” at CES earlier this week — and with it, the next era of computing. The 20-qubit IBM Q System One represents the first major leap for quantum computers of 2019, but before we get into the technical stuff let’s take a […]
Read More