The future of journalism? A.I. rewrites news depending on your politics

Today, all of us live in filter bubbles online, in which the news we read is increasingly tailormade for our personal tastes. This is a problem for media companies and readers alike — and it’s one that an intriguing new online news aggregator hopes to help solve.

Called Knowhere, the newly launched website is the work of a media-savvy entrepreneur and some Stanford-trained artificial intelligence experts. It uses machine learning tools to cover the day’s biggest stories by offering left, impartial, and right-leaning versions of each. The components of these stories are aggregated from various online news outlets and then rewritten by an A.I. Each story can reportedly be written in as little as 60 seconds to 15 minutes, depending on the complexity of the piece. Once that process is completed, a human editor then reviews the story, which further trains the news-writing algorithms. The result? Not only a whip-fast news aggregation site, but one which could help break the filter-bubble problem.

“I was inspired by my father who was an investigative journalist and correspondent for the BBC throughout my childhood,” co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Nathaniel Barling told Digital Trends. “Each night he would bring home three papers, The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph. He’d ask me to read all three of them so that I could gain a balanced perspective on the day’s news.”

Knowhere calls up the bias of each article it writes with a large “left,” “right” or “impartial” label. By featuring all three versions, Barling said he hopes the website will reduce the effect of people being trapped in their own online echo chambers — whichever side of the political spectrum those happen to be on.  (Or, if you’re cynical, try to pander to all possible audiences.)

“Knowhere is most useful for reaching one simple, but extremely hard to achieve, goal: finding the truth,” he said. “We present our readers with the facts of each story, and the narratives being built around them, so that they can develop their own informed opinions. This is particularly useful for news where there’s a high degree of controversy and partisan sentiment. In this case, you will often see different publications covering the same news with a very strong ‘house-spin’, without actually saying anything ‘untrue.’ There also tends to be a greater misrepresentation of facts on controversial news items, which our technology is designed to identify and omit. Our journalism will appeal to readers who want to know the full and accurate story, free of bias.”

Will it work? We will have to wait and see. Judging from the fact that Knowhere has already scored $1.8 million in funding, however, at least a few people believe that this is the future of journalism.

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This innovative chunky padlock promises to be virtually unpickable

If you’re on the lookout for a high-security padlock, a new lock that arrived on Kickstarter may be the answer to your prayers. Created by the renowned Bowley Lock Company, which has previously used the crowdfunding website to bring its innovative Bowley Lock to life, the chunky Model 543 padlock boasts a unique key and locking mechanism. The result promises to be one of the strongest and most secure locks you will find anywhere.

The padlock’s innovative design incorporates a dual-shielded 9 pin core with more than 2.3 billion key combinations. It builds on the company’s previous deadbolt five-pin design, which has proven formidable against lockpicks. It’s available in three materials, including aluminum, brass, and stainless steel. Simply put, no one except the rightful owner is getting into this sucker.

“I was looking at old locks, before pin tumblers existed, and admired the idea that you needed a very special-shaped key to navigate through the shields,” creator Ryan Bowley told Digital Trends. “I wondered why this old forgotten concept had been abandoned, given normal pin tumbler locks are no longer secure, and the idea began to take root. I put the two ideas together, we then worked out a few technical issues, and the Bowley Lock was born.”

Bowley explains that the new padlock is virtually tamper-proof since the tools needed to open it have to be both key-shaped, and able to take a convoluted route to the pins. “The common control and feedback that a lockpick offers to a picker almost disappears,” he said.

If you want to get your hands on a finished padlock, you can pledge money as part of the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Prices start at around $137 for the aluminum model, $164 for the stainless steel, and $176 for the Kickstarter-exclusive brass model. All models come with two keys, with shipping planned for September.

As always, we offer our usual warnings about the risks of getting involved with crowdfunding campaigns. Nonetheless, Bowley is confident he can deliver. “The lock is done,” he said. “There are a few tolerances and clearances we are changing because this was too tight or that was a bit sloppy, which is normal and already completed. Luckily the lock cylinder was perfect because we had already learned those lessons. We are now building jigs and fixtures to be able to mass produce the parts.”

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Join us for a live-stream race: ‘PC Building Simulator’ vs. building a real PC

If you have never built your own PC, the idea of it may sound daunting. At first, it sort of is, but after you get your bearings, you can get a PC up and running quicker than you would think. How quickly? Well, join us for our weekly gaming stream at 3 p.m. PT today to find out.

Digital Trends’ Hanif Jackson and Brendan Hesse will race to see who can build a PC the fastest. But wait, this competition has a twist. While Hanif is building a real PC (he has experience), Brendan will be building his in PC Building Simulator, the new simulation game that is doing remarkably well on Steam.

