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Google to Reward $25 Million to the Winners of AI Impact Challenge 2019

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Artificial Intelligence holds a great contribution to the world of technology. But like the sci-fi movies, the AI has got various hazardous impacts to the world, too. Maybe thinking of that, Google is inspired to obtain something better from the AI, and at an event called AI for Social Good, held at the company’s Sunnyvale, California office, it announced a competition for the AI developers, called the AI Impact Challenge.

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According to the announcement, the competition will include non-profit organizations, like universities and colleges, and the other organizations that are not related to the corporate world. The teams will participate in the competition with ideas that will focus on solving social problems with the help of AI.

Google will provide the participants with cloud resources for their projects, and the winners will be rewarded with an amount of $25 million. The initiative is a part of Google’s charitable unit Google.org. The company has said that the participants can be professional AI experts or maybe with no AI skills, as the company will provide the competitors with guides who will help them with their projects. During the event, Google said, “An international panel of experts, who work in computer science and the social sector will assess the proposals to select top winners in the spring of 2019.”

The initiative taken by Google is a part of the ‘AI for Social Good’ and will address the issues like data security, environmental conservation, human trafficking, health care, and other serious issues like controversial military works. In the competition, the participants will be finding the best solution for those issues, using the AI.

Google’s artificial intelligence chief, Jeff Dean, said, “Artificial intelligence is not just helping people create more useful products, we use it in a lot of ways throughout many Google products but is also emerging as a really powerful tool for improving the society that we live in.”

Google is accepting the applications for the competition from today, and the names of the accepted grantees will be announced at the Google I/O developer conference next year. Also, after the competition, the participants may receive some job offers from the Google AI research centres, established earlier this year, in places like France and Ghana, etc.

IBM to Acquire Red Hat to Become World’s Number One Hybrid Cloud Provider

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IBM, on Sunday, has announced that it is planning to acquire the American’s multinational open-source software development company, the Red Hat, to create the leading hybrid/multi-cloud provider. The Red Hat is the publicly traded company that has a market cap of $20.5 billion, with 176 million its shares are outstanding.

Noticeably, Red Hat is the software provider for the largest tech giants including Google, Amazon and Microsoft. That means after, IBM and Red Hat join their hands, IBM will automatically be delivering services to its rival companies.

The changing technology within the past few years has brought many changes the users used the technology. And, in no time the user’s data was moved from the hard disk of their desktops to the clouds. The Dropbox, Netflix, Flickr, Google Drive, Microsoft Office 365, Yahoo Mail are all cloud services and are the most used applications by the users. The only difficulty in using those cloud services is the moving of the data between those applications. But the deal between IBM and Red Hat will be a hybrid cloud arrangement, that will focus on solving the issue, as they together will provide the facility to move the data between various cloud services.

Ginni Rometty, IBM’s chairman, president and chief executive said, “The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer, It changes everything about the cloud market.” The companies have called the deal, but IBM has to get approval from the other shareholders too, for that it has scheduled a conference call with investors on Monday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

The deal will be closed by paying Red Hat $190 a share in cash, with an enterprise value of about $34 billion. The deal will accelerate the IBM’s high business model and will make it world’s number one hybrid cloud provider. Red Hat will still retain its open-source legacy and operate as a distinct unit. The deal is expected to close by the end of the half of 2019.

Failed to Protect User Data Facebook got Fined by the UK Govt.

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Facebook has been facing a lot due to its data privacy issues for the past few months. This time it has been attacked by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. According to the UK’s security watchdog, Facebook has supported some major security breaches of the data protection law, in the past. For this, the ICO has fined Facebook for $644,000 (£500,000). Facebook has been imposed with the maximum amount of fine, to be paid for the breach of the data protection law in the UK after it was found guilty in an investigation.

According to the investigation, Facebook is responsible for the stealing of 1 million Facebook users’ personal information, in the UK. Also, between 2007-2014, Facebook carelessly allowed the third-parties to use the data of the Facebook users, without their consent.

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The ICO carried out the investigation after the security breach, by GSR developer, in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, earlier this year. The scandal included the harvesting of private data, from up to 87 million Facebook users, around the world without their knowledge. The report included the stealing and misuse of the personal data of the Facebook users, during the referendum on the U.K.’s membership of the European Union, for the political campaign in 2016.

The UK’s Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, confirming the news, said, “Facebook failed to sufficiently protect the privacy of its users before, during, and after the unlawful processing of this data. A company of its size and expertise should have known better, and it should have done better.”

Before the Cambridge Analytica’s scandal was officially out, the Guardian investigation, in 2016, had already provided a report, on the bases of the statement of a whistleblower from the company who described how the data of the Facebook users was stolen to target the voters.

About the fine imposed on Facebook, the CEO of Mark Zuckerburg has said that they are reviewing the whole situation. “we have a lot more work to do to safeguard personal data,” he added. A spokesperson from Facebook also said, “While we respectfully disagree with some of their findings, we have said before that we should have done more to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica and taken action in 2015. We are grateful that the ICO has acknowledged our full cooperation throughout their investigation.”

ICO will present further evidence regarding the case in the coming November, in front of the UK government. Also, it has summoned Mark Zuckerberg, to testify about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, that is scheduled for the month of May in 2019.

