John Oliver’s Brexit takedown won’t air in the UK until after EU vote

As Britain gears up to vote in the EU referendum later this week, broadcasters are constantly working to ensure their coverage remains impartial. One such company is Sky, which has this week been forced to delay the latest instalment of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight HBO show. Why? Because it contains a 15-minute diatribe on why the UK should remain part of Europe.

Instead of airing the programme after Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic on Monday night, like it does usually, Sky has pushed it back until 10:10pm on Thursday, just after the polls close. Social media users are up in arms about the decision, but in reality, Sky appears to be playing everything by the book.

Sky’s decision allows it to adhere to Ofcom rules that come into effect during elections and referendums. “Sky have complied with the Ofcom broadcasting restrictions at times of elections and referendums that prohibit us showing this section of the programme at this moment in time. We will be able to show it once the polls close have closed on Thursday,” a Sky spokesperson told Engadget.

In March, the regulator warned broadcasters that they’d need to take care when covering May’s local elections and the subsequent Brexit vote. Section Five (which focuses on Due Impartiality) and Section Six (covering Elections and Referendums) of Ofcom’s Code contain guidelines that are designed stop companies like Sky from influencing the public vote. Satirical content is allowed on UK TV networks during these times, but Oliver’s delivery is very much political opinion based on facts, rather than straight humour.

That hasn’t prevented some Twitter users from speculating that Sky owner Rupert Murdoch might have something to do with the decision. While British newspapers The Sunday Times and The Sun, both owned by Murdoch’s News UK, have pledged support to the Leave campaign, The Times editors (who represent the weekday edition) have backed Remain. Murdoch himself has remained silent over his personal stance.

So @LastWeekTonight with @iamjohnoliver, where he makes a case for Remain on Rupert Murdoch-owned Sky, has been moved to Thursday, 11.45pm.

— Mike P Williams (@Mike_P_Williams) June 21, 2016

While John Oliver’s 15-minute segment attempts to explain Brexit to a US audience, the clip has circulated widely via YouTube. At the time of writing, the programme has passed 3.25 million views on YouTube and 4.2 million views on Facebook, ensuring that many who will tune into the Sky Atlantic broadcast will have already watched it via alternate means.

“Here is how I feel about the EU: it is a complicated, bureaucratic, ambitious, overbearing, inspirational and consistently irritating institution, and Britain would be absolutely crazy to leave it especially because, if it stays, it can reap all the benefits while still being a total dick about everything,” says Oliver during the segment. “And that is the British way.”

Hyperloop One team dreams of connecting Europe and China

Hyperloop One has teamed up with the city of Moscow and a local company to explore bringing the Hyperloop to Russia. The trio will investigate how and where such high-speed transportation can be integrated into the country’s existing transport network. Since Moscow itself has a population of 16 million people, cheap, quick and reliable mass transit is always worthy of further study. But the wider picture is that Hyperloop One views this as the first step on building a new high-speed freight link between Europe and China.

As co-founder Shervin Pishevar explains, Hyperloop could form the backbone of a “transformative new Silk Road: a cargo Hyperloop that whisks freight containers from China to Europe in a day.” That would reduce shipping times from weeks (as it currently stands) and lighten the load on container ships. It helps, too, that the local company Hyperloop has partnered with is, essentially, the ideal company to actually build the system out.

Summa Group is an investment and construction conglomerate that can probably knock out a passable Hyperloop without any outside help. For instance, it already owns Russia’s largest sea port, three different construction companies and a logistics company. Then there’s the fact that it’s already got its own oil-and-gas plant and experience of building oil pipelines — sealed metal tubes that travel large distances across the country. Given that Hyperloop will also rely upon the same technology, such expertise will come in very handily indeed.

Computers learn to predict high-fives and hugs

Deep learning systems can already detect objects in a given scene, including people, but they can’t always make sense of what people are doing in that scene. Are they about to get friendly? MIT CSAIL’s researchers might help. They’ve developed a machine learning algorithm that can predict when two people will high-five, hug, kiss or shake hands. The trick is to have multiple neural networks predict different visual representations of people a scene and merge those guesses into a broader consensus. If the majority foresees a high-five based on arm motions, for example, that’s the final call.

