Finland’s first quantum computer was commissioned at a research center near the capital Helsinki, where scientists will use it to study next-generation computing power. From a report: The 5 quantum-bit computer was developed “to learn how to build a quantum computer, how to program one and how to operate one in the future,” Pekka Pursula, research manager at the VTT Technical Research Centre, said by phone on Tuesday. The machine was the joint work of VTT and quantum computing hardware company IQM Finland Oy. “This 5-qubit computer has relatively low computational power, and itâ(TM)s not enough to solve practical problems,” Pursula said. The researchers plan to build a 50-qubit machine by 2024 that could be used for applications such as modeling viruses and drugs, and designing materials that today’s technology is ill-equipped to handle.
Twitter has expanded its private information policy to include media, meaning that users are not allowed to share photos or videos of a private individual without their permission. The company notes that tweeting images of someone without consent can violate their privacy and potentially lead to harm against them.
Beginning today, we will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent. Publishing people’s private info is also prohibited under the policy, as is threatening or incentivizing others to do so.https://t.co/7EXvXdwegG
The Twitter Safety team wrote in a blog post that although anyone can be impacted by private media being shared, it “can have a disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.” If someone reports a photo or video that violates the policy, Twitter will remove the media and take action based on its enforcement options. Those include downranking the visibility of the tweet in replies and search results or telling the person who posted it to delete the tweet. Twitter also has the right to permanently suspend users who violate the policy.
There are some exceptions to the policy. It doesn’t cover private media of public figures or others if a photo or video, and the text in the tweet, “are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.” In other words, if it’s newsworthy, Twitter will allow the media in question to remain on the platform. That said, if the goal of sharing private photos or videos of public figures “or individuals who are part of public conversations is to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence them,” Twitter might remove the media. The abusive behavior and non-consensual nudity (i.e. revenge porn) policy still apply to public figures.
Twitter previously prohibited users from sharing private information about other people, such as their addresses, phone numbers, ID or financial information (in other words, doxing someone). It also doesn’t allow people to intimidate others by threatening to release such details. The company says it will start enforcing the private image rule starting today and that the new measure is part of its work to bring its safety policies in line with human rights standards.
The majority of money given to environmental charities goes to just a handful of organizations, according to a new report. And, the analysis finds, the nonprofits and issues they champion raking in the biggest donor dollars aren’t necessarily focused on some of the most crucial ways to lower carbon emissions.
AMD was very upfront about the fact that its stacked 3D V-cache was headed to its current-generation Ryzen 5000 series in an upcoming refresh, it just has not divulged exactly when that will happen. It could be very soon, if the latest rumor turns out to be true. As in, an announcement could come in January, followed by a retail launch soon
If you’re one of the millions of people who somehow acquired a guitar during their life—a guitar they have dutifully moved from place to place with the sincere intention of someday learning how to play it—you probably know it’s not as easy as rock stars make it seem. If you’ve actually made any attempt to learn the…
A patient has been fitted with a highly realistic 3D printed prosthetic eye for the first time ever, Fraunhofer Technology has announced. Patient Steve Verze received the high-tech version as a permanent replacement for his traditional prosthetic eye. “It makes me feel more and more confident,” he told On Demand News. “If I can’t spot the difference, I know other people won’t spot the difference.”
Fraunhofer worked with British company Ocupeye Ltd on a new process that’s faster and far less invasive. Previously, doctors would need to make a mold of the eye socket, something that’s so difficult for kids that they need to go under a general anesthetic.
Now, the team can do a non-invasive 2.4-second scan using a specially modified ophthalmic scanner that delivers a precise measurement of the eye socket. That data is combined with a color-calibrated image of the healthy eye and transferred over Fraunhofer’s “Cuttlefish:Eye” system, which rapidly creates a 3D print model. The software is particularly apt at making a “realistic representation of even transparent materials,” according to Fraunhofer.
The model is then printed out by a company called Fit AG which has experience in additive manufacturing for medical technology. From there, the prostheses are inspected and given a final polish and touchup by ocularists. “With a single 3D printer, Ocupeye can potentially fulfil the annual requirement of around 10,000 prostheses required for the UK market,” according to the press release.
Verze’s prosthetic is a precursor to a forthcoming clinical trial that will evaluate the effectiveness of 3D printed eyes vs. traditional, hand-made eyes, according to University College London. Around 40 patients will be recruited two assess the prostheses for motility (movement), cosmesis (look), fit, comfort, mucous discharge and more. “This new eye looks fantastic and, being based on 3D digital printing technology, it’s only going to be better and better,” Verze said in a statement.
