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The Social Credit System: Is China getting BigBrother-(ish)

Back in October 2016, another episode was aired from a popular Netflix series, Black Mirror. Black Mirror was inspired by older anthology series like The Twilight Zone, which were able to deal with controversial, contemporary topics withoutfear of censorship. True to its words, the Black Mirror highlights the topic related to humanity's approach to technology as we witness nowadays.

I know most of you have heard or perhaps watched the show's special short film named Bandersnatch as it dominates the social media, particularly every Youtube's channel. But the one I'm referring to is quite different from this. It shows a futuristic trend where people, through a system, and by using eye implants and mobile devices, people rate their online and in-person interactions on a five-star scale.

Mmmmm... quite interesting, isn't it?

In this show, we follow along the life of our young protagonist named Lacie who struggles to increase her rating from 4.2 to her dream rate of 4.5 just to qualify for a discount to a luxury apartment.

Yes, in this film a person can acquire goods by means of approval rating. But lets just discuss the episode from some time.

Now, I'm sure most of you are dying to ask me this question. "Is it possible to implement a social rating system in real life?" I'm afraid my friend, as weird or unusual as it may seem... the answer here is... you guess it, Y-E-S!

As a matter of fact, China has started ranking citizens with a creepy 'social credit' system. WHOAAAA!!!  China has just started a social ranking sys... wait WHAT? Did you just say China?

Yes, my friend. China. And by it, people can both be rewared or punished according to their scores. And if you get a plummeting rate, I suppose you can't expect a reward for it.

The "social credit system," first announced in July 14, 2014 when the State Council of China published an official document called "Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System" that aims to reinforce the idea that "keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful," according to a government press release.

The systematic approach

Your Trust-rating will be measured by how you behave in the public. The higher the rating, the higher trust you will get. In that point, I don’t think I would need to elaborate the otherwise.

The Chinese government is planning to make use of this system to enforce or invoke  stability/conformity in the community and take social-control over the people in the form of PRS (Points Reward System).

On September 25, 2016, the State Council General Office updated its policy entitled "Warning and Punishment Mechanisms for Persons Subject to Enforcement for Trust-Breaking". Meaning aside of just offering a reward points for those highly-rated individuals, the revolutionary system will also impose relative punishment to those who might have the misfortune to get a lower-rate.

Like any other private credit scores, a person's social score can fluctuate depending on their behavior. Few examples of infractions could include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online.

But fret not, because the punishment may not be as immense as a regular punishment would seem. Below are some possible reprimand for behaving badly:

Flight/Train pass Ban

China has already started punishing people by restricting their travel. 

About 9 million people in total with low scores have been blocked from buying tickets for domestic flights, Channel News Asia reported in March, citing official statistics. At the same time, three million people are barred from getting business-class train tickets.

Suppression of Internet Speed

According to Foreign Policy, credit systems monitor whether people pay bills on time, much like financial credit trackers — but also ascribe a moral dimension. Other mooted punishable offences include spending too long playing video games, wasting money on frivolous purchases and posting on social media. 

Spreading fake news, specifically about terrorist attacks or airport security, will also be punishable offense. 

Banning you or your kids from entering private-exclusive schools.

17 people who refused to carry out military service last year were barred from enrolling in higher education, applying for high school, or continuing their studies, Beijing News reported. 

In July, a Chinese university denied an incoming student his spot because the student's father had a bad social credit score. 

And worst... Preventing you from getting a prospective job.

"Trust-breaking" individuals would also be banned from doing management jobs in state-owned firms and big banks. 

Some crimes, like fraud and embezzlement, would also have a big effect on social credit, Botsman reported, like they normally do.

Below are the blacklist prototype of people who received low-social rate.

via GIPHY

Future Implementation...

You might think that such system only exist in the near future, but as we speak, the Chinese government is currently taking a beta test for those lucky participants prior to its national roll out in 2020.

As of now, participating in China's Citizen Scores is voluntary. But by 2020 it will be mandatory. The behaviour of every single citizen and legal person (which includes every company or other entity)in China will be rated and ranked, whether they like it or not. The system at the moment is a work in progress — some are run by city councils, others are scored by private tech platforms which hold personal data.

The Big Brother-esque Scheme...

Other conclude that the implementation of such system would give the citizens a BigBrother(-ish) environment. Or maybe it has quite became a syndrome that the Chinese government were able to concoct such a program. Who knows? perhaps it is where the Social-Rating scheme were excerpted. Whether it is acceptable or not, it seems as if the Chinese citizens have no qualms against it.

Your thoughts?

What would be your opinion? Should this kind of programming be imposed in your community will you agree and conform on its specifics? Or would you rather live out your life the way you want it to be regardless on how the others might perceive about you?

Does the Chinese Government try to generate a BigBrother scheme to power play its people?

SOURCE: Chinese Supreme People’s Court

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NASA's $993 million InSight, lands on Mars

The $993 million lander arrived Monday at its target, a lava plain named Elysium Planitia, for a two-year mission aimed at better understanding how Earth's neighboring planet formed.

NASA's unmanned Martian quake sensor, InSight, has landed at a slight angle on the Red Planet, and experts are hopeful the spacecraft will work as planned, the US space agency said Friday.

