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It’s nothing quite as sci-fi as Star Wars. Force-canceling woofer arrangements are fairly common in high-end audio, and while they are far from a guarantee of good sound quality, they do theoretically offer some benefits. The basic idea behind force-canceling woofers is to eliminate unwanted vibrations by having two woofers firing in opposite directions and perfect unison. Remember Newton’s third law? For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction....

It’s a Peter Thiel-funded company called Clearview AI, and its service matches faces from images you upload with those in its database of some three billion photos. These pictures have been scraped from ‘millions’ of websites, including Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo. In addition to having a massive database, Clearview AI also boasts the ability to match faces even when you upload imperfect pictures, i.e. taken at odd angles or from a height, like from a surveillance camera....

I have been fortunate enough to play Death Stranding over the last couple of weeks. While only just over halfway through the game, I’ve played more than a sufficient portion to grasp the striking world and experience it offers. It’s polarized critics and gamers for good reason, aiming for places and prodding at ideas that many games could only dream of approaching. Perhaps the only reason Death Stranding could be this ambitious is because Kojima is, well, Kojima....

Strictly is not the only modern curse featured in the media of late. The curse of the Tour de France returned, with the failure of a French rider to win the cycling race. Hopes that Julian Alaphillippe would this year end the 34-year drought were dashed. Meanwhile, the rapper Drake has been linked to a series of sporting failures over the years. The Drake curse was broken, however, when his team (the Raptors) won their first basketball championship earlier this summer....

This is an appropriate cautious move. The advice may change once we understand more about what caused these reactions. Both people reportedly had known allergies and carried adrenaline autoinjectors, suggesting they had a prior history of severe allergic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, a severe and rapid form of allergy. At this stage, we do not have any further details about the reported allergic reactions to the vaccine. An advisory panel to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended the authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use....

What I’m talking about is fancy shit. From portable concentrate vapes to leather carry pouches, there’s a lot of it about. And one of the latest is the Stori: a pretty cool way to store weed. If that’s the sorta thing you’re into. So, let’s talk a bit about what makes the Stori a bougie way to look after your bud. First things first, this video does a good job of showing you the basics: To sum it up, the Stori is a plastic box with six color coded pods and six matching tubes....

Back in March, Gridserve, the company leading the construction of the EV service station said that it would be ready to open this summer. Well, coronavirus may have slowed it down slightly, and it now looks set to open towards the end of summer, but still, it’s great to see it become a reality. In an announcement earlier today, Gridserve lifted the lid on more details on what it’ll look like and what services will be available there....

In an announcement today, the UK government said it is seeking industry information specifically on Automated Lane Keeping Systems (ALKS for short). As part of this consultation, it will define also define what constitutes an autonomous vehicle and who will be responsible if a car crashes whilst ALKS is in use, the driver or the vehicle maker. Following the consultation, the UK government hopes that it will gain an understanding into how this technology works, how it can be used, and how drivers interact with it....

For the uninitiated, adversarial data describes a situation in which human users intentionally supply an algorithm with corrupted information. The corrupted data throws off the machine learning process, tricking the algorithm into reaching fake conclusions or incorrect predictions. As a biomedical engineer, I view adversarial data as a significant cause for concern. UC Berkeley professor Dawn Song notably tricked a self-driving car into thinking that a stop sign says the speed limit is 45 miles per hour....

There’s no such thing as perfection. There’s just a set of tradeoffs that, for a particular purpose or observer, allows you to ignore the bad and focus on the good. As you try to reach perfection by doing more things—all in an effort to avoid any tradeoffs—you eventually start causing harm. Overlapping costs outweigh benefits, and interactions between solutions start to feel weird and painful. In other words, beauty is in the eye of the beholder… because trying to make something beautiful to everyone guarantees it will turn ugly....

Sometimes all you’re looking for is a developer with the right tech skills to get your fantasy project off the ground, or someone who actually knows how to assemble Ikea furniture (without duct tape), or a dog walker/whisperer who knows how to handle a Pomeranian with a Napoleon complex. Social platforms and matchmaking algorithms are helping us connect with people and services that can help us reach new levels professionally, or simply improve our everyday lives....

Look, we’ve all seen the ads. We know. It’s the season of giving. And sure, giving is great and leaves you with that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. It’s wonderful. But let’s put all that aside and focus on you for a second. As the last of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals slowly melt away, stop thinking about your kid or your nephew or your gardener for a moment and consider what YOU need....

Last year we brought you our first comprehensive breakdown of developer salaries in Germany. We used extensive data gathered over the course of five years, breaking down all the variables that go into making up that magic number: your salary. In 2021, we found that while COVID-19 impacted developer hirings, it didn’t make a noticeable difference in salary. In this year’s report, we’ve found that hirings have bounced back, with a 54% increase in developer hirings from 2020 to 2021....

Some scientists interpret this as suggesting the earliest Homo sapiens weren’t entirely modern. Yet the different data tracks different things. Skulls and genes tell us about brains, artifacts about culture. Our brains probably became modern before our cultures. The “great leap” For 200,000-300,000 years after Homo sapiens first appeared, tools and artifacts remained surprisingly simple, little better than Neanderthal technology, and simpler than those of modern hunter-gatherers such as certain indigenous Americans....

Among other charges, Sarah Alberts, 35, who is due to be sentenced on October 8, admitted to money laundering, reports say. Ohio-based co-defendants Mark Alex Simon, 35, and Aaron Kuns, 35, pleaded guilty, and are due to be sentenced on September 18. Prosecutors said the group made and sold the counterfeit driver licenses and personal identification cards on Reddit between June, 2013, and February, 2018. Payments were made using Bitcoin....

You might have the knowledge to succeed in the IT job you want. You might even have the experience to rock that position. But if you can’t objectively prove your mastery to a hiring manager, then how do they know you’re the right candidate for their job? That’s where certifications come in. And when it comes to certifications, no credential speaks louder in IT circles than a cert from CompTIA....

For example, take blind spot warning. This functionality detects vehicles in the blind spot while driving and notifies the driver of their presence. Some systems provide an additional warning if the driver activates the turn signal). Audi calls blind spot warning “Audi side assist,” while Toyota calls it “blind spot monitor.” On some GM vehicles, it’s called “side blind zone alert.” Feeling confused? Even worse, as Kelly Funkhouser, Consumer Report’s head of connected and automated vehicles, notes, “sometimes there’s a different name on the website, in the owner’s manual, and then in the menu in the car....

The shoulder-mounted system is equipped with spring-loaded retractors like those used on neck cord ID badges. These retractors unwind a string to each fingertip, one to the palm, and another to the wrist. A motion sensor on the VR headset then tracks the user’s hand movements and sends the signals to the springs. When it senses that the user’s close to an object, the ratchets lock the strings to mimic the feeling of the surface....

We’ve seen a delightful onslaught of AI-generated content over the last few years from generative adversarial networks (GANs) attempting to create so-called “Deepfake” imagery. There’s this person does not exist. And this cat does not exist. You can even generate feet, resumes, and waifu that does not exist. It’s astounding how realistic some of the imagery created out of thin air by AI can be. But this is the first time we’ve seen an AI generate the recipe for a viable, unique human being via the creation of synthetic genomes....

Here’s a question involving large numbers for you to ponder. Data scientists are making an average annual salary of $113,000. Then consider what you’re making each year right now for doing whatever it is that you do. Now subtract the second number from the first number. If you’re left with a very, very large number at the end of that equation, it might be a good time to consider a career change....