Transforming Standard Video Into Slow Motion with AI

Researchers from NVIDIA developed a deep learning-based system that can produce high-quality slow-motion videos from a 30-frame-per-second video, outperforming various state-of-the-art methods that aim to do the same. The researchers will present their work at the annual Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference in Salt Lake City, Utah this week.  “There are many memorable Read more about Transforming Standard Video Into Slow Motion with AI[…]

Paper straw factory to open in Britain as restaurants ditch plastic

No paper straws have been made in Britain for the last several decades. But that is about to change as a group of packaging industry veterans prepare to open a dedicated paper straw production line in Ebbw Vale, Wales, making hundreds of millions of straws a year for McDonald’s and other food companies as they Read more about Paper straw factory to open in Britain as restaurants ditch plastic[…]

Climate Change Can Be Reversed by Turning Air Into Gasoline

A team of scientists from Harvard University and the company Carbon Engineering announced on Thursday that they have found a method to cheaply and directly pull carbon-dioxide pollution out of the atmosphere. […] the new technique is noteworthy because it promises to remove carbon dioxide cheaply. As recently as 2011, a panel of experts estimated Read more about Climate Change Can Be Reversed by Turning Air Into Gasoline[…]

Giant African baobab trees die suddenly after thousands of years

Some of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, according to researchers. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and in some cases as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated. “We report that nine Read more about Giant African baobab trees die suddenly after thousands of years[…]

A.I. Can Track Human Bodies Through Walls Now, With Just a Wifi Signal

A new piece of software has been trained to use wifi signals — which pass through walls, but bounce off living tissue — to monitor the movements, breathing, and heartbeats of humans on the other side of those walls. The researchers say this new tech’s promise lies in areas like remote healthcare, particularly elder care, Read more about A.I. Can Track Human Bodies Through Walls Now, With Just a Wifi Signal[…]

A machine has figured out Rubik’s Cube all by itself – using a reverse technique called autodictic iteration

In these scenarios, a deep-learning machine is given the rules of the game and then plays against itself. Crucially, it is rewarded at each step according to how it performs. This reward process is hugely important because it helps the machine to distinguish good play from bad play. In other words, it helps the machine Read more about A machine has figured out Rubik’s Cube all by itself – using a reverse technique called autodictic iteration[…]

Bitcoin Price: ‘Bloody Sunday’ Not Caused by Coinrail Hack

As CCN reported, the little-known Coinrail became the latest cryptocurrency exchange to fall prey to hackers, who are said to have made off with approximately $40 million worth of tokens, a fairly pedestrian figure relative to some of the hacks seen over the years. Later that day, the bitcoin price began to careen downwards, taking Read more about Bitcoin Price: ‘Bloody Sunday’ Not Caused by Coinrail Hack[…]

Hackers Stole Over $20 Million From Misconfigured Ethereum Clients

A group of hackers has stolen over $20 million worth of Ethereum from Ethereum-based apps and mining rigs, Chinese cyber-security firm Qihoo 360 Netlab reported today. The cause of these thefts is Ethereum software applications that have been configured to expose an RPC [Remote Procedure Call] interface on port 8545. The purpose of this interface Read more about Hackers Stole Over $20 Million From Misconfigured Ethereum Clients[…]

Blockchain’s Once-Feared 51% Attack Is Now Becoming Regular among smaller coins

Monacoin, bitcoin gold, zencash, verge and now, litecoin cash. At least five cryptocurrencies have recently been hit with an attack that used to be more theoretical than actual, all in the last month. In each case, attackers have been able to amass enough computing power to compromise these smaller networks, rearrange their transactions and abscond Read more about Blockchain’s Once-Feared 51% Attack Is Now Becoming Regular among smaller coins[…]

EU Copyright law could put end to net memes

Memes, remixes and other user-generated content could disappear online if the EU’s proposed rules on copyright become law, warn experts. Digital rights groups are campaigning against the Copyright Directive, which the European Parliament will vote on later this month. The legislation aims to protect rights-holders in the internet age. But critics say it misunderstands the Read more about EU Copyright law could put end to net memes[…]

Cisco Removes Backdoor Account, Fourth in the Last Four Months

For the fourth time in as many months, Cisco has removed hardcoded credentials that were left inside one of its products, which an attacker could have exploited to gain access to devices and inherently to customer networks. This time around, the hardcoded password was found in Cisco’s Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), which is a Read more about Cisco Removes Backdoor Account, Fourth in the Last Four Months[…]

The first 3D printed houses will be built in the Netherlands this year

The city of Eindhoven soon hopes to boast the world’s first commercially-developed 3D-printed homes, an endeavor known as Project Milestone. Artist’s rendering of 3D printed home neighborhood. (3dprintedhouse.nl) Construction on the first home begins this year and five houses will be on the rental market by 2019, project organizers say. Within a week of releasing Read more about The first 3D printed houses will be built in the Netherlands this year[…]

