Tuesday, May 4, 2021

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The internet is excluding Asian-Americans who don’t speak English

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:53 AM PDT

Jennifer Xiong spent her summer helping Hmong people in California register to vote in the US presidential election. The Hmong are an ethnic group that come from the mountains of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand but don't have a country of their own, and Xiong was a volunteer organizer at Hmong Innovating Politics, or HIP, in Fresno. There are around 300,000 Hmong people in the US, and she spent hours phone-banking and working on ads to run on Hmong radio and TV channels. It was inspiring work. "This was an entirely new thing for me to see," she says. "Young, progressive, primarily women doing this work in our community was just so rare, and I knew it was going to be a huge feat." And by all accounts it was. Asian-American turnout in the 2020 election in general was extraordinary, and observers say turnout among Hmong citizens was the highest they can remember. 

But Xiong says it was also incredibly disheartening. 

While Hmong people have long ties to the US—many were encouraged to migrate across the Pacific after being recruited to support the United States during the Vietnam War—they are often left out of mainstream political discourse. One example? On the website of Fresno's county clerk, the government landing page for voter registration has an option to translate the entire page into Hmong—but, Xiong says, much of the information is mistranslated. 

And it starts right at the beginning. Instead of the Hmong word for "hello" or "welcome," she says, is "something else that said, like, 'your honor' or 'the queen' or 'the king' instead." 

Seeing something so simple done incorrectly was frustrating and off-putting. "Not only was it just probably churned through Google Translate, it wasn't even peer edited and reviewed to ensure that there was fluency and coherence," she says.

Xiong says this kind of carelessness is common online—and it's one reason she and others in the Hmong community can feel excluded from politics.

They aren't the only ones with the sense that the digital world wasn't built for them. The web itself, invented in America, is built on an English-first architecture, and most of the big social media platforms that host public discourse in the United States put English first too. 

And as technologies become proxies for civic spaces in the United States, the primacy of English has been magnified. For Asian-Americans, the move to digital means that access to democratic institutions—everything from voting registration to local news—is impeded by linguistic barriers. 

It's an issue in health care as well. During the pandemic, when Black, Hispanic, and Native patients have been two to three times more likely to be hospitalized or die than white patients, these barriers add another burden: Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that non-English-speaking patients were 35% more likely to die of covid than those who spoke English. Translation problems are not the only issue. Xiong says that when Hmong users were trying to make vaccine appointments, they were asked for their zodiac sign as a security question—despite the fact that many in this community are unfamiliar with Western astrology.

In normal times, overcoming these challenges would be complicated enough, since Asian-Americans are the most linguistically diverse ethnic group in America. But after a year that has seen a dramatic increase in real-world and online attacks on Asian-Americans, the situation has become urgent in a different way.

"They don't catch misinformation"

Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote, a nonprofit that promotes civic engagement among Asian people and Pacific Islanders, says that political life has always been "exclusionary" for Asian people in the US, but "with digital spaces, it's even more challenging. It's so much easier to be siloed." 

Big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are popular among Asian-Americans, as are messaging apps like WeChat, WhatsApp, and Line. Which communication channels people use often depends on their ethnicity. During the election campaign, Chen focused on building a volunteer network that could move in and out of those siloes to achieve maximum impact. At the time, disinformation targeting Asian-Americans ran rampant in WeChat groups and on Facebook and Twitter, where content moderation is less effective in non-English languages. 

APIAVote volunteers would join different groups on the various platforms to monitor for disinformation while encouraging members to vote. Volunteers found that Vietnamese-Americans, for example, were being targeted with claims that Joe Biden was a socialist, preying on their fears of communism—and similar to political messages pushed at Cuban-Americans. 

Chen says that while content moderation policies from Facebook, Twitter, and others succeeded in filtering out some of the most obvious English-language disinformation, the system often misses such content when it's in other languages. That work instead had to be done by volunteers like her team, who looked for disinformation and were trained to defuse it and minimize its spread. "Those mechanisms meant to catch certain words and stuff don't necessarily catch that dis- and misinformation when it's in a different language," she says.

Google's translation services and technologies such as Translatotron and real-time translation headphones use artificial intelligence to convert between languages. But Xiong finds these tools inadequate for Hmong, a deeply complex language where context is incredibly important. "I think we've become really complacent and dependent on advanced systems like Google," she says. "They claim to be 'language accessible,' and then I read it and it says something totally different." 

(A Google spokesperson admitted that smaller languages "pose a more difficult translation task" but said that the company has "invested in research that particularly benefits low-resource language translations," using machine learning and community feedback.)

All the way down

The challenges of language online go beyond the US—and down, quite literally, to the underlying code. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne is a researcher and data scientist at the Sri Lankan think tank LIRNEasia. In 2018, he started tracking bot networks whose activity on social media encouraged violence against Muslims: in February and March of that year, a string of riots by Sinhalese Buddhists targeted Muslims and mosques in the cities of Ampara and Kandy. His team documented "the hunting logic" of the bots, catalogued hundreds of thousands of Sinhalese social media posts, and took the findings to Twitter and Facebook. "They'd say all sorts of nice and well-meaning things–basically canned statements," he says. (In a statement, Twitter says it uses human review and automated systems to "apply our rules impartially for all people in the service, regardless of background, ideology, or placement on the political spectrum.")

When contacted by MIT Technology Review, a Facebook spokesperson said the company commissioned an independent human rights assessment of the platform's role in the violence in Sri Lanka, which was published in May 2020, and made changes in the wake of the attacks, including hiring dozens of Sinhala and Tamil-speaking content moderators. "We deployed proactive hate speech detection technology in Sinhala to help us more quickly and effectively identify potentially violating content," they said.

