Tech Veterans Try to Build a Kinder, More Thoughtful Facebook – Telepath
The former venture capitalist and technology executive -- whose sister-in-law is Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg -- on Thursday formally unveiled Telepath, an interest-based service intended to foster online conversations. The network, which will be invitation-only to start, is trying to instill strict content standards from the get-go, including a rule against disinformation and hate speech. People have to use their real identity, and provide a valid phone number to sign up. “Be Kind” is the site’s first rule.
“We’re really focused on long engaging conversations with people who share the same interest with people who probably didn’t know each other before.” Bodnick said Telepath wants to limit accounts to real people, meaning no businesses or publishers.
Bodnick drew inspiration from the internet’s early days, when platforms like Facebook helped users meet people and share ideas without as much concern over animosity, hate speech or misinformation.
See the full story here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-24/tech-veterans-try-to-build-a-kinder-more-thoughtful-facebook
Amazon’s Alexa gets a new brain on Echo, becomes smarter via AI and aims for ambience
Amazon is making Alexa smarter with natural turn-taking, having conversations with multiple people, natural language understanding, and the ability to be taught by customers. The first target is the smart home, but Alexa for Business is also likely to follow.
Features such as Reading Sidekick, designed to help kids read, and conversational improvements are aimed at making Alexa more of a family member without as many "Alexa" words.
Rohit Prasad, vice president and head scientist for Alexa Artificial Intelligence at Amazon, outlined the following capabilities:
- Alexa can take interaction cues and note errors and then connect them.
- Learn from humans by asking to follow up questions when Alexa has a gap in knowledge about returns and learned modes.
- Deep learning space parsers to understand gaps and extract new concepts.
- More natural conversation and adaptation.
- Follow-up mode when interacting with humans.
CHASING THE AMBIENT DREAM STARTING WITH THE HOME
Limp's talk outlined the new Echo devices and Echo Show 10, but the overall theme was that these devices can follow you around the room as a person would.
See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-alexa-gets-a-new-brain-on-echo-becomes-smarter-via-ai-and-aims-for-ambience/
Artificial Intelligence Produces Music Album for Kids
AISM produces songs based on music theory and data provided by a human composer, Genie Music explained.
AISM offers two methods of writing a song. First, the ‘conceptual composition’ method allows users to type in a certain genre, mood, or emotion to create music.
Second, the ‘preference composition’ method allows users to type in a song they like, to create a song with a similar vibe.
Songs produced by AISM have gone through additional rearrangements by human professionals before they were released as an album.
See the full story here: http://koreabizwire.com/artificial-intelligence-produces-music-album-for-kids/170456
Kal Penn quit Hollywood for politics. Now, politics are following him back to Hollywood
Instead, he said, “Approves This Message” wants to show everyone’s perspective, comparing it to a combination of “The Daily Show” and “CBS Sunday Morning.” An episode about the environment, for example, will feature young progressives and young, evangelical Christians.
“One approaches this from science, one approaches this from faith. Both are working together for the same goal,” Penn told The News. “In this world of polarization and chaos, there are people who are tuning out all of the noise and instead focusing on ‘what do we want to get done together and how do we want to get it done?’ They disagree on every other issue but that’s OK because they’re working together on this one particular issue. To me, success is highlighting stories like that and celebrating who we are.”
See the full story here: https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/ny-kal-penn-approves-message-freeform-election-20200922-d7oti5fhcbagtjpb7rrkpgstxq-story.html
Dudamel Heads Up A Virtual Reality Orchestra Project
Symphony offers a sort of museum-like, planetarium experience: the project is touring in two connected mobile cinema spaces. The first room screens a film, no virtual reality yet, about the lives of three young musicians. For the second building, visitors don 3D headsets and are zoomed center stage to the Gran Teatre del Liceu; they sit among the orchestra as Dudamel leads excerpts from Mahler, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and the “Mambo” from West Side Story. The full thing lasts about half an hour.
For their part, Dudamel and the musicians finished recording in August 2019. The complete experience premiered last week, in a setup outside Barcelona’s CosmoCaixa museum, factoring in new coronavirus health guidelines. The show stays in Barcelona until Oct. 8, then moves on to more cities in Spain and Portugal for what’s scheduled to be a 10-year tour.
See the full story here: https://www.sfcv.org/music-news/dudamel-heads-up-a-virtual-reality-orchestra-project
Facebook Acquires Varifocal Startup Lemnis Technologies
It’s come to light that Lemnis Technologies, a startup creating varifocal optics for use in VR headsets, has reportedly been absorbed by Facebook in an ‘acqui-hiring’ move.
Solving a VR Problem
Starting in 2016 and later incorporated in 2017 in Singapore, the company set out to solve a problem that’s plagued VR since its inception: the vergence-accommodation conflict.
Suffice it to say that future VR headsets will likely incorporate some form of varifocal technology (and requisite eye-tracking) in effort to solve this and therefore make VR more realistic and comfortable for long-term use. Facebook has been working on this issue since at least 2018 when the company unveiled its own varifocal prototype headsetat Facebook’s annual developer conference.
Banksy loses trademark battle over his famous Flower Thrower image
Though only considering whether to apply Banksy's trademark, which covers brands and slogans, the panel also said any future attempt to exert copyright could be problematic as the artist maintains complete anonymity. They said: “Banksy has chosen to remain anonymous and for the most part to paint graffiti on other people’s property without their permission rather than to paint it on canvases or his own property.” If he cannot be identified as the “unquestionable owner of such works”, as his identity is a secret, the panel noted, “it further cannot be established without question that the artist holds any copyrights to a graffiti”.
As Banksy so succinctly put it: “copyright is for losers”. The artist also encouraged others to download his works for “amusement and activism”, but not for profit, ...
Banksy could not be reached for comment.
See the full story here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/banksy-loses-flower-thrower-trademark-case-calling-his-anonymity-into-question