April 13, 2018 – Page 2 – Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

April 13, 2018

Google AI can pick out voices in a crowd

https://ift.tt/2qrIqsR

Humans are usually good at isolating a single voice in a crowd, but computers? Not so much — just ask anyone trying to talk to a smart speaker at a house party. Google may have a surprisingly straightforward solution, however. Its researchers have developed a deep learning system that can pick out specific voices by looking at people’s faces when they’re speaking. The team trained its neural network model to recognize individual people speaking by themselves, and then created virtual "parties" (complete with background noise) to teach the AI how to isolate multiple voices into distinct audio tracks.

The results, as you can see below, are uncanny. Even when people are clearly trying to compete with each other (such as comedians Jon Dore and Rory Scovel in the Team Coco clip above), the AI can generate a clean audio track for one person just by focusing on their face. That’s true even if the person partially obscures their face with hand gestures or a microphone.

Google is currently "exploring opportunities" to use this feature in its products, but there are more than a few prime candidates. It’s potentially ideal for video chat services like Hangouts or Duo, where it could help you understand someone talking in a crowded room. It could also be helpful for speech enhancement in video recording. And there are big implications for accessibility: it could lead to camera-linked hearing aids that boost the sound of whoever’s in front of you, and more effective closed captioning. There are potential privacy issues (this could be used for public eavesdropping), but it wouldn’t be too difficult to limit the voice separation to people who’ve clearly given their consent.

Via: Android Police

Source: Google Research Blog

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

April 12, 2018 at 07:48PM

April 13, 2018

Comcast is bundling Netflix into cable packages

https://ift.tt/2GY3XQb

It may sound strange at first, but the latest option in Comcast’s Xfinity cable bundle is… Netflix. Despite their differences, the two have forged a partnership lately, with the Netflix app included on Comcast’s X1 platform since 2016 (with access by voice, universal search and recommendations) and already available as an add-on through customer’s cable bills.

Comcast wasn’t specific about the "new and innovative" offers it will roll out, saying they will vary by market and are available to both new and existing customers. No matter how customers pay for or access Netflix streaming, though, it still counts as part of their 1TB data cap.

‘Stranger Things’

Netflix

If you’re wondering why the two are taking this step, it’s important to remember that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has talked about Netflix being bundled into cable subscriptions for years. In 2012 there were rumored meetings between the two sides, and in Europe the arrangement already exists with certain providers. Just last summer Hastings mentioned on an earnings call that the company had increased interest in the area:

Reed Hastings (7/27/17):

"…as you point out, we’re now looking at proposals for including Netflix in some services and beginning to learn the bundling part of the business. We’re doing a little bit of that in Europe already and it’s been quite successful, thus we’re interested in expanding that."

While concerns over cord-cutting would suggest the two companies see each other as enemies, Netflix is a popular service for Comcast subscribers. In their joint statement, the two said nearly 50 percent of X1 customers are "actively" using Netflix on the platform, and that in households that use the app via X1, it’s the most-used platform for streaming Netflix.

Another factor is the potential merger between HBO-owner Time Warner and AT&T. Hastings has long positioned HBO as the competitor for Netflix, in terms of dollars and customer attention, and if Comcast needs any additional leverage in negotiating arrangements, having Netflix to swap in makes a lot of sense. U.S. antitrust officials suing to block the deal recently claimed Time Warner used HBO as leverage to put its other cable channels on YouTube TV and argued that AT&T could try to raise prices on its rivals like Comcast.

Netflix’s global head of business development Bill Holmes said: "We can’t wait to introduce more X1 customers to Netflix with Xfinity’s new packaged offers." The sentiment is mirrored by his Comcast counterpart Sam Schwartz, who said: "Netflix offers one of the most popular on demand services and is an important supplement to the content offering and value proposition of the X1 platform."

On Netflix’s side, this arrangement provides easy access to any customers who aren’t already signed up for its subscription service (52 million in the US and counting) with someone else handling the billing and marketing. all while coming off the quarter with its biggest growth ever. Not a bad deal for the Albanian army.