"What I can do with three lines of code in Python in English literally took me two years of looking at 28 million words of Sinhala"

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, LIRNEasia

When the bot behavior continued, Wijeratne grew skeptical of the platitudes. He decided to look at the code libraries and software tools the companies were using, and found that the mechanisms to monitor hate speech in most non-English languages had not yet been built. 

"Much of the research, in fact, for a lot of languages like ours has simply not been done yet," Wijeratne says. "What I can do with three lines of code in Python in English literally took me two years of looking at 28 million words of Sinhala to build the core corpuses, to build the core tools, and then get things up to that level where I could potentially do that level of text analysis."

After suicide bombers targeted churches in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, in April 2019, Wijeratne built a tool to analyze hate speech and misinformation in Sinhala and Tamil. The system, called Watchdog, is a free mobile application that aggregates news and attaches warnings to false stories. The warnings come from volunteers who are trained in fact-checking. 

Wijeratne stresses that this work goes far beyond translation. 

"Many of the algorithms that we take for granted that are often cited in research, in particular in natural-language processing, show excellent results for English," he says. "And yet many identical algorithms, even used on languages that are only a few degrees of difference apart—whether they're West German or from the Romance tree of languages—may return completely different results." 

Natural-language processing is the basis of automated content moderation systems. Wijeratne published a paper in 2019 that examined the discrepancies between their accuracy in different languages. He argues that the more computational resources that exist for a language, like data sets and web pages, the better the algorithms can work. Languages from poorer countries or communities are disadvantaged.

"If you're building, say, the Empire State Building for English, you have the blueprints. You have the materials," he says. "You have everything on hand and all you have to do is put this stuff together. For every other language, you don't have the blueprints.

"You have no idea where the concrete is going to come from. You don't have steel and you don't have the workers, either. So you're going to be sitting there tapping away one brick at a time and hoping that maybe your grandson or your granddaughter might complete the project."

Deep-seated issues

The movement to provide those blueprints is known as language justice, and it is not new. The American Bar Association describes language justice as a "framework" that preserves people's rights "to communicate, understand, and be understood in the language in which they prefer and feel most articulate and powerful." 

The path to language justice is tenuous. Technology companies and government service providers would have to make it a much higher priority and invest many more resources into its realization. And, Wijeratne points out, racism, hate speech, and exclusion targeting Asian people, especially in the United States, existed long before the internet. Even if language justice could be achieved, it's not going to fix these deep-seated issues.

But for Xiong, language justice is an important goal that she believes is crucial for the Hmong community. 

After the election, Xiong took on a new role with her organization, seeking to connect California's Hmong community with public services such as the Census Bureau, the county clerk, and vaccine registration. Her main objective is to "meet the community where they are," whether that's on Hmong radio or in English via Facebook live, and then amplify the perspective of Hmong people to the broader public. But every day she has to face the imbalances in technology that shut people out of the conversation—and block them from access to resources. 

Equality would mean "operating in a world where interpretation and translation is just the norm," she says. "We don't ask whether there's enough budgeting for it, we don't question if it's important or it's valuable, because we prioritize it when it comes to the legislative table and public spaces."

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AWS launches FinSpace, a data analytics service for financial industry

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:53 AM PDT

Amazon’s AWS cloud business has launched FinSpace, a new data management and analytics service for the financial industry. Read More

We’re Still in the First Generation of Search Engines. Here’s What Could Be Next.

Posted: 03 May 2021 06:41 PM PDT

Run a search for anything right now, using Google or your preferred search engine. Pay attention to the features of the search engine results pages (SERPs) you encounter. How fast did they appear? What do they look like? What kinds of information are you presented with? 

If you ran a similar search in, say 2002, how different would the layout look? How different would the experience be? 

As someone who was conducting lots of searches in 2002, I can tell you we've come a long way in terms of design, usability, and overall performance. And yet, I'd still say we're in the "first generation" of search engines. 

How can I make this claim? And if this is the first generation, what would the second generation look like? 

A Short History of Search Engines

Let's start with a short history of search engines. How did we get to this point and how much innovation have we truly seen? 

Search engines began to emerge in the 1990s but exploded in popularity with the launch of Google in 1997. Within a few years, Google's seamless and minimalistic experience led it to be the search engine of choice for most of the population online. For the record, it remains the most popular search engine in the world by far (despite a handful of interesting new competitors, like DuckDuckGo). 

Originally, Google's search algorithm functioned with an algorithm called PageRank. It would estimate the perceived authority, or trustworthiness, of various sites based on the links pointing to them – including the quality and quantity of such links. Sites with lots of inbound links from other high-authority sources could be considered trustworthy and were ranked higher. Additionally, Google would consider the context of each webpage, using user queries as a guide to find on-topic content. 

This led to heavy abuse from webmasters around the world. Stuffing keywords and spamming links were common ways to manipulate the system and ultimately rank higher than the competition. 

In response, Google began releasing a series of regular updates, all designed to improve the average user's search experience and provide them with better results. Many of these updates improved the quality standards used by Google to calculate relevance and authority of websites; for example, clear link spam became disregarded (with the link spammers penalized) and good content became rewarded more than bad content. 

Other updates sought to make the search experience more robust. Over time, Google has expanded the search engine's functionality and purpose with local search, business entries, reviews, images, embedded videos, news stories, and sometimes, direct information on the topic you're interested in. There are even AI-based elements of Google search that continually self-improve to better serve users. These all functionally expand the capacity of search without interfering with the core experience. 

