looping videos

Tinder 2 second videos

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This may be the best thing that Tinder have done, or the worst thing they’ve done. Tinder have announced that coming to their dating apps are a ‘looping image’ (basically looping videos)  feature that will allow users to share short 2 second videos of what they love doing.

However, as with all new technology, it may, well, will, be put to ‘uses’ – But maybe the big wigs at Tinder were aware that the ‘looping video’ feature will spawn a ton of helicopter d*ck videos?

The new ‘looping videos’ moving profile image, (much like those available on Facebook) help, as Tinder announced, show more personality. In an effort to get more right swipes. (or helicopter D*ck)

Looping Videos: Advice

But the dating app have offered advice to their users. Explaining ways in which they can show off their habits, roller skating, you could show off going up and down the rink. Football, kicking the perfect penalty. Or if you’re a dancer, maybe showing off your best robot skills?! Bungee jumper? Show off, jumping off a high cliff? Whatever people do, I’m sure people will find super creative ways to use this feature. As with Vine (ok it was 7 seconds and not 20 but the internet is creative and intelligent, so we may see some pretty cool stuff!

Even though there may be a chance that there’s going to be a ton of helicopters about, there are ways to report an account that does so. So, there may not be as many flying D*cks about as you once thought!

What do you think of the ‘looping videos’ feature coming to Tinder? Let us know via our socials @howtokillanhour across all socials!

Download Tinder by clicking here Apple / Android

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project maven

Project Maven

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Google have announced that they have a part in ‘Project Maven’. A project in which as Gizmodo are reporting, ‘helping the Pentagon build AI for drones’ CRAZY NEWS!

The project began in 2017 as a pilot program to simply speed up the United States military’s implementation of the most up to date technology of artificial intelligence.

It’s a relatively cheap programme too! Project Maven is said to cost less than $70M in it’s first year. Focusing solely on integrating machine learning in it’s drones. Why would the Pentagon want to invest in improving AI in drones? To improve it’s intelligence when it comes to targeting drone strikes.

Project Maven: Peace

Google released a statement on Tuesday of last week, claiming it’s part in Project Maven. Stating that it’s involvement in the project was simply a peaceful one. Stating that Project Maven was “Specifically scoped to be for non-offensive purposes.”

Since then many sectors of Google itself have called upon it’s CEO to pull them out of the project. With the Verge reporting that 3,100 employees have signed a letter urging the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, to re-evaluate it’s involvement. Stating that Google should not be in ‘the business of war’ – With Diane Green head of Google’s cloud operations also emphasizing Google’s peaceful stance. Stating that their tech will not be used to fly drones, nor will it launch any weapons.

Details on what Google are actually doing working on Project Maven aren’t very clear. A Google spokesperson did confirm to the Verge that they have given the department of defence access to software (TensorFlow) that is used to help machine learning apps understand contents of photos.

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cambridge analytica

Cambridge Analytica: How to tell if your data was shared

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You may have heard about the Facebook data breach by Cambridge Analytica the past couple of weeks. Now Facebook are about tell us Brits if your data has been compromised in the data breach.

This week, more than 1 million British people will receive a detailed message on their news feeds. Within this post it will tell users if they are one of the huge 87 million users that have had their data breached. Therefore, used improperly, Facebook will then go one step further to help their users.

So, what is this help? All of Facebook’s 2.2 Billion users, that’s billion with a B! Will receive a notice from them that’s called ‘Protecting your information’. Within this notice will be a link that sends them to a page which tells users which apps have access to their data. Furthermore this page will tell them what information they have shared with said apps. From here users are able to go through the apps and deny access to their data if they wish. You can even go one step further and block any third parties from accessing this data.

Mark Zuckerberg had admitted that he made a huge mistake in realising how much of an affect Facebook had on the outer world. Not fully acknowledging Facebooks wider responsibilities to it’s audience. Facebook’s responsibility is so huge, that, he’s set to testify in front of Congress next week.

Cambridge Analytica: How?

The number of those affected was originally reported as 50Million, however, that number has said to have risen to 87million people. So, how did they get so much data? A personality quiz app called ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ created by Aleksander Kogan is said to be the culprit behind the breach. Kogan allegedly paid 270,000 people to take the quiz. As a result, all of the data of those that took part was breached. But this isn’t the worse part. Due to Facebook’s loose restrictions, data from the friends of the 270,000 people was too breached. Including data which was set to ‘only me’

As a result of this lapse of judgement, Facebook cracked down and limited the data that apps can access. Yet it seems that the damage has already been done.

To download Facebook please click here Apple / Android

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Gero Lifespan

Gero Lifespan: Predict your death?!

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Ever wanted to find out how long your going to live? If you could extend your life, based on these results, how would you react? Well the answer to all these questions are about to be answered with the help of an iPhone app called Gero! Researchers are able to estimate your expected life span through physiological traits such as your genes, or circulating blood factor. Yet this isn’t a viable option for normal folk like you and I. However, we may just have the solution. You have the device in your pocket right now! Well if you’re an iPhone user that is.