Facebook gave some companies special access to data on users’ friends

Facebook granted a select group of companies special access to its users’ records even after the point in 2015 that the company has claimed it stopped sharing such data with app developers. According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited court documents, unnamed Facebook officials and other unnamed sources, Facebook made special agreements with certain companies called “whitelists,” Read more about Facebook gave some companies special access to data on users’ friends[…]

Ticketfly exposes data on 27m customers in hack

Ticketfly was the target of a malicious cyber attack last week In consultation with third-party forensic cybersecurity experts we can now confirm that credit and debit card information was not accessed. However, information including names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers connected to approximately 27 million Ticketfly accounts was accessed. It’s important to note that Read more about Ticketfly exposes data on 27m customers in hack[…]

The hits keep coming for Facebook: Web giant made 14m people’s private posts public

about 14 million people were affected by a bug that, for a nine-day span between May 18 and 27, caused profile posts to be set as public by default, allowing any Tom, Dick or Harriet to view the material. “We recently found a bug that automatically suggested posting publicly when some people were creating their Read more about The hits keep coming for Facebook: Web giant made 14m people’s private posts public[…]

VPNFilter router malware is a lot worse than everyone thought

ASUS, D-Link, Huawei, Ubiquiti, UPVEL, and ZTE: these are the vendors newly-named by Cisco’s Talos Intelligence as being exploited by the malware scum running the VPNFilter attacks, and the attack’s been spotted hitting endpoints behind vulnerable kit. As well as the expanded list of impacted devices, Talos warned that VPNFilter now attacks endpoints behind the Read more about VPNFilter router malware is a lot worse than everyone thought[…]

How programmers addict you to social media, games and your mobile phone

If you look at the current climate, the largest companies are the ones that hook you into their channel, whether it is a game, a website, shopping or social media. Quite a lot of research has been done in to how much time we spend watching TV and looking at our mobiles, showing differing numbers, Read more about How programmers addict you to social media, games and your mobile phone[…]

EFAIL: PGP and S/MIME (encrypted email) are no longer safe

EFAIL describes vulnerabilities in the end-to-end encryption technologies OpenPGP and S/MIME that leak the plaintext of encrypted emails. Email is a plaintext communication medium whose communication paths are partly protected by TLS (TLS). For people in hostile environments (journalists, political activists, whistleblowers, …) who depend on the confidentiality of digital communication, this may not be Read more about EFAIL: PGP and S/MIME (encrypted email) are no longer safe[…]

Uh oh! Here’s yet more AI that creates creepy fake talking heads

Video Machine-learning experts have built a neural network that can manipulate facial movements in videos to create fake footage – in which people appear to say something they never actually said. It could be used to create convincing yet faked announcements and confessions seemingly uttered by the rich and powerful as well as the average Read more about Uh oh! Here’s yet more AI that creates creepy fake talking heads[…]

AI learns to copy human gaming behaviour by watching Youtube

Deep reinforcement learning methods traditionally struggle with tasks where environment rewards are particularly sparse. One successful method of guiding exploration in these domains is to imitate trajectories provided by a human demonstrator. However, these demonstrations are typically collected under artificial conditions, i.e. with access to the agent’s exact environment setup and the demonstrator’s action and Read more about AI learns to copy human gaming behaviour by watching Youtube[…]

AI better than dermatologists at detecting skin cancer, study finds

or the first time, new research suggests artificial intelligence may be better than highly-trained humans at detecting skin cancer. A study conducted by an international team of researchers pitted experienced dermatologists against a machine learning system, known as a deep learning convolutional neural network, or CNN, to see which was more effective at detecting malignant Read more about AI better than dermatologists at detecting skin cancer, study finds[…]

AI can tell who you are by your gait using only floor sensors

Human footsteps can provide a unique behavioural pattern for robust biometric systems. We propose spatio-temporal footstep representations from floor-only sensor data in advanced computational models for automatic biometric verification. Our models deliver an artificial intelligence capable of effectively differentiating the fine-grained variability of footsteps between legitimate users (clients) and impostor users of the biometric system. Read more about AI can tell who you are by your gait using only floor sensors[…]

Robots fight weeds in challenge to agrochemical giants

In a field of sugar beet in Switzerland, a solar-powered robot that looks like a table on wheels scans the rows of crops with its camera, identifies weeds and zaps them with jets of blue liquid from its mechanical tentacles. Undergoing final tests before the liquid is replaced with weedkiller, the Swiss robot is one Read more about Robots fight weeds in challenge to agrochemical giants[…]