Month: April 2022

Categories
Space Force

To track hypersonic missiles, Space Force to develop ‘at least’ 4 MEO satellites | Breaking Defense

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By October, the Space Force will get the Space Development Agency and the Space and Missile Defense Agency. 

Between FY23 and FY27, $828 million is earmarked for efforts aimed at creating at least four satellites. A multi-layered network of satellites is required to offer a complete warning and monitoring of ballistic and hypersonic missiles. SSC intends to offer follow-on contracts in December to begin development. Budget papers make no mention of whether a single or several contractors will be selected. To provide ballistic and hypersonic missile warning and tracking, a multi-layered network of satellites in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), highly elliptical polar orbit, Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) is required. 

SDA will join the Space Force in October, retaining a semi-independent status. The agency allocates over $12 billion for the initiative between FY23 and FY27.   Source: https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/to-track-hypersonic-missiles-space-force-to-develop-at-least-4-meo-satellites/

Categories
Robots

How to compete with robots | Tech Xplore 

Shutterstock / Contributor AerialVision_it

Career automation and which jobs are most at risk from robots 

Roboticists from EPFL and the University of Lausanne have identified which occupations are most vulnerable to automation. They’ve created a mechanism for advising career transfers to less-risky positions that need less retraining. The study’s primary novelty is a new mapping of robot capabilities to work needs. A team of experts at the University of Lausanne has evaluated the probability of a robot doing each existing profession. “Physicists” are least likely to be replaced by machines, while “Slaughterers and Meat Packers” are most likely. 

Employment in food processing, construction and maintenance, and extraction pose the most significant hazards. A team of academics at the University of Edinburgh has built an algorithm that forecasts the likelihood of automation for hundreds of occupations and offers complete career transitions that need little retraining. They simulated hundreds of career changes based on the algorithm’s predictions to see how it might work in real life. Governments might use the approach to determine the number of people in danger of automation and change retraining programs, businesses to assess the costs of further automation and the general population to choose the most straightforward path to repositioning oneself on the labor market. 

Source: https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-robots.html  

Categories
Machine Learning

Meta AI Researchers Built An End-To-End Machine Learning Platform Called Looper, With Easy-To-Use APIs For Decision-Making And Feedback Collection | Mark Tech Post

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Looper is a comprehensive artificial intelligence platform for optimization, personalization, and growth. 

Looper is a fully integrated artificial intelligence platform for optimization, customization, and feedback collecting developed by Meta Researchers. Looper can support the whole machine learning lifecycle, from model training through deployment and inference and product assessment and optimization. The Looper platform now hosts 700 AI models and generates 4 million AI outputs every second. It is intended for use cases with limited data volumes and model complexity that demand simplicity and speedy implementation. Looper runs in real-time, in contrast to many other AI systems, which make inferences in batch mode. 

Unlike large-scale AI models for vision, speech, and natural language processing, Looper uses models that can be rapidly retrained and deployed in huge numbers on shared infrastructure. A/B testing may investigate several models and decision rules, such as those employed by contextual bandits to mimic prediction uncertainty across one or more targets. A simple-to-use AI platform is often the deciding factor in adoption for teams with no previous expertise with production AI. Meta’s platform takes care of software updates, log management, and monitoring, resulting in considerable productivity improvements: It enables product makers to deploy more AI use cases than solutions with a restricted emphasis. Product teams have a spectrum of AI capabilities between beginners and expert AI engineers.

Source: https://www.marktechpost.com/2022/04/22/meta-ai-researchers-built-an-end-to-end-machine-learning-platform-called-looper-with-easy-to-use-apis-for-decision-making-and-feedback-collection/

Categories
Information Warfare

Russian court fines Google for promoting banned Ukrainian content | Jurist

Shutterstock / Contributor Sergei Elagin

The Prosecutor General’s Office had ordered that Google delete this information, as well as films, from Alexey Navalny’s official YouTube channel and the Ukrainian non-governmental group Free Idel-Ural. 

A Moscow district court ruled on Thursday that Google must pay a fine of 7.2 million rubles ($86,394) for distributing content that is illegal in Russia. Judge Timur Vakhrameev’s verdict found Google guilty of violating Article 13.41 of Russia’s Administrative Code, which punishes failure to erase material considered unlawful by Russian Federation laws. Videos of the Azov regiment and the so-called Right Sector volunteer Ukrainian corps are among the items in question. The films, according to the court’s ruling, advocate for “terrorist assaults and destruction against Russian Federation territory.” The Prosecutor General’s Office had ordered that Google delete this information, as well as films, from Alexey Navalny’s official YouTube channel and the Ukrainian non-governmental group Free Idel-Ural. Google, on the other hand, ignored the directives. 

Source: https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/04/russian-court-fines-google-for-promoting-banned-ukrainian-content/ 

Categories
Gaming

Valheim has sold over 10 million copies | PC Gamer

Shutterstock / Contributor Rokas Tenys

Over the same time span, developer Iron Gate has doubled in size. 

Valheim was named PC Gamer’s game of the year for 2021, and many gamers agree: the co-op king has already sold over 10 million copies. Iron Gate Studio announced the achievement in a press statement, noting that work on the planned Mistlands expansion is still ongoing. The game has been released for a little over a year and is still in Early Access. Over half a million people played it on Steam at its height, and it currently has just under 300,000 ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ ratings on the marketplace. The announcement of 10 million purchases is accompanied by a short description of what’s in store for the next year, which includes, among other things, a new biome, new foes, and new crafting materials. 

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/valheim-has-sold-over-10-million-copies/