Thursday, July 23, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Robots are becoming self-aware [feedly]
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Robots are becoming self-aware
// Betanews
Smartphones might be getting smarter, and the Internet of Things becoming increasingly important, but a large part of the technological future is owned by robots. Human-replacing robots have existed in factories and manufacturing processes for years, but the dream has long been to create a humanoid robot that is 'intelligent' enough to act like a human.
Three robots have been put to the test at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and scientists showed that one was able to demonstrate self-awareness. We're not quite at the stage of a robot uprising, but it is an important step on the road to improving reasoning and problem-solving in future robots.
The experiment took three Nao robots, and programmed two of them to believe they'd been given a pill that prevented them from speaking. Importantly, none was aware which had been given the 'pill' and which had not. Researchers then asked the robots which pair had taken the pill, and they each tried to respond with "I don't know". Those who were unable to talk remained silent, but the third repeated the phrase. And this is when the magic happened.
Upon hearing its own voice, the robot was quickly able to determine that it had not been silenced by a pill and uttered the words:
Sorry, I know now. I was able to prove that I was not given a dumbing pill.
So not only was the robot able to respond to human input, it also showed that it could recognize itself, and react accordingly.
The full results of the research are due to be presented at the at RO-MAN robotic conference in Japan from August 31 to September 4. Check out the robots in action in the video below:
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Friday, July 17, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Monday, July 13, 2015
Playboy Model Sues Airline Over Cockpit Selfies. Poor girl. She looks like she is really being abused. She only realized it later.
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Playboy Model Sues Airline Over Cockpit Selfies
// Aero-News Network
Pilot And Copilot Have Been Fired From Aerolineas Argentinas First, there were the cockpit selfies of Playboy model Victoria Xipolitakis posing with the pilot and copilot of an Aerolineas Argentinas airplane reportedly taken during takeoff and landing ... with at least one showing the model touching the airliner's controls.
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Sunday, July 12, 2015
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Monday, July 6, 2015
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Friday, July 3, 2015
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Google apologizes for labeling black people 'gorillas' [feedly]
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Google apologizes for labeling black people 'gorillas'
// Betanews
Google has issued an apology after the automatic tagging feature of its Photos apps labeled a black couple as 'gorillas'. This is not the first time an algorithm has been found to have caused racial upset. Earlier in the year Flickr came under fire after its system tagged images of concentration camps as sports venues and black people as apes.
The company was criticized on social networks after a New York software developer questioned the efficacy of Google's algorithm. Accused of racism, Google said that it was "appalled" by what had happened, branding it as "100% not OK".
Google executive Yonatan Zunger says that the company has now taken steps to ensure that the problem does not arise again. He said that such an issue was "high on my list of bugs you 'never' want to see happen". Google is working not only on improving image recognition technology, but also taking greater care with the wording used in automatic labels.
The problem was spotted by Jacky Alciné who posted a screengrab of the inappropriate labeling on Twitter:
And it's only photos I have with her it's doing this with (results truncated b/c personal): pic.twitter.com/h7MTXd3wgo
— diri noir avec banan (@jackyalcine) June 29, 2015
Speaking to the BBC, a Google spokeswoman said:
We're appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened. We are taking immediate action to prevent this type of result from appearing. There is still clearly a lot of work to do with automatic image labeling, and we're looking at how we can prevent these types of mistakes from happening in the future.
Photo credit: Corepics VOF / Shutterstock
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