The World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution this week announced the creation of six new councils to address policy guidance in areas including artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, IoT and precision medicine. Already a source of friction between the U.S. and China, AI is one emerging technology seen by many nations as crucial to future development and competition. As Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI deputy director Michael Sellitto puts it, “many see AI through the lens of economic and geopolitical competition … [creating] barriers that preserve their perceived strategic advantages, in access to data or research.” Continue reading World Economic Forum Launches Councils on AI, IoT, More

The nonprofit Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) has organized its members, which includes some big tech companies such as Cisco, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks and Symantec, to share knowledge about software bugs and hacking threats, to alert their customers and limit the damage. To do so, the companies have decided to put cybersecurity ahead of the competition. Dubbed “early sharing,” the strategy goes into action as government-linked groups in China, Iran, North Korea and Russia run devastating hacking campaigns. Continue reading Cyber Threat Alliance’s Early Sharing Aims to Stop Hackers

Nvidia’s new EGX Platform will bring AI computing to the edge, meaning it will take place at the sensors, before being sent to cloud-based data centers. The platform is intended to handle the immense growth in sensors embedded in Internet of Things devices and wearables, which has resulted in a massive amount of raw data. According to Nvidia senior director of enterprise and edge computing Justin Boitano, “we will soon hit a crossover point where there is more computing power at the edge than in data centers.” Continue reading Nvidia EGX Brings AI Computing to the Edge, Enabling IoT

Hyperloop technology — which relies on magnetic levitation, steel tubs and vacuum pumps — is one way that hopeful technologists promise to improve the travel experience. Most recently, a Missouri congressman proposed a hyperloop between Kansas City, Missouri and St. Louis, which would take 30 minutes to travel 250 miles. In Las Vegas, Nevada, Elon Musk’s The Boring Company (TBC) landed its first commercial contract, for $48.7 million, to build a “people mover” that would shuttle people around the city’s Convention Center, expected to be ready for CES 2021. Continue reading Hyperloop Projects Bring New Travel Tech Closer to Reality

In Q1 2019, Facebook removed 2.2 billion fake accounts from its popular social platform. That compares to 583 million fake accounts the company deleted in Q1 2018; in Q4 that year, it removed “just more” than 1 billion. Facebook said that “the vast majority” is removed within minutes of being created, so they do not count in its monthly/daily active user metrics. In its biannual report, Facebook also said its automated detection software used to delete “illicit content” was improving, removing more than half of the targeted speech. Continue reading Facebook Removes More Fake Accounts and Hate Speech

Google is using artificial intelligence software to remove misleading and objectionable videos from YouTube’s homepage and the app’s home screen. The software reportedly is able to analyze massive amounts of video footage, pick out the offending clips and blocks them — all without human assistance. Sources state the software, whose internal name is “trashy video classifier,” was first tested in 2015 but was widely deployed in 2017 after a series of inappropriate videos aimed at children were posted to the popular video-sharing platform. Continue reading Google Uses AI Classifier to Sanitize YouTube Home Page

Amazon is working on a new wearable, codenamed Dylan, that reportedly can discern human emotions. The voice-activated gadget, developed by Amazon in collaboration with Lab126 and the Alexa voice software team, is worn on the wrist and is meant to address health and wellness. Lab126 previously worked with Amazon to build its Fire phone and Echo speaker. According to sources, the wearable includes microphones that pair with software and work with a smartphone app to glean the user’s emotional state via the sound of his/her voice. Continue reading Amazon Testing Wearable That Recognizes Your Emotions

Carriers in Japan, Taiwan and the United Kingdom have stopped accepting pre-orders for Huawei’s newest 5G-enabled smartphones, fearful that the U.S.-China trade war could impact the functioning of the phones. Google has stated it would not permit Huawei to use its latest Android operating system and future phones will lose access to popular Google services. ARM, Huawei’s chip supplier, confirmed it has ceased doing business with the Shenzhen-based Huawei. If the U.S. Commerce Department does not issue a waiver, Huawei could be in serious trouble. Continue reading Multiple Carriers and ARM Are the Latest to Cut Off Huawei

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh sided with the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm, finding that it “unlawfully stifled competition in the market for wireless chips.” This brings uncertainty to Qualcomm’s core business of licensing its patents; Koh ruled that the company must renegotiate all existing patent license deals. That could result in lower costs for Apple and other smartphone makers. The Trump administration has pointed to Qualcomm as a “keystone” in the U.S. tech competition with China. Continue reading Judge Rules For FTC Against Qualcomm in Antitrust Case

Beijing-based ByteDance plans to debut a paid music service for its video app TikTok in fall 2019, aimed at poorer countries where the industry’s dominant services, Apple Music and Spotify, have not yet taken root. Executives at India’s two largest labels, T-Series and Times Music, reported that ByteDance has already acquired rights. TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin, have been downloaded more than 500 million times; TikTok popularized the world’s No. 1 song for the past month, “Old Town Road.” Continue reading ByteDance Targets Emerging Markets with Music Service

Amazon Marketplace, a third-party seller network worth about $250 billion, has long been the go-to platform for online entrepreneurs who refurbish and sell old Apple computers. But the Mac resale sector has gone up in smoke since Apple and Amazon struck an agreement to limit sales of Apple products only to “the largest companies” and authorized providers. Amazon Marketplace is “the preeminent place” to sell products, offering logistics and shipping unlike competitors eBay and Walmart, as well as Overstock and Etsy. Continue reading Apple Sells Products via Amazon, Tightens Resale Market

Several U.S. senators have proposed the Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act to create a national AI strategy and fund federal R&D in this growing area to the tune of $2.2 billion. The initiative’s $2.2 billion would be awarded over a five-year period to multiple federal agencies. At the same time, although the European Commission put out guidelines for artificial intelligence technology, some experts are saying that the tech companies that participated in drafting guidelines compromised them to protect their own interests. Continue reading Senators Press For National Artificial Intelligence Strategy

Humans learn from experience to not “do dumb things,” and Facebook chief AI scientist Yann LeCun is trying to create a version of that for robots, saying that systems that learn “models of the world” are our best shot at advancing artificial intelligence. Unlike a rewards/demerits-based reinforcement learning, Facebook’s tack is to instill curiosity, by giving the robot freedom to try new things. With New York University, Facebook also dramatically reduced the number of tries to teach a robotic arm to grasp an object. Continue reading Facebook Turns to Robots to Advance Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft corporate vice president/deputy general counsel Julie Brill believes that the federal government is essential in guaranteeing “a strong right to privacy” in the United States. She noted that California and Illinois have enacted serious data protection laws, but that the U.S. needs federal regulation. She came to that conclusion after observing that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enacted almost one year ago, has been “very effective” in transforming how companies manage personal data. Continue reading Microsoft Urges U.S. to Adopt Laws Similar to EU’s GDPR

Chinese TV manufacturer Hisense just unveiled its ULED XD television, with plans to offer high-end technology at a lower-than-typical price. According to the company’s director of product management Chris Porter, the company puts 5 percent of profits every year into R&D, which has allowed it to develop the set’s proprietary technology — some of which has never been released in the U.S. market. At CES 2019, Hisense showed off the ULED XD, which is essentially comprised of two connected 4K LCD panels, and a proprietary chipset that reportedly offers exceptional deep blacks. Continue reading Hisense’s ULED XD TV Aims to Compete with OLED Tech