Because of changes like these, Google is a totally different beast than it was in 1997. But in some ways, it hasn't changed much at all. 

The Core Search Experience

This is why I believe we're still well within the bounds of the "first generation" of online search. We can do a lot more with search now than we have before – but the core mechanics of the search experience are still instantly recognizable, and in many ways, function just as they did 20+ years ago. 

For example, when you want to search for something online, you still (typically) pull up a search engine, enter your query, and browse through a list of entries to find what you're looking for. There are growing exceptions to this, which I'll cover in the next section, but this is the primary search experience and the way we typically think about searching. 

When Google (and other search engines) fetch results, they still consider the same broad criteria: relevance and authority. The parameters for what constitutes relevance and authority may have evolved, but the basics are the same as they've ever been. A site with lots of inbound, authoritative links and contextually relevant material will easily climb to the top of the SERPs. 

Similarly, as a user, you can generally expect the same kind of experience when perusing results. You can take a look (or listen) at Google's top suggestion for your query, or leaf through the myriad results that also turn up for your search. 

We've come to expect that this is the only real way to search for things online. But could a second generation of search fundamentally change how this works? 

Hints at the Second Generation 

Right now, there are some promising candidates that could fundamentally change how we search; they're peppered into our existing, core search experience. 

For example: 

The Knowledge Graph and rich answers. Over the past few years, Google has stepped up its efforts to provide users with direct answers, rather than having them comb through websites. The Knowledge Graph sometimes gives you immediate information on your topic of choice. Other times, you're presented with a "rich answer" pulled directly from a website that Google feels is most authoritative on the subject. In the future, we may be doing less browsing, and instead accepting Google's best choices – at least with some topics. 
Smart speakers and voice search. Smart speakers with personal digital assistants like Alexa are another potential avenue for development. Voice search evolved from becoming a gimmicky, annoying, and incompetent function to being seamlessly integrated into our conversations when we want it. Voice-based search, if it advances, could introduce us to new ways of browsing the internet and engaging with online content. It could even open the door to other physical modes of search, such as searching with gestures, eye movements, or body language. 
The internet of things and distributed search functionality. The internet of things is also seeing so much momentum that the term itself is falling out of the common lexicon. Most households in the United States have dozens of digital, internet-connected devices, all of which can search in their own way. A distributed search feature, or one that can be easily used from device to device, could be in our future. 
Data and personalization. We've also seen big increases in the reliance of search engines on personal data. Search results are formulated in part based on your personal history and interests. In the future, this may replace PageRank-style systems as the primary mode of consideration when formulating results, sparking the growth of fundamentally new, second-generation engines. 
Complete ground-up innovation. What's most exciting is the promise of a complete, ground-up innovation, forcing us to rethink search entirely. Such a move would require a massive leap forward in terms of technology and a lot of luck – since many people would be reluctant to transition to a new system. This may prove difficult with the current state of the internet, but if websites and pages are fundamentally upgraded or redrawn, the way we search will surely follow.

However, there are some caveats to keep in mind when considering the next generation of search. Here's a big one: most companies aren't interested in starting completely from scratch. Google has nearly 25 years of data, experience, and investment in a very particular mode of search. While they could carry over some of it to draw up plans for a new type of search 

A Vision of the Future of Search 

So what does the future of search look like? It's hard to say. There's a good chance we'll remain in this first generation, with iterative tweaks and improvements, for another decade or two. But sooner or later, some genius entrepreneur will come along to disrupt the way we do things – or maybe one of the existing tech giants will step up to teach the world how to search in a new way, from the ground up. And when that time comes, we'll look back at our current search capabilities with the same humor and nostalgia that we look back on film projectors and VHS tapes. 

The post We're Still in the First Generation of Search Engines. Here's What Could Be Next. appeared first on ReadWrite.

What will Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce mean for their foundation?

Posted: 03 May 2021 06:40 PM PDT

The Microsoft co-founder and his wife say they will continue working together on their charitable foundation, the largest of its kind in the world.

Apple might reveal AirPods 3 and a HiFi Apple Music plan soon

Posted: 03 May 2021 06:40 PM PDT

Apple's Spring Loaded event was packed with huge announcements, from the redesigned iMac and the iPad Pro with an M1 chip to the new Apple TV 4K and the AirTag tracker. As per usual, even more devices were rumored to show up at the event, but those rumors didn't come true. In fact, one such rumor suggested that the next generation of AirPods headphones would be unveiled, and while that didn't happen, the reveal might be coming soon.

According to Hits Daily Double, Apple is planning to launch a brand new high-fidelity audio tier on Apple Music "in the coming weeks" alongside the third-generation AirPods. Label sources tell the website that Apple will price the hi-fi tier at $9.99 per month, which is the same price as the standard Apple Music plan.

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Bolstering the report from Hits Daily Double, MacRumors found code in the first iOS 14.6 beta which seems to spoil the company's plans to launch a new tier for its music streaming service. As the site reveals, there are references to "lossless audio," "high-quality stereo streaming," and "HiFi" in the Apple Music app after updating to iOS 14.6 beta 1. The code also suggests that only certain AirPods models will be compatible with hi-fi streaming.

WWDC 2021 is just around the corner, but it's possible that Apple sprinkles in a few additional reveals before the end of the month. After all, Spotify announced a high-fidelity tier of their own back in February which still has not launched. According to the company blog, Spotify HiFi "will deliver music in CD-quality, lossless audio format to your device and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers." Spotify HiFi is also expected to be more expensive than the standard plan, so if Apple Music's hi-fi option really does come in at $9.99, it could be a compelling reason to switch.

