Thursday, April 09, 2015

drag2share: IBM starts testing AI software that mimics the human brain

source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/09/ibm-numenta-ai-software/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

We haven't talked about Numenta since an HP exec left to join the company in 2011, because, well, it's been keeping a pretty low-profile existence. Now, a big name tech corp is reigniting interest in the company and its artificial intelligence software. According to MIT's Technology Review, IBM has recently started testing Numenta's algorithms for practical tasks, such as analyzing satellite imagery of crops and spotting early signs of malfunctioning field machinery. Numenta's technology caught IBM's eye, because it works more similarly to the human brain than other AI software. The 100-person IBM team that's testing the algorithms is led by veteran researcher Winfried Wilcke, who had great things to say about the technology during a conference talk back in February.

Tech Review says he praised Numenta for "being closer to biological reality than other machine learning software" -- in other words, it's more brain-like compared to its rivals. For instance, it can make sense of data more quickly than competitors, which have to be fed tons of examples, before they can see patterns and handle their jobs. As such, Numenta's algorithms can potentially give rise to more intelligent software.

The company has its share of critics, however. Gary Marcus, a New York University psychology professor and a co-founder of another AI startup, told Tech Review that while Numenta's creation is pretty brain-like, it's oversimplified. So far, he's yet to see it "try to handle natural language understanding or even produce state-of-the-art results in image recognition." It would be interesting to see IBM use the technology to develop, for example, speech-to-text software head and shoulders above the rest or a voice assistant that can understand any accent, as part of its tests. At the moment, though, Numenta's employees are focusing on teaching the software to control physical equipment to be used in future robots.

[Image credit: Petrovich9/Getty]

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Wednesday, April 08, 2015

DJI's Phantom 3 brings 4K recording to its most popular drone

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/08/dji-phantom-3-professional-4k-hands-on/

DJI's Phantom series of read-to-fly quadcopters have been instrumental in bringing drones into mainstream consciousness. Particularly the Phantom 2 Vision+, which made silky-smooth aerial video possible for have-a-go pilots right out of the box (most other methods involve a fair amount of assembly). Today, the Phantom family grows again with two new members: the Phantom 3 Professional and the Phantom 3 Advanced. So what's new? And, more importantly, which one do you want?

Historically, DJI sells a base model Phantom without a camera, and you could pay a bit more for a Phantom "Vision" to get one built-in. At launch, the Phantom 3 comes with a camera and gimbal (stabilizer) built-in by default. The "Vision" branding has been replaced by "Professional" and "Advanced" to identify which camera you'll be getting: 4K(30fps)/12-megapixel and 1080p(up to 60fps)/12-megapixel respectively.

We asked DJI about a camera-less Phantom 3, and Director of communications, Michael Perry, tolds us "The only thing we're announcing is the Phantom 3 Professional and the Phantom 3 Advanced. As you can probably tell by the name there's scope for more." We're reading between the lines, but a Phantom 3 without a camera (and thus suitable for a third party cameras/a GoPro) at a later date seems very likely.

The Phantom 3 isn't just about the camera, the drone's been updated to include indoor positioning sensors (so if you film inside, it's less likely to crash) similar to what we saw in the Inspire 1, and GPS has been improved with support for GLONASS also. Newbie pilots will benefit from auto take-off and landing (another feature inherited from the Inspire). But for the most part (at least the looks), it's the same Phantom that we know and love (with swanky gold stickers!).

The Vision models introduced a feature that sent a low-quality live feed from the camera to your phone (known as first-person view, or FPV) that needed an ugly WiFi booster bolted onto the controller. This has been scrapped in place of DJI's own "lightbridge" technology baked right in the the Phantom 3 and its controller. What that means for you, is that there's no longer a WiFi dongle (that needs charging!) hanging off your controller -- and no more fiddly setting up of WiFi networks. Connect your phone/tablet (Android or iOS) to the controller by USB, and voila -- 720p HD live feed from the skies direct to your mobile device/DJI app from over a mile away. Flight times are estimated at about 23 minutes per battery.

This feed is where the fun starts. With your phone's data connection sat there, DJI decided it'd be a waste not to use it -- so (bandwidth provided) you can live stream from the Phantom 3 directly to YouTube (no need to jeopardize an iPhone running Periscope). When shooting something particularly cool, you can also mark the moment as a highlight, and when you're done, the app automatically edits a director's cut for you to share or enjoy later.

The camera on the Phantom 2 Vision+ wasn't our favourite. It did a decent job, but a wide field of view, and modest specifications meant lots of distortion, and an overcast sky was all it took for it to give less than great results. The cameras in the Phantom 3's appear to be an all round upgrade. For example, the f/2.8 shooter now has a 94-degree fixed field-of-view compared to the Vision+, which was 140 and suffered fisheye pretty bad. The narrower view also means you should rarely see the landing gear in shot -- which is pretty much the quickest way to ruin a killer video. If you want a little more control, there are settings for ISO, exposure, shutter speed and color filters, plus the camera can be tilted through 120-degrees of pitch to further up your cinematic/Spielberg game.

If you were hoping for waypoint flying and other such tricks, sadly, no dice. The Phantom 3 still has the necessary hardware, but that's left for keeping its position, and returning to home if it loses connection/the battery runs out. DJI likely hopes this sort of feature is more for customers of the Inspire 1. But, as drone tech progresses, many are starting to expect this sort of thing as standard. This doesn't mean that's it for software features though, DJI is opening up access to the camera downlink, which means you can expect to third-part apps to start popping up to add extra functionality, albeit indirectly.

