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In the June 8 SN: Measles roars back, collapsars spin gold, a new kind of dementia, the Southern Ocean's secrets, Denisovans lived on top of the world, and more.
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Feature
AI can learn real-world skills from playing StarCraft and Minecraft
05/14/2019 - 12:07 Artificial Intelligence, Computing, RoboticsDario Wünsch was feeling confident. The 28-year-old from Leipzig, Germany, was about to become the first professional gamer to take on the artificial intelligence program AlphaStar in the rapid-fire video game StarCraft II. Wünsch had been professionally playing StarCraft II, in which competitors command alien fleets vying for territory, for nearly a decade. No way could he lose this five-...
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News
Facebook data show how many people left Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
05/03/2019 - 07:00 Science & Society, Technology, ComputingHurricane Maria sent Puerto Ricans fleeing from the island to the U.S. mainland, but population surveys to assess the size of that migration would have taken at least a year to complete. A new study suggests, however, that a Facebook tool for advertisers could provide crude, real-time estimates for how many people are moving because of a natural disaster. That could help governments design...
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News
Mathematicians may have found the fastest way to multiply huge numbers
04/08/2019 - 07:00 Numbers, ComputingMultiplying 2 x 2 is easy. But multiplying two numbers with more than a billion digits each — that takes some serious computation.
The multiplication technique taught in grade school may be simple, but for really big numbers, it’s too slow to be useful. Now, two mathematicians say that they’ve found the fastest way yet to multiply extremely large figures.
The duo claim to have...
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News
A new algorithm could help protect planes from damaging volcanic ash
11/27/2018 - 08:00 Earth, Technology, ComputingFive to 10 minutes. That’s what it takes for superheated volcanic ash to shoot 11 kilometers into the sky — reaching altitudes at which commercial jets cruise and potentially harming their engines.
Now scientists have developed a new algorithm that can identify and track explosive ash clouds soon after volcanoes erupt. Using satellite imagery, the program can measure the temperature,...
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News
Virtual avatars learned cartwheels and other stunts from videos of people
11/05/2018 - 14:09 Computing, TechnologyAnimated characters can learn from online tutorials, too.
A new computer program teaches virtual avatars new skills, such as dances, acrobatic stunts and martial art moves, from YouTube videos. This kind of system, described in the November ACM Transactions on Graphics, could render more physically coordinated characters for movies and video games, or serve as a virtual training ground...
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News
A new computer program generates eerily realistic fake videos
08/14/2018 - 10:33 Computing, Technology, Science & Society“The camera never lies” is a thing of the past.
A new computer program can manipulate a video such that the person on-screen mirrors the movements and expressions of someone in a different video. Unlike other film-fudging software, this program can tamper with far more than facial expressions. The algorithm, to be presented August 16 at the 2018 SIGGRAPH meeting in Vancouver, also tweaks...
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News in Brief
Solving problems by computer just got a lot faster
07/16/2018 - 07:00 Computing, TechnologyA new computer program works smarter, not harder, to solve problems faster than its predecessors.
The algorithm is designed to find the best solution to a given problem among all possible options. Whereas other computer programs winnow down the possibilities one at a time, the new program — presented July 12 at the International Conference on Machine Learning in Stockholm — rules out...