The game, which teaches users the ins and outs of building their own PCs, currently sits at No. 11 on the Steam top sellers chart. Before entering Early Access, more than 500,000 people downloaded the free pre-alpha demo. It’s more than just strong sales, though. The Irregular Corporation’s simulator has racked up a barrage of positive user reviews.

Part of the appeal of PC Building Simulator surely stems from the fact that you can learn how to build a PC in a safe environment, instead of worrying about frying the expensive components you just purchased.

For those interested, Hanif’s real PC will be built using an AMD Ryzen 5 1500 processor, AMD Radeon RX Vega Nano graphics card, and a Samsung 860 Pro 1TB hard drive. The game has license agreements with numerous companies including AMD, so you can actually build a similar PC to the one Hanif is constructing within the game.

As of now, PC Building Simulator serves more as a tutorial for those who want to learn about the process. In the future, however, the developers plan to implement a career mode that adds designated goals and more elaborate features to consider such as cooling and lighting.

You can watch the race right here in this post or over on Facebook. If after watching you’re inspired to build your own PC, make sure to check out our comprehensive guide. We walk you through everything that goes into building a PC, whether you’re a complete novice, or someone looking for ways to improve your rig.

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World’s fastest ever delivery drone could deliver medical supplies in U.S.

Zipline

Zipline is best known for its commercial drone delivery service delivering blood supplies in Rwanda. Now the company wants to step up its life-saving game. To do this, it’s unveiled what it claims to be the fastest commercial delivery drone on the planet. The redesigned drone will allow the company to make up to 500 deliveries every single day.

The new winged drone aircraft weighs in at 44 pounds and is capable of carrying cargo weighing up to about four pounds. It boasts a top speed of 128 kilometers per hour, an impressive cruising speed of 101 kilometers per hour, and a maximum round-trip range of 160 kilometers. To put those figures in perspective, it means flying up to four times faster than the average quadcopter drone, while serving an area 200 times as large.

“Our first-generation aircraft and logistics system allowed us to create the first and only drone delivery service in the world, which is helping to save lives in Rwanda every day,” Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo said in a statement. “We’ve taken everything Zipline has learned making thousands of life-critical deliveries and flying hundreds of thousands of kilometers and redesigned our entire system and operation from top to bottom. The new aircraft and distribution center system we’re unveiling today will help Zipline scale to meet the needs of countries around the world — including the United States.”

That’s right: Zipline is planning to expand to the U.S. It has applied to participate in a trial organized by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). The trial is the FAA’s new Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program, designed to allow state and local governments, alongside private companies, to experiment with deploying drones. Zipline’s U.S. operations are expected to commence by the end of 2018. The FAA’s findings from the program will ultimately inform later rules about commercial drone usage.

“Billions of people on earth lack access to critical medicine,” Rinaudo continued. “In East Africa, Zipline’s drones bring people the medicine they need, when they need it in a way that reduces waste, cost, and inventory while increasing access and saving lives. We’ve been hard at work to improve our technology and are ready to help save lives in America and around the world.”

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A.I. helps Oscar the chatbot answer 75 percent of travel questions

Air New Zealand

Chatbots are only programmed to understand so many things but one travel chatbot named Bravo Oscar Tango has used artificial intelligence to go from answering just seven percent of questions to 75 percent. Air New Zealand recently brought Oscar the chatbot to the U.S. and Canada after first launching the chatbot in New Zealand and Australia.

Now, Oscar is used for more than a 1,000 conversations a day on both the airline’s website and mobile app. Because Oscar is built on artificial intelligence, the more the program is used, the more accurate and conversational Oscar gets.

“Artificial intelligence has not only given our customers another quick and convenient way for them to interact with us and get travel information, but Oscar has also freed up our customer service agents to focus on handling more complex queries. Oscar has gone down well in Australasia and we’re now excited to release him to North America. We’re hoping the Americans and Canadians find Oscar as useful as the Kiwis and Aussies have,” Avi Golan, the chief digital officer at Air New Zealand, said in a statement.

Oscar is designed to answer some of the airlines most frequently asked questions, all designed into an instant, chat-like platform. As users type, the chatbot will also suggest questions. If Oscar needs clarification, he’ll ask and pop-up buttons allow travelers to skip the typing. Answers also can include links to pages with related information. 

The airline says the bot both helps save time and offers a more personalized experience. Oh, and he can also sing and tell jokes.

Oscar isn’t the first travel-focused chatbot either. Lufthansa also has a bot named Mildred. And Expedia’s chatbot can help travelers out through Skype. Hostbot even allows Airbnb hosts to create automated travel chat questions. 