AT&T Planning the Trials of New Android-based Streaming Device in 2019

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AT&T, after facing a decline in its traditional pay-TV business, has decided and buckled up for launching its new streaming device, that, AT&T is, currently, beta testing. The streaming device, named as Osprey, is a set-top box, that targets to run on the Android TV and allows the access to other streaming apps. The news was officially announced by John Donovan, the CEO of AT&T Communications, on the third earnings call of AT&T.

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AT&T went through a net loss of 346,000 traditional TV customers. Still, it has gained 49,000 for its DirecTV Now, streaming service and with the increasing popularity of Android TV, AT&T has figured out the way to recover its losses and lost customers. Developing a device basically to run with an Android TV can be considered a remarkable move for the business of AT&T.

Donovan said, “we expect this service to be EBITDA positive, and over time, it should lower the acquisition cost of our premium video service.” Last year, Variety reported the development of such device that was later, confirmed by AT&T.

The set-top box will support the voice remote, 4K playback, and also, will run the third-party Android apps. The company is more focused on improving profitability and will adopt more deliberate strategies, to break the deals. Donovan added, “Evaluating our channel lineups and taking a fresh look at how we can align content cost with the price.”

The device will be running on the DirecTV Now and the new DirecTV streaming version. AT&T will provide the same contracts and number of channels, in the new set-top-box, but mainly it is focused on eliminating the traditional satellite dish. The trial for the device is expected to start in early 2019, and there has been no statement about the final launch of the device in the market.

The Chinese Amphibious AG600 Completes its First Waterborne Take-off

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AG600
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China, on Saturday, successfully, completed the first takeoff and landing of its amphibious aeroplane, on water, at a reservoir in China’s central Hubei province. The plane is called the Kunlong AG600. Kunlong is a Chinese word, that means Water Dragon. The AG600 is the world’s biggest amphibious plane and has been built by China independently. The aircraft is one of the three largest aircraft of China, including the Y-20 military transport aircraft and the C-919 commercial passenger airliner. During the Saturday’s trial, the AG600 completed a 14-minute ride, successfully.

The Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) began the production of the prototype of the seaplane, in 2014, after China announced the AG600 program, in 2011. The aircraft was first unveiled in July 2016, in Zhuhai city of southern China. The Aircraft carried out its first trial flight, in August 2018, from the Zhuhai airport in the Guangdong province of China, to the Jingmen airport in Hubei province of China.

The aircraft possesses four WJ-6 turboprop engines, the Chinese-made versions of a Russian engine. It is 37 meters long, and the wings are 38.8 meters widespread. The plane can carry 50 people and can hold a maximum take-off weight of 59 tons on land, and 54 tons on the water. AVIC has claimed that the AG600 can stay airborne for up to 12 hours, and its cruising speed can reach up to 500 kilometres per hour. Without the refuelling, the operational range for the aircraft can be about 4,500 kilometres at max.

The production of the AG600 targets at bringing out the maritime search-and-rescue operations and the aerial fire-fighting operations. The aircraft requires a water depth of 2.5 meters for landing and take-off. And, is capable of taking off and land in waves up to 6.5 feet high. The AG600 can resist two-meter-high waves. The aircraft is useful for carrying supplies and military personnel, during any of the Chinese maritime military operations. However, China claims that the AG600 will only be a part of the marine monitoring and safety patrol, the development of the world’s largest amphibious aircraft has raised many eyebrows as well.

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 675 Processor Supporting Tripple Camera & Advanced AI

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Qualcomm, best known for its next-generation mobile technologies and powerful Snapdragon processors, has just launched the new Snapdragon 675, the latest high to the mid-range mobile computing platform. The production of the Snapdragon 625 is basically focussed on the better gaming experience, photography, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The Snapdragon 625 is being considered as an upgrade over the Snapdragon 670 SoC that was launched in August this year. The Snapdragon 625 chipset has the Kryo 460 architecture that is built on the ARM’s Cortex-A76 cores. The architecture is specially designed for high-end smartphones. It is the first time that the processor has been manufactured using the 11nm process. The processor has got two 2.0GHz performance cores, four 2.8GHz performance cores that are based on the Cortex-A75, and six 1.78GHz efficiency-based cores, making the processor faster.

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With Snapdragon 625, Qualcomm has brought the features, that were only available for high-end smartphones, to the mid-range smartphones. Snapdragon 625 has got a new Qualcomm Spectra 250L ISP for 14-bit image signal processing supporting a triple-camera setup, with 5x optical zoom, 48 megapixels, portrait mode, etc.

The processor is also focussed on improving the gaming experience and the AI features. According to the company, the AI features have been improved by 50% than the previous processors, with the help of third-generation Qualcomm AI Engine. The processor supports the Qualcomm Neural Processing Engine SDK, resulting in the addition of features like the adaption of user’s voice, working with multiple voice assistants, etc.

Also, the processor has faster performance, supporting high-end games like PUBG, Best NBA, Honor of Kings, Knives Out, etc. The processor uses the Adreno 612 GPU that supports OpenGL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan, and DirectX 12. Snapdragon X12 LTE modem supports up to 600Mbps LTE connectivity that provides a support for playing the online games without any interruption.

The Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset is used in every other smartphone. The Snapdragon 625 can be considered Qualcomm’s attempt to provide the users of mid-range smartphones a better experience with its high-end features. By the first quarter of next year, you can find the Snapdragon 625 processors out in new Smartphones.