About six months ago, we bought a drone to help us cover stories at the Yakima Herald-Republic, a daily newspaper in Yakima, Washington. We’d seen other people’s drone footage of fires and floods and protests, and wanted to get our own. We knew that a drone had a lot of potential to contribute to our news coverage, but we didn’t know exactly what rules apply to journalists, […]
The list of celebrities coming out as cannabis users is growing like a weed. Anne Hathaway appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Thursday, which just so happened to be the unofficial stoner holiday 420. While on the show, Hathaway played a game called “Plead The Fifth.” The game is simple, Cohen asks her three questions, she has to answer two of them, and […]
Elon Musk has been working on a human-computer brain interface called Neuralink, aiming to link human brains to artificial intelligence. Neuralink aims to hook up the human brain to AI through micron-sized devices and the potential applications hold great promise. For instance, AI could serve as an extension of the human brain and help with certain brain injuries stemming from a stroke, cancer lesions, or other health […]
It is clear now that from the very start, the hunters’ abduction was linked to the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in regional powers in an increasingly complicated proxy war. On one side of the hostage negotiations were Shiite powers — Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah — which firmly support the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. On the other were the Sunni powers Qatar […]
While geopolitical concerns and French election uncertainty are factors, The Wall Street Journal notes that many markets are flashing red on growth as investors begin to return to pre-election bets on the ol ‘new normal’ – a persistently weak economic expansion. There are clear signs that the sugar rush of Donald Trump’s victory and global-growth hopes has faded, raising doubts among some investors about whether stocks can […]
21 April 2017 Washington – CIBOK Editorial Committee today announced its establishment and the 1st edition “Cybercrime Investigation Body Of Knowledge” (CIBOK) published work. CIBOK is designed to provide a new standard for law enforcement organizations and enterprises around the globe with knowledge, skills and behaviors required to solve or prevent today’s complex and sophisticated cybercrime. The CIBOKfirst edition publication is available in English and Japanese. “As […]
Tens of millions of iPhone owners are ready to upgrade to 2017 iPhones, fueling the so-called iPhone “supercycle,” market research firm comScore reports. Apple has always enjoyed a loyal fan base and each new product iteration attracts many existing customers looking to upgrade to the latest and greatest. A new report from comScore now reveals that tens of millions of legacy iPhone owners are looking to upgrade […]
April 21, 2017 by: Anjli Raval, Oil and Gas Correspondent Oil was set for the biggest weekly drop in a month as market confidence in Opec’s ability to overpower a resurgent US shale industry wavered. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell below $50 a barrel on Friday — down $1.32 to $49.39 — by 6.45pm in London. The global Brent marker dropped $1.24 to $51.75 a barrel. […]
Windows Central got their hands on an apparent Microsoft confidential document that outlines recommended minimum specifications for Windows 10 CloudBooks. Windows 10 CloudBooks are what they sound like: Devices meant to compete with Chromebooks that are running the still-unofficially announced Cloud edition of Windows 10. As I blogged previously, Microsoft is expected to take the wraps off Windows 10 Cloud and some kind of device(s) running that […]
Investor sentiment is leaning towards a market-friendly outcome ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting in the French presidential election. The euro was on course for its best week in three months near $1.07, while a key proxy of election risk, the premium demanded by investors to own French government bonds over German Bunds, has narrowed sharply. “The most likely outcome is for a second round run-off […]
The UAE’s museum offerings are maturing and modernising. January marked the opening of Etihad Museum in Dubai, which tells the story of the birth of the UAE through films, documents and interactive experiences. And preparations are well under way for the Louvre Abu Dhabi to open later this year, with plans for a gallery dedicated to younger visitors. Outside the UAE, too, museums are looking to engage […]
Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications Everyone experiences stiff muscles from time to time, whether after a rigorous workout, in cold weather, or after falling asleep in an unusual position. People with cerebral palsy, stroke and multiple sclerosis, however, live with stiff muscles every single day, making everyday tasks such as extending an arm extremely difficult and painful for them. And since there isn’t a foolproof way […]