So, which one do you want? After all, DJI has quite a few drones to choose from now. The Inspire 1 is still the coolest product the company makes, but it's also a "cool" $3,400. A Phantom 2 and gimbal for a GoPro currently costs $850 (plus upwards of $400 for the GoPro -- you'll pay even more for FPV). At $1,260 the Phantom 3 is the same price as the Phantom 2 with camera and gimbal, but with the added indoor sensors, software perks and FPV features on top. If you can live without 4K, then the "Advanced" at $1,000, will be even more tempting. Until we know how well those cameras perform though (we'll be sure to let you know, soon), you'll have to make do with the official promo videos.

The Phantom 3 Professional and Advanced launch in the coming weeks.

[Image credits: Aaron Souppouris]

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drag2share: Microsoft just made an aggressive move against Google in the cloud wars

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/D8aivgQljzw/microsoft-launches-its-own-container-technology-2015-4

halo 5 guardians

There's a war going on between Microsoft, Google, and Amazon that's almost entirely invisible to the majority of the world that doesn't code. 

Each of the three technology giants has a cloud platform, where applications can run at tremendous scales more efficiently in their own data centers.

Obviously, each would rather developers use their cloud platform than those others. That means giving the people who build applications the tools they want and the tools they need. 

Today, Microsoft made a very aggressive move in that direction with the launch of Hyper-V containers and Microsoft Nano Server, two very boring-sounding technologies that have tremendous implications for how Microsoft works with developers.

Right now, there's a tremendous shift going on in application development. Developers are turning to what we call "containers" to package applications up in such a way that they can run anywhere, on any cloud. Google's been using containers in its own data center to great effect for many years.  

But most of those containers still need an operating system to run inside of them. Just this week, Google led a $12 million round of funding for CoreOS, which makes an extremely stripped-down version of Linux that's ideal for this — full operating systems make the containers slow and clunky, so leanness is a virtue. 

Now, Microsoft has its own competitor with Microsoft Nano Server, a version of its flagship Windows Server that strips out everything including the user interface in the name of making containers into lean, mean, computing machines. 

"As customers adopt modern applicat! ions and next-generation cloud technologies, they need an OS that delivers speed, agility and lower resource consumption," writes Microsoft in the official blog entry.

As for those Hyper-V containers, they use Microsoft's trademark hypervisor in conjunction with the hyper-hot Docker container technology to help customers manage the applications they have running in the cloud, all in the name of more efficiency. 

This is going to be a tightrope walk for Microsoft. On the one hand, Microsoft wants to ensure the dominance of Windows Server far into the future of the cloud. On the other hand, developers have never had more options, and containers give them even more choices about who they give their business to. The same is true for Google and Amazon, both of which also support containers. 

But with Google's CoreOS investment — and the fact that some of Google's technology made its way into CoreOS product — and Microsoft's announcements here, it looks like they're going to be fighting for cloud dominance with developers as their proxies, even as Microsoft works hard at opening the door to outside technologies like never before. 

Microsoft will release more details on the future of Windows Server at its Microsoft Build event later this month. 

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Canon's C300 Mark II cinema camera will cost you $20,000

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/08/canon-c300-mark-ii/

More than three years after launching the C300, Canon is refreshing its line of cinema cameras with the C300 Mark II. On the outside, the C300 Mark II is quite similar to its EOS siblings, although it does come with a slightly tweaked design that features a wider body. But the most important changes are elsewhere. For one, Canon has made the new cinema camera capable of recording 4K internally, via CFast 2.0 cards -- as opposed to the first version, which couldn't handle this type of footage natively. The C300 Mark II sports a pair of DIGIC DV 5 processors, an ISO range of up to 102,400 and a brand new 8.85-megapixel, Super 35mm CMOS sensor, which can shoot video at full HD (1,920 x 1,080), 2K DCI (2,048 X 1,080), 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) and, perhaps most importantly, 4K DCI (4,096 x 2,160).

Canon's now using a high-bitrate codec named XF-AVC, with support for up to 410 Mbps; there's the option for uncompressed RAW output as well, but you'll need an external recorder to do that. Now, the C300 Mark II isn't here to replace the original model, but rather sit between it and the C500, the company's higher-end, pro-grade camera. But being in the middle of the pack doesn't mean that it'll be cheap. The C300 Mark II is set to be priced at $20,000 when it launches in September -- and Canon says you'll have the option to choose between an EF or PL mount, depending on your needs.

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Canon XC10 camcorder shoots 4K and looks damn good doing it

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/08/canon-xc10-4k-camcorder/

It's hard to get too excited about camcorders these days, what with most of them looking basically the same -- never mind how useful they may be sometimes. Canon's new XC10, on the other hand, is one that instantly caught our attention, thanks to its distinctive, out-of-the-ordinary design. And that's not even the best part. The XC10 can shoot 4K and 1080p video at up to 30 fps and 60 fps, respectively; on the former, there's support for both Ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160) and cinematic 4K (4,096 x 2,160), bringing it on par with the newly announced C300 Mark II. What's more, this Canon 4K camcorder features a 1-inch, 12-megapixel CMOS sensor, alongside a Digic DV 5 processor, 10x wide-angle zoom lens and optical image stabilization -- which should make for rather smooth videos.

Canon says that the XC10 is lighter than many of its DSLRs, including members of the 5D and Rebel lines, noting that it could be perfect for drone shoots. With an ISO range of up to 20,000, a continuous AF mode (with face detection), fast-motion recording, dedicated microphone and headphone jacks, WiFi and support for still photography, there's no doubt the company wanted to make this a top-of-the-line camcorder. When it arrives in June, Canon's 4K-ready XC10 will be $2,500 (64GB CFast 2.0 card included), a reasonably affordable price for a camera that's packed to the punch.

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