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Submission + - From rocks to icebergs, the natural world tends to break into cubes (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Perhaps the Cubists were right. Researchers have found that when everything from icebergs to rocks breaks apart, their pieces tend to resemble cubes. The finding suggests a universal rule of fragmentation at scales ranging from the microscopic to the planetary.

The scientists started their study “fragmenting” an abstract cube in a computer simulation by slicing it with 50 two-dimensional planes inserted at random angles. The planes cut the cube into 600,000 fragments, which were, on average, cubic themselves—meaning that, on average, the fragments had six sides that were quadrangles, although any individual fragment need not be a cube. The result led the researchers to suspect that cubes might be a common feature of fragmentation.

The researchers tried to confirm this hunch using real-world measurements. They headed to an outcrop of the mineral dolomite on the mountain Hármashatárhegy in Budapest, Hungary, and counted the number of vertices in cracks in the stone face. Most of these cracks formed squarish shapes, which is one of the faces of a cube, regardless of if they had been weathered naturally or had been created by humans dynamiting the mountain.

Finally, the team created more-powerful supercomputer simulations modeling the breakup of 3D materials under idealized conditions—like a rock being pulled equally in all directions. Such cases formed polyhedral pieces that were, in an average sense, cubes..

Submission + - London facial recognition test fails to arrest anyone (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by Bruce66423
Bruce66423 writes: After all the concern about the trial, it appears to have been a bust. "Police have admitted that no one was arrested during a trial of controversial facial recognition technology, which sparked privacy and human rights concerns." OTOH this may lead us to get to get complacent about the threat that is out there, which this Washington Post article about the Chinese system reveals https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com...

Submission + - Juggalos Figures Out How To Beat Facial Recognition (theoutline.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As if they weren’t already doing the absolute most, the die-hard fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse have become accidental heroes for people concerned about facial recognition tech: According to Twitter user @tahkion, a computer science blogger for WonderHowTo, Juggalo makeup outmatches the machine learning algorithms that govern facial recognition technology.

In a series of follow-up tweets, @tahkion explained that facial recognition works by pinpointing the areas of contrast on a human face—for instance, where a nose is located, or where the chin becomes the neck. As it happens, juggalo makeup often involves applying black paint below the mouth, but above the chin. That makes facial recognition vulnerable to misidentifying the placement of the jaw. Face-painting styles like “corpse” makeup also obscure the face. However, they don’t create enough contrast to effectively confuse most facial recognition systems. Dramatic styles of feminine makeup, like heavy eyeliner, also are generally not enough to confuse facial recognition systems, @tahkion claims. However, facial recognition tech such as Apple's Face ID, which does not rely on visible light and uses depth perception, would not be tricked by juggalo makeup.

Submission + - Exec Accused of Stealing Waymo's Trade Secrets Starts New Self-Driving Company (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, is back. And he is connected to an autonomous trucking company that is still in stealth mode, TechCrunch has learned. The company, called Kache.ai (pronounced like cache), has kept a low profile since paperwork registering it as a corporation was first filed with the California Secretary of State nearly seven months ago. And at first glance, there’s no indication that Levandowski is even tied to the company.

Little is known about Kache.ai. The word “Kch” in Chinese means truck, which could signal a connection to China. Although TechCrunch was not able to independently verify if Kache.ai has any outside partners or backers yet. [T]he Kache.ai website said the company was working on “the next generation of autonomous vehicle technology for the commercial trucking industry.” It appears the company is hiring at every level, from mapping and database experts to people with robotics and simulation skills. The website also noted that the company is looking for software engineers with experience in convolutional neural networks as well as computer vision and machine learning algorithms.

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