HOW A KALMAN FILTER WORKS, IN PICTURES
Surprisingly few software engineers and scientists seem to know about it, and that makes me sad because it is such a general and powerful tool for combining information in the presence of uncertainty. At times its ability to extract accurate information seems almost magical— and if it sounds like I’m talking this up too much, then take a look at this previously posted video where I demonstrate a Kalman filter figuring out the orientation of a free-floating body by looking at its velocity. Totally neat!
Read moreOPEN-SOURCING GVISOR, A SANDBOXED CONTAINER RUNTIME
Containers have revolutionized how we develop, package, and deploy applications. However, the system surface exposed to containers is broad enough that many security experts don’t recommend them for running untrusted or potentially malicious applications. A growing desire to run more heterogenous and less trusted workloads has created a new interest in sandboxed containers—containers that help provide a secure isolation boundary between the host OS and the application running inside the container.
Read moreCONTAINERS, SECURITY AND ECHO CHAMBERS
There seems to be some confusion around sandboxing containers as of late, mostly because of the recent launch of gvisor. Before I get into the body of this post I would like to make one thing clear. I have no problem with gvisor itself. I think it is very technically “cool.” I do have a problem with the messaging around it and marketing. When you work at a large organization you are surrounded by an echo chamber.
Read moreCHINA HAS LAUNCHED A COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE TO THE MOON
China’s space agency has taken a critical first step toward an unprecedented robotic landing on the far side of the Moon. On Monday, local time, theChina Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation launched aLong March 4C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Although it did not broadcast the launch, the Chinese space agency said it went smoothly, according to the state news service Xinhua.
Read moreTHE U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT’S DEEPLY FLAWED ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS PROGRAM
A US $4.3 billion electronic health records program for the U.S. Department of Defense is “neither operationally effective nor operationally suitable,” according to a recently released memo and report from the agency’s director of operational test and evaluation. That deployment should be complete by 2023, at which point the EHR system will support (pdf) 9.4 million beneficiaries and 205,000 healthcare professionals. Cummings added that she doesn’t expect the issues Behler raised to delay that schedule.
Read moreTENSOR COMPILERS: COMPARING PLAIDML, TENSOR COMPREHENSIONS, AND TVM
One of the most complex and performance critical parts of any machine learning framework is its support for device specific acceleration. Indeed, without efficient GPU acceleration, much of modern ML research and deployment would not be possible. This acceleration support is also a critical bottleneck, both in terms of adding support for a wider range of hardware targets (including mobile) as well as for writing new research kernels.
Read moreA DEEP DIVE INTO MONTE CARLO TREE SEARCH
The very first Go AIs used multiple modules to handle each aspect of playing Go – life and death, capturing races, opening theory, endgame theory, and so on. The idea was that by having experts program each module using heuristics, the AI would become an expert in all areas of the game. All that came to a grinding halt with the introduction of Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) around 2008.
Read moreTO BUILD TRULY INTELLIGENT MACHINES, TEACH THEM CAUSE AND EFFECT
Judea Pearl, a pioneering figure in artificial intelligence, argues that AI has been stuck in a decades-long rut. His prescription for progress? Teach machines to understand the question why. Artificial intelligence owes a lot of its smarts to Judea Pearl. In the 1980s he led efforts that allowed machines to reason probabilistically. Now he’s one of the field’s sharpest critics.
Read moreESTONIA PLANS TO BECOME A FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT NATION
After a successful experiment with free public transport for all citizens in Tallinn, Estonia wants to become the world’s first free public transport nation. Allan Alaküla explains why this is a good idea. Tallinn, known for its digital government and successful tech startups, is often referred to as Europe’s innovation capital. Now celebrating five years of free public transport for all citizens, the government is planning to make Estonia the first free public transport nation. Allan Alaküla, Head of Tallinn European Union Office, shares some valuable insights for other cities.
Read moreGOOGLE REMOVES ‘DON’T BE EVIL’ CLAUSE FROM ITS CODE OF CONDUCT
Google’s unofficial motto has long been the simple phrase “don’t be evil.” But that’s over, according to the code of conduct that Google distributes to its employees. The phrase was removed sometime in late April or early May, archives hosted by the Wayback Machine show. Source: gizmodo.com