Uber creates an AI lab to help fuel its self-driving dreams

If Uber is going to make its dreams of self-driving ridesharing cars a reality, it’s going to need a lot of expertise in artificial intelligence… and it’s taking big steps to make that happen. The company has created Uber AI Labs to fuel its research, and it’s getting the team started by acquiring AI startup Geometric Intelligence. It’s a small 15-person outfit, but the newly purchased company stands out by resisting the urge to train AI by feeding it large data sets. As the New York Times notes, Geometric Intelligence prefers to have systems create their own rules from just a handful of examples — while Uber ride data will help, the AI won’t need a wealth of knowledge to make informed decisions.

Autonomous driving will be the star of the show at the new labs, but Uber is promising that its AI work will shape a lot of its day-to-day business. It could improve the accuracy of predicted arrival times for your rides and UberEats deliveries, tackle fraud and improve the chances of UberPool matching your car with other travelers. Ideally, you’ll notice the difference well before you set foot in a driverless Uber car.

This is also a preemptive strike against the competition. The company tells the NYT that there’s a fierce battle for AI talent — acquiring Geometric Intelligence prevents Uber from losing out to Lyft, Google and others hoping to put machine learning to work on the road. It’s playing the long game, in other words — this is less about immediate gains and more about securing Uber’s future.

Via: New York Times

Source: Uber Newsroom

App Store Gains New Section for Single Sign-on Apps From Supported TV Providers

Ahead of the official launch of Single Sign-on on tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2 later this month, Apple has added a new App Store section with apps that support the feature for beta testers. The apps are categorized by supported TV providers, including DirecTV, Dish, Sling TV, Hotwire, and GVTC.

If you are a Dish Network satellite TV subscriber, for example, you can sign in once with your Dish username and password to start using any of the following apps, among others: Watch Cooking Channel, Watch DIY, Watch Travel Channel, Hallmark Channel Everywhere, and Watch Food Network.

When you open an app that supports Single Sign-on on iOS 10.2 beta, a pop-up alert asks if you “want to allow XYZ to use your sign in credentials,” according to beta testers. If you decline, the app lets you sign in and authenticate with a provider-specific username and password as usual.

On a fourth-generation Apple TV running tvOS 10.1 beta, Single Sign-on can be accessed by opening the Settings app and navigating to Accounts > TV Provider. On an iPhone or iPad running iOS 10.2 beta, Single Sign-on can be accessed by opening the Settings app and tapping on the TV Provider section.

Single Sign-on will be available on tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2 in December upon completion of beta testing, enabling U.S. customers to sign in once with their cable TV credentials to access all live cable content available through their cable TV subscription, even when it is spread across multiple apps.

Tags: App Store, iOS 10.2, tvOS 10.1, Single Sign-on
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Apple Testing Redesigned Photos Web App on iCloud.com Beta With macOS-like Interface

Apple has updated the iCloud beta website with a new Photos section that includes improved navigation tools similar to the native Photos app on macOS Sierra. As discovered by MacMagazine [Google Translate], the Photos section in the beta site now includes a sidebar for navigation, which displays all of a user’s albums so it’s easier to jump between photo collections.

In the current iteration of iCloud.com albums are found in a tab bar at the top of the Photos part of the website, next to a user’s moments. With the update, users are also able to choose multiple photos from the new album select toolbar “and use the action buttons in the upper right corner to add, share, download, or remove albums.”

Within each album, when a specific photo is clicked on, users will be presented with a scrollable thumbnail view of the entire album’s contents, providing further ease of navigating through large photo collections.

The iCloud.com updates are strictly navigational improvements, with no addition of the new macOS Sierra Photos features like Faces and Memories. It’s unclear how long it will take for the new changes to launch on a broader scale after debuting on the iCloud.com beta site.

Tag: iCloud
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Apple Maps Now Supports Transit in Minneapolis–Saint Paul

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive transit data for Minnesota’s twin cities Minneapolis and Saint Paul, enabling iPhone users in the metropolitan area to navigate using public transportation, including Metro Transit buses and trains.

Apple introduced Transit in Maps as part of iOS 9 in select cities around the world, including Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, and over 300 cities in China. The feature has its own tab in Apple Maps on iOS 10 when entering directions.

Transit routing is now available in several other cities, including Atlanta, Columbus, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Honolulu, Kansas City, Melbourne, Miami, Montréal, Pittsburgh, Portland, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, and parts of British Columbia, Canada and New South Wales, Australia.

(Thanks, Larry!)

Tags: Apple Maps, transit, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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Climate change could explain Mars’ imposing topography

Mars has lots of water, but future astronauts won’t exactly be able to scoop it into bottles — it’s generally trapped in ice deposits below the surface. Scientists from Penn State think climate change lasting millions of years once warmed it enough to let the water flow free on the surface, however. That might have created large lakes in Gale Crater (above) and etched out channels and other water-based features on the Red Planet.

Researchers have long thought that canyons and valleys on Mars were caused by flowing water. However, those features were formed billions of years ago when the planet was frozen, and would require millions of meters of rain. Current Mars climate models predict that warming caused by volcanoes or meteor impacts could only account for hundreds, not millions of meters of rainfall. So how did the planet warm enough to create the amount needed?

The Penn State team figured out that the Mars could have experienced warming periods caused by a familiar culprit — carbon dioxide. It was emitted in Mars’ early years by volcanoes, cooling magma and seepage from the crust. As CO2 and hydrogen gradually built up, they warmed the atmosphere and caused large amounts of rainfall.