As for the third-generation AirPods, previous leaks and reports have suggested that the new model will have a similar design to that of the AirPods Pro, but without some of the key features that make the Pro model stand apart, such as Active Noise Cancellation. There are also rumors that the next AirPods Pro will ditch the stem altogether, adopting a design that might mirror what Google did with the Pixel Buds.

None of this has been confirmed by Apple yet, but the references in the iOS code make it clear that the company is at least considering a high-fidelity streaming option for Apple Music.

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Zapier: Automation helped small businesses survive the pandemic

Posted: 03 May 2021 05:39 PM PDT

Automation and removing repetitive tasks reduced worker stress and boost productivity over the past year, Zapier found in its latest report.Read More

Businesses to support remote workforce even after offices reopen

Posted: 03 May 2021 05:39 PM PDT

Tech spending data suggests many businesses will continue to invest in connectivity to support the remote workforce even after offices reopen.Read More

Divorce fallout: What happens to Gates Foundation when Bill and Melinda are no longer married?

Posted: 03 May 2021 05:39 PM PDT

Bill and Melinda Gates visiting women in Jamsaut village in Bihar, India. (Gates Foundation Photo)

Created more than 20 years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a global leader in philanthropy. So what happens when it's "Bill and Melinda" no more?

With news breaking Monday of the divorce between Bill and Melinda Gates, questions are swirling about the future of their foundation.

In terms of assets and influence, the foundation "is the most important philanthropic foundation in the world," said Benjamin Soskis, co-founder and editor of HistPhil, a site dedicated to the history of philanthropy. "To the extent that this will have an effect on the foundation itself, it's of immense consequence."

The Seattle-based organization has an endowment worth nearly $50 billion, and has issued close to $55 billion in grants over the years.

The couple said in their shared tweet on Monday that they believe in the mission of the foundation and will continue their work together there.

Their organization echoed the sentiment in its statement: "Bill and Melinda will remain co-chairs and trustees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. No changes to their roles or the organization are planned. They will continue to work together to shape and approve foundation strategies, advocate for the foundation's issues, and set the organization's overall direction."

The foundation provides grants in wide-ranging areas, including global health and vaccines, gender equality programs, economic development and agriculture in lower-income countries, and improving education in the U.S. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the organization invested at least $1.75 billion in battling the virus, helping pay for the production and purchase of medical supplies.

The Gateses predictably asked for "space and privacy" in their tweet. But their tremendous wealth — Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft and is worth an estimated $130.5 billion — combined with the significance of the philanthropic work in which they have played such central, public roles makes that difficult if not impossible.

While it's a personal crisis, "by definition they're public events, in a way that is uncomfortable," said Soskis, who is also a research associate at the Urban Institute think tank, which receives funding from the Gates Foundation.

In 2010, the couple joined Warren Buffett in creating the Giving Pledge, an effort that asks billionaires to vow to give away the majority of their wealth while alive or in their will — instead of bestowing their estates to descendants. Bill Gates is 65 and Melinda Gates is 56 years old. Bill Gates Sr., formerly the third co-chair of the organization, died in September 2020.

The focus and approach of the foundation has shifted over time from a more technocratic-style emphasizing data, testing and research — a strategy that aligns with Bill — to a more humanistic, community-engaged approach that hews more closely with Melinda, said experts in philanthropy.

Melinda's "not the business person in the family. She's not the capitalist that was sued by the Justice Department [for antitrust behavior] and built the global corporation," said David Callahan, editor of Inside Philanthropy, a charity watchdog site.

Bill and Melinda Gates announce decision to end marriage after 27 years

While the couple says they'll keep working together, some wonder if Melinda would create her own foundation to direct increased attention to efforts such as women's empowerment — the focus of her 2019 book, "The Moment of Lift" — and possibly more political actions that impact courts or elections.

"If you really care about gender equity, there's a good chance you'll go down a more robust, progressive giving path," Callahan said.

He pointed to the fallout from the 2019 divorce of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott. Following their separation, Scott has established herself as a major philanthropic donor, giving away $5.7 billion last year to wide-ranging social causes with a more liberal bent. Until recent years, Bezos and Amazon were criticized for their limited philanthropic giving.

"It could be that Melinda Gates has been waiting for the freedom to do her own thing, that it's going to be a big, blazing story of a new and independent Melinda Gates philanthropy that looks different than what came before, which is what we saw with MacKenzie Scott," Callahan said. "Or it could be status quo with some tweaks."

Over the years, Bill and Melinda Gates have staked out their own focus areas in giving and investing.

Bill Gates in 2015 launched Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a $2 billion fund to support carbon-cutting startups. That initiative has evolved into Breakthrough Energy, an umbrella organization that spans six programs working to battle climate change. Bill Gates recently published a climate book and has spent months doing interviews and discussing climate challenges and solutions.

Also in 2015, Melinda Gates established an organization called Pivotal Ventures, an independent executive office that gave her the opportunity to pursue ideas, projects and investments that might not fit within the structure of the Gates Foundation. Melinda, who met Gates while herself a Microsoft employee, published her book in 2019, which shared her firsthand encounters with women worldwide who are working to improve theirs and their family's lives.

While the Gates Foundation is the largest, there are other philanthropies that are jointly led by ultra wealthy couples, including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie, and hedge-fund founder John and Laura Arnold. The private organizations are largely beholden only to their founders, and sometimes criticized for their lack of accountability and transparency.

"With these couples, these ongoing enterprises, it's always hard to know who is pulling for what priorities," Callahan said.

The big takeaway, Callahan and Soskis agreed, is the Gates' divorce demonstrates the outsized, unpredictable repercussions that follow the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people. All of a sudden news of a divorce isn't a gossip column curiosity, but a significant event with potential societal ramifications.

