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At a briefing during Berlin’s IFA tech conference, TNW got a closer look at Huawei’s latest platform, which represents a significant step-change over the previous version. Battery life, as well as data, video, and camera performance all see major upgrades. Perhaps the most important thing to note about the Kirin 990 5G chipset is that it incorporates the platform and 5G modem on the same die. That’s a major divergence from current 5G-enabled handsets, which typically include them as separate components....

It’s very easy to dismiss warnings of the robot apocalypse. After all, virtually all of the field’s who’s who agree that we’re at least half-a-century away from achieving artificial general intelligence, the key milestone to developing an AI that can dominate humans. As for the AI that we have today, it can best be described as “idiot savant.” Our algorithms can perform remarkably well at narrow tasks but fail miserably when faced with situations that require general problem–solving skills....

Eating out is one of my great pleasures; cooking is not. Unfortunately, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been doing a lot of the latter and almost none of the former. Preparing meals has become particularly tedious during London’s latest lockdown. So like an unhappy couple in a sexless marriage, I’ve been trying to spice things up in my domestic life. Only instead of strapping on a gimp mask and a ball gag, I’ve been experimenting with AI....

I’m on record calling the PS5 “gorgeous” when I first saw pictures of it. I was (and still am) really tired of consoles looking like interchangeable black boxes and thought the curvy outline of the white panels was refreshing. I still think the color — or lack thereof, I suppose — is perfectly attractive, and I look forward to the many customized versions of the side panels in a myriad of colors....

KITT. Christine. Heck, even Herbie the Love Bug. For decades, we’ve been watching movies and TV shows starring almost sentient vehicles who don’t need a driver to get from point A to point B. Or to handle a lot of other important stuff, if we’re being honest. But although we’re getting closer, the reality hasn’t caught up to Hollywood quite yet. Even though Tesla founder Elon Musk himself says the self-driving vehicle still has some big kinks to work out, it feels like the age of jumping into your car, sitting back and letting AI do the driving is definitely not too far down the road....

While world economies have certainly improved from the opening days of COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, that’s small consolation to millions who are still struggling to find work and continue supporting themselves and their families. U.S. unemployment still stands at 6.7 percent. And during December, more than 830,000 people were filing for unemployment every week, a number higher than the total population of Seattle, Wash. For millions, 2021 will be a big year of change and growth, embarking on new jobs or, in many cases, entirely new careers....

“Indian authorities are concerned that WhatsApp’s payment service might share user data with group companies Facebook and Instagram, compromising the security, privacy and non-commercial information of its subscribers,” according to a report from the Economic Times. The government has reportedly asked the National Payments Corporation of India — the authority operating retail payments and settlement systems in the country — to ensure that user data collected through payment services such as WhatsApp and Google Pay is not shared....

According to a report, the Indore unit of Madhya Pradesh police’s Cyber Cell unearthed the online scam, which saw tele callers with American accents dupe US citizens. The callers claimed they were officers from the US social security unit and explain victims’ social security credentials had been used for money laundering and smuggling drugs. Then they told victims that if they failed to pay the requested amount, their social security number would be blocked and they’d face legal action....

I’m an international relations scholar who studies power distributions in space – who the main players are, what capabilities they possess and whom they decide to cooperate with. Some scholars predict a future in which single states pursue various levels of dominance, while others foresee a scenario in which commercial entities bring nations together. But I believe that the future may be different. In the past few years, groups of nations with similar strategic interests on Earth have come together to further their interests in space, forming what I call “space blocs....

Both sites collaborated to link 130,000 citations on various articles to 50,000 of the Archive’s digital book repository. When a users clicks on these linked citations, it takes them to a copy of the page on the Archive’s site, where they can see the source directly. The Archive offers a digital lending library of ebooks — the system lets patrons sponsor a particular book, which is then scanned and added to the system....

Here’s a first taste of what it’ll look like… First things first, let’s talk about why this coronavirus outbreak is a pretty huge deal — and if you have any reluctant boomers in your family, here’s what you should tell them. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus, meaning we’ve never seen it before. This makes it challenging for medical professionals to come up with treatments and a vaccine — none yet exist and no, Trump, you can’t treat or prevent it with a flu shot....

One thing that machine learning shouldn’t be changing is the climate. The issue relates to how machine learning is developed. In order for machine learning (and deep learning) to be able to accurately make decisions and predictions, it needs to be ‘trained’. Imagine an online marketplace for selling shoes, that’s been having a problem with people trying to sell other things on the site – bikes and cats and theater tickets....

However, data scientists now have a chance to tune their AI to become aware of this kind of bias. Twitter announced last night that it’s opening up its entire archive of public tweets to researchers to use in their data projects. This version of the API was available to only premium customers till this point. Last April, the social network made tweets related to COVID-19 available for researchers. Later in October 2020, it opened up its full archive in private beta....

The job market adapts and changes pretty rapidly which is why it’s so important to stay on top of the recent trends, skills, and of course job titles. To help, we’ve rounded up a list of the top five weirdest job titles that we could find on the House of Talent Job Board. While you might have never heard of these roles, give them a chance. You never know, you might just find your dream career....

Why? Because the worst kind of advice is from people (like me) who have done something a certain way, and because it worked, now consider themselves to be the leading authority and in a position to ‘give advice’ to younger people who are probably smarter than themselves. When somebody starts off their story with “You know what you should do,” my advice is to cover your ears and run for the nearest exit....

It’s training in one of the key IT development processes of the 21st century packed with one of the century’s most intriguing new technologies. DevOps brings together both programming and engineering emphasis right at the start of a product’s development, so both approaches can grow and develop holistically with both of those often divergent philosophies. Meanwhile, blockchaining is a lot more than the technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It’s also an information distribution system that’s already having massive implications across a host of fields....

That is the claim made by the company behind the VibraImage artificial intelligence (AI) system. (The term “AI” is used here in a broad sense to refer to digital systems that use algorithms and tools such as automated biometrics and computer vision). You may never have heard of it, but digital tools based on VibraImage are being used across a broad range of applications in Russia, China, Japan and South Korea....

“If everyone’s making music for the TikTok, who’s making music for my generation?”, she asked. Adele might resist, but the platform has nonetheless been popularising and promoting her song Easy on me, with creators using it in almost one million videos in the first month after its release, making it viral on the app alone. That’s because creator culture on TikTok is changing the way hits are made, how music is promoted, and how the world discovers music, even for those artists who choose not to engage with it....

Money, in copyright-land, has the attribute of making things happen. Long story short, the creators of the original works underlying these now-classic films are making use of a relatively little-known (and little understood) aspect of US copyright law, known as “termination of transfers.” Through this, creators can reclaim their rights from the studios to whom they sold them long ago (and perhaps sell them again, either to the same studios or to someone else)....

Understanding how a piece of software works is obviously important to getting the most out of that software. But understanding why it works and what it accomplishes toward your task is probably even more critical. That was the thinking of the partners who founded Excel with Business, who started teaching an Excel training course in 2009 that focused on how the spreadsheet software applied in the business world rather than its specific functionality....