The algorithm is also useful for determining when objects are likely to appear. If a character reaches into a microwave, for instance, it may decide that a coffee cup is likely to come out.

The technology isn’t ready for prime time. The algorithm was only right about 43 percent of the time when predicting affection (versus 71 percent for humans), and it’s only really effective based on what it sees a few seconds ahead of time. People can frequently tell what will happen further in advance based on subtler cues like dialogue and facial expressions.

If CSAIL can refine its technique, though, there are wide-ranging implications for robotics and other AI-guided tasks. You could make automatons that know how to respond to human interactions, such as drawing the connections between friends or catching someone who’s about to fall. Security cameras could deliver alerts based on the actions they see, too, such warning a company that you might need an ambulance. In short: AI is about to get better at understanding the implications of what it sees, not just the immediate conditions.

Source: MIT News, (PDF)

ICYMI: 3D-printed, autonomous bus starts shuttling people

Today on In Case You Missed It: Local Motors is testing a self-driving, electric mini-bus that lets passengers communicate with the bus about the weather and where they’re located as they are shuttled from one part of town to another. The bus was conceived just a few months ago but is already running in Maryland. The company plans to bring more buses to other cities, like Copenhagen and Las Vegas, soon.

Meanwhile bone conduction headphones are being reimagined to be more wearable, with both a sunglasses option and helmet version up for grabs online. We also wanted to show you video of the robot badminton player because it’s pretty amazing. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Supreme Court Ruling Supports Apple’s Long-Running Fight Against Patent Trolls

The Supreme Court yesterday made it a few steps easier for technology companies like Apple to challenge lawsuits from “patent assertion businesses,” or patent trolls. The decision implemented part of a 2011 law that created “quicker and cheaper” avenues into contesting patents with the Patent Office, instead of having to delve into a lengthy court battle or face a federal judge (via The Wall Street Journal).

This way, companies like Apple — who face patent trolls frequently — could easily argue against unseemly patent lawsuits in far less time, and without spending as much money.

Speaking for the court system, Justice Stephen Breyer said that the new ruling in favor of the Patent Office approach will help “to protect the public” since it’ll prevent potential patent trolls from claiming overly broad patents that “might discourage the use of the invention by a member of the public.”

The 2011 law created quicker and cheaper procedures for contesting patents in front of the Patent Office instead of in front of a federal judge. But some argued the procedures overcompensated and made patents too vulnerable. That is because the Patent Office adopted challenger-friendly legal standards that were different than those used in courts.

The Supreme Court acknowledged the Patent Office rules depart from those used in court, but said the agency had taken a reasonable approach.

So far, cases emerging from the Patent Office are said to rule largely in favor of the individual or company contesting the patent. According to recent government data, a reported 80 percent of the trials completed so far through the Patent Office board have seen the cancellation of the patent in question.

Apple is nearly constantly in the news surrounding various lawsuits and litigation updates, a large sum of which are usually centered around companies that claim they are “absolutely not” a patent troll. The new ruling should help alleviate the headache and streamline the contesting process for some of these cases made against the company.

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Misfit and Speedo Announce New ‘Speedo Shine 2’ Swimming Activity Tracker

Misfit and Speedo have teamed up for a second-generation Speedo Shine, which is launching today. Like the first Speedo Shine, the Speedo Shine 2 is an activity, swim, and sleep tracker, but the updated version includes many features adopted from Misfit’s Shine 2 activity tracker.

The Speedo Shine 2 includes a new vibration motor along with multicolor lights for better user feedback. Lap progress and time can be tracked through the different colored lights, and there are also Misfit Move activity reminders.

A new countdown swim timer is included to allow users to pick a length of time for a swim, with the Speedo Shine 2 offering vibration alerts when a workout is complete, and there’s a silent vibrating alarm and alerts for incoming texts and phone calls.