A new look at Hocus Pocus 2 teases the Sanderson sisters’ return. There could be more to come from the world of Malignant. Jessica Henwick hypes up Carrie Anne-Moss’ return to Matrix Resurrections. Plus, what’s coming on 4400, and Kathryn Hahn reacts to her Wandavision spinoff. Spoilers now!
Don’t worry if you missed out on Black Friday multicooker deals — there are still big bargains available. Ninja’s OS301 Foodi 10-in-1 cooker is back on sale at Amazon for $119, or 41 percent off its usual price. As with a similar deal in October, this might be the best value-for-money sale for one of Ninja’s do-everything devices.
This Foodi model remains an easy pick. It offers the usual multicooker features like pressure cooking, slow cooking and and steaming, but adds air frying and other perks you don’t always see. You might also appreciate a 6.5-quart capacity that’s ever-so-slightly larger than the typical 6qt Instant Pot size.
Once gain, the main catch is simply the ecosystem. Ninja has its supporters, but Instant Pot’s fan base offers plenty of recipes and other advice you won’t necessarily find for competing cookers. If that’s no issue, though, Ninja’s machine is a safe pick at this price given the broad feature set.
The Migration Toolkit for Containers (MTC) enables you to migrate Kubernetes resources, persistent volume data, and internal container images between OpenShift Container Platform clusters, using the MTC web console or the Kubernetes API.
AI is a broad and rapidly developing field of technology. Our goal is to make sure all young people have the skills, knowledge, and confidence to use and create AI systems. So what should AI education in schools look like?
To hear a range of insights into this, we organised a panel discussion as part of our seminar series on AI and data science education, which we co-host with The Alan Turing Institute. Here our panel chair Tabitha Goldstaub, Co-founder of CogX and Chair of the UK government’s AI Council, summarises the event. You can also watch the recording below.
As part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s monthly AI education seminar series, I was delighted to chair a special panel session to broaden the range of perspectives on the subject. The members of the panel were:
Chris Philp, UK Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy
Philip Colligan, CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation
Danielle Belgrave, Research Scientist, DeepMind
Caitlin Glover, A level student, Sandon School, Chelmsford
Alice Ashby, student, University of Brighton
Tabitha Goldstaub
Chris Philp
Danielle Belgrave
Alice Ashby
Caitlin Glover
Philip Colligan
The session explored the UK government’s commitment in the recently published UK National AI Strategy stating that “the [UK] government will continue to ensure programmes that engage children with AI concepts are accessible and reach the widest demographic.” We discussed what it will take to make this a reality, and how we will ensure young people have a seat at the table.
Why AI education for young people?
It was clear that the Minister felt it is very important for young people to understand AI. He said, “The government takes the view that AI is going to be one of the foundation stones of our future prosperity and our future growth. It’s an enabling technology that’s going to have almost universal applicability across our entire economy, and that is why it’s so important that the United Kingdom leads the world in this area. Young people are the country’s future, so nothing is complete without them being at the heart of it.”
Our panelist Caitlin Glover, an A level student at Sandon School, reiterated this from her perspective as a young person. She told us that her passion for AI started initially because she wanted to help neurodiverse young people like herself. Her idea was to start a company that would build AI-powered products to help neurodiverse students.
What careers will AI education lead to?
A theme of the Foundation’s seminar series so far has been how learning about AI early may impact young people’s career choices. Our panelist Alice Ashby, who studies Computer Science and AI at Brighton University, told us about her own process of deciding on her course of study. She pointed to the fact that terms such as machine learning, natural language processing, self-driving cars, chatbots, and many others are currently all under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, but they’re all very different. Alice thinks it’s hard for young people to know whether it’s the right decision to study something that’s still so ambiguous.
When I asked Alice what gave her the courage to take a leap of faith with her university course, she said, “I didn’t know it was the right move for me, honestly. I took a gamble, I knew I wanted to be in computer science, but I wanted to spice it up.” The AI ecosystem is very lucky that people like Alice choose to enter the field even without being taught what precisely it comprises.
We also heard from Danielle Belgrave, a Research Scientist at DeepMind with a remarkable career in AI for healthcare. Danielle explained that she was lucky to have had a Mathematics teacher who encouraged her to work in statistics for healthcare. She said she wanted to ensure she could use her technical skills and her love for math to make an impact on society, and to really help make the world a better place. Danielle works with biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, and ethicists as well as with data scientists and AI researchers at DeepMind. One possibility she suggested for improving young people’s understanding of what roles are available was industry mentorship. Linking people who work in the field of AI with school students was an idea that Caitlin was eager to confirm as very useful for young people her age.
