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Comment Compression time for what data? (Score 5, Insightful) 44

by ElrondHubbard (#64660882) Attached to: LZ4 Compression Algorithm Gets Multi-Threaded Update
A speed increase ranging from 5.4x to 7.4x would sound impressive, if only they said just what kind and quantity of data was being compressed. Was it English text? If so, how many characters? Was it a bitmap file? PCM audio? Whatwhatwhat? It says LZ4 prioritizes speed over compression, but I didn't learn much about the compression ratio or any time/ratio trade-off, either. How can anyone judge based on what's in this article?

Comment Long-term support (Score 2) 40

by ElrondHubbard (#63745358) Attached to: UK Woman Fitted With AI-Powered Bionic Arm

Very cool! Then again, I see them using an iPad app to calibrate the prosthetic, which raises obvious questions: How dependent is it on that app? How secure is it? How long will it be maintained?

And, what are her options if the company that manufactures this exotic piece of bespoke technology goes out of business? If it can happen to your e-bike, it can happen to your highly-customized body part. Is there such a thing as open standards for electronic limbs? We should all hope that tech like this becomes as widespread, cheap and commoditized as possible.

Comment Podcast app (Score 1) 116

I'm grateful to TFA for mentioning the Apple podcast app, which whatever you think of the design has been broken since at least version 15.0 and possibly earlier. (The 'Up Next' queue simply doesn't work anymore.)

See this thread if you really, really want to spend your day reading a litany of complaints.

Comment Netanyahu, not social media (Score 1) 362

How the hell is this story supposedly about falsehoods promulgated on social media? It's about a falsehood sourced from 2018 social media, and promulgated today by the Prime Minister of Israel, through his spokesman!

The actual headline here should be 'Israeli spokesman misrepresents video footage lifted from social media', or words to that effect. Media need to put the responsibility for things that governments say and do, in the here and now, squarely where it belongs. In this case, on the Israeli government.

Jesus.

Comment Deep-learning video = YouTube is haunted (Score 2) 22

by ElrondHubbard (#60861286) Attached to: DeepMind's AI Agent MuZero Could Turbocharge YouTube

Compression produces artifacts, as we all know. So what might video compressed through deep learning actually look like, especially at low bit rates? Instead of 8x8 pixel blocks, would you see semantic errors or "close enough" matches manifest as video 'ghosts'?

Imagine watching a time lapse of your favourite YouTuber gluing 100,000 matches together or whatever, but when they set it aflame an actual face shows up 'cause of a fluke. Religious types will say it's Jesus or the devil. Or suppose, whenever a single-bit error creeps into your stream, the algorithm produces the kind of f'ed up nightmare fuel from of its training set that Google Deep Dream was so notorious for. Messing with AI could make for a fun party game.
NASA

NASA Wants To Go To Europa 216

Posted by samzenpus from the just-down-the-road dept.
MightyMartian writes "'NASA and the White House are asking Congress to bankroll a new intrastellar road trip to a destination that's sort of like the extraterrestrial Atlantis of our solar system — Jupiter's intriguing moon, Europa.' Since Europa seems one of the most likely worlds in the Solar System other than Earth where we have some hope of finding extant life, let's hope Congress gives the green light to this project."
Space

Researchers Unveil High-Speed Laser Communications Device For Space 40

Posted by samzenpus from the saving-your-laser-minutes dept.
coondoggie writes "Using lasers to communicate quickly through the long distances of space has generally been the purview of science fiction. But researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are out to change that notion with a prototype array (pdf) that can read more information — and allow much higher data rates than conventional systems — than usual from single particles of light. Lasers can transmit only very low light levels across vast distances, so signals need to contain as much information as possible, NASA said."
The Internet

Fixing Broken Links With the Internet Archive 79

Posted by Soulskill from the maintain-URIs-or-T.B-L.-will-beat-you-up dept.
eggboard writes "The Internet Archive has copies of Web pages corresponding to 378 billion URLs. It's working on several efforts, some of them quite recent, to help deter or assist with link rot, when links go bad. Through an API for developers, WordPress integration, a Chrome plug-in, and a JavaScript lookup, the Archive hopes to help people find at least the most recent copy of a missing or deleted page. More ambitiously, they instantly cache any link added to Wikipedia, and want to become integrated into browsers as a fallback rather than showing a 404 page."
Earth

International Climate Panel Cites Near Certainty On Warming 510

Posted by Soulskill from the bringing-the-heat dept.
mdsolar writes "An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace. The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors. The report emphasizes that the basic facts about future climate change are more established than ever, justifying the rise in global concern. It also reiterates that the consequences of escalating emissions are likely to be profound." This comes alongside news of research into one of those short-term factors: higher than average rainfall over Australia. "Three atmospheric patterns came together above the Indian and Pacific Oceans in 2010 and 2011. When they did, they drove so much precipitation over Australia that the world's ocean levels dropped measurably." According to Phys.org, "A rare combination of two other semi-cyclic climate modes came together to drive such large amounts of rain over Australia that the continent, on average, received almost one foot (300 millimeters) of rain more than average. ... Since 2011, when the atmospheric patterns shifted out of their unusual combination, sea levels have been rising at a faster pace of about 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) per year."
Movies

Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary 139

Posted by timothy from the we-don't-like-your-bits dept.
First time accepted submitter Aaron B Lingwood writes "As reported by TorrentFreak, Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary 'TPB-AFK.' The film, created by Simon Klose, is available for no cost and has already been watched by millions of people. The public response to this free release model has been overwhelmingly positive, but it's now meeting resistance from Hollywood, TPB's arch rival. Pirate Party Australia opines 'Hollywood is using takedown notices to censor Pirate Bay doco, is it incompetence or malice? Always hard to tell.' Whichever the answer, the system is definitely broken."

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