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Chinese Startup Mobike Lost More Than 200,000 Bikes in 2019

Chinese startup Mobike has announced that it lost more than 200,000 bikes in 2019. From a report: The company said in a blog that 205,600 "dockless" bikes were lost to theft and vandalism . In 2018, it pulled out of Manchester after a series of incidents. Shared dockless bikes, which are hired via an app, have become commonplace in cities worldwide over the last few years. Companies like Uber, Lime and Ofo have all put shared bikes on city streets, as have some local councils. In China, thousands of shared bikes have ended up in huge scrapheaps, leading to questions about whether there is demand for them. from Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters https://ift.tt/2FeiF64 via IFTTT

Microsoft Proposes AI That Improves When You Smile

Positive affectivity, or the characteristic that describes how people experience affects (e.g., sensations, emotions, and sentiments) and interact with others as a result, has been linked to increased interest and curiosity as well as satisfaction in learning. Inspired by this, a team of Microsoft researchers propose imbuing reinforcement learning, an AI training technique that employs rewards to spur systems toward goals, with positive affect , which they assert might drive exploration useful in gathering experiences critical to learning. From a report: As the researchers explain, reinforcement learning is commonly implemented via policy-specific rewards designed for a predefined goal. Problematically, these extrinsic rewards are narrow in scope and can be difficult to define, as opposed to intrinsic rewards that are task-independent and quickly indicate success or failure. In pursuit of an intrinsic policy, the researchers developed a framework comprising mechanisms motivated by huma...

Ubisoft Uses AI To Teach a Car To Drive Itself in a Racing Game

An anonymous reader shares a report: Reinforcement learning, an AI training technique that employs rewards to drive software policies toward goals, has been applied successfully to domains from industrial robotics to drug discovery. But while firms including OpenAI and Alphabet's DeepMind have investigated its efficacy in video games like Dota 2, Quake III Arena, and StarCraft 2, few to date have studied its use under constraints like those encountered in the game industry. That's presumably why Ubisoft La Forge, game developer Ubisoft's eponymous prototyping space, proposed in a recent paper an algorithm that's able to handle discrete, continuous video game actions in a "principled" and predictable way . They set it loose on a "commercial game" (likely The Crew or The Crew 2, though neither is explicitly mentioned) and report that it's competitive with state-of-the-art benchmark tasks. "Reinforcement Learning applications in video games h...

How the On-Demand Economy Reshaped Cities

Since 2010, a slew of on-demand companies and technologies have managed to use consumer data to transform the commercial significance of urban living . From a report: Historically, one of the great economic benefits of urban life is having access to jobs, schooling, goods, and services without needing to travel very far. But digital platforms that aggregate consumer demand are making physical density less important. Uber and Airbnb, the killer apps of the 2010s, exemplify this change. Once upon a time, visitors needed to flock to quarters where a city's supply of hotel accommodations and other tourist amenities were physically consolidated, usually downtown. If you needed a ride, you used to call the taxi company directly, or flag down one of the cabs that served that area. Now we transmit our demands for trips and beds as data from wherever we are, rather than direct interactions that depend on physical nearness. Uber and Airbnb consolidate our requests with those of a sea of ot...

IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not To Compete With TurboTax

Finding free online tax filing should be easier this year for millions of Americans. From a report: The IRS announced significant changes Monday to its deal with the tax prep software industry. Now companies are barred from hiding their free products from search engines such as Google, and a years-old prohibition on the IRS creating its own online filing system has been scrapped. The addendum to the deal, known as Free File, comes after ProPublica's reporting this year on how the industry, led by TurboTax maker Intuit, has long misled taxpayers who are eligible to file for free into paying . Under the nearly two-decade-old Free File deal, the industry agreed to make free versions of tax filing software available to lower- and middle-income Americans. In exchange, the IRS promised not to compete with the industry by creating its own online filing system. Many developed countries have such systems, allowing most citizens to file their taxes for free. The prohibition on the IRS crea...

Trump Signs Traced Act Into Law in Bid To Help Put an End To Robocalls

The fight against annoying robocalls just got another boost. This week President Trump signed the Traced Act into law, giving government agencies and law enforcement officials more weapons to go after individuals and companies who break telephone consumer-protection laws . From a report: The bi-partisan legislation was previously approved by the House and Senate, respectively, earlier this month before arriving on the president's desk. Crafted by Sens. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, and Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, among the act's features are an increase in penalties for those scammers who knowingly initiate illegal robocalls and the requirement that phone companies authenticate calls to determine if the number calling you is real. As part of a Federal Communications Commission push, major wireless carriers and home phone providers have been implementing a verification process known as STIR/SHAKEN throughout 2019 to authenticate calls and fight spamme...

