Memories of fear could be permanently erased, study shows
By: The Guardian August 17, 2017 The eternal sunshine of a spotless mind has come one step closer, say researchers working on methods to erase memories of fear. The latest study, carried out in mice, unpicks why certain sounds can stir alarming memories, and reveals a new approach to wiping such memories from the brain. […]
Meet the world’s first AI-created whisky
By: Microsoft News May 13, 2019 Over 1,000 years ago, travelling monks migrated from mainland Europe to discover new worlds. Their paths led them to Scotland and Ireland, and among their collective wisdom was the knowledge of distillation – the process of extracting and purifying liquid. Lacking the vineyards and grapes from their original lands, […]
Japanese Taxis Are Using Facial Recognition to Target Ads to Riders
By: Futurism April 22, 2019 If you took a cab in Japan this year, you may have come face-to-face with a tablet that scanned your face in order to learn your gender, age, and other characteristics — and used that data to target you with relevant advertisements. The facial recognition system made the rounds on Twitter on Saturday […]
Is that a kid browsing? This company says its artificial intelligence can tell
By: NBC News May 23, 2019 The traditional system of policing the internet to keep kids from harmful content — and companies compliant with federal privacy laws — relies on the honor system. A user is usually asked to check a box to verify that they’re over 13 or enter their birthday before they’re allowed […]
Inequality breeds stress and anxiety. No wonder so many Britons are suffering
By: The Guardian June 10, 2018 The gap between image and reality yawns ever wider. Our rich society is full of people presenting happy smiling faces both in person and online, but when the Mental Health Foundation commissioned a large survey last year, it found that 74% of adults were so stressed they felt overwhelmed or […]
Impact of Technology on Society
By: TouchCore April 16, 2016 When we speak of the impact of technology on society, we always talk about the positive effects of technology and about how technology has made life easy. We talk about the Internet as an information resource and a communication platform and conveniently ignore the fact that an overexposure to it […]
How poverty changes your mind-set
By: Chicago Booth February 19, 2018 The proportion of the global population living on less than $1.90 per person per day has fallen—from 18 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2013, according to the World Bank. In the United States, however, the poverty rate has been more stubborn—41 million people lived below the country’s […]
From self-harm to terrorism, online recommendations cast a deadly shadow
By: The Guardian March 3, 2019 My eye was caught by a headline in Wired magazine: “When algorithms think you want to die”. Below it was an article by two academic researchers, Ysabel Gerrard and Tarleton Gillespie, about the “recommendation engines” that are a central feature of social media and e-commerce sites. Everyone who uses the web is […]
Facebook is ‘destroying how society works,’ says a former executive
By: Sacramento Bee December 11, 2017 For years, he was a top executive at Facebook. Now, though, Facebook’s former vice president for user growth is sounding the alarm about how the social media company and others are “destroying how society works.” Chamath Palihapitiya, who held the user growth role until 2011, said he feels “tremendous […]