The Federal Reserve appears to believe that the size of its balance sheet matters, but not that bigger is better. The question is, why not? As the Fed pushes ahead with plans to shrink its stock of about $2.5tn of Treasuries and $1.8tn of mortgage-backed securities to “normal”, it is puzzling that officials haven’t provided a compelling case for why the move is either necessary or desirable. […]
PARIS French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron on Friday said France should not yield to fear and candidates in the election should avoid one-upmanship after the killing of a police officer in an Islamic State-claimed attack claimed. “Don’t yield to fear, don’t yield to division and intimidation. Our generation must rise to this challenge,” he said in a statement broadcast from his campaign headquarters. Macron said he had […]
Although Google is processing more requests, it’s also producing data for a smaller share of them. Image: Google Government requests for Google user data in the second half of 2016 were the highest since the firm first reported the figures in 2009. As Google notes in its latest Transparency Report, it received 45,549 government requests for user data in the second half of 2016, of which about […]
© Seb Jarnot I arrive at La Méditerranée, a traditional fish restaurant in a literary quarter of the Left Bank, Paris, at 7pm to find its blue doors firmly bolted. Charlotte Rampling has just confirmed our reservation, but our dining slot appears to have fallen foul of that particularly French timetable that decrees that no civilised person would ever want to eat before 8pm. In a panic, […]
Kimberly Hively vs. Ivy Tech Community College was the title of the gay rights case decided Tuesday by the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But it could also have been called Judge Posner vs. Justice Scalia. As The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Palazzolo reports, the federal appeals court ruled that gay employees should be […] (via WSJ)
By Mica Rosenberg and Yeganeh Torbati | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON NEW YORK/WASHINGTON When Raj, a Sri Lankan fisherman, sought refuge in the United States in 2005, he had precisely the kind of fear of returning home that U.S. asylum laws require. In 2004, he was kidnapped by the separatist rebel group the Tamil Tigers and had to pay $500 to secure his release, according to Raj, his lawyer […]
Most applications of deep learning use “convolutional” neural networks, in which the nodes of each layer are clustered, the clusters overlap, and each cluster feeds data to multiple nodes (orange and green) of the next layer. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT In the past 10 years, the best-performing artificial-intelligence systems—such as the speech recognizers on smartphones or Google’s latest automatic translator—have resulted from a technique called “deep learning.” Deep […]
Oddball duo Rick and Morty, amid their frenzied travails moving from one bizarre realm to another, have now entered virtual reality, under the aptly named Virtual Rick-ality app. There’s no surprise too that the titular characters’ entry in the VR space is just as weird, childishly enchanting, and ridiculous as its TV adventures. It’s no secret that Rick and Morty is one of the funniest and critically acclaimed […]
France has launched an anti-terror investigation after a policeman was killed and two other officers injured in an apparent Islamist attack in Paris on Thursday that threatens to disrupt the country’s presidential election. French authorities said the suspected gunman had been shot dead in the assault on the Champs-Élysées shortly before 9pm local time. One civilian was also injured in the attack. “We are convinced that the […]
Just a few short decades ago America’s youth was highly encouraged by eager parents to become self-sufficient by the ripe old age of 18. Today, the mere suggestion of such a thing could land unsuspecting parents in prison for ‘triggering’ their offspring with malicious ‘hate speech.’ And, as a new study from the Census Bureau points out today, the changing dynamics are readily apparent in the latest […]
The London Metal Exchange, facing falling trading volumes and tougher competition, plans to ask its members to evaluate wide-ranging reforms that are intensifying a robust internal debate over its future. The 140-year institution is set to outline proposed reforms in the coming weeks, evaluating almost all aspects of its business, including whether it should become more similar to rivals such as the CME Group, the world’s largest […]
The pound was last worth $1.30 on September 30, a day when lawyers were lining up to derail Brexit in the courts, a resilient consumer was challenging economists’ dire post-referendum predictions and carmaker Nissan was demanding compensation for staying in the UK. Investors have become familiar with such Brexit unpredictability. Yet few of them could have guessed how sterling, tweeted by Nordea analyst Martin Enlund as “the […]