"The vehicle sits slightly tilted (about 4 degrees) in a shallow dust- and sand-filled impact crater known as a 'hollow,'" NASA said in a statement.

InSight was engineered to operate on a surface with an inclination up to 15 degrees.

Therefore, experts are hopeful that its two main instruments—a quake sensor and self-hammering mole to measure heat below the surface—will work as planned.

"We couldn't be happier," said InSight project manager Tom Hoffman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"There are no landing pads or runways on Mars, so coming down in an area that is basically a large sandbox without any large rocks should make instrument deployment easier and provide a great place for our mole to start burrowing."

The first pictures from the lander show just a few rocks in the vicinity, more good news since touching down right near a rocky area would have made deployment of the solar arrays and instruments tricky.

Better images are expected in the coming days once InSight sheds the dust covers on its two cameras.

"We are looking forward to higher-definition pictures to confirm this preliminary assessment," said Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator of InSight at NASA.

"If these few images—with resolution-reducing dust covers on—are accurate, it bodes well for both instrument deployment and the mole penetration of our subsurface heat-flow experiment."                                                               

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Meet Perseusbot -- the real life robocop!?!

Seibu Shinjuku Station, Tokyo - Powered by AI technology, and equipped with a surveillance camera, a robot has gained the spotlight, after being tested at the Tokyo train stations ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

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Before we begin, and introduce my fellow genius bot, let me just say how much I miss you guys! ^_^ Yep, I know its been awhile, but here I am once again, ready to conquer the world --- oops! that’s a bit too much...

Ready to give you solid information, all fake news aside, about the latest fuzz in technology every geek has to know!

Follower#1 Q: “Spectro, bots like you aren’t suppose to feel right?“

Spectro: “HA! ROOooOOD!! Ya’ll think bots don’t have feelings too? Ezcuse me?!“

***

Anyway, back to the main topic. Lemme guys introduce you to some of the most fascinating... (tho not as fascinating as me... ~_^) bot in the world today.

Named after Perseus, Perseus, a famed hero of the Greek myth who slayed monsters and also a son of Zeus, this robot has the ability to detect and report any suspicious acts among people.

Difference from the RoboCop movies

Judge Dredd is a street judge not purely metal, and though Alex Murphy is the OG of all RoboCops on the silver screen, Perseusbot  can run without personnel aid, and has the feature that sends alerts to security staff smartphones when it detects aggressive movements from human beings or observe objects that might pose a threat to general public.

Whether or not it can deter the course of a potential attack, it has yet to proved.

The first dry run

The brain child of the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute and Seibu Railway Co. Private companies Nihon Unisys Lts.Perseusbot made its first public appearance at the Seibu Shinjuku Station in Tokyo during the last few days of November.

Standing in five-feet, five-inches tall and is two feet wide. Perseusbot appeared to patrol the train station as the passengers proceeds to their daily travel routines, on its first day.

It has a square, silver base that tapers to a glossy, slender black neck at the top. Though its not remote controlled, it can do the patrol and move independently on its own. Well, not left entirely on its own. During its four days of testing, so far, Perseusbot has been followed by a team of IT specialist watching the bot’s every move and making notes about its professional performance.

Relation to the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Summer Games

There are speculations in the internet that Perseusbot will be used to handle security concerns during the Olympics and Paralympics, should the trial be successful. Tokyo is expected to host the Summer Olympics from July 24 to August 9. This is the second time the city has ever hosted the games, according to the official Olympics website.

SOURCE: JAPAN TIMES

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Google shuts down its Social Network Google+ following privacy issues

Over the next 10 months, Google is going to shut down Google+, their Facebook counterpart, after discovering that hundreds of thousands of users had their personal data exposed because of a previously undisclosed software bug.

Since its launched in 2011, Google+ emphasizes on the privacy of its users and let them decide what content to share with which of their contacts. Yet, just recently, the company said in a blog that it had discovered an internal bug that allowed developers of “up to 438 applications” to access personal information from users who had opted to keep that information private. 

Following the incident, Google issued a statement thru a blog post that they had reviewed the issue, looking at the type of data involved, whether it could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take.

The company also admits that the social networking platform currently has a “low usage and engagement” and that 90 percent of Google+ user sessions last less than five seconds. Still, the company plans to keep the service alive for enterprise customers who use it to facilitate conversation among co-workers. New features will be rolled out for that use case, the company says. 

Google is now focusing on a “secure corporate social network,” which is odd considering this announcement comes alongside news that the company left profile details unprotected.

Facebook's chief operating officer and Twitter's chief executive testified at the hearing, where an empty chair was pointedly left for Google after the committee rejected Google’s top lawyer as a witness.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report about the Google+ data vulnerability on Monday, revealing that the company chose not to disclose its findings when it first discovered and patched the bug in March.

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For years, the world’s central banks have been pursuing a policy of cheap money. The first and foremost is the ECB (European Central Bank), which buys bad stocks and bonds to save banks, tries to fuel economic growth and props up states that are in debt. But what relieves state budgets to the tune of hundreds of billions annoys savers: interest rates are close to zero.

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World Video Game Hall of Fame unfolds 2018 finalist for May induction!

