PROTEINNET: A STANDARDIZED DATA SET FOR MACHINE LEARNING OF PROTEIN STRUCTURE
Protein structure prediction is one of the central problems of biochemistry. While the problem is well-studied within the biological and chemical sciences, it is less well represented within the machine learning community. We suspect this is due to two reasons: 1) a high barrier to entry for non-domain experts, and 2) lack of standardization in terms of training / validation / test splits that make fair and consistent comparisons across methods possible.
Read moreSHENZHEN’S HOMEGROWN CYBORG
Huaqiangbei, the famed electronics bazaar in Shenzhen, China, hums with the chaotic unity of a thousand symbiotic organisms. Stacks of circuit boards, cables, and colorful components extend farther than the eye can see. Sellers hawk their wares from Tetris-like cubicles crammed around claustrophobic aisles. It’s the type of place that inspires resplendent cyberpunk universes, but to Naomi Wu, a local hardware hobbyist, this is home. Source: vice.com
GUIDE TO SPEECH RECOGNITION WITH PYTHON
Far from a being a fad, the overwhelming success of speech-enabled products like Amazon Alexa has proven that some degree of speech support will be an essential aspect of household tech for the foreseeable future. If you think about it, the reasons why are pretty obvious. Incorporating speech recognition into your Python application offers a level of interactivity and accessibility that few technologies can match.
Read moreCONNECTED CARS — WHAT ARE THEY AND HOW TO GET STARTED DEVELOPING CONNECTED CAR APPS
There’s hardly any doubt these days that the future of automotive is going to be connected and electric—illustrated by top tier car brands such as Tesla and Porsche with their offering of excellent connected electric cars like Tesla Model S and Porsche Mission E. Source: hackernoon.com
A GIANT AIRCRAFT CARRIER BUILT FROM ICE
Britain was losing the Battle of the Atlantic, with German U-boats sinking ship after ship. Enter Project Habakkuk, the incredible plan to build an aircraft carrier from ice. Source: bbc.com
PROPUBLICA/MOTHER JONES INVESTIGATION CONFIRMS IBM LAYOFFS TARGETED OLDER WORKERS
IBM continued to lay off workers as discreetly as possible in 2017, reporting on them in employment news roundups on occasion. But sadly, for me, it became a little bit old news (not, of course, for those newly affected). IBM repeatedly cuts older workers and U.S. jobs, according to those laid off, and denies it. In fact, the company stopped reporting workforce numbers by country. Instead, it moved to just reporting total global workforce, which has stayed roughly level, even as the anecdotal reports of layoffs continued at a steady pace.
Read moreLEAKED DATA SUGGESTS UBER SELF-DRIVING CAR PROGRAM MAY BE WAY BEHIND WAYMO
The key statistic: prior to last Sunday’sfatal crash in Tempe, Arizona, Uber’s self-driving cars in Arizona were ‘struggling’ to go 13 miles between interventions by a safety driver—known as a disengagement. Source: arstechnica.com
HOW SELF-DRIVING CAR POLICY WILL DETERMINE LIFE, DEATH AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN
Imagine you’re in a self-driving car going down a road when, suddenly, the large propane tanks hauled by the truck in front of you fall out and fly in your direction. A split-second decision needs to be made, and you can’t think through the outcomes and tradeoffs for every possible response. Fortunately, the smart system driving your car can run through tons of scenarios at lightning fast speed.
Read moreLISTENING FOR ILLEGAL LOGGING CHAINSAWS USING TENSORFLOW
Our team has built the world’s first scalable, real-time detection and alert system for logging and environmental conservation in the rainforest. Building hardware that will survive in the rainforest is challenging, but we’re using what’s already there: the trees. We’ve hidden modified smartphones powered with solar panels—called “Guardian” devices—in trees in threatened areas, and continuously monitor the sounds of the forest, sending all audio up to our cloud-based servers over the standard, local cell-phone network.
Read moreCOULD WE ACTUALLY NUKE AN ASTEROID TO SAVE EARTH?
Two recent papers anticipate how nukes could be employed to either deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, or blow it into smaller, less hazardous chunks. One, published in Acta Astronautica, proposes a vehicle called the Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER), which could be deployed to nudge asteroids away from Earth, or in a worst case scenario, as a delivery mechanism for a nuclear device.
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