We need investment in AI education in school
The AI Council’s Roadmap stresses how important it is to not only teach the skills needed to foster a pool of people who are able to research and build AI, but also to ensure that every child leaves school with the necessary AI and data literacy to be able to become engaged, informed, and empowered users of the technology. During the panel, the Minister, Chris Philp, spoke about the fact that people don’t have to be technical experts to come up with brilliant ideas, and that we need more people to be able to think creatively and have the confidence to adopt AI, and that this starts in schools.
Caitlin is a perfect example of a young person who has been inspired about AI while in school. But sadly, among young people and especially girls, she’s in the minority by choosing to take computer science, which meant she had the chance to hear about AI in the classroom. But even for young people who choose computer science in school, at the moment AI isn’t in the national Computing curriculum or part of GCSE computer science, so much of their learning currently takes place outside of the classroom. Caitlin added that she had had to go out of her way to find information about AI; the majority of her peers are not even aware of opportunities that may be out there. She suggested that we ensure AI is taught across all subjects, so that every learner sees how it can make their favourite subject even more magical and thinks “AI’s cool!”.
Philip Colligan, the CEO here at the Foundation, also described how AI could be integrated into existing subjects including maths, geography, biology, and citizenship classes. Danielle thoroughly agreed and made the very good point that teaching this way across the school would help prepare young people for the world of work in AI, where cross-disciplinary science is so important. She reminded us that AI is not one single discipline. Instead, many different skill sets are needed, including engineering new AI systems, integrating AI systems into products, researching problems to be addressed through AI, or investigating AI’s societal impacts and how humans interact with AI systems.
On hearing about this multitude of different skills, our discussion turned to the teachers who are responsible for imparting this knowledge, and to the challenges they face.
The challenge of AI education for teachers
When we shifted the focus of the discussion to teachers, Philip said: “If we really want to equip every young person with the knowledge and skills to thrive in a world that shaped by these technologies, then we have to find ways to evolve the curriculum and support teachers to develop the skills and confidence to teach that curriculum.”
I asked the Minister what he thought needed to happen to ensure we achieved data and AI literacy for all young people. He said, “We need to work across government, but also across business and society more widely as well.” He went on to explain how important it was that the Department for Education (DfE) gets the support to make the changes needed, and that he and the Office for AI were ready to help.
Philip explained that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is one of the organisations in the consortium running the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE), which is funded by the DfE in England. Through the NCCE, the Foundation has already supported thousands of teachers to develop their subject knowledge and pedagogy around computer science.
A recent study recognises that the investment made by the DfE in England is the most comprehensive effort globally to implement the computing curriculum, so we are starting from a good base. But Philip made it clear that now we need to expand this investment to cover AI.
Young people engaging with AI out of school
Philip described how brilliant it is to witness young people who choose to get creative with new technologies. As an example, he shared that the Foundation is seeing more and more young people employ machine learning in the European Astro Pi Challenge, where participants run experiments using Raspberry Pi computers on board the International Space Station.
Philip also explained that, in the Foundation’s non-formal CoderDojo club network and its Coolest Projects tech showcase events, young people build their dream AI products supported by volunteers and mentors. Among these have been autonomous recycling robots and AI anti-collision alarms for bicycles. Like Caitlin with her company idea, this shows that young people are ready and eager to engage and create with AI.
We closed out the panel by going back to a point raised by Mhairi Aitken, who presented at the Foundation’s research seminar in September. Mhairi, an Alan Turing Institute ethics fellow, argues that children don’t just need to learn about AI, but that they should actually shape the direction of AI. All our panelists agreed on this point, and we discussed what it would take for young people to have a seat at the table.
Alice advised that we start by looking at our existing systems for engaging young people, such as Youth Parliament, student unions, and school groups. She also suggested adding young people to the AI Council, which I’m going to look into right away! Caitlin agreed and added that it would be great to make these forums virtual, so that young people from all over the country could participate.
The panel session was full of insight and felt very positive. Although the challenge of ensuring we have a data- and AI-literate generation of young people is tough, it’s clear that if we include them in finding the solution, we are in for a bright future.
What’s next for AI education at the Raspberry Pi Foundation?
In the coming months, our goal at the Foundation is to increase our understanding of the concepts underlying AI education and how to teach them in an age-appropriate way. To that end, we will start to conduct a series of small AI education research projects, which will involve gathering the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders, including young people. We’ll make more information available on our research pages soon.