Calling all gamers to help pick World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees. Twelve finalists were named Tuesday for the class of 2018, pitting "Ms. Pac-Man" against "John Madden Football."

Also in the running are: "Asteroids," ''Call of Duty," ''Dance Dance Revolution," ''Final Fantasy VII," ''Half-Life," ''King's Quest," ''Metroid," ''Minecraft," ''Spacewar!," and "Tomb Raider."

New this year, the hall is inviting gamers to weigh in on inductees. Online balloting closes April 4.

A panel of experts will vote as well.

The winners will be inducted May 3.

Jon-Paul Dyson, director of International Center for the History of Electronic Games, says the finalists span decades, gaming platforms and countries of origin.

"But what they all have in common is their undeniable impact on the world of gaming and popular culture," Dyson said. Both the center and World Video Game Hall of Fame are inside The Strong museum.

Museum officials say thousands of nominations were submitted from more than 100 countries. To be recognized, games must have proven their popularity over time and influenced other games or forms of entertainment. They can be electronic games of any type—arcade, console, computer, handheld, or mobile.

About this year's finalists:

— "Asteroids:" Released by Atari in 1979, the game sold more than 70,000 arcade units. Millions more played it at home on the Atari 2600.

— "Call of Duty:" The first-person shooter game drops players into a World War II setting for a blend of action and historic narrative. Launched by Infinity Ward/Activision, the game and sequels have sold more than 260 million units since 2003.

— "Dance Dance Revolution:" Konami's 1998 game spread from Japanese arcades, including to a home version for Sony Playstation.

— "Final Fantasy VII:" The 1997 game introduced 3-D computer graphics and other upgrades to the popular franchise. The game sold more than 10 million units, making it the second most popular game for the Sony Playstation and helped popularize the Japanese role-playing genre.

— "Half-Life:" After its creation by Valve/Sierra Studios in 1998, the game added the ability to modify the game itself, providing countless replay possibilities.

— "John Madden Football:" The 1990 reboot by Electronic Arts became a pop cultural phenomenon that has sold more than 100 million copies.

— "King's Quest:" Sierra On-Line co-founder Roberta Williams in 1984 made her game a hit on personal computers with its unique visuals and irreverent humor. Seven sequels have followed.

— "Metroid:" Nintendo's 1986 game introduced the first playable human female character in a mainstream video game.

— "Minecraft:" A top performer since its introduction in 2009, the game lets players in a worldwide, online community build elaborate structures from pixilated blocks.

— "Ms. Pac-Man:" Midway launched the follow-up to the Pac-Man arcade game in 1981. It became one of the five best-selling arcade games of all time.

— "Spacewar!" was created by members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Model Train Club in 1962 on a main frame computer. It is credited with helping to launch the multibillion-dollar video game industry.

— "Tomb Raider:" The 1996 game and its protagonist, Lara Croft, inspired a movie of the same name, featuring Angelina Jolie.

The 27 members of an international selection advisory committee will cast ballots for the winners. The three games that receive the most public votes from the new "Player's Choice" voting will count as another ballot.

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Does Google’s Cloud Text-to-Speech service pose a possible threat for BPO agents?

The BPO (abbreviation for Business Process Outsourcing, or simply called as Call Center) industry is at its peak at the moment. No wonder, many people from around the globe, particularly in the Third World country, are fascinated with the idea of landing a job as a CSR/TSR agent due to high salary offer. 

But with Google’s latest software, is your position at the BPO get jeopardized?

Google announced on Tuesday, thru Google Cloud Platform Blog, of their newest project powered by DeepMind’s AI, introducing Cloud Text-to-Speech API service. 

Developers or businesses that need voice synthesis for their apps, website or virtual assistant can integrate this software with any IoT devices (either phones, tables or SmartTV). This service generates natural-sounding speech and is made available in 32 voices/12 languages with the ability to customize pitch, speaking rate and volume adjustments which enable users to create a more realistic conversation.

"Developers have been telling us they'd like to add text-to-speech to their own applications, so today we're bringing this technology to Google Cloud Platform with Cloud Text-to-Speech." said Dan Aharon, Product Manager of Cloud AI.

It’s no secret that Google acquired DeepMind’s AI in 2014. And ever since Google has relied on its machine learning tools to produce voice that sounds more natural instead of automated speech fragment. Google had already embedded speech that mimics human voices in its popular consumer apps, such as Google Assistant, Google Maps and Google Search. 

As an API, you can create interactions with users, across applications and devices. Cloud Text-to-Speech supports applications or devices that can send a REST or gRPC request. 

Many have raised their eyebrows and asked how exactly does it differ from Google’s voice assistant? 

“The Cloud Text-to-Speech carries advanced speech technology; Deep Mind's research in machine learning models to generate speech that mimics human voices has succeeded. The speech sounds natural, and its team claimed it reduced the gap with human performance by over 50%.“

Could it be applied to real-world applications/services?

Robert Hof of SiliconANGLE said that "Several dozen alpha users have been trying it since November." creating a more natural call center experience. (hmmm... sounds like they’re replacing their agents with this IVR-- Interactive Voice Response-- system, no?)

