The loudest voice

Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs showed off some of the 150 new features of Tiger, the next Macintosh operating system, on Monday, including a search engine function that lets users quickly locate files in the computer by typing related words or phrases. The fifth major version of Mac OS X won't be out until sometime in the first half of next year. However, it will be loaded with new and improved features, such as a revamped iChat, an instant messaging program that can accommodate up to 10 people for simultaneous voice chat or as many as four people for a video chat. "We have leaped ahead of our competition and Apple is again an innovator, " Jobs said in front of more than 3,500 software engineers at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco's Moscone West convention center. Jobs also unveiled a new line of flat-panel displays that includes 30- inch, 23-inch and 20-inch varieties that cost $3,299, $1,999 and $1,299, respectively. The monitors also have a new, … [Read more...] about Apple shows new OS, big flat-panel displays / Jobs taunts Microsoft with search feature

EVANSTON, IL — An editorial published Sunday by the editors of the Northwestern University's student-run newspaper apologizing for the paper's coverage of an appearance on campus by former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions prompted pointed criticism from many alumni and a response from the head of the university's prestigious journalism school. The editorial said the paper's coverage "contributed to the harm students experienced" and explained why staff of the paper removed the name of a protester it quoted and deleted photos from the protest. "Some protesters found photos posted to reporters' Twitter accounts retraumatizing and invasive. Those photos have since been taken down," said the Nov. 10 editorial, which was signed by eight editors of the Daily. "On one hand, as the paper of record for Northwestern, we want to ensure students, administrators and alumni understand the gravity of the events that took place Tuesday night. However, we decided to prioritize the trust and … [Read more...] about Apology From Northwestern’s Student Newspaper Sparks Controversy

London (CNN Business)Some of the leading artificial intelligence experts from Africa and South America have been denied visas to attend a major industry conference in Canada, dealing a setback to efforts to prevent bias from taking root in the new technology. Conference organizers say Canadian immigration authorities have denied visas to two dozen academics from countries such as Nigeria and Brazil, preventing them from attending the event next month in Vancouver. Katherine Heller, a professor who serves as co-chair of diversity and inclusion at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, said organizers "are trying extremely hard" to have the visa denials overturned. "It is very significant for the field of AI that all voices be heard," she said. AI can learn how a pizza is assembled. Here's why that matters The problem of algorithmic bias in data science has become more pronounced, and there's mounting evidence that AI-powered algorithms display bias against … [Read more...] about AI has a bias problem. Barring African experts from a conference in Canada won’t help

New York (CNN Business)Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the photo-sharing platform is still figuring out how to address doctored videos, also known as deepfakes. "We don't have a policy against deepfakes currently," Mosseri told CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King in an interview that aired Tuesday. "We're trying to evaluate if we wanted to do that and if so, how you would define deepfakes." Mosseri joined Instagram's parent company Facebook (FB) in 2008 and took the helm of Instagram in October 2018 after the founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company. King asked Mosseri about a deepfake video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which falsely portrays him as saying, "Imagine this for a second: One man, with total control of billions of people's stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures." The video was made by using 2017 footage of Zuckerberg from CBS's streaming news service CBSN with artificial intelligence technology to manipulate Zuckerberg's face to … [Read more...] about Instagram head says company is evaluating how to handle deepfakes

San Francisco (CNN Business)The photo is undeniably cute: a mom and a dad — he with a stubbly beard and rimless glasses, she with choppy brown hair and a wide grin — goofing around and eating ice cream with their two toddler daughters. The picture, which was uploaded to photo-sharing site Flickr in 2013, isn't just adorable; with a bunch of different faces in various positions, it's also useful for training facial-recognition systems, which use artificial intelligence to identify people in photos and videos. It was among a million images that IBM harnessed for a new project that aims to help researchers study fairness and accuracy in facial recognition, called Diversity in Faces. The woman who shot the image, a librarian in rural Vermont named Jessamyn West, was surprised and angry when she found out the photo was being used by IBM. She had uploaded it to Flickr with a Creative Commons license that lets others use the photo. But something about not knowing that this image, … [Read more...] about If your image is online, it might be training facial-recognition AI