AI’s ‘deep-fake’ vids surge ahead in realism

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook Reality Lab are presenting Recycle-GAN, a generative adversarial system for “unsupervised video retargeting” this week at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) in Germany. Unlike most methods, Recycle-GAN doesn’t rely on learning an explicit mapping between the images in a source and target video to perform a Read more about AI’s ‘deep-fake’ vids surge ahead in realism[…]

Solid-state battery startup secures backing from several automakers as it claims 2- 3x higher energy capacity, better safety through solid-state

Solid Power is a Colorado-based startup that spun out of a battery research program at the University of Colorado Boulder. The company claims to have achieved a breakthrough by incorporating a high-capacity lithium metal anode in lithium batteries – creating a solid-state cell with an energy capacity “2-3X higher” than conventional lithium-ion. They have already attracted Read more about Solid-state battery startup secures backing from several automakers as it claims 2- 3x higher energy capacity, better safety through solid-state[…]

Article 11, Article 13: EU’s Dangerous Copyright Bill Advances: massive censorship and upload filters (which are impossible) and huge taxes for links.

Members of the European Parliament voted Wednesday to approve a sweeping overhaul of the EU’s copyright laws that includes two controversial articles that threaten to hand more power to the richest tech companies and generally break the internet. Overall, MEPs voted in favor of the EU Copyright Directive with a strong majority of 438 to Read more about Article 11, Article 13: EU’s Dangerous Copyright Bill Advances: massive censorship and upload filters (which are impossible) and huge taxes for links.[…]

You know all those movies you bought from Apple? Um, well, think different: You didn’t. Didn’t you learn that from Amazon in 2009?

Remember when you decided to buy, rather than rent, that movie online? We have some bad news for you – you didn’t. Biologist Anders Gonçalves da Silva was surprised this week to find three movies he had purchased through iTunes simply disappeared one day from his library. So he contacted Apple to find out what Read more about You know all those movies you bought from Apple? Um, well, think different: You didn’t. Didn’t you learn that from Amazon in 2009?[…]

Wow, great invention: Now AI eggheads teach machines how to be sarcastic using Reddit

It’s tricky. Computers have to follow what is being said by whom, the context of the conversation and often some real world facts to understand cultural references. Feeding machines single sentences is often ineffective; it’s a difficult task for humans to detect if individual remarks are cheeky too. The researchers, therefore, built a system designed Read more about Wow, great invention: Now AI eggheads teach machines how to be sarcastic using Reddit[…]

Top European Court Rules UK Mass Surveillance Regime Violates Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled this week that the United Kingdom government’s surveillance regime violated human rights laws. The matter first came to light in 2013 when NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed British surveillance practices—namely that the government intercepts social media, messages, and phone calls regardless of criminal record or suspicions of Read more about Top European Court Rules UK Mass Surveillance Regime Violates Human Rights[…]

Facebook creates an AI-based tool to automate bug fixes

SapFix, which is still under development, is designed to generate fixes automatically for specific bugs before sending them to human engineers for approval. Facebook, which announced the tool today ahead of its @Scale conference in San Jose, California, for developers building large-scale systems and applications, calls SapFix an “AI hybrid tool.” It uses artificial intelligence Read more about Facebook creates an AI-based tool to automate bug fixes[…]

Cold Boot Attacks are back – plug a sleeping laptop into some kit and read all the memory, slurp all the passwords

Olle and his fellow cyber security consultant Pasi Saarinen recently discovered a new way to physically hack into PCs. According to their research, this method will work against nearly all modern computers. This includes laptops from some of the world’s biggest vendors like Dell, Lenovo, and even Apple. And because these computers are everywhere, Olle Read more about Cold Boot Attacks are back – plug a sleeping laptop into some kit and read all the memory, slurp all the passwords[…]

Plants communicate distress using their own kind of nervous system

Plants may lack brains, but they have a nervous system, of sorts. And now, plant biologists have discovered that when a leaf gets eaten, it warns other leaves by using some of the same signals as animals. The new work is starting to unravel a long-standing mystery about how different parts of a plant communicate Read more about Plants communicate distress using their own kind of nervous system[…]