"It's another illustration of a universe in which individuals and not institutions are a defining player on the landscape," Soskis said.

Billionaire commander and future space crewmates bond during Mount Rainier trek

Posted: 03 May 2021 04:43 PM PDT

Inspiration4 crewmates Christopher Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux revel in their visit to Mount Rainier. (Inspiration4 Photo / John Kraus)

The road to space runs through … Mount Rainier?

Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, who's paying for a trip to orbit as a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, thinks a three-day expedition on Washington state's highest mountain with his future crewmates is a good way to prepare for three days of being cooped up in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

"We're going to get comfortable getting uncomfortable," he was quoted as saying in an Instagram post by John Kraus, the official photographer for Isaacman's Inspiration4 space campaign.

Over the weekend, Isaacman and the three other members of the Inspiration4 Dragon crew — Lockheed Martin engineer Christopher Sembroski, Arizona geoscientist Sian Proctor and St. Jude physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux — were part of a team that took on the miles-long trek to Camp Muir, a way station at the mountain's 10,080-foot elevation.

Isaacman and a subset of the team went even higher and reached the 14,411-foot-tall mountain's summit during this trip — a stretch goal that the billionaire businessman missed out on during a preparatory climb earlier this month.

If all goes according to plan, the Inspiration4 foursome will climb into the same Crew Dragon spaceship that brought four astronauts back from the International Space Station over the weekend. SpaceX will refurbish the craft, christened Resilience, for a mission set for liftoff as early as September.

Unlike Resilience's previous crew, the Inspiration4 spacefliers won't be going to the space station. Instead, Isaacman will serve as the commander of a free-flying mission that could provide further insights into the effects of spaceflight on non-professionals — and provide great pictures for the crew and folks watching at home. Resilience will be fitted with a giant cupola window to maximize the view.

Isaacman, who's a trained jet pilot, hopes the project will raise $200 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Contributions are still being taken via St. Jude's website, and you can bet there'll be opportunities during and after the flight for the Inspiration4 crew to highlight the work being done at the hospital.

Arceneaux, a cancer survivor, told CBS News that the crew plans to call patients from space. "They're going to see that somebody who was in their shoes, who also fought childhood cancer, can go to space," she said. "And I think it's really going to show them what they're capable of."

Sembroski, who lives in Everett, Wash., is looking forward to gaining a perspective from space that's likely to be even broader than the view from Mount Rainier.

"I really hope that once I'm up there … I am able to experience what it's like to look back down at Earth and see our beautiful blue ball sitting there, with no lines, no walls," he said a little more than a month ago when his selection for the crew was announced. Sembroski said sharing the experience could help others "realize what incredible opportunities we have if we just continue to show kindness to one another, and reach out and be generous with our talents."

iPad Pro’s exciting display upgrade might be coming to the 2021 MacBook Pro

Posted: 03 May 2021 04:43 PM PDT

Apple unveiled the new iPad Pro models at its Spring Loaded event. The new iPad Pros come in the same 11-inch and 12.9-inch options, but feature a few notable upgrades over their predecessors. Both devices run on the same M1 processor that powers several Macs, feature up to 16GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage. Also, the iPad Pros come with optional 5G support. But the best upgrade concerns the 12.9-inch model's display.

The larger iPad Pro features a mini-LED screen. That's the new Liquid Retina XDR display that offers the same performance as Apple's Pro Display XDR monitor that retails for $5,000. A new report says the same display technology might be available for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros that Apple will launch later this year.

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Reports last year said that Apple planned to bring mini-LED screen tech to iPad and MacBook lines, starting with the iPad Pro and some MacBook Pro versions.

iPad Pro Liquid Retina XDR display features. Image source: Apple Inc.

Sources familiar with Apple's supply chain have told Digitimes (via MacRumors) that TSMT has addressed technical challenges for the production of mini-LED screens for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.

Digitimes reported that "TSMT is the exclusive provider of SMT services for the recently launched 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌'s mini-LED backlights and is expected to do the same for the two upcoming miniLED-backlit MacBook models, the sources said."

The Apple supplier has been dealing with various production yields for key mini-LED components, including the circuit board and adhesive materials in the mini-LED displays destined for the new MacBook notebooks. TSMT has adjusted its techniques, increasing production yield rates to over 95%.

iPad Pro's Liquid Retina XDR screen offers a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1000 nits of full-screen brightness, 1600 nits of peak brightness, P3 wide color gamut, and 120Hz ProMotion support. The screen features a layer made of 10,000 mini-LEDs groups into 2,500 local dimming zones, as seen below. This allows Apple to adjust the brightness accurately and reach that 1,000,000: 1 contrast ratio.

iPad Pro Liquid Retina XDR: Local dimming zones explained. Image source: Apple Inc.

The same technology should be available in this year's MacBook Pros if the report is accurate.

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models will probably be unveiled much later this year. They'll succeed the current 13-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models that run on M1 and Intel chips, respectively. Both 2021 MacBook Pro laptops will feature an Apple M-series processor, likely the M1's successor.

The mini-LED display upgrade isn't the only change planned for the 2021 MacBook Pro models. Other reports claimed earlier this year that Apple plans a major redesign for its notebooks. The new MacBooks will bring back support for MagSafe chargers and include additional ports compared to previous versions. The Touch Bar might also go away, the same reports said.

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Monday, May 3, 2021

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Intel will invest $3.5 billion in New Mexico chip factory

Posted: 03 May 2021 12:40 AM PDT

Intel said on Sunday that it will spend $3.5 billion on an upgrade for its factory in New Mexico as part of a plan to expand manufacturing.Read More

What Makes Enterprise AI Different From Any Other AI?

