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Wednesday, 6 April, 2016
ARTS
Facebook tests tech to help blind people enjoy photos
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ACEBOOK on Monday began using artificial intelligence to help people with visual impairments enjoy photos posted at the leading social network. Facebook introduced machine learning technology trained to recognize objects in pictures and then describe photos aloud. “As Facebook becomes an increasingly visual experience, we hope our new automatic alternative text technology will help the blind community experience Facebook the same way others enjoy it,” said accessibility specialist Matt King. The feature was being tested on mobile devices powered by Apple iOS software and which have screen readers set to English. Facebook planned to expand the capability to devices with other kinds of operating systems and add more languages, according to King, who lost his vision as a US college student studying electrical engineering. The technology works across Facebook’s family of applications and is based on a “neural network” taught to recognize things in pictures using millions of examples.
More than two billion pictures are shared daily across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, King said.
“While this technology is still nascent, tapping its current capabilities to describe photos is a huge step toward providing our visually impaired commu-
nity the same benefits and enjoyment that everyone else gets from photos,” King said. The Silicon Valley-based social network said that it was moving slowly with the feature to avoid potentially offensive or embarrassing gaffes when it comes to automatically describing what is in pictures. Words used in descriptions included those related to transportation, outdoors settings, sports, food, and people’s appearances. The Facebook technology made its debut less than a week after Microsoft enticed software developers with a suite of offerings that let them tap into the power of cloud computing, big data, and machine learning. The Cortana Intelligence Suite boasted the ability to let applications see, hear, speak, understand and interpret people’s needs. Microsoft said that a “Seeing AI” research project was underway to show how those capabilities could be woven into applications to help people who are visually impaired or blind better learn what is around them, say by scanning scenes with smartphone cameras or specially equipped eyewear. AgENcIES
Zareen Khan opens up about her body shaming experience
neW deLHi ENTERTAINMENT DESK
Actress Zareen Khan was a completely different person before making her foray Into the Bollywood. The actress, who looks fit and fab now, used to be a chubby girl in her teens and pre-teens.
Zareen made her debut opposite Salman Khan in Veer (2010) and the actress still looked a bit fat but for her roles In Housefull 2 and the recently released Hate Story 3 she had lost oodles of weight. Zareen Khan shared a collage of two Images from her class 9 and 12 and along with it a long message which
First Click: Cortana is Microsoft’s secret mobile weapon
is about how often she faced criticism and harsh comments from her friends in her school and college. But the actress says she didn’t let this criticism about her body weight affect her and she transformed herself into a brand new person gaining a fabulous and sexy look. She shared her experience on how
she faced body shaming during her teens and her fitness journey “Came across these pictures of mine from school and college days. (White one was in std 9th & pink one was right after my std 12th exams). When I look at these pIcs I feel proud of myself today not that I felt any lesser about myself back then. In spite of being so big I never let people’s comments or Ideas about me bother me. Because it’s my life and my body and only I have the right to decide what I’m going to do with it. Then one day I decided let me try how it feels to be a little lighter and hence started my weight loss journey. It wasn’t easy at all but every time I looked at the progress in the mirror, I got the push to do more. I had lots more energy than before and I loved every bit of this new person I was transforming into. When I became a part of this Industry, I had lost all my weight. In fact I was asked to put on weight for my first film to look the character. Unfortunately I was criticised to no end for my weight but again I never let that get to me. How could I? Those people had not seen me like the way I am in these pIcs here. And for me everything was just an achievement to reach from where I was to where I am.
DRUG-SNIFFING RABBIT, CANNON-FIRING KITTENS MARK U.S. APRIL FOOLS’
Courtesy tHe Verge
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Google’s Toolbar app launched more than 15 years ago as a convenient way to directly access the search engine from within Internet Explorer. Over the years it served as a Trojan Horse to convince Internet Explorer users to use Google search and other Google services, and eventually install Chrome to fully replace Internet Explorer. It was Google’s weapon to win the web away from Microsoft’s IE browser domination. Cortana is slowly emerging as Microsoft’s secret mobile weapon. While the software giant hasn’t fared well with its Windows Phone operating system, Cortana is key to Microsoft’s mobile future. Microsoft appears to be taking a similar approach to Google with its Toolbar app. At the Build developer conference last week, the message was clear: Microsoft wants Cortana to be everywhere. Cortana will help power Microsoft’s new bot platform, showing up in Skype to help you talk to bots, schedule meetings, and generally digitally manage your life. Elsewhere, Cortana will be required to enable Android phone notifications to show up on Windows 10 PCs. Cortana was always designed to be web-based, and now Microsoft is taking advantage of that platform to ensure the digital assistant can make its way into apps it offers across multiple platforms. Microsoft even showed off Cortana managing calendars within the built-in Outlook mail app for Windows 10. It’s reasonable to assume that the same Cortana features will make their way to the Android and iOS apps eventually, as Microsoft wants a similar codebase.
