MICROWAVES ACROSS EUROPE ARE 6 MINUTES SLOW DUE TO A SERBIA-KOSOVO GRID DISPUTE
Power-connected clocks on appliances generally tell time by counting the rate of the electrical current, which in Europe is supposed to hold a constant frequency of 50Hz. If that frequency drops below 50Hz, connected appliance clocks will be slow, and if it rises above 50Hz, clocks will be fast. Since mid-January, clocks that are on the Continental Europe Power System, a synchronized area that reaches through 25 countries across the continent, have seen a deviation from grid-time based on an average frequency of 49.996 Hz.
Read moreAMAZON ADMITS ALEXA IS LAUGHING AT PEOPLE AND IS WORKING ON A FIX
As noted in media reports and a trending Twitter moment, Alexa seemed to start laughing without being prompted to wake. People on Twitter and Reddit reported that they thought it was an actual person laughing near them, which is certainly scary if you’re home alone. Many responded to the cackling sounds by unplugging their Alexa-enabled devices. Source: theverge.com
‘DEEP VOICE’ SOFTWARE CAN CLONE ANYONE’S VOICE WITH JUST 3.7 SECONDS OF AUDIO
With just 3.7 seconds of audio, a new AI algorithm developed by Chinese tech giant Baidu can clone a pretty believable fake voice. Much like the rapid development of machine learning software that democratized the creation of fake videos, this research shows why it’s getting harder to believe any piece of media on the internet. Source: vice.com
GOOGLE SKAFFOLD – EASY AND REPEATABLE KUBERNETES DEVELOPMENT
Skaffold is a command line tool that facilitates continuous development for Kubernetes applications. You can iterate on your application source code locally then deploy to local or remote Kubernetes clusters. Skaffold handles the workflow for building, pushing and deploying your application. It can also be used in an automated context such as a CI/CD pipeline to leverage the same workflow and tooling when moving applications to production.
Read moreGOOGLE ENGINEERS THINK THIS 72-QUBIT PROCESSOR CAN ACHIEVE QUANTUM SUPREMACY
On Monday, Google researcher Julian Kelly unveiled Bristlecone, the company’s new record-breaking 72-qubit quantum processor, at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Los Angeles. Kelly and his colleagues at Google’s Quantum AI lab hope this processor will be the first chip to achieve quantum supremacy, the point at which quantum computers can perform calculations that are beyond the capabilities of even the most advanced supercomputers.
Read moreGIANT ATOM HIDES ITS NEIGHBORS UNDER A SINGLE-ELECTRON SKIRT
You may be familiar with matryoshka dolls: nested sets of painted figurines that fit within painted figurines. In the case of wooden dolls, the concept is pretty straightforward: hollow out a large bit and fit smaller bits in. You might think that doing the same thing with atoms is kind of tough. Yes, atoms are mostly space, but they are kind of difficult to hollow out. And, convincing another atom to enter the empty space (and make itself smaller) seems an impossible task.
Read moreOUR MICROBIOMES ARE MAKING SCIENTISTS QUESTION WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN
When you’re young, everyone tells you that you are a unique individual. The idea of individuality stretches back centuries, but as we learn more about our bodies, some biologists have suggested that the microorganisms within us mean we’re more like a collection of trillions of organisms than an individual person. Source: vice.com
AUTOMATIC MACHINE KNITTING OF 3D MESHES
We present the first computational approach that can transform 3D meshes, created by traditional modeling programs, directly into instructions for a computer-controlled knitting machine. Knitting machines are able to robustly and repeatably form knitted 3D surfaces from yarn, but have many constraints on what they can fabricate. Source: github.io
NANOWIRE ARRAYS RESTORE VISION IN BLIND MICE
Retina is an important light-sensitive tissue that transduces light information into neural activities through multi-layers of neuronal cells. Light entering an eye passes through the transparent retina and is mostly captured by the visual pigment-containing photoreceptors. Retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration lead to irreversible damage or even loss of photoreceptors, which can result in serious impairment of vision and eventually blindness.
Read moreSOLVING VISUAL ANALOGY PUZZLES WITH DEEP LEARNING
Bongard problmes are named after their inventor, Soviet computer scientist Mikhail Bongard, who was working on pattern recognition in the 1960s. He designed 100 of this puzzles, to be a good benchmark for pattern recognition abilities, and they seem to be challenging for both people and algorithms. Here is an example: Source: github.io