Monday, April 29

IN OTHER NEWS

The Coming Cicada Invasion
No Comments
ENVIRONMENT, IN OTHER NEWS, TOP FOUR, VIDEO REELS

The Coming Cicada Invasion

Billions of cicadas are about to emerge from underground in a rare double-brood convergence. In the wake of North America’s recent solar eclipse, another historic natural event is on the horizon. From late April through June 2024, the largest brood of 13-year cicadas, known as Brood XIX, will co-emerge with a midwestern brood of 17-year cicadas, Brood XIII. This event will affect 17 states, from Maryland west to Iowa and south into Arkansas, Alabama and northern Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland. A co-emergence like this of two specific broods with different life cycles happens only once every 221 years. The last time these two groups emerged together was in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president. For about four weeks, scattered wooded and suburban areas will ring wit...
Read More
Discovering The Wonders Of Astro-Tourism And Chasing Eclipses And Meteors
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS, TOP FOUR

Discovering The Wonders Of Astro-Tourism And Chasing Eclipses And Meteors

Astro-tourism − chasing eclipses, meteor showers and elusive dark skies from Earth. For years, small groups of astronomy enthusiasts have traveled the globe chasing the rare solar eclipse. They have embarked on cruises to the middle of the ocean, taken flights into the eclipse’s path and even traveled to Antarctica. In August 2017, millions across the U.S. witnessed a total solar eclipse visible from Oregon to South Carolina, with a partial eclipse visible to the rest of the continental U.S. On April 8, 2024, millions of Americans will once again be in the path of a total solar eclipse, this one’s path extending from Mexico to eastern Canada. The April 2024 eclipse’s path of totality will cross a number of U.S. cities, including Austin and Dallas in Texas, Indianapolis in Indiana, Clevel...
Read More
AI Promised Humanlike Machines – In 1958
No Comments
AI, IN OTHER NEWS, SCIENCE

AI Promised Humanlike Machines – In 1958

We’ve been here before: AI promised humanlike machines – in 1958. A roomsize computer equipped with a new type of circuitry, the Perceptron, was introduced to the world in 1958 in a brief news story buried deep in The New York Times. The story cited the U.S. Navy as saying that the Perceptron would lead to machines that “will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence.” More than six decades later, similar claims are being made about current artificial intelligence. So, what’s changed in the intervening years? In some ways, not much. Frank Rosenblatt with the Mark I Perceptron, the first artificial neural network computer, unveiled in 1958. National Museum of the U.S. Navy/Flickr The field of artificial intelligence has been running through a boo...
Read More
Media And Information Experts Explain – What Is The Metaverse?
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS, VIDEO REELS

Media And Information Experts Explain – What Is The Metaverse?

The metaverse is a network of always-on virtual environments in which many people can interact with one another and digital objects while operating virtual representations – or avatars – of themselves. Think of a combination of immersive virtual reality, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and the web. The metaverse is a concept from science fiction that many people in the technology industry envision as the successor to today’s internet. It’s only a vision at this point, but technology companies like Facebook are aiming to make it the setting for many online activities, including work, play, studying and shopping. Facebook is so sold on the concept that it is renaming itself Meta to highlight its push to dominate the metaverse. Metaverse is a portmanteau of meta, meaning ...
Read More
AI Voice Generated Robocalls Outlawed By FCC
No Comments
AI, IN OTHER NEWS, VIDEO REELS

AI Voice Generated Robocalls Outlawed By FCC

FCC bans robocalls using deepfake voice clones − but AI-generated disinformation still looms over elections. The Federal Communications Commission on Feb. 8, 2024, outlawed robocalls that use voices generated by artificial intelligence. The 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans artificial voices in robocalls. The FCC’s Feb. 8 ruling declares that AI-generated voices, including clones of real people’s voices, are artificial and therefore banned by law. The move follows on the heels of a robocall on Jan. 21, 2024, from what sounded like President Joe Biden. The call had Biden’s voice urging voters inclined to support Biden and the Democratic Party not to participate in New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 GOP primary election. The call falsely implied that a registered Democrat could vote in the...
Read More
The Drone Cult
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS, VIDEO REELS