4 Trends that are Transforming the Future of Healthcare

4 Trends that are Transforming the Future of Healthcare Yoav Vilner / AI , Health , ReadWrite From drinking one’s own urine as a cure for broken bones to blood-letting to sending electrical shocks through a person’s body as a cure for mental illness — healthcare has a somewhat jaded past. Fortunately, as technology has improved our ability to study human physiology, medical professionals have become increasingly adept at diagnosing and curing […] from ReadWrite - The Blog of Things https://ift.tt/37qWAxu via IFTTT

Sonos Gives a Lame Reason For Bricking Older Devices in 'Recycle Mode'

Sonos has a good reputation for building quality speakers, but its latest move has disappointed some buyers, reports Engadget . From a report: Recently, the company offered a trade-up program, giving legacy customers 30 percent off the latest One, Beam or Port. In exchange, buyers just had to "recycle" their existing products. However, what Sonos meant by "recycle" was to activate a feature called "Recycle Mode" that permanently bricks the speaker. It then becomes impossible for recycling firms to resell it or do anything else but strip it for parts . Sonos suggests that after bricking the device in Recycle Mode, users drop it off at a recycling facility or give it to Sonos to do the same. However, those facilities are unable to resell the products, which could bring around $200 to $250 in good condition. The problem was brought home by Twitter user @atomicthumbs, who works at an e-recycling facility. "This is the most environmentally unfriendly abuse...

The 12 Best Video Games Of 2019

26 min ago Save Read on 26 min ago Read on 26 min ago Year In Review The 12 Best Video Games Of 2019 Riley MacLeod 68 Save 2019 has run its course, and now we have a whole new decade to look forward to. As always, Kotaku ’s staff has come together to pick our favorite games of the year. Here, in alphabetical order, are our top 12 games of 2019. from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/2ZGq9Zm via IFTTT

Major US Companies Breached, Robbed, and Spied on by Chinese Hackers

Rob Barry and Dustin Volz, reporting for Wall Street Journal : The hackers seemed to be everywhere. In one of the largest-ever corporate espionage efforts, cyberattackers alleged to be working for China's intelligence services stole volumes of intellectual property, security clearance details and other records from scores of companies over the past several years. They got access to systems with prospecting secrets for mining company Rio Tinto, and sensitive medical research for electronics and health-care giant Philips NV. They came in through cloud service providers, where companies thought their data was safely stored. Once they got in, they could freely and anonymously hop from client to client, and defied investigators' attempts to kick them out for years. Cybersecurity investigators first identified aspects of the hack, called Cloud Hopper by the security researchers who first uncovered it, in 2016, and U.S. prosecutors charged two Chinese nationals for the global operatio...

I Never Knew How Much I Needed a Star Wars TV Series Before The Mandalorian

53 min ago 2 io9 Television 53 min ago io9 Television 53 min ago io9 Television I Never Knew How Much I Needed a Star Wars TV Series Before The Mandalorian Rob Bricken 57 2 In the last week and a half, two Star Wars sagas have come to a close. First The Rise of Skywalker wrapped up the sequel trilogy, followed this past Friday by season one finale of the first live-action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian . Only one of these stories managed to unite and delight the bulk of the… from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/36g5xcS via IFTTT

Our Top Posts of the Decade: A Dubious List for a Meaningless Timeline

1 hr ago 1 Decade's End 1 hr ago Decade's End 1 hr ago Decade's End Our Top Posts of the Decade: A Dubious List for a Meaningless Timeline Gizmodo Staff 3 1 As far as we can tell, the 2010s were nothing close to what most of us expected. Instead of flying cars , we got half-baked semi-autonomous vehicles . Instead of social media birthing kumbaya, it fueled genocide and helped erode the foundations of democracy and reality itself . Rather than tackle the impending doom of… from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/2ZDNOJK via IFTTT

3D TV Tells You Everything About This Decade's Tech

You don't need special glasses to see what it looks like when smart people run out of ideas . From a column: The breakout hit of the Consumer Electronics Show in 2010 was a television set. Hard to believe now, maybe, but it's true; for one shining moment, the Toshiba Cell TV was the most exciting new thing in tech. Its name invoked the overkill processors inside. It was one of the first sets to promise "Net TV Channels" that would let you stream directly from Netflix or Pandora. And it could show pictures in three dimensions. [...] Five years later, 3D TV was dead. You probably haven't thought about it since then, if you even did before. But there's maybe no better totem for the last decade of consumer technology. It's what happens when smart people run out of ideas, the last gasp before aspiration gives way to commoditization. It was the dawn of all-internet everything, and all the privacy violations inherent in that. And it steadfastly ignored how human ...