Posted: 02 May 2021 02:39 PM PDT

Has enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) lived up to the hype generated at a decade's worth of industry conferences? Or is it coming up short? Maybe putting the word "enterprise" in front of AI just adds up to a marketing spin. It depends on how individual businesses deploy AI.

When companies adopt AI wisely, they do more than shift repeatable tasks and processes from humans to more efficient computers. They bring humans and machines together to build more intelligent workflow — transformational workflows.

What Makes Enterprise AI Different From Any Other AI?

The private equity firm Graham Allen has been leaning on AI to revitalize and grow midwestern industrial and mid-sized businesses with a pragmatic approach that's gaining attention.

The enterprise AI-focused operating company SymphonyAI has been earning headlines for its strategy. Its portfolio companies have been making inroads in the industry verticals they each address, including Symphony IndustrialAI. With the recent acquisition of Savigent, Symphony AyasdiAI in banking, and Symphony MediaAI in the business of subscription and media distribution revenue, including gaming.

In data ops for private capital, Harmonate has been leading a quiet revolution in how private equity and funds-of-funds middle and back offices operate with machine learning.

Humans and machines together can achieve more, in a more repeatable and reliable fashion, and with better insight. But apart from some funds and companies, is that actually happening throughout the economy?

Where is the money going?

No, and yes. Money is being poured into AI, and it's making a difference. It's just that the difference being made is not necessarily visible. This lack of visibility fuels skeptics. And the progress is not fast, given that the availability of huge amounts of data is both a blessing and a curse. Copious data delivers the raw material AI needs. But AI is still learning how to cope with the complexity and needs help from human domain experts.

The smart companies are the ones that are not tinkering and failing to make big moves. And the smart companies also aren't trying to leap too far ahead with moonshots that skip steps.

What the smart companies are doing is putting together point solutions into products that solve real business enterprise solutions. They are developing the right loop between domain experts and machines. The result is real AI product suites that capture the knowledge capital of enterprises and can transform industries.

Experimentation

We all know AI investments have been increasing in recent years. Skeptics would say the trend derives from big promises and false expectations. But I'm compelled to think many companies are deploying AI more wisely than we understand. They are discovering value and growing the potential of AI.

It's just happening in quieter corners of business enterprises. It's happening in places where domain experts and the right technologists are solving small problems, then connecting those breakthroughs to others, until there's an inflection point. There's a germination period underway right now.

We are moving from a diffuse cloud of point solutions to product suites in industry verticals powered by business leaders who've embraced the new reality of their markets.

When do I get my flying car?

AI skeptics, however, persist in believing that artificial intelligence advances are like flying cars – a sci-fi fantasy that has failed to materialize despite years of hopes and promises. It's true that optimistic predictions have sometimes outstripped the reality of AI.

By one estimate, AI has been through seven false starts since the 1950s. Impressive multimillion-dollar AI efforts have faltered. Some ostensible "AI startups" aren't even really using AI but rather are selling automation with elements of machine learning. This poor performance and confusion fuels skepticism, inhibits innovation, wastes money and reduces returns.

Most investor enthusiasm for AI is based on sound logic, however. AI tools have evolved from defeating humans at chess. Machines are good at recognizing patterns, a powerful and important cognitive function.

And, in fact, processing patterns are humanity's intellectual edge over other species. It also accounts for many daily business tasks that AI-driven machines can now frequently do better than humans across a range of sectors. The results are driving enhanced AI chips that reduce costs and dramatically improve performance.

But those chips are also being driven by the fact that repeatable tasks can be deceiving. When multiple choices of what to do lead to many more multiples of options. Even AI can start to lose track of where it's going. Experience with humans, and more chip power can bridge that gap.

More to work with

There is a lot more data to process today, too, which means more potential value. Thanks to the internet, social media, connected devices and the Internet of Things, total extant data exceeds 40 zetabytes, a ten-fold increase since 2013.

There are now "40 times more bytes than there are stars in the observable universe," according to the World Economic Forum. Cloud computing has facilitated elastic consumption of storage and network demands to handle that data. Digital transformations have resulted.

A growing number of companies are recognizing the benefits. AI adoption tripled in the 12 months leading up to March 2019, perhaps "the fastest paradigm shift in technology history" according to a major study. PWC forecasts that AI could add $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

AI is not a fad. It is a key differentiator. Like the internet, it has the potential to completely transform the economy. Companies that deploy it effectively will make changes.

How to Transform a Business with Enterprise AI

Of course, companies can possess all the ingredients necessary to conduct top-performing AI analysis but still fail to achieve results, particularly if they lack a robust understanding of their industry's business processes. Human perspective and insight are more art than science. Inspiring the former while developing the latter is the challenge we all face in the new AI age we're now in the middle of.

Companies sometimes tinker, improving obsolete systems rather than rethinking and reinventing their operations to capitalize on enterprise AI.

Tinkering is good. But tinkering too long leads to a flawed approach that may help a company reduce its costs or streamline processes in the short run. But such gains are unlikely to justify the investment needed to gain significant market share.

Worse yet, the company will have missed an opportunity to achieve a transformational advantage, one that competitors may be exploiting.

Adding to the problems with tinkering are startups seeking to harness AI for individual point solutions. Their value proposition is harder to figure out. The potential for differentiation is typically diminished, and their survivability is less certain. A task and a point solution are not a business enterprise.

The middle way

Companies don't face a choice of incremental change or narrow focus, however. Instead, established and new ventures need to harness enterprise AI's capacity to capture and profit from the knowledge capital in their given sectors.

