Eric David
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Google gets tough on ‘repeat offender’ sites spreading malware
Google does its best to warn users of sites that have been recently flagged for either knowingly or unknowingly distributing malware, as users who have ever stumbled across Chrome’s bright red warning screen know all too well. Now, the search giant says that it will be even tougher on the sites that have suffered from this ...
Here’s why Facebook is betting big on artificial intelligence
As Facebook Inc. has expanded its scope far beyond the realm of social media in the last few years, no area is arguably more important than its recent push into artificial intelligence research. This week, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer outlined some of the company’s current research projects and the role AI plays in Facebook’s plans. Facebook is currently ...
Google rejects EU antitrust claims against its ad practices
Google Inc. has been facing harsh antitrust accusations in the European Union for several years, and today Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel at Google, issued a strongly worded rejection of the EU’s claims, calling them “wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics.” The European Commission has had its eye on ...
Google’s DeepMind to use ‘messy’ world of StarCraft for AI research
Google’s DeepMind is teaming up with Blizzard Entertainment Inc. to open up the world of the game StarCraft II to artificial intelligence researchers. DeepMind Staff Research Scientist Oriol Vinyals (above) announced the new partnership today during Blizzcon, Blizzard’s annual convention held in Anaheim, Calif. According to Vinyals, who is himself a longtime StarCraft player, Blizzard will be ...
Twilio beats third-quarter predictions but shares fall
Cloud communications company Twilio Inc. did better than expected in its third quarter, but investors weren’t cheering. In its second earnings report since going public in June, the company posted a loss of 4 cents per share on $71.5 million in revenues, a year-on-year increase of 62 percent and roughly $7 million higher than its second-quarter earnings. Wall ...
Message.io wants to be a universal translator for chatbots
Austin, Texas-based startup and Y Combinator alum Message.io has just launched a private beta test for its bot syndication service that allows developers to deploy their bots across multiple platforms with no code changes required. Chatbots are powerful automation tools that give team communication platforms like Slack and HipChat all kinds of useful capabilities, from creating ...
Symantec unveils new ‘endpoint’ security system powered by machine learning
Mountain View-based cyber security firm Symantec Corp., best known for its Norton antivirus suite, has just unveiled its newest security system for “endpoint” devices such as laptops and smartphones. Endpoint Security 14 is a major leap forward in security technology, the company says, thanks to its use of machine learning to fight exploits and coordinated attacks. ...
MIT uses deep learning to tap into our nightmares
The robot apocalypse sounds scary enough by itself, but a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation seem determined to make the eventual AI uprising truly terrifying. Using deep learning, the researchers are teaching an artificial intelligence program to recognize what sort of imagery is scary to ...
UK court says Uber drivers are employees, not contractors
A London employment tribunal has ruled that Uber Technologies Inc. must reclassify two of its drivers as employees rather than freelancers, in a landmark ruling that could put the ride hailing service’s future in the United Kingdom in jeopardy. Uber’s entire business model is based on the fact that its drivers are considered independent contractors rather than full ...
Apple unveils lighter Macbook Pro with ‘Touch Bar’ interface
First Apple Inc. killed off the headphone jack, and now it looks like the company has set its sights on another long-running hardware legacy: function keys. Today, Apple officially unveiled the new Macbook Pro, which has done away with the old function keys in favor of the new “Touch Bar,” a long, skinny touchscreen that adapts ...
