Новости за 10.05.2018

Boston Dynamics’ robots look more natural and more amazing with each video, and today the company posted two more clips to its YouTube channel showing the latest progress of its Atlas and SpotMini robots.

Despite the title of Avengers: Infinity War, the lead character isn’t Iron Man, Captain America, or any of the other Avengers who protect the world from evil. From beginning to end, Joe and Anthony Russo’s blockbuster is about the eight-foot intergalactic big bad Thanos, played by Josh Brolin. Thanos is every bit as dominating and destructive as fans of the series could hope, but he isn’t the one-dimensional villain he so easily could have been.

Klout is out and there’s nary a pout. Lithium Technologies, which purchased Klout in 2014 for reportedly $200 million, has announced it’s going to shut down the site by May 25th.

The White House has set up a new task force dedicated to US artificial intelligence efforts, the Trump administration announced today during an event with technology executives, government leaders, and AI experts. The news and the event, which was organized by the federal government, are both moves to further the country’s AI development, as other regions like Europe and Asia ramp up AI investment and R&D as well.

Monday afternoon, workers at a treatment plant in Augusta, Georgia found something unusual traveling through the city’s wastewater. A mass of fetal remains had lodged in a piece of equipment, apparently flushed down a drain somewhere within city limits. City coroner Mark Bowen identified the remains as roughly 20 weeks into pregnancy, halfway through the second trimester. That also placed the remains right on the lip of Georgia’s abortion law, which outlaws abortions after 20 weeks.

Using artificial intelligence, scientists have created a tool that lets anyone visualize what the structures inside a cell look like — even when you only have images of the outside. The Allen Integrated Cell, available for free online, creates 3D visualizations that could help researchers better understand disease.

In the keynote talk at this week’s Google I/O developer conference, executives announced new system-level features in Android to help people understand and manage their smartphone usage. “Great technology should improve life, not distract from it,” declared a banner headline on a new site from the company, wellbeing.google. The site continues: “We’re creating tools and features that help people better understand their tech usage, focus on what matters most, disconnect when needed, and create healthy... Читать дальше...

Since it debuted in 2013, Adult Swim’s show Rick and Morty has become a massive hit. Earlier today, Cartoon Network and series co-creator Justin Roiland announced that they’re making another 70 — that’s right, 70 — episodes.

The underground nuclear explosion in North Korea on September 3rd, 2017 was so powerful that it moved a mountain, according to new research.

As the world’s temperatures go up, the Arctic keeps losing its ice. This winter, the area covered by sea ice was the second smallest on record — after last year. And many experts believe that this summer, the Arctic ice cap will shrink to record lows. Why should I care, you ask?

Google shocked the crowd at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday when it kicked off a fascinating discussion about AI ethics with Duplex, a human-like voice system for its Assistant product that makes phone calls on behalf of users. But while Duplex remains a more experimental and far-off effort — one we’ll likely be debating in the weeks and months to come — Google’s more measured approach to artificial intelligence as it pertains to legacy product development didn’t garner as many headlines. Читать дальше...

The fifth numbered entry in the broad series of nature-and-tourism themed open-world shooters, Far Cry 5 is a mess. Its story doesn’t make sense, its themes don’t cohere, and it fails to do any justice to its real-world setting, Montana, or the politics and people that comprise it. It does not, in any sense, represent progress for the world of big, expensive video games.

Android P brings a whole bunch of new updates to Google’s operating system, and one of the biggest is the new, gesture-based interface system. A system that many (including us) have noted is pretty similar on the surface to the one that Apple introduced on the iPhone X last year. Which of course begs the question: who’s doing gestures better?

Google unveiled Gmail’s new Smart Compose feature at its annual developer conference this week, and it’s now available to try out as an “experimental feature” on desktop. Smart Compose builds off the idea of Smart Reply, predicting what you’ll write next as you type in the body of an email.

Instagram has announced a new variation of its polling sticker for Stories: now there’s an emoji slider that lets you ask and answer questions with an animated emoji on a sliding scale.

The entire time I played Monster Hunter World on the PS4 back in January, I wished I could have a similar experience on the Nintendo Switch. Now, Capcom is making that happen... sort of. Today, the developer announced the series’s debut on Nintendo’s tablet in North America, but it isn’t a port of World. Instead, it’s a follow-up to the 2016 Nintendo 3DS game Monster Hunter Generations; the sequel already launched in Japan last year under the name Monster Hunter XX. It will be called Monster Hunter... Читать дальше...

Apple is preparing to release a credit card in partnership with investment bank Goldman Sachs, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The new credit card — which marks the end of Apple’s credit card partnership with Barclays — would use the Apple Pay branding, and it’s expected to be released early next year. Goldman Sachs will also offer in-store loans to Apple customers, according to the report.

The film hits theaters on July 6th, 2018

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Material Design launched in 2014, and it was mostly thought of as a new design language for Android — though it later came to the web and iOS. It had a bold idea: there should be a physicality to software design not unlike the physicality of paper. It should follow some rules that are almost physical, with layers of magic paper and strictures for how different software elements like buttons and drawers should behave.

Microsoft hasn’t disclosed sales numbers for its Xbox One console since 2015, but an EA executive let slip a solid data point for the publisher’s current install base — and it’s not hard to do the math and calculate the breakdown based on what he said. As Variety reports, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said that the company had a “current generation” install base of 103 million at the end of 2017.

20th Century Fox has released its first teaser trailer for Shane Black’s upcoming installment of the Predator franchise, The Predator.

LANDR, an AI-driven platform that masters tracks for musicians, has launched Samples, a free curated samples service for members. The sample packs featured on the platform are collections created and curated by artists across a variety of genres, from pop to funk to techno.

Musicians that either perform “hate content” or demonstrate hateful conduct will no longer be welcome on Spotify. The company announced today that it will refrain from promoting or remove content that it deems hateful. “It’s important to us that our values are reflected in all the work that we do, whether it’s distribution, promotion, or content creation,” the company said.

If you’re still not over the surprise news of the week — musician Grimes is dating Tesla CEO Elon Musk — then why not keep the shock-and-confusion train a’rolling with a Chrome extension that replaces every mention of the words “Elon Musk” with “Grimes’s Boyfriend.”

Net neutrality is done for in the US as of early next month.

The Federal Communication Commission’s rules protecting consumers from discriminatory behavior by ISPs are officially scheduled to come off the books on June 11th. The final portion fo the order revoking the rules is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register tomorrow and will go into effect 30 days later. An FCC spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that there would be no net neutrality rules as of June 11th.

The FCC... Читать дальше...