Air New Zealand’s flight network includes New Zealand, Australia, the South West Pacific, Asia, North America, South America and the U.K. Along with Oscar, the airline’s mobile app for iOS and Android also includes real-time flight data, digital tickets, boarding passes, and flight booking. The app will even help travelers determine when to pack and pre-order coffee from a lounge area.

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Google Voice opens up testing for data-only VoIP calls

Google Voice has long been helpful for receiving phone calls regardless of the device you’re using. That’s assuming you want a conventional call, though — it can be a pain if you’re traveling and face roaming charges, or in those moments when you want to start a call away from your phone. Relief is at hand, however, as Google has started enlisting users to beta test for a data-only calling option. Sign up and you can soon use cellular data or WiFi for calls from Voice on Android or the web (iOS is coming), whether or not you’re using a phone.

There are caveats. The beta feature can’t use incoming call recording or transfer options when you switch on data. Key Bluetooth audio functions are missing (including button control to answer or hang up), and Obihai voice-over-IP devices won’t work. This is a test in the truest sense, with known major bugs and an expectation that you’ll provide feedback. All the same, the beta could be worth a try if Voice’s use of the conventional phone network frequently creates hassles.

Via: Android Police

Source: Google Voice Help Forum

EV startup Byton expands US foothold with LA facility

New auto company Byton made a splash at CES when it debuted its autonomous EV SUV concept with a cutting-edge entertaining passenger experience. After effectively launching the company at the trade show in January, it’s opening a new ‘Future Lab’ facility in Los Angeles that will develop user experience for the nascent automaker’s future lineup.

The company has grown rapidly since opening its first North American office, a headquarters in Silicon Valley, back in December. That facility will keep developing the ‘Smart Intuitive Vehicle’ (SIV) concept shown off at CES, which was “85 percent” done at the time. Their first vehicle debuted with advanced UX features, like facial recognition cameras to unlock doors, a dashboard-spanning display, gesture controls and a tablet in the steering wheel console.

The company also hired two executives: Chad Harrison, a 22-year veteran of the automotive industry who will be Byton’s VP of product-line management, and David Twohig, who will be its chief auto engineer after experience at Alpine and Renault Sport. The company has grown to 300 employees, according to a press release.

Source: PR NewsWire

Apple CEO Tim Cook Visits Alabama, Discusses MLK, Coding, and More in Student Symposium

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Alabama today to attend a banquet hosted by the Birmingham Metro Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where he received the 2018 Human Rights Award for advocacy for equality and safety in the workplace. Cook is an Alabama native who grew up in Robertsdale and attended Auburn University.

The event was meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. King was the founding president of the SCLC in 1957.

It’s an honor to be in Birmingham celebrating Dr. King’s life today. “Let us all hope that…in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” pic.twitter.com/GN6T54hSqx

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 4, 2018

Ahead of the banquet, Cook also spoke at a student symposium at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham focusing on civil rights, education, and innovation, and details of what he had to say were shared by Alabama news site AL.com.

On the topic of Martin Luther King Jr., Cook said his teachings “are timeless.” “If you listen to him today, you feel like he is speaking about today,” said Cook. He went on to explain that it’s important to reflect on the work done by King, and the ways we can continue his legacy.

Full of hope this morning, hearing from hundreds of Alabama students who are carrying Dr. King’s legacy into the future. pic.twitter.com/NDPimMl10A

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 4, 2018

As for students who attended the symposium, Cook encouraged them to “change the status quo” with a quote from Dr. King: “It’s not the behavior and the actions of evil people that we remember at the end, but the silence of the good people.” Cook said that’s a quote that has always resonated with him.

“It is a special time in your life,” he said. “This is a period of time where you can change the status quo. Now is the time to do it. The world needs you more than ever to not be silent.”

After Dr. King, the conversation shifted to coding. As Cook has said multiple times, he believes coding is an “essential language.” Apple’s Swift coding curriculum is rolling out in community colleges in Alabama as of today, and Cook’s trip also involved a stop at the Lawson State Community College.

Great visit @LawsonStateCC. Alabama’s @ACCS_Education is the first to roll out the Swift Coding Curriculum statewide, and students here are learning new skills to show the world what’s possible. pic.twitter.com/3HQKuOOeGr

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 4, 2018

Cook told students at the symposium that everyone in school should have “multiple years” of coding before graduating because it’s important to “understand the possibility of software” even for those who don’t plan to pursue a computer science-related job.