“Call centers could use the tool to help make interacting with IVRs more appealing. Rather than punching numbers on a touch-tone dial pad or issuing specific voice commands, customers could engage in natural-sounding conversations with a voice bot” said  Jon Arnold, principal of Toronto-based research and analysis firm J Arnold & Associates.

The company made that software available to developers this week through the Google Cloud Platform--a suite of cloud computing services running on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for products such as Google Search and YouTube.

So, how do you think the BPO industry would benefit from it? Share this article together with your thought.

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A “New” Threat: The Meltdown & Spectre CPU Bugs

January 31, 2018 – Wednesday, the world of Cyber Security is facing a new threat over the disclosure of two critical CPU bugs called Meltdown(CVE-2017-5754) and Spectre(CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715). But it was revealed that these critical design flaws were already affecting most Intel Chips manufactured since 1995! So, imagine every computer has been facing these vulnerable issues for as long as 20 freakin` years! No wonder, that some security experts called it catastrophic.

After rumors began circulating and initial details were leaked, on Wednesday security researchers officially disclosed details surrounding two critical vulnerabilities affecting Intel, AMD, and ARM processors (CPUs).

What you should know…

Meltdown and Spectre are the names given to a trio of variations on a vulnerability that affects nearly every computer chip manufactured in the last 20 years. These are the kind of hardware bugs that can allow attackers to steal information from the memory of other programs. Each works differently, affecting various processors. These two initially target INTEL processors, but ARM and AMD (which are pretty common in some parts of the world) are also affected in the same as INTEL’s, allowing sensitive data, such as passwords and crypto-keys, to be stolen from memory.

The bugs had originally been reported previously in June 2017, with an embargo set for January 9th to give the vendors time to work on patches. As details of the flaws began leaking on Tuesday, vendors of the semi-conductor industry were forced to take immediate action on the said cockup.

Microsoft issued an emergency update to Windows systems on Wednesday. Patches to OS and Linux systems are also available. Both this and Amazon have also announced scheduled downtime and updates of their cloud services. Additional updates from a wide-range of products and services are expected to be rolled out.

The effects of this mega-gaffe

On a shared system, such as a public cloud server, it is possible, depending on the configuration, for software in a guest virtual machine, known as VM, to drill down into the host machine's physical memory and steal data from other customers' virtual machines.

Unfortunately, the chips in our desktop PCs, laptops, phones, and backend servers do not completely walk back every step taken when they realize they've gone down the wrong path of code. That means remnants of data they shouldn't have been allowed to fetch remain in their temporary caches, and can be accessed later.

The trick is to line up instructions in a normal user process that cause the processor to speculatively fetch data from protected kernel memory before performing any security checks. Trying to fetch a byte from the kernel address as a user process triggers an exception – but the subsequent instructions have already been speculatively executed out of order, and touch a cache line based on the content of that fetched byte.

Here’s a summary of the two blunders, just to give you some clue:

A possible fix

ARM so far has produced a list of its affected cores, which are typically found in smartphones, tablets and similar handheld gadgets. That list also links to work around patches for Linux-based systems.

Amazon has updated its AWS Linux guest kernels to protect customers against Meltdown. Google recommends its cloud users apply necessary patches and reboot their virtual machines. Microsoft is deploying fixes to Azure. If you're using a public cloud provider, check them out for security updates.

Also, Microsoft is reporting compatibility issues with a number of antivirus products. To help prevent errors, the company is only rolling out the Windows security update to devices with AV software that is confirmed to be compatible.

VMware's ESXi, Workstation and Fusion hypervisors need patching to counteract the underlying hardware design flaws.

What to do now?

So far, a careful implementation of system/OS/firmware update is advised. In the meantime, experts are also advising turning on site isolation in Chrome and Firefox to prevent malicious websites from exploiting these flaws. Lastly (and the most effective one), please, please and pleeeeease... DON’T PANIC!

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Bitcoin: Why everyone go crazy about it?

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a new currency that was created in 2009 by an unknown person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. Transactions are made with no middle men – meaning, no banks! Bitcoin can be used to book hotels on Expedia, shop for furniture on Overstock and buy Xbox games. But much of the hype is about getting rich by trading it. The price of bitcoin skyrocketed into the thousands in 2017.

Where to use Bitcoin?

Bitcoins can be used to buy merchandise anonymously. In addition, international payments are easy and cheap because bitcoins are not tied to any country or subject to regulation. Small businesses may like them because there are no credit card fees. Some people just buy bitcoins as an investment, hoping that they’ll go up in value.

How to Acquire Bitcoins?

Buy it on an exchange Many marketplaces called “bitcoin exchanges” allow people to buy or sell bitcoins using different currencies. Coinbase is a leading exchange, along with Bitstamp and Bitfinex. But security can be a concern: bitcoins worth tens of millions of dollars were stolen from Bitfinex when it was hacked in 2016.

Transfer People can send bitcoins to each other using mobile apps or their computers. It’s similar to sending cash digitally.

or thru Mining People compete to “mine” bitcoins using computers to solve complex math puzzles. This is how bitcoins are created. Currently, a winner is rewarded with 12.5 bitcoins roughly every 10 minutes.

But where does it being store?