In 1998, Paul Strassmann argued that the proper function of the software is to serve as the business's "prefrontal cortex," storing and exploiting the working knowledge that has traditionally remained stuck in employees' heads. When applied correctly, enterprise AI is the ideal technology for this work.

The goal of enterprise AI is not only to empower humans but also to program and institutionalize stronger, smarter, more efficient organizations.

Enterprise AI can expedite those changes because, unlike traditional software, which follows the static instructions of a programmer, AI can evolve to capture a wider variety of tasks and learns through practice.

Furthermore, enterprise AI is undaunted by the many terabytes of data that companies gather. It quickly observes complex and obscure patterns that humans miss.

That's why forward-looking companies are using it to build next-generation platforms – systems of actionable intelligence that capture siloed data from existing systems of record. The enterprise AI solution makes this data available in a holistic way, through a set of AI models, applications and solutions.

These platforms also acquire and integrate data from external sources, providing intelligence for further revenue growth.

Conclusion

Businesses will need a vision for "AI-ification" if they want to rethink their operations, transform their technology stacks, overhaul existing solutions and win in the future. And we're fast approaching the point where it's not a question of wanting to rethink, but needing to rethink.

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The post What Makes Enterprise AI Different From Any Other AI? appeared first on ReadWrite.

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In a year of major shifts, the self-driving car market is consolidating

Posted: 02 May 2021 12:39 PM PDT

Toyota and Lyft’s $550 million deal shows wealthy companies that can bear delayed return on investment dominate the autonomous vehicle market.Read More

Ever Wanted to Bungee off Tokyo Tower? Now You Can … in VR

Posted: 02 May 2021 11:39 AM PDT

If you've been avoiding taking a bungee leap of faith off the Tokyo Tower because of how scary and dangerous it is? Well now you can take the plunge without fear of dismemberment or death in this Tokyo-based VR experience.

Read This Article on Review Geek ›

Seattle startup Modica turns shipping containers into software-driven microfactories

Posted: 02 May 2021 10:41 AM PDT

Seattle-based Modica builds interconnected systems for micromanufacturing and houses it all in shipping containers. (Modica Image)

Watching stacks of shipping containers come and go from Seattle's waterfront, you might wonder what's in them, where they came from and where they're headed. One Seattle startup isn't filling the brightly colored boxes with merchandise and is instead using containers to house microfactories that can churn out products anywhere in the world.

About Modica: Launched in 2018 and based in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood, Modica builds factory-as-a-service modules. Founder and CEO William Gibbs has worked in aerospace, food processing and general factory automation and robotics. He previously ran and then sold a small systems integration firm called Corvus and Columba.

Modica CEO Will Gibbs. (Modica Photo)

Systems integration is basically the building of factories, where a company determines what product you need to make, which robots to use, conveyors, custom tooling and more. Modica is adapting modular construction technologies and generative design techniques to the way entire factories are built, in order to build them faster and prevent shortages like many experienced early in the pandemic.

Tech HQ recently called the microfactory "the next big thing in manufacturing," enabling the setup of small-to-medium scale, highly automated, technologically advanced manufacturing possessing a wide range of processes.

What's in a name? Modica takes its name from the word modicum, which means a small portion of something. Gibbs says Modica is "many small things repeated many times. It plays into what we do — we modify shipping containers so the 'mod' part makes sense."

Why shipping containers? Gibbs said the modular form factor can be parallelized and pre-built and then brought together. They start with containers because they're compatible with global logistics and you can get one virtually anywhere and send one virtually anywhere.

"If you're making small devices, most of the equipment you'd use would fit in a container," Gibbs said. "It also turns out to the extent that factories aren't completely automated, there's still people in factories. The container can actually modify into a workspace. You can join them together and stack them and make human workspaces."

A container ship arriving along Seattle's waterfront. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Example of current business: Containerization of existing business processes include Modica's work with a metal supplier that does short runs of metal — small amounts of sticks of metal that are cut and packaged. They usually operate out of big warehouses and Modica can create a micro-warehouse that has a subset of their full inventory.

"The value that's added is you can get your production, or at least your microfulfillment, closer to the use centers," Gibbs said. He also foresees the ability to locate a microfactory closer to a disaster zone for quicker production of necessary goods.

Cost: The range is huge for Modica's services because it depends on what's going inside the container. A very basic container modification, with a single 3D printer sitting in it, for example, might be about $8,000. It goes up from there, depending on what it is you want. The sky's the limit for a tightly integrated, full spectrum of automation with custom parts.

Modica is making high-tech restrooms for Throne. (Throne Image)

High-tech restroom connection: When Amazon made news earlier this month because its delivery drivers were admitting that they had to resort to urinating in bottles because they couldn't find the time to use public restrooms, Modica's name came up in talks of a solution. The company is actually building connected units for Washington, D.C.-based Throne, whose high-tech restrooms rely on an app that reserves and unlocks a free-standing restroom.

"As we ramp up production, we're actually designing microfactories that will be making these entire Throne units," Gibbs said. "So it's really a kind of an eating-our-own-dog-food sort of experience so far. We just shipped some of the early units. There will be many, many more."

Funding: Modica was mostly bootstrapped until being accepted into the STANLEY + Techstars accelerator program focused on AI in advanced manufacturing. Demo day for the accelerator was Thursday.

Team: Modica employs seven people currently and plans to double that headcount this year. Peter Biddle, an early Microsoft employee who spent almost 17 years at the software giant, joined as a co-founder in 2019.

