LOOKING TO LISTEN: AUDIO-VISUAL SPEECH SEPARATION
People are remarkably good at focusing their attention on a particular person in a noisy environment, mentally “muting” all other voices and sounds. Known as the cocktail party effect, this capability comes natural to us humans. However, automatic speech separation — separating an audio signal into its individual speech sources — while a well-studied problem, remains a significant challenge for computers. Source: googleblog.com
GIFT OF GARB: HOW AI HELPS FASHION FOLLOWERS CHOOSE THE BEST DRESS
Wardrobes could sharpen up for online shoppers everywhere, while retailers cut costs, thanks to AI that puts clothes on fashion models in a virtual photo shoot. A fully staffed, photo fashion shoot can run up to $500 per outfit. Given the thousands of potential looks, many online retailers display their garments without models. Source: nvidia.com
TESLA FULL SELF-DRIVING IMAGES LEAKED
Tesla’s full self-driving autonomous vehicle feature is coming. An image leaked on Tuesday apparently shows the new user interface of a test-car. The image shows how the autopilot software/system views and interprets the world. The view has strong similarities to previous autonomous driving videos released by Tesla, there is now an option called ‘full self-driving” indicating a more advanced mode suggesting complete autonomy of the car.
Read moreJAPAN TEAM MAPS ‘SEMI-INFINITE’ TROVE OF RARE EARTH ELEMENTS
The deposit, found within Japan’s exclusive economic zone waters, contains more than 16 million tons of the elements needed to build high-tech products ranging from mobile phones to electric vehicles, according to the study, released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports. Source: co.jp
IF AI THINKS LIKE A HUMAN IT MAY GET DEPRESSED
Artificial intelligences may need to have some sort of control mechanism built into them that functions similar to the way serotonin works in the human brain, Mainen said. This mechanism would allow the machines to adapt to new situations quickly, but it could also result in the entrenchment of certain thought patterns and result in depression in the machines as well.
Read moreNASA JUST DROPPED ITS MOST DETAILED VIDEO TOUR OF THE MOON YET
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has released a breathtaking new video tour of the Moon in 4K resolution, stitching together some of the most detailed observations captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The video is a new version of an LRO Moon tour released back in 2011, but this time it has been enhanced to precision resolution and includes new data from the spacecraft, which has been in a polar orbit around the Moon since for nearly a decade.
Read moreTHE EMOTIONS WE FEEL MAY SHAPE WHAT WE SEE
Our emotional state in a given moment may influence what we see, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In two experiments, researchers found that participants saw a neutral face as smiling more when it was paired with an unseen positive image. Source: medicalxpress.com
IRON AGE STUDY TARGETS BRITISH DNA MYSTERY
A recent study showed that the present-day genetic landscape of Britain was largely laid down by the Bronze Age. Source: co.uk
TOWARDS A VIRTUAL STUNTMAN
Motion control problems have become standard benchmarks for reinforcement learning, and deep RL methods have been shown to be effective for a diverse suite of tasks ranging from manipulation to locomotion. However, characters trained with deep RL often exhibit unnatural behaviours, bearing artifacts such as jittering, asymmetric gaits, and excessive movement of limbs. Can we train our characters to produce more natural behaviours? Source: berkeley.edu
NEW RESEARCH SHOWS SUCCESSFUL FOUNDERS ARE FAR OLDER THAN THE VALLEY STEREOTYPE
There is a classic stereotype of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur: often a computer science nerd, almost certainly male, ambitious and, most importantly, young — very young. Founders who have been covered extensively by the media, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, started their companies still glimpsing their teenage years, and that reputation has spread widely across the industry.
Read more