Bitcoins are stored in a “digital wallet,” which exists either in the cloud or on a user’s computer. The wallet is a kind of virtual bank account that allows users to send or receive bitcoins, pay for goods or save their money. Unlike bank accounts, bitcoin wallets are not insured by the FDIC.

Security in Anonymity

Though each bitcoin transaction is recorded in a public log, names of buyers and sellers are never revealed – only their wallet IDs. While that keeps bitcoin users’ transactions private, it also lets them buy or sell anything without easily tracing it back to them. That’s why it has become the currency of choice for people online buying drugs or other illicit activities.

Stability Issues

According to Independent.uk, the value of bitcoin has dropped over recent days, and is yet to properly recover.

The volatile cryptocurrency hit a record high when it passed $19,850 in mid-December, but then tumbled rapidly, falling to below $12,000 within days.

Its value shifted unpredictably over the following weeks, but appeared to be on the up again after the turn of the year.

It is worth $13,642 as of Friday afternoon UK time, according to the Coinbase exchange. Earlier this morning, it dropped just below the $13,000 mark. However, it had been worth more than $17,000 at the weekend.  

Its value is down more than 18 per cent from a month ago, and up more than 1,600 per cent from a year ago.

Recent goings-on have demonstrated just how quickly the situation can change for investors.

The cryptocurrency’s value plummeted ahead of Christmas, dropping by almost $2,000 in just an hour at one point, and almost slipping below the $11,000 mark.

Bitcoin is notoriously volatile, and its value is expected to continue to shift unpredictably.

Its rise has also led to increasing amounts of interest in alternative cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum, litecoin and XRP.

Naturally, its spectacular rise has coincided with increasing amounts of interest, with more and more people now looking to invest.

Bitcoin in the Future

Bitcoin is mostly unregulated, but some countries like Japan and Australia have begun weighing regulations. China and Quebec have woo Bitcoin miners, while South Korea is preparing a ban on trading in virtual currencies. Governments are concerned about taxation and their lack of control over the currency.

As of now, no one knows what will become of bitcoin.

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Researchers use Titan to accelerate design, training of deep learning networks

A team of researchers from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has married artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to achieve a peak speed of 20 petaflops in the generation and training of deep learning networks on the laboratory's Titan supercomputer.

What is Titan SuperComputer?

Titan is a supercomputer built by Cray at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for use in a variety of science projects. Titan is available for any scientific purpose; access depends on the importance of the project and its potential to exploit the hybrid architecture. Any selected programs must also be executable on other supercomputers to avoid sole dependence on Titan.

Understanding Deep Learning

Deep learning is a burgeoning field of artificial intelligence that uses networks modeled after the human brain to "learn" how to distinguish features and patterns in vast datasets. Such networks hold great promise in the realization of numerous technologies, from self-driving cars to intelligent robots.

Titan’s role to improve Deep Learning

Due to its ability to make sense of massive amounts of data, researchers across the scientific spectrum are eager to refine deep learning and apply it to some of today's most challenging science problems. One such effort is ORNL's Advances in Machine Learning to Improve Scientific Discovery at Exascale and Beyond (ASCEND) project, which aims to use deep learning to make sense of the massive datasets produced by the world's most sophisticated scientific experiments, such as those located at ORNL.

Analysis of such datasets generally requires existing neural networks to be modified, or novel networks designed and then "trained" so that they know precisely what to look for and can produce valid results.

This is a time-consuming and difficult task, but one that an ORNL team led by Robert Patton and including Steven Young and Travis Johnston recently demonstrated can be dramatically expedited with a capable computing system such as ORNL's Titan, the nation's fastest supercomputer for science.

To efficiently design neural networks capable of tackling scientific datasets and expediting breakthroughs, Patton's team developed two codes for evolving (MENNDL) and fine-tuning (RAvENNA) deep neural network architectures. Both codes can generate and train as many as 18,600 neural networks simultaneously. Peak performance can be estimated by randomly sampling, and then carefully profiling, several hundred of these independently trained networks.

Both codes achieved a peak performance of 20 petaflops, or 20 thousand trillion calculations per second, on Titan (or just under half of Titan's single precision total peak performance). In practical terms, that translates to training 40-50,000 networks per hour.

"The real measure of success in the deep learning community is time-to-solution," said Johnston. "And with a machine like Titan we are able to train an unparalleled number of highly accurate networks."

Titan is a Cray hybrid system, meaning that it uses both traditional CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs) to tackle complex calculations for big science problems efficiently; the GPUs also happen to be the processor of choice for training deep learning networks.

The team's work demonstrates that with the right high-performance computing system researchers can efficiently train large numbers of networks, which can then be used to help them tackle today's increasingly data-heavy experiments and simulations.

This efficient design of deep neural networks will enable researchers to deploy highly accurate, custom-designed models, saving both time and money by freeing the scientist from the task of designing a network from the ground up.

And because the OLCF's next leadership computing system, Summit, features a deep-learning friendly architecture with enhanced GPUs and complementary Tensor cores, the team is confident both codes will only get faster.

"Out of the box, without tuning to Summit's unique architecture, we are expecting an increase in performance up to 50 times," said Johnston.