Source: Comcast, Netflix

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

April 13, 2018 at 08:12AM

April 13, 2018

Yes, You Can Sweat Blood

https://ift.tt/2ILyhhp

We’ve all heard of sweating bullets, but this is something else entirely.
A medical case report from Italian researchers last year details a 21-year-old patient who began mysteriously sweating blood from her face and palms. The condition had been ongoing for about three years, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports, when she decided to check herself into a hospital — needless to say, the doctors were perplexed.
Bloody, But Fine
Strangely, the young woman was otherwise totally fin

Tech

via Discover Main Feed https://ift.tt/1dqgCKa

April 12, 2018 at 04:34PM

April 13, 2018

Second gen Ryzens out for preorder now, shipping next week

https://ift.tt/2quvmCk

The second generation of AMD Ryzen desktop processors opens for preorders today. Shipping on April 19th, the new chips start at $199 for a six-core, 12-thread part running at a base of 3.4GHz and a turbo of 3.9GHz; the prices goes up to $329 for an eight-core, 16-thread processor at 3.7/4.3GHz.

Details on the new chips are a little light, with the full reveal, including performance numbers, coming on release day. We know that the second-generation processors are an incremental improvement over the first-generation Zen architecture that keep the same basic layout: groups of four cores/eight threads are arranged into “core complexes” (CCXes), and a Ryzen chip has two CCXes joined together. Each core has 512KB of level 2 and 2MB of level 3 cache.

The second generation increases clock speeds (the previous high-end part had clocks of 3.6/4.0GHz) and makes the processor’s turbo boosting smarter. On first-generation parts, the clock boosting could happen to a pair of cores, or all cores together, which meant that if you needed, say, four fast cores they were constrained to the “all core” turbo speed. On the second-generation chips, that turbo boosting is now available with any number of cores, just as long as there’s power and thermal headroom. This means that workloads with more than two cores, but fewer than all of them, should be able to use more of the available power budget and hence run faster.

The new processors are compatible with the first-generation motherboards (though they may need a firmware update to work). AMD is also releasing a new high-end chipset, X470. X470’s big feature is “StoreMI,” a hybrid disk system that allows volumes to be built that span both SSDs and spinning disks (and even RAM disks) to boost I/O performance.

Model	Cores/Threads	Clock base/boost/GHz	TDP/W	Cooler	Price
Ryzen 7 2700X	8/16	3.7/4.3	105	Wraith Prism (LED)	$329
Ryzen 7 2700	8/16	3.2/4.1	65	Wraith Spire (LED)	$299
Ryzen 5 2600X	6/12	3.6/4.2	95	Wraith Spire	$229
Ryzen 5 2600	6/12	3.4/3.9	65	Wraith Stealth	$199

The price chart above also shows the other couple of differences relative to first generation. First, the top-end part now ships with an in-box heatsink/fan. Previously, the high-end part was shipped naked and had to be used with a third-party cooler. Second, the top part has had its power rating increased, from 95W to 105W. This shouldn’t make much difference to system builders, as generally they’ll have power and cooling to spare, but suggests that those higher clock speeds aren’t coming for free.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

April 13, 2018 at 09:44AM

April 13, 2018

Head Of Swedish Academy Steps Down Over Handling Of Sex Abuse Allegations

https://ift.tt/2GUZXnx

Head Of Swedish Academy Steps Down Over Handling Of Sex Abuse Allegations : The Two-Way : NPR

The Swedish Academy’s Permanent Secretary Sara Danius talks to journalists as she leaves a meeting at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday.

Jonas Ekstromer/AFP/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Jonas Ekstromer/AFP/Getty Images

The Swedish Academy’s Permanent Secretary Sara Danius talks to journalists as she leaves a meeting at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday.

Jonas Ekstromer/AFP/Getty Images

The head of the Swedish Academy, the august body that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, has stepped down after criticism of the institution’s handling of a sexual abuse scandal.

“It was the wish of the Academy that I should leave my role as Permanent Secretary,” Permanent Secretary Sara Danius, the first woman to head the Academy, told reporters. “I have made this decision with immediate effect.”

The controversy stems from allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of one of the Academy’s members, Katarina Frostenson.

As NPR’s Colin Dwyer reported earlier this week, “Those allegations first surfaced when the #MeToo movement hit Sweden last November, and the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter reported that the man — whom the newspaper has identified only as ‘Cultural Profile’ — had allegedly sexually assaulted or harassed at least 18 women over the past two decades.”

