Rohit Prasad, Vice President and Head Scientist of Alexa at Amazon, writes: While Turing’s original vision continues to be inspiring, interpreting his test as the ultimate mark of AI’s progress is limited by the era when it was introduced. For one, the Turing Test all but discounts AI’s machine-like attributes of fast computation and information lookup, features that are some of…
Tag: seattle
Oracle Is Moving Its Headquarters From Silicon Valley To Austin, Texas
Oracle said on Friday it’s moving its headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas. CNBC reports: “Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they…
Microsoft, Unilever Join Amazon’s Pledge To Fight Climate Change
Amazon.com has added a competitor to its year-old coalition of companies pledging to reduce their contribution to climate change: Microsoft. From a report: The two technology giants, neighbors in the Seattle area and rivals in cloud computing and business software, have each spent much of the last two years announcing increasingly aggressive climate targets, including dueling umbrella organizations for companies willing…
Amazon Fire TV Adds Local News In 12 U.S. Cities, With 90 More Coming In 2021
At the end of a record-setting year of news consumption, Amazon Fire TV said local TV stations in 12 U.S. cities will be added to Amazon’s news app, with another 90 on deck for 2021. From a report: The initial dozen stations are in New York, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle. The roster…
US Broadband Speeds Jumped 90% In 2020. But No, It Had Nothing To Do With Net Neutrality.
An anonymous reader shares a report from Techdirt: Last last week, a report out of the UK topped the trending news items at Hacker News. The report found that U.S. broadband speeds — historically the poster child for mediocrity — jumped roughly 90% during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The improvements weren’t consistent geographically, and the report was quick to note that by…
Pushed by Pandemic, Amazon Goes on a Hiring Spree Without Equal
Amazon has embarked on an extraordinary hiring binge this year, vacuuming up an average of 1,400 new workers a day and solidifying its power as online shopping becomes more entrenched in the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: The hiring has taken place at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, at its hundreds of warehouses in rural communities and suburbs, and in countries such…
Nintendo Sues More Hack Sellers, ‘a Worsening International Problem’
Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against an Amazon Nintendo Switch hack reseller — the sort of litigation it’s taken on in similar cases in the past. Nintendo’s lawyers allege the Amazon seller, Le Hoang Minh, circumvents Nintendo’s copyright measures in selling an RCM Loader, used to “jailbreak” the Nintendo Switch. From a report: The lawsuit was filed in a…
Moon, Venus, Mercury before daybreak
These next several days, watch as the waning crescent moon joins up with the planets Mercury and Venus, plus the star Spica, in the eastern predawn/dawn sky. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-venus-mercury-before-daybreak…
Microsoft Overhauls Excel With Live Custom Data Types
Microsoft is overhauling Excel with the ability to support custom live data types. The Verge reports: You could import the data type for Seattle, for example, and then create a formula that references that single cell to pull out information on the population of Seattle. These data types work by cramming a set of structured data into a single cell in…
Firm invents nuclear thermal propulsion engine
A new type of propulsion system is being developed that could significantly reduce the time it takes to reach Mars. The brainchild of Seattle-based US… Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/340415/firm-invents-nuclear-thermal-propulsion-engine…