Finland is working to stop a flood of text messages of an unknown origin that are spreading malware. From a report: The messages with malicious links to malware called FluBot number in the millions, according to Aino-Maria Vayrynen, information security specialist at the National Cyber Security Centre. Telia Co AB, the country’s second-biggest telecommunications operator, has intercepted some hundreds of thousands of messages. “The malware attack is extremely exceptional and very worrying,” Teemu Makela, chief information security officer at Elisa Oyj, the largest telecoms operator, said by phone. “Considerable numbers of text messages are flying around.”
You’re likely seen the memes: A collage of posters for a bunch of Hallmark Christmas movies, all of them featuring nearly identical images of blonde white women and brown-haired white men in variations of red and green sweaters. As a brown-haired white man with an acting background, I do not think it is bad that these…
Cooking and serving a large piece of meat for a holiday meal can make one feel like an (evil and rich) Dickens character, but buying large cuts for a crowd is far more cost effective (and less wasteful) than buying individual steaks or chops. But scale is not enough: These large animal parts deserve to be permeated…
With the graphics driver support for Alder Lake S-series in good shape with Linux 5.16 and the Alder Lake P-series support also coming together for upcoming ADL-based laptops, next up is the Alder Lake N enablement happening for Linux…
YouTube Gaming has been aggressively luring Twitch creators to its platform, and the latest to defect is “Ludwig” Ahgren. Ludwig is perhaps best known for his marathon streaming session that allowed him to break the Twitch all-time subscriber record held by Ninja, eventually hitting 283,066 all-time active subs.
Ludwig broke the news in an amusing Twitter video that showed him driving with his manager “Slime” in a purple car that eventually explodes after they get out. He then jumps into a red model, driving home the point that he’s leaving team purple for team red. “It’s pretty much the same one,” says Slime. “Yeah, it’s just like a different color,” Ludwig replies. (“We actually blew up a car and one-take-jaked it,” Slime tweeted separately.)
In a reply on Twitter, Twitch said “You’re a mogul in every sense, Ludwig. Best of luck and keep doing big things out there. However, the site has been bleeding talent to its rival of late. Ludwig’s departure follows recent moves to YouTube Gaming by Benjamin Lupo (“DrLupo“) and TimTheTatMan (Tim Betar), along with previous defections by big-name streamers Lannan “LazarBeam” Eacott, Elliott “Muselk” Watkins and Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter. Jack “CouRage” Dunlop also jumped ship in 2019.
In a separate video explaining the move, Ludwig said that he first spoke to YouTube gaming as “leverage” but planned to stay with Twitch “because I’m a Twitch guy.” However, he later realized that YouTube made more sense, in part because he wants to produce content like Mogul Money on top of game react videos.
He also noted that if he had stayed with Twitch, “I would have to be grinding hours,” and that “I loved Twitch, but it wasn’t necessarily a two-way street.” Finally, he said that while the change wasn’t necessarily about money, “YouTube offered me more money. Straight up.”
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Rights groups petitioned Israel’s top court on Monday to repeal new COVID-19 measures that authorize the country’s domestic intelligence service to use counter-terrorism phone tracking technology to contain the spread of the Omicron virus variant. Announcing the emergency measures on Saturday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the phone tracking would be used to locate carriers of the new and potentially more contagious variant in order to curb its transmission to others. Israeli rights groups say the emergency measures violate previous Supreme Court rulings over such surveillance, used on-and-off by the country’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency since March, 2020.
A senior health ministry official said on Sunday that use of phone tracking would be “surgical” in nature, only to be utilized on confirmed or suspected carriers of the variant. The surveillance technology matches virus carriers’ locations against other mobile phones nearby to determine with whom they have come into contact. Israel’s Supreme Court this year limited the scope of its use after civil rights groups mounted challenges over privacy concerns. Further reading: Omicron Covid Variant Poses Very High Global Risk, Says WHO
If you weren’t able to grab a smartwatch this past Black Friday and Cyber Monday, here’s a deal you may want to take a note of: Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active 2 is currently available for only $149 on Amazon. That’s $101 less than retail and the lowest price we’ve seen for the mid-range smartwatch, which typically sells for $250.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 also sold for $110 lower than its retail price on Cyber Monday, but that deal is no longer available. The good news is that the Watch Active 2 is a solid smartwatch, as well. In our review, we praised it for having better health tracking capabilities than its predecessor, thanks to its upgraded sensors. The one for heart rate measurements contain twice as many LEDs, for instance, giving it the power to determine your heart rate faster. Its accelerometer is also apparently twice as sensitive than the first Watch Active, making it better at sensing whether you’re moving.