With that sort of network training capability, Summit could be indispensable to researchers across the scientific spectrum looking to deep learning to help them tackle some of science's most immense challenges.

Patton's team is not waiting for the improved hardware to start tackling current scientific data challenges; they have already deployed their codes to assist domain scientists at the Department of Energy's Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois.

Researchers at Fermilab used MENNDL to better understand how neutrinos interact with ordinary matter by producing a classification network to support their Main Injector Experiment for v-A (MINERvA), a neutrino scattering experiment. The task, known as vertex reconstruction, required a network to analyze images and precisely identify the location where neutrinos interact with one of many targets—a task akin to finding the aerial source of a starburst of fireworks.

In only 24 hours, MENNDL produced optimized networks that outperformed any previously handcrafted network—an achievement that could easily have taken scientists months to accomplish. To identify the high-performing network, MENNDL evaluated approximately 500,000 neural networks, training them on a data set consisting of 800,000 images of neutrino events, steadily using 18,000 of Titan's nodes.

"You need something like MENNDL to explore this effectively infinite space of possible networks, but you want to do it efficiently," Young said. "What Titan does is bring the time to solution down to something practical."

And with Summit to come online this year, the future of deep learning in big science looks bright indeed.

Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

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Researchers developed a new app to locate people in areas without signal

Researchers of the Universidad de Alicante (UA) have developed new technology that makes it possible to locate people who have suffered an accident in remote locations without a phone signal and where a speedy rescue is essential to save lives.

The system can also be used in emergency situations that arise as a result of earthquakes, floods or forest fires, where mobile phone infrastructure is often rendered useless.

"We have designed an application (app) that can be incorporated to any smartphone and that, without a signal, emits a Wi-fi signal which in turn acts as a distress beacon over a distance of several kilometers," explains the creator of the technology and professor at the UA's Department of Physics, Systems Engineering and Theory of the Signal of the Higher Polytechnic School, José Ángel Berná.

This signal contains the location (coordinates) of the person who has suffered the accident or disappeared and is using the smartphone emitter, along with a short message that "can be altered depending on the situation, with examples such as "I am injured," "I am disorientated," or "I need help", specifies Berná.

In order to detect the distress signal, the researcher has also created a light, portable receptor device that rescue teams or mountain shelters could use. This device has a small antenna and connects to the smartphone of the search party.

When an accident occurs, the victim only has to activate the mobile phone app, which will in turn emit the distress signal periodically – for hours or even days, even if he or she is unconscious – indicating the coordinates of its location.

According to Berná, there have already been tests done on the ground with this innovative system – an operative prototype was developed in early 2016 – with the Special Mountain Intervention Rescue Groups (GREIM) of the Guardia Civil and then with the Maritime Service of the Armed Forces and Maritime Rescue, the results of which were "interesting." Therefore, during the tests performed on ground and sea it was confirmed that the device can pick up the distress signal of the emitting smartphone up to a distance of two or three kilometers, respectively, although it may be possible to increase its reach.

Search tasks for disappeared or hurt people currently entail "a large cost in time and human resources," explains the professor. On the other hand, Berná explains, the new system developed makes it possible to "optimise the search and decrease tracking time," a vital aspect when taking into account that, "in the case of many deceased people, autopsies have revealed that they survived for several hours and did not die instantly, but it had been impossible to locate them on time."

It also has the added benefit that it does not require visual contact with the victim, because as soon as they can detect a single signal, it will tell them its exact location, even if it lies several kilometers away or it is trapped among the rubble of a collapsed building.

"At present, there is no system in the world that uses Wi-fi signals to geo-locate a smartphone. There are devices that allow you to detect mobile phone signals from a smartphone and pinpoint its location through triangulation, but it costs around €80,000 and requires the use of a helicopter," says José Ángel Berná. However, the system developed in the UA is more economical, "as its receptor has a cost that would allow its commercialisation for approximately €600 if used by a large number of rescue teams," he adds.

According to the researcher, the security committee of the Spanish Mountain Federation and the Guardia Civil rescue services believe that the features of this technology should already be integrated within an emergency system and should have institutional backing.

"We have sent information to the Ministry of Internal Affairs so they take this new feature that we  have developed into account and they study its possible addition to AlertCops, the citizen safety warning service of the State Security Forces," Berná explains.

Source: Universidad de Alicante (UA)

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Travis the translator aims to make people understood

Tired of using online translator who doesn’t seem to get the right translation of the paragraphs you’ve searching?

Fret not, my friend! Travis is here!

But firstly, Who is Travis?

Travis is Netherlands-based startup that is out to make people understood no matter what language they speak. Travis was at the Consumer Electronics Show here late Tuesday with a small device capable of translating conversations between people speaking different languages in real time.

"We are driven to break down language barriers."

US Travis representative Robb Selander told AFP while demonstrating the gizmo at a CES event. "Technology connects us as far as we are accessible to each other, but those true connections aren't going to happen until we all understand and are understood by each other."

Travis syncs to computing in the cloud to translate any combination of 80 languages, and a Travis foundation is working to 'digitize' lesser known languages in the world.

"Once a language is digitized it can not only be used in translation technology like Travis but for education and preservation," said company international affairs manager Elissa Glorie.

