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Researchers from Google developed algorithms that helped the four-legged bot to learn how to walk across a range of surfaces within just hours of practice, annihilating the record times set by its human overlords. Their system uses deep reinforcement learning, a form of AI that teaches through trial and error by providing rewards for certain actions. This technique is typically evaluated in virtual environments. However, building simulations that could replicate the robot walking on various surfaces would be highly complex and time-consuming, so the researchers chose to train their system in the real world....

Functional quantum computers currently exist – IBM, D-Wave, Google, Microsoft, Rigetti, and dozens of other companies and universities are working tirelessly to develop them – but none of them actually do anything that we can’t already do with a regular, old-fashioned computer yet. They’re a proof-of-concept. The big news right now has to do with a new “rule” called Neven’s Law. It was named after one of Google’s quantum gurus, Hartmut Neven, stated that quantum computing technology is currently snowballing at a double-exponential rate....

The preview, released today, also introduces one-time location access for apps. The new Android version also includes similar permissions for microphone and camera access. Additionally, Google has removed the “allow all the time” permission from the dialogue box by default. That means an app can’t ask for background location information at the launch. As a developer, if your app needs to have background location permission, you’ll need to ask your user to go through the settings and enable it explicitly....

Google already provides you an option to use hardware security keys, authenticator apps, prompts on your other devices with Google apps, and SMS-based verification codes as valid 2FA alternatives. While this security setting has been optional, the Big G is turning it on for users automatically. The company said today that it aims to automatically enroll additional 150 million users by the end of the year into 2FA. Google first announced this program in May, and it’s cracking on with it now....

Google News is among the largest traffic drivers for online news sources and it plays a huge role in our day-to-day lives. Think about it. Let’s say you’re a reporter who writes about barns. You travel the countryside looking for the most interesting barns and you write barn stories. When people search Google News for the word “barn,” you’d probably hope it surfaced your work. And if the barn beat was as competitive as, say, the artificial intelligence beat, you’d probably expect space in the Google News feed to be equally competitive....

The search giant has “no current plans” to go to China, he added. — Davey Alba (@daveyalba) July 16, 2019 Last August, reports revealed that Google is secretly working on a custom search engine codenamed “Dragonfly,” that’ll fit China’s norm. In October, a report from The Intercept revealed that despite the severe backlash, Google’s going ahead with its plan to launch the project in 2019. However, in December, it was reported that the company is shelving the project after more than 200 engineers wrote an open letter urging the management to stop its efforts to enter China....

Most notably, Google will now let you go back in time and add portrait mode to any of your old pictures of people. In other words, this isn’t just the ability to edit the amount of blur after taking a portrait mode photo, but rather to retroactively add portrait mode to a plain old picture. Google isn’t explaining how it works just yet, but presumably, the company is using AI to create a depth map based on data on actual portrait photos....

Look, we don’t want to make a big deal about this, but…Cyber Monday is not an ongoing holiday. Sure, Cyber Monday deals aren’t often restricted to just the Monday after Thanksgiving, but they aren’t indefinite either. After a few days, they’re gone. And much like Santa himself, they don’t usually come around like that again for another 365 days, give or take. Our point is, don’t sleep on these offers....

“This is a G Suite issue that affects business users only — no free consumer Google accounts were affected — and we are working with enterprise administrators to ensure that their users reset their passwords,” Google said in a blog post disclosing the security lapse. The company failed to specify exactly how many customers were affected this way. However, it went on to stress that it didn’t find any evidence of improper access....

The Swedish city of Gothenburg is planning to establish a zero-emission urban area, dubbed the ‘Green City Zone,’ which will incorporate ”large-scale testing of future technologies.” The zone, which is set to get underway by spring 2021, will cover a large area of the city center and surrounding districts, with plans to host a “huge test and demonstration area” where companies, universities, and others can work together to test new technologies and expand their operations, products, and services in transportation, infrastructure , and energy....

If you want your kid to be smarter, it can occasionally mean some tough love. But for all those times you make them do their homework or read a book instead of playing video games, you can practically see their brains getting bigger in front of your eyes. Turns out, you can also add music to that list. According to one study, 3 and 4 year olds who were given keyboard music lessons for six months performed more than 30 percent better in reasoning testing than kids without the training....

They are not, in fact, living organisms at all, but “haematite concretions” – small sphere-shaped pieces of the mineral haematite, and their exact origin is still debated by scientists. Haematite is a compound of iron and oxygen and is commercially important on Earth. The spherical rocks on Mars may have been created by the gradual accumulation of the material in slowly evaporating liquid water environments. They could also have been produced by volcanic activity....

At long last, it seems Google is working on a proper Android TV device again – its first since 2014’s ill-fated Nexus Player (of course, there are third-party offerings like the Nvidia Shield). Though we’ve heard rumors about such a device for ages, a report by XDA gives us the most concrete evidence of its existence yet. XDA says it obtained renders of the device, code-named Sabrina, from a pre-release software build provided by developer deadman96385....

Being let go is always hard, but if you have stock options as a startup employee, it’s also the time to make some very important decisions about your financial present and future. What you do with your equity could be a life-changing event. It’s key to find a way to manage your finances so you can live today while investing in your future. Exercising your stock options can be an expensive process....

Most product designers tend to default to design systems as a proxy for systems thinking. They’re not entirely wrong. The ecology around building design systems does require maintainers to think systematically. They need to deeply understand the core needs of the product team, to deliver reusable component libraries coupled with accompanying guidelines, processes, and documentation. However, this doesn’t mean that building a design system is the only natural outcome of thinking in systems....

Many countries across the world have issued travel advisories, and some have even banned or restricted people traveling from China. With scientists working hard to find out a cure for this deadly virus, Chinese tech giants Baidu and Alibaba have opened up their gene sequencing AI tools to help them find a solution. Alibaba said last week it had partnered with The Global Health Drug Discovery Institute from Beijing, to develop an open-sourced data platform to track coronavirus using AI....

Q: You recently compiled and organized a list of more than 200 cognitive biases — our tendencies to think and act in quirky ways. What is it that draws you to biases? Buster Benson: The list of cognitive biases on Wikipedia has been something that I return to a ton, but I have always been frustrated with not having figured it out — not understanding really what it all was to me....

General Motors announced a suite of environmental commitments Thursday, including a pledge to eliminate tailpipe emissions from its light-duty vehicles by 2035, be carbon-neutral in all global products and operations by 2050, and sign the Business Ambition Pledge to 1.5 °C. The change of administrations in Washington, D.C., appears to have accelerated the EV moves that GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra has been touting for the past several years....

Ten years ago, Lisbon was in dire straits. The 2008 financial crisis had hit the Portuguese capital hard and its citizens faced uncertainty, high unemployment and decaying infrastructure. Tough steps were taken to get the country back on track, which included a bruising austerity program imposed by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank. But looking at the city today–with its regenerated buildings and busy streets–the mood has changed....

Cities have long talked about making data-driven decisions and the coronavirus crisis has brought this to the fore for those responsible for data management. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) gathered at a recent Cities Today Institute digital roundtable noted the importance of data visualization and analysis during the pandemic – both for residents and decision-makers within the city. Several also highlighted key obstacles to achieving data’s full potential in scenarios like this, and these issues will need to be addressed to boost future resilience....