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Google

Google Apologises For Photos App's Racist Blunder 352

Posted by samzenpus from the our-bad dept.
Mark Wilson writes: Google has issued an apology after the automatic tagging feature of its Photos apps labeled a black couple as "gorillas". This is not the first time an algorithm has been found to have caused racial upset. Earlier in the year Flickr came under fire after its system tagged images of concentration camps as sports venues and black people as apes. The company was criticized on social networks after a New York software developer questioned the efficacy of Google's algorithm. Accused of racism, Google said that it was "appalled" by what had happened, branding it as "100% not OK".
The Almighty Buck

Scientist Union's Talks Stall Over Pay 80

Posted by Soulskill from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.
HughPickens.com writes: The Sacramento Bee reports that the labor contract between California's state government and the 2,800 employees represented by the California Association of Professional Scientists expired this week, spotlighting yet again the long-running feud over whether the tiny union's members should earn as much as their peers in federal and local governments and private industry. "It's a challenge to keep people motivated," says Rita Hypnarowski. "We talk about retaining the best and the brightest, but I can see that's not going to happen." A recent survey by the Brown administration found that the total compensation for half of state-employed chemists is less than $8,985 per month ($5,715 in salary, plus $3,270 in benefit costs). That's 33 percent less than the median total compensation for federal chemists, nearly 13 percent less than the midpoint for local-government chemists and almost 6 percent below the private sector.

Members of the union perform a wide variety of tasks, everything from fighting food-borne illnesses to mopping up the Refugio State Beach oil spill. For example, Cassandra McQuaid left a job last year at the Department of Public Health's state-of-the-art Richmond laboratories where she tracked foodborne illnesses. It's the kind of vital, behind-the-scenes work that goes unnoticed until an E. coli outbreak makes headlines and local health officials need a crack team of scientists to unravel how it happened. "It really came down to money," says McQuaid. "I just couldn't live in the Bay Area on a state salary."
Operating Systems

People Are Obtaining Windows 7 Licenses For the Free Windows 10 Upgrade 172

Posted by Soulskill from the cheap-is-relative dept.
jones_supa writes: Windows 7 has quickly started increasing its market share of desktop operating systems, nearing 61%. If you're wondering why this is happening when Windows 10 is almost here, the reason is this: Windows 10 will be available as a free upgrade for those running Windows 7 and 8, and the new OS will have the exact same hardware requirements as its predecessor, so the majority of PCs should be able to run it just as well. Because Windows 7 was launched in 2009, a license is more affordable than for Windows 8, so many users are switching to this version to take advantage of the Windows 10 free upgrade offer.
News

Analysis: Iran's Nuclear Program Has Been an Astronomical Waste 409

Posted by Soulskill from the price-of-nonprogress dept.
Lasrick writes: Business Insider's Armin Rosen uses a fuel-cost calculator from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to show that Iran's nuclear program has been "astronomically costly" for the country. Rosen uses calculations from this tool to hypothesize that what Iran "interprets as the country's 'rights' under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty is a diplomatic victory that justifies the outrageous expense of the nuclear program." Great data crunching.

Comment Re:Goodbye free speech (Score 1) 210

by dywolf (#50020321) Attached to: 8 Yelp Reviewers Hit With $1.2 Million Defamation Suits

If you caused harm to someone, such a business, by saying a false thing, then you are at fault and liable.
But if the thing you said was true, then the someone cannot blame you for saying a true thing.
Reviews having a greater likelihood of being contentious may need a stricter legal standard before finding fault, but the potential is still there and rightfully so.
The Military

Test Pilot: the F-35 Can't Dogfight 843

Posted by Soulskill from the that-dog-don't-hunt dept.
schwit1 sends this report from the War Is Boring column: A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can't turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy's own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January. And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn't even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet's cramped cockpit. "The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft." That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him. The test pilot's report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history's most expensive weapon. Your tax dollars at work.
Crime