The Drone Cult

Cult of the drone: At the two-year mark, UAVs have changed the face of war in Ukraine – but not outcomes. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have been central to the war in Ukraine. Some analysts claim that drones have reshaped war, yielding not just tactical-level effects, but shaping operational and strategic outcomes as well. It’s important to distinguish between these different levels of war. The tactical level of war refers to battlefield actions, such as patrols or raids. The operational level of war characterizes a military’s synchronization of tactical actions to achieve broader military objectives, such as destroying components of an adversary’s army. The strategic level of war relates to the way these military objectives combine to secure political aims, especially ending a w...
Read More
The Research Behind ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Arthur’ And Other Children’s TV
No Comments
EDUCATION, IN OTHER NEWS, TELEVISION, VIDEO REELS

The Research Behind ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Arthur’ And Other Children’s TV

Making the moral of the story stick − a media psychologist explains the research behind ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Arthur’ and other children’s TV. To adult viewers, educational media content for children, such as “Sesame Street” or “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” may seem rather simplistic. The pacing is slow, key themes are often repeated and the visual aspects tend to be plain. However, many people might be surprised to learn about the sheer amount of research that goes into the design choices many contemporary programs use. For more than a decade, I have studied just that: how to design media to support children’s learning, particularly in moral development. My research, along with the work of many others, shows that children can learn important developmental and social skills through media. ...
Read More
Why Is There So Much Attention Swirling Around Neuralink?
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS

Why Is There So Much Attention Swirling Around Neuralink?

Several companies are testing brain implants – why is there so much attention swirling around Neuralink? Two professors unpack the ethical issues. Putting a computer inside someone’s brain used to feel like the edge of science fiction. Today, it’s a reality. Academic and commercial groups are testing “brain-computer interface” devices to enable people with disabilities to function more independently. Yet Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, has put this technology front and center in debates about safety, ethics and neuroscience. In January 2024, Musk announced that Neuralink implanted its first chip in a human subject’s brain. The Conversation reached out to two scholars at the University of Washington School of Medicine – Nancy Jecker, a bioethicst, and Andrew Ko, a neurosurgeon who implant...
Read More
Investors Are Feeling Wealthier — Stock Indexes Are Crossing Milestones
No Comments
ENVIRONMENT, IN OTHER NEWS

Investors Are Feeling Wealthier — Stock Indexes Are Crossing Milestones

Stock indexes are breaking records and crossing milestones – making many investors feel wealthier. The S&P 500 stock index topped 5,000 for the first time on Feb. 9, 2024, exciting some investors and garnering a flurry of media coverage. The Conversation asked Alexander Kurov, a financial markets scholar, to explain what stock indexes are and to say whether this kind of milestone is a big deal or not. What are stock indexes? Stock indexes measure the performance of a group of stocks. When prices rise or fall overall for the shares of those companies, so do stock indexes. The number of stocks in those baskets varies, as does the system for how this mix of shares gets updated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, also known as the Dow, includes shares in the 30 U.S. companies with the la...
Read More
Politicians, Pop Stars Or Teenage Girls — Sexualised Deepfakes Are On The Rise
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS

Politicians, Pop Stars Or Teenage Girls — Sexualised Deepfakes Are On The Rise

Whether of politicians, pop stars or teenage girls, sexualised deepfakes are on the rise. They hold a mirror to our sexist world. Victorian MP Georgie Purcell recently spoke out against a digitally edited image in the news media that had altered her body and partially removed some of her clothing. Whether or not the editing was assisted by artificial intelligence (AI), her experience demonstrates the potential sexist, discriminatory and gender-based harms that can occur when these technologies are used unchecked. Purcell’s experience also reflects a disturbing trend in which images, particularly of women and girls, are being sexualised, “deepfaked” and “nudified” without the person’s knowledge or consent. What’s AI got to do with it? The term AI can include a wide range of computer sof...
Read More