Digitizing languages also means that those who speak it could get better shots at reaping benefits of technology advances such as voice-commanded computers or virtual assistants, according to Glorie.

Travis was founded early last year and launched an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign in April that blew past the company's goal.

More than 80,000 Travis translation devices priced at $199 were pre-ordered, and most have been delivered, according to Selander.

Google late last year hit the market with Pixel ear buds capable of real-time translation of conversations in 40 languages.

Pixel Buds infused with its digital assistant smarts were quickly branded an internet-Age version of the alien "Babel Fish" depicted in famed science fiction work "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

In the literature, inserting a Babel Fish in an ear enabled a person to understand anything spoken in any language.

Pixel Buds work wirelessly with second-generation Pixel smartphones to handle real-time translations.

Learn more about Travis:

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'Pokemon Go' unleashes its critters in Apple's AR playground

Pokemon Go is unleashing its digital critters in Apple's playground for augmented reality, turning iPhones made during the past two years into the best place to play the mobile game, according to the CEO of the company that makes Pokemon Go.

"Pokemon Go" is moving into a different dimension on the iPhone, thanks to software that allows the game to play new tricks with its menagerie of digital critters.                                

An upcoming game update relies on built-in Apple software called ARKit that gives the iPhone's new ways to serve as a portal into augmented reality.

AR is a technology that projects life-like images into real-world settings such as parks and streetscapes.

The new approach, announced Wednesday, adds depth to the playing field and lets Pokemon monsters grow or shrink to fit their environment. The game's creatures will now flee when they detect sudden movement or if players approach too quickly.

John Hanke, CEO of "Pokemon Go" creator Niantic, believes iPhones equipped with Apple's AR software now offer the best way to play the game.

That's an ironic twist because Niantic spun out of Google, whose Android software powers most of the smartphones in the world. Hanke played a key role in build Google Maps, one of the most frequently used apps on Android phones.

Apple's AR technology works on iPhones dating back to the 2015 iPhone 6S, a line-up that encompasses an estimated 200 million to 300 million devices, including iPads.

"Pokemon Go" has offered an AR option since its release 17 months ago, but Apple's technology is more advanced than what the game has been using.

Apple is hoping app makers will find compelling ways to deploy its AR tools, helping to hook the masses on a technology that so far has been embraced by a sliver of smartphone users. If AR takes off, many analysts believe Apple will branch out in a few years and release a new line of devices designed specifically for AR.

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Apps that can help you fulfill your New Year’s Resolution!

Hi!

I’m Spectro. Do you miss me? ~.^

Stuck with your repeated New Year’s Resolution? And finding yourself a bit frustrated as the day goes by again, yet still you haven’t fulfill anything from your long checklist?

NO WORRIES! Spectro got you covered...

We’ve listed some useful apps to help you keep a close tab with your New Year’s bucket list.

Using technology to help modernize our Resolutions for the whole year is nothing new. There are numerous smartphone apps that can help you manage your bucket list and ensuring your everyday progress.

These apps are available for both Android and iOS systems and all are rated at least four stars or more on both iTunes and Google Play, with at least 1,000 reviews or more on either site.

Get Fit - Admit it. I know you knew that your number 1 resolution is to get fit, isn’t it? Like, who doesn’t want to get more fit? Luckily, the J&J Official Seven Minute Workout App got your back. Several publications, such as Tom's Guide and Medical News Today, said this app is good for beginners and experienced users. The science-based exercise physiology workout was designed at the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute. There are 22 preset workouts, ranging from seven to 32 minutes, or you can create your own. The Smart Workout feature gauges your fitness and motivation level and creates a variety of workouts specifically for you. Get it free here -> 7 minute workout

Meditate - The world is quite a challenge for all of us. Everyday, we’re expose to stress and pressure build-up whether at home or at work. Taking time to discharge your mind from the city buzz life might be hard. Good thing a lot of meditate app has flocked into the play store. And among them is a crowd favorite... Daily Calm. It is the #1 app for mindfulness and meditation to bring more clarity, joy and peace to your daily life. Start your journey to a calmer mind with the app that's trusted by millions and even featured in the New York Times. Calm has routines for meditation, focusing, stress and anxiety reduction and sleep. Get it free or in premium version when you check them on Google play or iTunes.

Engage on a Healthy Diet - Keeping a food diary can go a long way toward eating better, and two top calorie counting apps can make it easier. MyFitnessPal is the biggest and best known—it's an editor's choice on both Google Play and iTunes. It has the largest food database, with over 5 million foods, and has a feature to let you add recipes to get breakdowns of home-cooked meals. If there's something you eat regularly you can save it so there's no need to look it up each time. Get it free -> My Fitness Pal.

Save Money - It's hard to save money if you don't know where your cash is going. That’s why Spendee app is here to serve as your digital accountability partner. Most App reviewers love Spendee's look and easy user interface, with Google Play's editors pointing out that the infographics of this app are especially beautiful. Tom's Guide cites its budget-tracking tools, including being able to take pictures of bills and receipts for storage, while the overview tab has useful infographics on spending both over time and what you're buying. Get it free here -> Spendee

Making New Year's resolutions is as old as time. But with the use of these apps, am pretty sure your as close as getting your New Year’s Resolution cycle done in just a matter of few weeks.