The Speedo Shine 2 also features Misfit Link compatibility, enabling the device to be used as a music remote, selfie trigger, and remote for controlling connected home products, and more. Hardware wise, Speedo Shine 2 includes improved touch responsiveness, faster syncing, a better Bluetooth range, and a thinner body. The included multicolor lights are bright enough to be seen in direct sunlight and can be set to more than 16 million colors.

“Whether you’re training competitively or swimming for fitness, you want your focus to be on speed and form – not tracking laps. With the Speedo Shine 2, you can concentrate on your efforts in the pool without distractions,” said Team Speedo USA athlete and four-time Olympic medalist Cullen Jones. “Speedo Shine 2 is an ideal aid for athletes and fitness enthusiasts to maximize their time in the water while keeping track of their overall fitness and sleep.”

Misfit is also introducing a $9.99 in-app purchase that will enable Speedo Shine-style swimming tracking and lap counting in the Misfit Ray and Misfit Shine 2.

The Speedo Shine 2 can be purchased from the Misfit website or the Speedo website for $119.99.

Tags: Misfit, Speedo
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Adobe Launches Creative Cloud Update With New Features for Photoshop CC, Premiere Pro CC, and More

Adobe today announced the launch of its latest Creative Cloud updates, bringing new tools and more “Adobe Magic” to a range of apps including Photoshop CC, After Effects CC, Premiere Pro CC, Illustrator CC, and more.

There are several new features available in Photoshop CC, including Content-Aware Crop, Face-Aware Liquify, and Match Font, plus a new workspace for selections and masking. Content-Aware Crop intelligently fills in the open areas when a canvas is expanded or rotated beyond the original image size, allowing for more options when editing an image to get the perfect crop or angle.

Face-Aware Liquify automatically recognizes the different elements of a face when using the liquify tool, giving users direct control over facial features like eyes, nose, and mouth for making quick artistic changes. Match Font, the final major new feature in Photoshop CC, analyzes an image to determine what font was used, bringing it up in Photoshop if it’s already installed and locating it in TypeKit if it isn’t previously owned.

Adobe Premiere CC includes new workflows for editing immersive VR and 360 video experiences with a “field of view” mode for working with spherical stitched video. It offers options for dynamically switching between monoscopic, stereoscopic, and anaglyph frame layouts, and there’s a new workflow for editing while video and audio are still importing in the background.

After Effects CC features a new audio and video preview engine for smoother playback for cached frames plus new GPU-accelerated Gaussian Blur and Lumetri Color effects for faster rendering, while Animate CC includes enhanced brushes and improved web publishing and Illustrator CC features fast export of assets and artboards.

Adobe Stock is now able to integrate with Creative Cloud applications through a new One-Click Workflow that allows users to choose an image or video from the Adobe Stock website and open it in an app with a single click. There’s also a one-click licensing feature to purchase images directly within Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

Adobe is debuting a Premium Collection for Adobe Stock, featuring close to 100,000 high-quality images from artists and photographers, and beginning in July, Creative Cloud customers will be able to upload their own images to Adobe Stock.

Across all of Adobe’s Creative Cloud, there are new read-only libraries so Creative Cloud Libraries can be shared with team members for viewing purposes without giving all users the option of changing or deleting content, and all nearly apps have gained dozens of minor tweaks, bug fixes, and feature improvements.

“We have two key goals with this release: saving our customers time and helping them jumpstart their creative engines,” said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe. “Every creative project starts with a blank page and ends with a vision coming to life. Today’s release of Creative Cloud will help make that journey as fast and productive as possible. From deeper integration of Adobe Stock into the CC experience, to amazing new features like Content-Aware Crop in Adobe Photoshop, this release will expedite the creative process for millions of our customers.”

Some of these features were previously announced by Adobe on the Adobe blog and at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, but they’re launching as part of today’s Creative Cloud update and should be available shortly.

Adobe offers full Creative Cloud subscriptions for $49.99 per month, and those who have not subscribed can sign up for a 30-day free trial. Adobe also offers a $9.99 photography plan with access to Lightroom and Photoshop.

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