Uber France Leaders Arrested For Running Illegal Taxi Company 334

Posted by samzenpus from the go-directly-to-jail dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Two Uber executives were arrested by French authorities for running an illegal taxi company and concealing illegal documents. This is not the first time Uber has run into trouble in France. Recently, taxi drivers started a nation-wide protest, blocking access to Roissy airport and the nation's interior minister issued a ban on UberPop. A statement from an Uber spokesperson to TechCrunch reads: "Our CEO for France and General Manager for Western Europe were invited to a police hearing this afternoon; following this interview, they were taken into custody. We are always available to answer all the questions on our service, and available to the authorities to solve any problem that could come up. Talks are in progress. In the meantime, we keep working in order to make sure that both our customers and drivers are safe following last week’s turmoils."
Transportation

Airplane Coatings Help Recoup Fuel Efficiency Lost To Bug Splatter 117

Posted by samzenpus from the and-stay-off dept.
MTorrice writes: When bugs hit the wings of oncoming airplanes, they create a problem. Their blood, called hemolymph, sticks to an airplane's wings, disrupting the smooth airflow over them and reducing the aircraft's fuel efficiency. To fight the problem, NASA is working on developing a coating that could help aircraft repel bug remains during flight. After experimenting with almost 200 different formulations, researchers recently flight-tested a few promising candidates. Results showed that they could reduce the amount of stuck bug guts on the wings by up to 40%. With further optimization, NASA says such coatings could allow planes to use 5% less fuel.
AI

WSJ Overstates the Case Of the Testy A.I. 230

Posted by timothy from the how-do-you-feel-about-me-being-eliza dept.
mbeckman writes: According to a WSJ article titled "Artificial Intelligence machine gets testy with programmer," a Google computer program using a database of movie scripts supposedly "lashed out" at a human researcher who was repeatedly asking it to explain morality. After several apparent attempts to politely fend off the researcher, the AI ends the conversation with "I'm not in the mood for a philosophical debate." This, says the WSJ, illustrates how Google scientists are "teaching computers to mimic some of the ways a human brain works."

As any AI researcher can tell you, this is utter nonsense. Humans have no idea how the human, or any other brain, works, so we can hardly teach a machine how brains work. At best, Google is programming (not teaching) a computer to mimic the conversation of humans under highly constrained circumstances. And the methods used have nothing to do with true cognition.

AI hype to the public has gotten progressively more strident in recent years, misleading lay people into believing researchers are much further along than they really are — by orders of magnitude. I'd love to see legitimate A.I. researchers condemn this kind of hucksterism.
Social Networks

Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage? 371

Posted by timothy from the have-you-stopped-beating-your-lab-assistants? dept.
RedK writes: Connie St-Louis, on June 8th, reported on apparently sexist remarks made by Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel prize winning scientist, during an event organised for women in sciences. This led to the man's dismissal from his stations, all in such urgency that he did not even have time to present his side, nor was his side ever offered any weight. A leaked report a few days later suggests that the remarks were taken out of context. Further digging shows that the accuser has distorted the truth in many cases it seems. This is not the first time that people may have jumped the gun too soon on petty issues and ruined great events or careers.

Comment Re:Where the Constitution is silent... (Score 1) 1083

by dywolf (#50000675) Attached to: Supreme Court Ruling Supports Same-Sex Marriage

then i take it you are against the right to:
-vote
-privacy
-travel
-marry
-custody of one's children
-control upbringing of said children
-engage in sexual activity, or not
-cease medical treatment
-access the courts
-right to be presumed innocent
-right to a fair trial
-right to a jury of your peers
-and lastly the very concept of judicial review itself

No it's not tyranny.
Expanding freedom and liberty more fully across the citizenry is never tyranny, and you are quite ignorant for even saying that.

Comment Re:now the hypocritical "religious liberty" whines (Score 1) 1083

by dywolf (#50000637) Attached to: Supreme Court Ruling Supports Same-Sex Marriage

which by the way does not mean that churches will be required to marry gay folks (they wont), so no point even trying to go there.

a church is not a business advertising itself to the public, so public accommodation restrictions on discrimination dont apply like they do to that bigoted pizza joint in indiana. a church is private religious entity and our country bends over backwards to avoid forcing those to act against their tenets.

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