Arnault has denied the accusations. The Local, a Swedish news website, says Arnault “has also been accused of leaking the names of several Nobel Prize winners before the official announcements.”

Danius’ exit was preceded by the exit of three other members who withdrew after the 18-member Academy voted not to remove Frostenson. As Reuters notes, “arcane rules that make appointments for life mean that members cannot technically resign, though they stop participating in activities.”

Following the meeting, the institution issued a statement acknowledging that “trust in the Swedish Academy has been seriously damaged” and questioning whether its Nobel board could carry out the 2018 selection for the prize “in a credible manner,” according to The Associated Press.

Danius announced her resignation hours after Sweden’s king said of the withdrawal of the three members was “deeply unfortunate and risked seriously damaging” the Academy.

According to the BBC:

“The Nobel body had cut all ties and funding to Mr Arnault, who runs a cultural club in Stockholm, shortly after the allegations came to light.

The Swedish Academy said at the time that it had potentially broken its own rules regulating conflict of interest and appointed a legal firm to investigate its committee members’ links with Mr Arnault.”

News

via NPR Topics: News https://ift.tt/2m0CM10

April 13, 2018 at 06:18AM

April 13, 2018

Netflix Hacking Countermeasures

So one day, I noticed that my language setting was changed to Italian suddenly on my Netflix account. Very confused, I changed it back to English. Vulcan wasn’t an option. Soon, it changed back again to Italian. Upon going to “Account” –> “Recent Device Streaming Activity”, I noticed lots of activities from Italy! It could be from yet another country since VPN could hide it but then since language settings was changed to Italian, I think it is from there. I quickly changed my password and forced all devices to be logged out. Problem fixed, right?

That’s what I thought. That was a month or two ago. My son told me that he saw the Italian language option again on his profile. Erg. So evidently, just changing your password and forcing all devices to be logged out doesn’t really work. (FIX IT NETFLIX!) So this time, I changed email address and made the password stronger. So far so good. So here are my lessons learned:

Check your “Recent Device Streaming Activity” at least once a month to see if your account is hacked or compromised
If your account is compromised, change BOTH email and password since you can’t rely on Netflix’ own “Sign out of all devices” to work. After I had done that, both of my kids were still able to access their accounts without having to reenter information!

April 13, 2018

China’s solar road will charge cars as they drive

https://ift.tt/2EKgO6I

In Jinan, China, there’s a section of highway over which some 45,000 vehicles drive every day. A company called Qilu Transportation Development Group is converted about two-thirds of a mile of that roadway to generate solar electricity — enough to power the highway lights and 800 homes. Qilu Transportation isn’t stopping there, though. Looking forward to a future of electric and autonomous driving, the goal is to make the road smart. Eventually, it will be able to provide more accurate traffic updates and mapping, and even wirelessly charge the batteries of

electric vehicles

as they drive.

As we learn in a

Bloomberg

article titled “

China’s Built a Road So Smart It Will Be Able to Charge Your Car

,” two lanes of the road are layered with transparent material and solar cells. There’s also room in the top layer to accommodate wires for inductive charging, as well as sensors that can monitor temperature, traffic and weight.

Qilu Transportation Development Group's Solar Highway

The time frame for fully productive smart roads is still unclear, though. “From the angle of the technology itself, charging is not a problem,” said Qilu Transportation General Manager Zhou Yong. “The vehicles that can be charged wirelessly aren’t used on roads yet.” The section of road will have to be made longer in order to actually be able to provide vehicles with any significant charge. Furthermore, the costs need to drop from about $1,112 per square meter to about $477 to make mass adoption viable. The company says it is working with domestic automakers on the technology, but didn’t name them.

The tests come as China is pushing to become a stronger leader in manufacturing, technology, and transportation. Jinan, where the smart road is being built, is home to China National Heavy Duty Truck Group (which is backed in part by

Volkswagen’s MAN

) and a factory owned by

Volvo

parent company

Geely

. China accounted for more than half of global

sales in 2017. Read more at

Bloomberg

Related Video:

Cars

via Autoblog http://www.autoblog.com

April 12, 2018 at 05:40PM