Technology and Computation

Coronavirus Trackers Try Out AI Tools as Eyes Turn to Reopening

Tech companies, health insurers and governments are turning to artificial intelligence to predict potential coronavirus outbreaks and help guide policy decisions about social-distancing as pressure mounts to end lockdowns. The software, they say, can learn to flag disease risk and outbreak threats based on personal data, such as medical history, real-time body-temperature readings and current symptom reports, as well as demographics.

Can we escape from information overload?

One day in December 2016 a 37-year-old British artist named Sam Winston equipped himself with a step-ladder, a pair of scissors, several rolls of black-out cloth and a huge supply of duct tape, and set about a project he had been considering for some time.

India's Contact Tracing App Is All But Mandatory. So This Programmer Hacked It So That He Always Appears Safe.

For days, Jay, a software engineer in Bangalore, watched with mounting alarm as people in India were forced to install the government's coronavirus contact tracing app. Then, he rolled up his sleeves and ripped its guts out. "I didn't like the fact that installing this app is slowly becoming mandatory in India," said Jay, who requested a pseudonym to speak freely.

Naomi Klein: How big tech plans to profit from the pandemic

For a few fleeting moments during the New York governor Andrew Cuomo's daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday 6 May, the sombre grimace that has filled our screens for weeks was briefly replaced by something resembling a smile. "We are ready, we're all-in," the governor gushed.

Sony's first AI image sensor will make cameras everywhere smarter

Sony has announced the world's first image sensor with integrated AI smarts. The new IMX500 sensor incorporates both processing power and memory, allowing it to perform machine learning-powered computer vision tasks without extra hardware. The result, says Sony, will be faster, cheaper, and more secure AI cameras.

Nvidia unveils monstrous A100 AI chip with 54 billion transistors and 5 petaflops of performance

Nvidia unwrapped its Nvidia A100 artificial intelligence chip today, and CEO Jensen Huang called it the ultimate instrument for advancing AI.

This Fun AI Tutorial Highlights the Limits of Deep Learning

Sure, neural networks can easily classify images-but they still don't really understand what they see without human intervention. That much is made plain in Google's new AI tutorial, called Teachable Machine, which was brought to our attention by the Verge. You can watch it in action in the video above, or try it out for yourself....

The scientist who spots fake videos

Eli Burakian/Dartmouth College Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, specializes in detecting manipulated images and videos. Farid, who provides his services to clients as varied as universities, media organizations, and law courts, says that image manipulation is becoming both more frequent and more sophisticated.

What Does Autonomy Mean for Supercars?

In a future without steering wheels, you may wonder what remains for Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and other automakers that have built their businesses on driving experience. As it turns out, supercar manufacturers are also eyeing autonomy-just not in the way that passenger-hauling firms like Uber are.