Month: September 2021

The latest hearing on Instagram and teen mental health was the depressing work of a legislature that can’t legislate. Toward the end of Thursday’s hearing on Facebook and teen mental health, Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) alluded to the Chinese government’s recent decision to impose strict limits on kids’ video game time. “They have told teenagers
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The decentralized technology clashes with the government’s plans for a state-dominated economy—one that includes its own digital currency. Every time Beijing announces a crackdown on their industry, the running joke among the crypterati is that China has already banned cryptocurrency 18 times. Chinese government agencies have issued a string of increasingly restrictive but never conclusive
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With the help of AI, you’ll be able to take a picture of a shirt, then ask Google to find socks with the same pattern.  In May, Google executives unveiled experimental new artificial intelligence trained with text and images they said would make internet searches more intuitive. Wednesday, Google offered a glimpse into how the
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Machines can print textiles, cut fabric, and fold clothes. But it’s hard to train them to sew as fast and precisely as humans. SoftWear Automation is a robotics company that wants to make T-shirts. “We want to make a billion T-shirts a year in the US, all made on demand,” says SoftWear CEO Palaniswamy Rajan.
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A handful of companies are pursuing airborne seeding, but there’s little evidence so far that the tactic will succeed.  Last year’s Castle Fire in California’s Sierra Nevada is estimated to have killed more than 10 percent of the world’s giant sequoias, the tallest trees on earth. Sequoias can live through many fires over life spans
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Students whose parents didn’t go to college often work instead of joining extracurricular activities, and can lag peers on skills like résumé writing. Christelle Louis’ single mother, a Haitian immigrant and certified nursing assistant at a nursing home, never went to college. But she always pushed her daughter to get the education she needed for
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The prior algorithm adjusted calculations for Black patients—making it harder for them to qualify for transplants and other treatments. For decades, doctors and hospitals saw kidney patients differently based on their race. A standard equation for estimating kidney function applied a correction for Black patients that made their health appear rosier, inhibiting access to transplants
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Government regulation will never fix everything wrong with online discourse. The industry needs to develop professional norms—just as journalism once did.  On October 10, 1999, The Los Angeles Times published a special issue of its Sunday magazine devoted entirely to the opening of the Staples Center arena in downtown LA. Apparently unbeknownst to the Times
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Players of online games can be harassed when their voices don’t match their gender identity. New AI-fueled software may help. Fred, a trans man, clicked his mouse, and his tenorful tones suddenly sank deeper. He’d switched on voice-changing algorithms that provided what sounded like an instant vocal cord transplant. “This one is ‘Seth,’” he said,
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New tools that help developers write software also generate similar mistakes. Some software developers are now letting artificial intelligence help write their code. They’re finding that AI is just as flawed as humans. Last June, GitHub, a subsidiary of Microsoft that provides tools for hosting and collaborating on code, released a beta version of a
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A research paper that dubs some artificial intelligence models “foundational” is sparking a dispute over the future of the field. Last month, Stanford researchers declared that a new era of artificial intelligence had arrived, one built atop colossal neural networks and oceans of data. They said a new research center at Stanford would build—and study—these
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Scientists taught an artificial neural network to imitate a biological neuron. The result offers a new way to think about the complexity of brain cells. Our mushy brains seem a far cry from the solid silicon chips in computer processors, but scientists have a long history of comparing the two. As Alan Turing put it
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A judge ordered significant changes to the App Store today, but the fight between Epic Games and Apple isn’t over yet. On Friday, after a contentious legal battle over Apple’s alleged monopoly power over the iOS ecosystem, a California judge snipped the tug-of-war rope between Apple and Epic Games. Both sides can claim some victory.
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In 2021, corporations are expected to take a stand on even the most divisive issues. First came the statements from reproductive organizations. Then came the tech companies. The day after the US Supreme Court decided not to block a law in Texas banning most abortions after six weeks, Dallas-based Match Group, which owns Tinder, OkCupid,
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Enthusiasm, fear, and light shows usher the country into the age of cryptocurrency. As El Salvador enters its bitcoin era, its sky will sparkle with the lights of a platoon of drones. “We are throwing an event,” says American cryptocurrency evangelist Brock Pierce. “They did a big one at Burning Man in the past. They
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Pharmacies have long been perceived as commodities. Now, they’re a central tool for removing barriers to health care. With 19 locations throughout the Milwaukee area, Hayat Pharmacy focuses on providing quality health care to the underserved. To Hashim Zaibak, pharmacist and owner, quality health care isn’t about dispensing medications; it’s about removing barriers that influence
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Everyone from tech companies to churches wants a say in how the EU regulates AI that could harm people. People should not be slaves to machines, a coalition of evangelical church congregations from more than 30 countries preached to leaders of the European Union earlier this summer. The European Evangelical Alliance believes all forms of
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