Samsung Is Making the Best Phones

24 min ago Save Samsung 24 min ago Samsung 24 min ago Samsung Samsung Is Making the Best Phones Sam Rutherford 4 Save Last year after a somewhat lackluster product cycle, I said Samsung couldn’t afford to hold back anymore. And in 2019, it seems Samsung took that message to heart because it released some of the most exciting phone tech we’ve seen in the last 12 months. from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/2ZDbIVT via IFTTT

In 2020, Here's How You Can Help Address the Climate Crisis

39 min ago Save Earther Environmental Justice 39 min ago Earther Environmental Justice 39 min ago Earther Environmental Justice In 2020, Here's How You Can Help Address the Climate Crisis Brian Kahn 2 Save This is the time of year when we talk about nice things. Hopeful things. from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/36g6YIi via IFTTT

What The Witcher Gets Wrong (and Right) About Disability Narratives

54 min ago 1 io9 Television 54 min ago io9 Television 54 min ago io9 Television What The Witcher Gets Wrong (and Right) About Disability Narratives Kristen Lopez 73 1 The world of fantasy has been one of the few genres to regularly include disabled characters, though this inclusion has always come with the concept of disfigurement and grotesquerie. One of the most famous disabled fantasy characters, George R.R. Martin’s Tyrion Lannister, is described in the first volume of the A … from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/37nWo1T via IFTTT

How FinTech Application Development Transforms the Finance Industry

How FinTech Application Development Transforms the Finance Industry Harikrishna Kundariya / Fintech FinTech or Financial technology has become a popular industry for helping to innovate financial transaction services and online security. It is a broad term that works around the business transformation to innovate the traditional financial services that are inefficient, antiquated, and expensive. Innovation has made the process transparent and straightforward. We must understand how FinTech […] from ReadWrite - The Blog of Things https://ift.tt/36fdaA5 via IFTTT

Fireworks, Long a German New Year's Eve Tradition, Are Losing Their Luster

Fireworks have long been a staple of New Year's Eve celebrations in Germany, with revelers setting off their own pyrotechnics in the annual reverie of booze and exuberance known in the country as "Silvester." But for the first time this year, Berlin will join dozens of other German cities and communities in instituting a partial ban on private fireworks , with three zones in the capital designated fireworks free on New Year's Eve. From a report: Most official and private fireworks displays will continue as normal -- including the spectacular show at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate -- and skies over much of the country will still be alight, saturated with the sound of millions of tiny explosions. But as the decade comes to a close, Germany's commitment to one of its most enduring New Year's Eve traditions seems to be wavering. The reasons vary: Berlin's ban is focused on public safety, while Aachen, a town in western Germany that limited the use of hig...

US Retailers Rush To Comply With California Privacy Law

U.S. retailers including Walmart will add "Do Not Sell My Info" links to their websites and signage in stores starting Jan. 1 , allowing California shoppers to understand for the first time what personal and other data the retailers collect, Reuters reported Tuesday citing sources. From the report: Others like Home Depot will allow shoppers not just in California but around the country to access such information online. At its California stores, Home Depot will add signs, offer QR codes so shoppers can look up information using their mobile devices and train store employees to answer questions. Large U.S retailers are rushing to comply with a new law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which becomes effective at the start of 2020 and is one of the most significant regulations overseeing the data collection practices of U.S. companies. It lets shoppers opt out of allowing retailers and other companies to sell personal data to third parties. In addition to retailers, ...

The Absolute Worst Tech of 2019

24 min ago 1 Year In Review 24 min ago Year In Review 24 min ago Year In Review The Absolute Worst Tech of 2019 Alex Cranz 1 Gadgets have to work a lot harder to suck in 2019 than they have in years past. They have to bankrupt companies, reveal our data, or be so overpriced they even make Apple look cheap. The gadget below did all that, but some went even further. Some were pointless Skymall dreck, and some nearly ruined much nicer and… from Gizmodo | We come from the future https://ift.tt/37vpuN3 via IFTTT