Utopia Planitia basin has a New Mexico-sized ice sheet up to 560 feet thick (NASA).

After up to 10 million years, the rain reabsorbed more CO2 than the volcanoes and magma could produce, storing carbon in the ground. The planet then settled back into an ice age, but the time-period was sufficient for the rain to carve out dramatic features. On Earth, the Grand Canyon “only” took around 16 million years to form for example, the team points out.

“Mars is in this precarious position where it’s at the outer edge of the habitable zone,” said Penn State grad student Natasha Batalha. “It’s receiving less solar flux, so you start at a glaciated state. There is volcanic outgassing, but because you are colder, you don’t get the same deposition of carbon back into the planet’s surface. Instead, you get this atmospheric buildup and your planet slowly starts to rise in temperature.”

If Mars’ tectonic activity in its early years was similar to Earth’s, the team’s model would account for the relatively large amount of precipitation. “But that’s a big debate,” says the paper’s co-author Jim Kasting. “A lot of people don’t think Mars ever had [plate tectonics like Earth].”

However, there is a way to test the theory. When CO2 levels in the atmosphere were at a peak, they would’ve caused rain so acidic that it dissolved surface carbonate rocks and deposited them underground. “So if the next Mars mission was able to dig down deeper, you might be able to uncover these different carbonates,” says Batalha. “That would be a sort of smoking gun for the carbon dioxide.”

Via: Penn State

Source: Arxiv

Scientists confirm twisty fusion device’s odd magnetic fields

Now that the first large version of a extraordinarily complex, cruller-shaped stellarator fusion device is up and running, there’s an overriding question: is it behaving the way scientists expected? Thankfully, the answer is yes. Researchers have confirmed that Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X stellarator is producing the 3D magnetic fields that were anticipated from its twisty design. In fact, it’s faithful to the concept with “unprecedented accuracy” — the error rate is less than one in 100,000.

The team measured the magnetic activity by sending an electron beam along the field lines, and then using a fluorescent rod to sweep through those lines and create light in the shape of the fields. As you can see above, the result is a very scientific take on light painting.

W7-X isn’t a power plant. However, confirming the nature of its magnetic fields will help prove the viability of stellarators as templates for future fusion reactors. While that means that any practical machine is likely many years away, there’s at least a good reason to be patient. Stellarators promise to be safer than existing tokamak reactors, which could spark a crisis if their current fails or something disturbs their magnetic fields. Ideally, you’ll get a tremendous power source that’s both cleaner and safer than nuclear energy.

Via: Phys.org

Source: Nature

‘Weak Demand’ for VR and AR Causing Concerns for Companies Investing in the Technology

Sales related to virtual reality and augmented reality products “have been weaker than expected,” according to data collected by a number of market research firms and shared by DigiTimes.

A lack of content and expensive prices, specifically for VR headsets, are two factors said to be at the center of the weak demand for the technology as 2016 closes out. The results could potentially have a negative effect on companies investing in VR and AR technology development, including Apple.

The market watchers noted that Sony’s PSVR, Google’s Daydream View, HTC’s Vive, Samsung Electronics’ Gear VR, and the Oculus Rift all ended up with sales figures weaker than their initial expectations. Coming out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday last week, the research firm SuperData noted that VR headsets have been “the biggest loser” this holiday season.

Because of the slower-than-expected consumer adoption of each technology, companies rumored to be investing in VR and AR products are believed to be feeling “pressured” about such investments. Specifically, HTC was noted as “seeing decreasing share in the worldwide smartphone market” while waiting for its Vive headset to contribute profits.

Many research firms’ numbers also have shown that VR product sales in 2016 have been weaker than expected due to lack of content and high product costs. VR/AR technologies also require more improvement in order to stimulate demand from both the consumer and enterprise sectors.

It will take more time before the VR/AR market may begin enjoying robust growth, and such a slower-than-expected development is putting pressure on firms that have invested resources into related development, such as HTC, which is seeing decreasing share in the worldwide smartphone market while its Vive has yet to start contributing profits. The year of 2017 could be a difficult one for HTC.

Although Apple’s relation to such technology has leaned more towards an AR experience — most recently suggesting a feature that would be integrated into the iOS camera app — the company has been rumored to be developing a full-on VR headset as well. If included in pre-existing apps within iOS, an augmented reality experience by Apple would be less risky for it to undertake, but some rumors also point towards a separate product category coming down the line.

It’s unclear when Apple’s decade-long investment in VR/AR development might come to fruition in a consumer product, but some basic AR experiences have already proven popular on the company’s devices, including this summer’s gaming phenomenon Pokémon Go.

Related Roundup: Apple VR Project
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Apple’s Next Store Opens in Shanghai on December 10

Apple has announced it will be opening a new retail store at Vanke Mall in Qibao, an ancient town and popular tourist destination in the suburbs of Shanghai, China, on Saturday, December 10 at 10:00 a.m. local time. The location will become Apple’s seventh retail store in Shanghai and its 489th store overall.

Apple is closing in on 500 retail stores worldwide following the grand openings of its Marché Saint-Germain location in Paris, France and Zhujiang New Town location in Guangzhou, China earlier this month. Apple has opened 20 new retail stores in 2016, excluding the upcoming Shanghai location.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Tag: China
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