Last word: "I really couldn't describe Modica without mentioning both the hardware and the software," Gibbs said. "We don't just want to hang our hat on the shipping container. It just turns out that it's one of our form factors that the software design tool we use can work with, to help modularize and do this systems integration. They really go hand in hand and the concept would be kind of incomplete without both."

Pixel 6 might get this revolutionary feature from Apple’s iPhone 12

Posted: 02 May 2021 10:41 AM PDT

After a disappointing 2020 in terms of Pixel flagship hardware, Google might surprise fans with a few great Pixel 6 features. According to reports, Google is already developing a foldable Pixel phone and making its own system-on-chip (SoC) processor. The latter is likely to debut this year, powering at least one Pixel 6 device. Dubbed Whitechapel (GS101), the 5nm processor is being developed in collaboration with Samsung. The SoC won't merely help Google reduce its reliance on Qualcomm, it'll also let it offer customers a feature that has only been available on iPhones so far. A custom SoC made for the Pixel would let Google fine-tune Android performance and control more aspects of the hardware, just like Apple does with iOS and iPadOS.

A new finding suggests that Google might add another chip to the Pixel 6 series that's already available on iPhones — an ultra-wideband (UWB) processor that could power some exciting new Pixel features.

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The iPhone 11 was Apple's first iPhone to feature UWB technology. The new wireless protocol lets Apple offer something called "precision finding" for lost devices. The tech allows users to locate their lost objects down to a few inches, whether it's an iPhone or the new AirTag tracker that comes with a built-in U1 chip. UWB tech is also used in other applications, such as handing off content between iPhone and a HomePod mini speaker. AirDrop functionality can also be improved if both gadgets feature UWB chips like the U1.

Samsung added UWB support to the Galaxy S21 series, and ultra-wideband chips will probably be included in future devices.

Google's interest in the technology is hardly surprising. Google wouldn't just ensure that the Pixel 6 phones are on par with the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 by adding a UWB SoC in its new handsets. The technology might also have an immediate use. Google could rely on UWB to improve connections between Pixel phones and smart home devices, and also for tracking purposes. That's not to say that Google will be building an AirTag-like tracker of its own, as that's just one of the various UWB-based features available to users. All of this is just speculation at this point though, as Google won't announce the Pixel 6 until October. It's unclear whether it plans to talk about UWB during its big Google I/O 2021 event in a few weeks.

All we have for now is evidence that Google is testing support for an Android 12 UWB API on "Raven," one of the internal codenames used for the Pixel 6.

I don’t have any more details to share, such as confirmation that a next-gen Pixel will indeed support UWB, if Google is working on any UWB/BT trackers, whether “raven” is the Pixel 6 or 6 XL, etc.

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) April 30, 2021

Mishaal Rahman from xda-developers and 9to5Google have both revealed various aspects of Google's interest in UWB tech. The latter claims to have seen documentation that Google is working with Qorvo on UWB hardware.

Google is expected to release three Pixel phones this year. The Pixel 5a phone that appears to be almost identical to the Pixel 4a 5G will roll out first. Two Pixel 6 devices are then expected in the fall. Aside from Raven, there's also an "Oriole" codename belonging to an unreleased Pixel handset. All Pixel 6 phones will likely support ultra-wideband connectivity, if these recent reports from reliable sources are accurate.

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Divided we fall: Why fragmented global privacy regulation won’t work

Posted: 02 May 2021 09:40 AM PDT

The growing patchwork of US state-level privacy laws will inflict significant costs on businesses and the American public.Read More

Satoshi’s Games launches Elixir Marketplace for NFTs based on Bitcoin rewards

Posted: 02 May 2021 09:40 AM PDT

Satoshi’s Games has launching its Elixir Marketplace for NFT item sales based on Bitcoin rewads in its Light Nite game.Read More

Gross: Watch a Dishwasher Run from the Inside with 4K GoPro Video

Posted: 02 May 2021 09:40 AM PDT

Have you ever wondered how dishwashers actually manage to get your dishes sparkling clean? A YouTube channel called Warped Perception actually placed a GoPro and a 360-degree camera inside a dishwasher while it ran a cycle to get some answers.

Read This Article on Review Geek ›

dWeb Daily News Picks

Posted: 02 May 2021 09:32 AM PDT

dWeb News Daily Picks Daniel Webster Internet Cowboy

dWeb Daily News Picks From Daniel Webster dWeb Internet Cowboy

Woman Charged with Felony Embezzlement for Not Returning 1999 VHS Rental

‘Boo all you like!’: Romney hits back at 2,000-strong crowd at Utah’s GOP convention

Hooray for the Little Underdog — $1,000 Yearling

SpaceX Makes First Nighttime Splash Down With Astronauts Since 1968

Yellowstone is Shooting Paintballs at Wolves and Says It's for Their Own Good

What if we turned empty offices into housing?

Leading QAnon was retweeted by Trump was hiding in plain sight as a chiropractor from Denver, says investigation

Has Online Retail's Biggest Bully Returned?

China Warns Large Tech Firms as Industry Faces Rising Oversight

The Army’s New Night-Vision Goggles Look Like Technology Stolen From Aliens

UFOs are real, feds' cover-up fueled by fear: ex-Pentagon whistleblower

How Apple does M&A: Small and quiet, with no bankers

For These stories, plus more worldwide and technology news go to dWeb News 

http://dWeb.News 

#embezzlement #VHS #videotape #MittRomney #UtahGOP #KentuckyDerby #SpaceX #Yellowstone #paintball #wolves #qanon #trump #denver #onlineretail #china #tech #army #nightvision #goggles #ufo #pentagon #apple #m&a
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