Kittens firing a cannon, a rabbit sniffing for drugs, attempts at humour on the fraught presidential campaign trail and a failed prank by Google competed for attention in the United States. As ever, the trick for April Fools’ Day hoaxes was to try to be outlandish, yet faintly plausible. The police department in Amherst, New York, unveiled a new crime-fighting scheme, showing an officer with a rabbit on its Facebook page. “Drug interdiction has become more difficult with criminals discovering ever new and smaller areas to conceal drugs,” the department said. “‘Dusty’ and his handler will be able to search vehicles and other small areas with greater accuracy.” National Geographic, following Playboy’s decision this year to stop publishing photos of nude women, said it would no longer degrade animals by showing them naked. The magazine’s statement on the Internet was accompanied by a black and white photo of two
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Google kicks out Taliban app from Play Store Courtesy Hindustan times Alemarah, an app for Android smartphones created by radical fundamentalist group the Taliban, has been removed from Google’s Play Store. Although Google has implemented a stricter app review process last year, the release of the app clearly shows that the company has still some work to do when it comes to its developer policies. The app, reportedly published on April 1, 2016, was removed from the Play Store on Saturday as it seemed to have been flouting Google’s app store policies. However, Google has declined to comment on the specific app but in a statement told Mashable that apps are booted out from the Play Store only if they promote usage which is in contrast to the set policies for the app store. The Taliban has confirmed in an interview to Bloomberg that the app was being used to increase its global audience. The app “is part of our advanced technological efforts to make more global audience,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said. The app, which was released in the Pashto language app, includes content such as official statements and videos from the Taliban. Mujahed also said that he would reappear soon on the Play Store and cited technical issues for its disappearance. Earlier, Google had implemented a review process which required apps to go through an approval process prior to making their way to the Play Store. Prior to that, individual apps were often only reviewed if they were reported, or otherwise brought to Google’s attention after being published to the Play Store.
Man creates Scarlett Johansson lookalike robot Courtesy tHe independent
kittens in jumpsuits firing a cannon. New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College, which last year began using a robotic tackling dummy it called “MVP” to reduce the number of hits its players absorb during practice, said the robots would be used in games from next season. “They’ll compete in the games for us … Our players will execute their responsibilities by remote control,” Head Football Coach Buddy Teevens said in a video. The film showed a robot, with no arms or legs, failing at football drills such as running stairs and catching passes.
Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz attempted to inject some levity into the campaign slugfest, tweeting that rival Donald Trump had accepted his invitation for a oneon-one debate, before noting it was intended as a joke. Traditionally, a prank falls flat. This year it was the turn of Google, which rolled out a feature called “Mic Drop” that allowed users to send emails and not see the replies. “Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs,” Google rued.
A Hong Kong man has built a robot version of Scarlett Johansson in his flat. Ricky Ma, a 42-year-old designer, has poured more than £34,000 and over a year of work into the catchily-named ‘Mark 1’humanoid robot. Speaking to media, Ma said he decided to model the Mark 1’s appearance on a Hollywood star. He didn’t say which, but it’s fair to assume Scarlett Johansson may have given him a lot of inspiration. The robot can move its limbs, alter its facial expressions, and even reply when spoken to by Ma through a microphone. Mark 1 has a special talent for responding to compliments. When Ma tells it how beautiful it looks, it replies with a flattered “thank you” and gives a cheeky smile and a wink. It isn’t the most sophisticated humanoid robot ever created, but his achievement is still hugely impressive. Speaking about Mark 1’s development, Ma said: “When I started building it, I realised it would involve dynamics, electro mechanics.