He also said that with students in the U.S. being pushed into four-year colleges, vocational paths have dried up, leading to the need for a rebalancing. Not everyone needs to attend a four-year college, he reportedly said, and focusing so much on four-year colleges has left us without enough people with the skills to build things.

Cook’s final words were to encourage students to fight for change. Young people are “not stuck with old dogmas” and don’t accept “it’s never been done before” or “it can’t be done,” he said. “This is a great beauty of being young,” he told students.

All of Cook’s comments and additional details on the symposium can be found over at AL.com.

Tag: Tim Cook
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Bitmain’s $800 Ethereum ASIC miner could help bring GPU prices down

Bitmain has announced a new dedicated mining rig slated for release in a few months time, which has the potential to upturn the existing Ether mining market. If it turns out to be as powerful and efficient as Bitmain claims, it could well help combat the still ongoing problem of sky-high graphics card prices.

Bitmain is the world’s leading manufacturer of mining hardware for Bitcoin and a number of other altcoins. Its application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners typically offer much greater performance per watt than general-purpose hardware, and that could well be the case with its new E3 miner. Although it’s not slated to release until July, by the numbers, it would be as powerful and more efficient than multi-GPU rigs.

The Antminer E3 is said to deliver a hashrate of 180 mega hash per second with a power consumption of 800w. Bitmain claims that these numbers are conservative for now and expect them to be greater when the miners debut later this year. In comparison, a stock clocked RX 580 produces 25MH/s for 175w. Although multiple-GPU mining rigs tend to have various clock and power-draw tweaks to make them more efficient, they still aren’t likely to hit the same levels as the Antminer E3. At least in theory.

The price tag could be the killer part of this equation though. At $800, the E3 miner is about as expensive as just one pair of RX 580 graphics cards, or three GTX 1060s. You aren’t getting anywhere near the same sort of hash rate for that sort of money with consumer graphics cards.

The response to this new hardware announcement has been mixed. While Bitmain has restricted purchases to five per customer to ward off scalpers, there has been a wave of negative comments on the original Facebook announcement post. Many highlight that selling mining hardware months in advance of shipping is unethical because of the shifting value of cryptocurrencies.

One of the biggest criticisms of the new Ether miner is that Ethereum developers are very much against the idea of ASIC miners being used to mine it. The cryptocurrency was designed to subvert the ability for ASIC miners to dominate the workload. Although it has been acknowledged that eventually ASIC miners would be developed to mine Ether, Ethereum developers may now take action through a hard-fork or fundamental change to Ethereum itself, to prevent ASIC miners from being used. Were that to happen, newly purchased Antminer E3s would become effectively useless.

Regardless, the E3 miner is likely to be popular — purportedly the first batch is already sold out — even if the value of cryptocurrencies continues to fall across the board.

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Panera Bread’s data leak might affect more than 37 million customers

It’s getting to the point where no matter what kind of business you conduct, there is a very real risk of seeing your personal information leaked to nefarious parties. So far, hackers have gained access to banking, credit reporting, health insurance, email, and seemingly just about every other modern circumstance where your data is saved in a database. The latest: That soup and salad you ordered online at Panera Bread might have cost you some peace of mind.

According to KrebsOnSecurity, the food chain’s website was leaking information for a minimum of eight months, specifically the names, email addresses, physical addresses, birthdays, and last four credit card numbers for customers who placed online orders. The company has more than 2,100 restaurants throughout the U.S. and Canada, and that amounts to a huge number of potentially affected accounts.

The leak was first brought to Panera’s attention in August 2, 2017, by security researcher Dylan Houlihan. For whatever reason, the system was only taken offline on Tuesday, April 3, leaving a full eight months during which anyone with the appropriate knowledge could have scraped off the information and used it in a variety of potentially damaging ways. As KrebsOnSecurity indicates, the database’s format is such that customers could be easily searched and identified using any of the data.

As Houlihan put it, “Panera Bread uses sequential integers for account IDs, which means that if your goal is to gather as much information as you can instead about someone, you can simply increment through the accounts and collect as much as you would like, up to and including the entire database.” In Houlihan’s opinion, Panera did nothing to address the issue during the entire eight-month period.

The number of customers affected by the breach is uncertain. While Panera has stated that only 10,000 accounts were compromised and that the company requiring a valid account login to access the information would mitigate the problem, further information indicates that the number of affected customers could number in the millions. In fact, greater than 37 million customers records could be involved.

As always, if you are potentially affected by this data breach, you will want to keep a close eye on all of your credit, banking, and other activity. If you see anything suspicious, then contact the relevant companies immediately. You might also consider investing in an identity theft protection service that can help you keep an eye out for any privacy concerns.

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