Russian scientists have created an AI-based algorithm that takes all the information from activity tracking. From things such as your smartwatch or your smartphone to estimate your lifespan with allegedly greater precision than other models of the same ilk. It’s via an app called Gero.

Gero Lifespan: How it works

They use a convolutional neural network to find the biologically relevant motion patterns, gathered from a large set of US health survey data. They then use this data to correlate both lifespans and overall health. The app is very intelligent as it doesn’t just take in to consideration step counts. It takes in to consideration how often you switch between active periods. This is alongside many other mitigating factors. Such as sleeping habits and gym visits. These are taken into consideration too. After all this is analysed the app list applies this to a whole weeks worth of data from a users phone. Gero Lifespan users data from apps such as Apple Health and Fitbit to predict how long you got to live.

While this sounds quite cool the app doesn’t provide a full picture of your health. It doesn’t take into consideration your diet, genetics or any other crucial factors. Therefore the age you get given should be taken with a grain of salt. While it may seem as just an ‘app’ Doctors would ideally use both apps and clinical analysis to give a prediction. Yet we may be a while off before we can rely on mobile apps, as apps life Gero Lifespan, aren’t ready for medical use.

To download Gero Lifespan please click here Apple

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

True Tone

iPhone True Tone Display

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What’s the benefit of this? It makes reading a lot more comfortable on your eyes and will help to use and the phone when in sunlight.

Your phone is able to do this as the sensors that are in your phone measure a lot of things! The ambient light, colour and brightness of the light around you. Takes a reading and then adjusts accordingly to what it feels will produce the best white light, thus showing the right setting for your eyes.

True Tone: However……

While this sounds awesome enough, the feature does have to be enabled!

To enable True Tone on your iPhone/iPad:

  • Settings
  • Display and Brightness
  • Turn on True Tone

Bonus

Don’t forget to also turn on Night Shift!

Night Shift is located in the same settings as True Tone and the phone also adjusts your phones display when using this.

The iPhone will use it’s clock and geolocation to adjust the colours to a warmer colour. The display will get dimmer when using this setting at a later time at night, to reduce the amount of blue light emitted from your screen. Making a more orange type hue to the screen.

The reason for this? Making the display easier to read when late night reading. Apple are looking out for your eyes when scrolling through instagram late at night!

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Oculus Gloves

Oculus Gloves: Immersion crazy!

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Oculus Rift are looking to make VR a lot more immersive and we cannot wait! If their latest patents come to fruition that is. Oculus Rift are said to be working on a set of Oculus Gloves that provide haptic feedback, throwing a user into a world of immersion never seen before!

Oculus Gloves: How they work

The patents describe “tendons” within the gloves that mimic and simulate the sense of a realistic touch. All within the virtual world, so they’d tense and relax based on what your doing. Such as picking up a glass of water, or opening a door. While this sounds super cool, it won’t be the same as holding something in your hand though. As your fingers and hands are able to sense that your holding something through pressure in your fingers. Yet these designs from Oculus work in a different way. They work opposite, in the sense that the tendons will run along the back of your hand. Using the haptic feeback to offer resistance to your own movements.  Thus mimicking that your touching an object. So not the same, but pretty darn close!

The Oculus gloves are described by the guys over at Digital Trends as having string tied to the backs of your hands. Pulling at you and making the action of clenching your fists a little bit different. Yet in real life, you’d see the effect with your own eyes. Therefore if you’re in a VR world, the input in your eyes you’d experience the action of pulling differently. Your brain would be tricked into believing that your holding the object.

Patents don’t always mean that the product will come to fruition. But it is quite cool to imagine how this would be implemented! Imagine Call Of Duty picking up a gun or Forza, holding a steering wheel whilst racing around Imola. How cool does that sound! What’s even more impressive is that Tesla want to take this one step further and make full body suits!

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Siri

Apple looking to make Siri better!

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As we have discussed on the show previously, the most impressive AI helpers are those from Amazon and Google. With Alexa and Google Assistant respectively. However, if you may recall that it was Apple who first introduced us to an AI that can help you in your day to day lives. Siri, was the first out of the gate. Yet, she is lagging behind her rivals when it comes to intelligence. Both Alexa and Google Assisstant can recall a lot more information and specific information. Siri on the other hand, sometimes can’t even answer basic questions. Only answering what you want if you ask her something in a very specific manner. She’s just not as good as her counterparts. With the release of Homepod, the lack of intelligence in Siri is even more obvious. Yet it’s vitally important to get this correctly, now more than ever, because of Homepod’s battle with Alexa and Google Home. That’s not to say that Siri isn’t intelligent, she can answer questions, she just isn’t good enough.