While the watch doesn’t have a physical rotating wheel, its bezel is touch-sensitive (with haptic feedback) and can be easily used for navigation. We also found Tizen OS easy to use, responsive and proactive with its various reminders. Overall, we concluded that the Watch Active 2 is a well-rounded choice that offers a lot for its price point. That was when the watch sold for $280 a piece, so $149 is a steal if you’ve been eyeing the wearable for quite some time.
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Look, we’re not totally ignorant about time. We know that the dimension of time is woven together with the three dimensions of space, creating a four-dimensional fabric for the Universe. We know that the passage of time is relative; depending on your frame of reference, you can slip forward into the future as gently as you please. (You just need to either go close to the speed of light or get cozy with a black hole, but those are just minor problems of engineering, not physics.)
But as far as we can tell, we can’t reverse the flow of time. All evidence indicates that travel into the past is forbidden in our Universe. Every time we try to concoct a time machine, some random rule of the Universe comes in and slaps our hand away from the temporal cookie jar.
And yet, we have no idea why. The reasons really seem random; there is nothing fundamental we can point to, no law or equation or concept that definitively explains why thou shalt not travel into the past. And that’s pretty frustrating. It’s obvious that the Universe is telling us something important… we just don’t know what it’s saying.
Big tech news normally slows as the year winds down, but Jack Dorsey isn’t letting that happen. The Twitter CEO has resigned from the company, with CTO Parag Agrawal replacing him as chief executive.
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” Dorsey said in a statement.
Over the last six years, Dorsey has run two major tech companies: Twitter and Square. His first stint as CEO of Twitter, which he co-founded, ended in 2008 when he was pushed out. He returned as CEO in 2015 when Dick Costolo departed.
With Agrava at the helm, will Twitter go in a different direction? Will it chase more money-making ventures? (Advertising remains its best way of making money, but there are newsletter projects and premium membership options happening in the background — and there’s also that newly created crypto division.
But for many Twitter users, the hope is the company will get a better handle on the trolls, disinformation spreaders and bullies. That might be harder to achieve than interest in a Twitter Blue subscription.
So there were some bargains waiting for Cyber Monday to strike. Adorama and B&H have discounted the base 14-inch model by $200. That’s a 10 percent discount off its usual $1,999 starting price. Amazon discounted both the 14- and 16-inch variants by $50 the week they came out. But $200 off is an all-time low — already — for a computer that only went on sale at the end of October. Alas, only the Space Grey option of this highly rated laptop is on sale, however.
It plans to develop 23 new electrified cars by 2030.
Nissan will invest trillions of yen over the next five years developing new EVs and battery technology as part of a grand plan it calls Ambition 2030.
This will include 23 electrified vehicles over the next eight years, with 20 of those in the next five years alone. It’s aiming for a market mix of 75 percent electrified (EV and e-Power PHEV/hybrids) in Europe, 55 percent in Japan and 40 percent in the US and China by 2030.
This could even include EVs with all-solid-state batteries (ASSB) by 2028, with a pilot plant in Yokohama primed to start manufacturing as early as 2024. ASSBs promise benefits like reduced charging times and improved stability.
It would be the first Competition and Markets Authority reversal of a major tech acquisition.
According to the Financial Times, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to reverse Facebook parent company Meta’s purchase of Giphy. If so, it would mark the first time that the country’s competition regulator has unwound a major tech acquisition.
Meta (or Facebook, at the time) announced in May 2020 that it bought the GIF platform with the goal of rolling it into Instagram. Reports pegged the price of the deal at $400 million.
The CMA raised concerns about the acquisition, however. It opened an investigation into the deal the following month. The regulator ruled in August that the deal could prevent rivals such as TikTok and Snapchat from accessing Giphy’s library of GIFs. It also said the deal could remove a potential competitor to Meta in the UK advertising sector.
CD Projekt Red is “on track” to release the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Cyberpunk 2077 in the first quarter of 2022, the studio’s parent company announced on Monday. CDPR had initially planned to release the update in late 2021.
The company also confirmed anyone who purchased the game on either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One will receive the next-gen update for free. Pro tip: If you don’t already have Cyberpunk 2077, you can buy it while it’s currently 50 percent off on the PlayStation and Microsoft stores. You’ll then have the next-gen version in your back pocket when it eventually launches.
![Why the [expletive] can’t we travel back in time?](https://www.prime-wow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/GettyImages-97583266-800x534-1.jpg)