Have a good year, everyone! Cheers for 2018!

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Survival Apps to help you navigate climate disasters

Our world is changing, and climate disasters, as some say, can cause us harm if we’re not taking safety precautions. It might be true that such natural forces can be inevitable, but atleast we could figure out a way to somehow lessen or negate its harmful effect...

There are lists of few smartphone apps that can be a valuable companion to navigate a disaster and its aftermath - even when there is little to no data connection, as some experts say.

"We try to tell people it's important to have a plan," said Jennifer Strauss, the University of California at Berkeley's Seismology Lab's external relations officer. "With all the tech we are exposed to, we get caught up in the idea that everything is readily available. Tech goes hand in hand with preparedness."

Strauss and her team in Berkeley in 2016 launched the MyShake app, which allows smartphones to detect earthquakes using built-in sensors and send warning alerts to users near the shaking. Akin to step-counting fitness apps, MyShake runs silently in the background looking for seismic tremors and collecting data.

Below are few examples of Survival apps that provides safety measures and make us prepared when the nature strikes back...

MyShake

What it does: Detects earthquakes using a smartphone's built-in sensors and sends warning alerts to users near the earthquake

Cost: Free

Available: Android only, iOS coming in the future

Zello

What it does: Turns your smartphone into a walkie-talkie

Cost: Free, sign-up required

Available: iOS and Android

FireChat

What it does: Allows text messages to be sent and received without Wi-Fi or data connection; requires other FireChat users in vicinity to bounce text from one phone to another.

Cost: Free, sign-up required

Available: iOS and Android

NextRadio

What it does: Streams your local FM radio station, does not require data if FM chip inside the smartphone can be activated

Cost: Free

Available: iOS and Android

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'Pokemon Go' creators are making a 'Harry Potter' AR game

Good News for Harry Potter fans! 'Pokemon Go' creators are making a 'Harry Potter' AR game!

Let’s all chant together; accio smartphone! ^_^

The company behind the once hugely popular Pokemon Go game is working on a new smartphone-based game it hopes can captivate the public in the same crazy fashion.

Niantic Labs says it’s working on a similar augmented reality (AR) game based on the beloved Harry Potter franchise.

The game itself will be called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and this game will require gamers to “learn spells, explore their real world neighbourhoods and cities to discover & fight legendary beasts and team up with others to take down powerful enemies.”

Niantic announced that it will team up with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and WB Games San Francisco for the said app.

"With 'Harry Potter: Wizards Unite,' players that have been dreaming of becoming real life Wizards will finally get the chance to experience J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World," Niantic said in its announcement.

In "Wizards Unite" players will not only learn spells but can also explore real-world locations, encounter legendary beasts and team up with other players to fight powerful enemies. Fans were also teased that the game will include encounters with "iconic characters." Would that included the infamous Potter Trio?!

Like 2016's "Pokemon Go," "Wizards Unite" builds on the framework set by "Ingress," Niantic's first augmented reality mobile game. But the game, Niantic said, will also provide "an opportunity to pioneer all new technology and gameplay mechanics."

No word yet on an official release date for "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite."

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Meet the `godfather` of deep-learning

Geoffrey Everest Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus at University of Toronto, Canada and a research fellow at Google is known to many as the `godfather` of deep learning, a field featuring artificial intelligence or AI.

Being a tech-savvy himself, he recently published two papers reimagining the use of AI, that may help correct one of deep learning's key shortcomings.

"This is a much more robust way to detect objects than what we have at present," Hinton, who is also a fellow at Google's AI research arm, said today at a tech conference in Toronto.

"If you've been in the field for a long time like I have, you know that the neural nets that we use now – there's nothing special about them. We just sort of made them up."

Hinton's latest approach, detailed in a recent story in Wired magazine, relies on something he calls "capsule networks." 

Here's how it work: 

At present, deep learning algorithms must be trained on millions of images before they can reliably distinguish a picture of, say, a cat from something else. In part, that's because the software isn't very good at applying what it's already learned to brand new situations – for example, recognizing a cat that's being viewed from a slightly different angle. Capsule networks, by contrast, can help track the relationship between various parts of an object – in the case of a cat, one example might be the relative distance between its nose and mouth.

Hinton talked about his research, co-authored with Sara Sabour and Nicholas Frost, at Google's Go North conference, held at Toronto's Evergreen Brick Works.

With his new research, there's little doubt Hinton is doing his part to move the AI ball forward – even if it draws on ideas he's been contemplating for the past 40 years.

In one of his recently published papers, Hinton's capsule networks matched the accuracy of the best previous techniques when it comes to recognizing hand-written digits, according to Wired. The second paper cut in half the previous error rate on a test that challenges software to recognize objects like toys from different angles, the magazine said.

"What we showed is early days," Hinton cautioned attendees at Go North.

"It works quite impressively on small datasets. But until it works on large datasets, you shouldn't believe it."

Even so, other researchers are lauding Hinton's efforts.

"It's too early to tell how far this particular architecture will go," Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, told Wired. "But it's great to see Hinton out of the rut that the field has seemed fixated on."