Siri Hiring

So to battle this, the guys over at Thinknum have noticed that Apple have been on a Siri hiring spree. Hiring as much as 161 different positions to help improve Siri. There’s been a steady increase in Siri related job positions since the summer of 2016, however, there’s been a surge, since February of 2018. The positions are for engineers. Engineers that are geared towards helping Siri answer her weaknesses in answering simple general questions. Other positions that are available are for Siri’s Proactive Intelligence. This is basically Siri’s ability to anticipate the type of info that you may need. A further two other positions are for SiriKit developer framework and speech generation. While it may be some time before we see any improvement on a consumer level, this definitely shows Apple’s intent when it comes to AI.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Cloud Gaming

Xbox Cloud Gaming

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In what has seemingly sneaked under the radar. Microsoft recently announced that it’s launching a cloud gaming division. Marking out to the rest of the gaming industry that they’re entering the world of game streaming. They’re taking it seriously too.

The verge are reporting that it’s something that’s been building up for quite some time. Recently the huge computing giant acquired small gaming focused cloud companies. PlayFab who focus on game development in the cloud are now a Microsoft company. Will we see an Xbox that’s solely focused on cloud gaming?

Microsoft basically have something similar with Xbox Game Pass. Think Netflix but for gaming. However, instead of streaming the games you download them, keeping the license for x amount of months until you stop paying the £15 a month. There aren’t many good games on there at the moment, but that will soon change. Microsoft recently announced that alongside catalogued games, games like Sea Of Thieves, State of Decay 2 and Crackdown 3. All HUGE titles for Microsoft are being made available on their subscription service.

Cloud Gaming Direction

Consequently, Microsoft’s announcement almost proves that they want to move away from their users downloading their games to streaming them. As that was a major criticism of many users. Not enough up to date games available on the Game Pass. The two recent announcements could hint at the direction Microsoft are taking.

While OnLive a cloud game streaming service, failed. Other platforms game streaming is alive and kicking. Playstation Now From Sony allows users to play PS4 games on their PC’s and Nvidia has GeForce Now (Beta) Microsoft obviosly isn’t saying anything to anyone. However Kareem Choudhry Corporate VP of Xbox hints that they want users to play content on any device.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

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google console

A new gamer in town? The Google Console?

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So, the Google console. Sounds incredible. In theory.  As, according to a report from The Information, word on the street is that Google want to get in to the gaming industry. Yet, not in a way you would think either.

The giant tech company are looking at investing in a streaming service like Nvidia’s GeForce Now. (A service where your computer is merely a monitor and a keyboard. All the processing power is done remotely. All you need is a good internet connection) It’s codenamed “Yeti” and apparently Google have been hard at work on it for two years. There’s even hardware to go alongside the software allegedly. Most notably the product could tie in to Google’s Chromecast and nabbing Phili Harrison (ex-Microsoft/Sony Gaming division)  last month as a VP of hardware. Therefore could point in the direction of a hardware based product too.

So, there is no official word of it just yet and it’s all rumour at the moment. While cool and fun, it would be interesting to see if Google did go down the streaming route. But is gaming heading in this direction? All major gaming companies are sticking with regular old physical copies. Even downloadable copies are stored locally. However this begs the question. Is streaming even any good yet?

Google Console: Streaming Problems

Which brings us on to the internet. Lag. Lag is a killer. For most gamers, Lag is what infuriates them the most. So much so that it could be Google console’s biggest hurdle. Lag from what your seeing on screen. Lag from pressing a button to that relaying to the server and back to you again. Just regular old lag. Consequently those milliseconds could be the difference between life and death. Quite literally for the lifespan of this potential product. However, if Google can get it to almost instant (it will never be instant, just so small, we won’t even recognise it) then Google console may just be a hit. But this depends on the majority of gamer’s internet connections of course.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

AI

AI could have common sense? We’re Doomed.

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Ready to be scared by AI? Well you may just be about to be scared silly.

Virtual assistants and chatbots aren’t the most intelligent beings around at the moment. That’s because they lack the common sense that us humans have. Most of us anyway. These types of machine learning programmes rely on specific situations that they’ve encountered previously. Thus they react accordingly to the data you input.

However, this may be about to change. Researchers at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) have come up with a brand new test. This test is called Arc Reasoning Challenge (ARC). This test will determine whether artificial intelligence has the ability to ‘learn’ common sense. By testing it’s understanding of the way that our world operates.

The easiest way to explain why machines don’t have common sense is as follows. Human’s see a problem or are faced with a problem. Humans then use common sense to fill in the gaps of any problems that they are faced and then act on that problem accordingly. Machines only act on the data that’s put in to them. They can’t see a problem, pull information from their memory and then solve it. They have to be told ‘this is the way to solve this problem’ ‘solve it’ (execute programme)

AI Test

The researchers will throw basic multiple choice questions at the machines. These questions will put their general knowledge to the test. One of the questions is “Which item below is not made from a material grown in nature?” The answers are ‘cotton shirt, wooden chair, plastic spoon, grass basket’ If researchers from the Allen Institute can make the machine pull information from previously learned data. This will prove that the system can grasp common sense. Which no other AI technology can do.

So, what does this say about the future of AI if it can learn? What will it be taught is right and wrong? Will we see a Terminator?

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