Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “A radical collaboration between a biologist and an engineer is supercharging efforts to protect grape crops. The technology they’ve developed, using robotics and AI to identify grape plants infected with a devastating fungus, will soon be available to researchers nationwide working on a wide array of plant and animal research. Plant diseases like powdery mildew can show up in infrared before they are visible to the naked eye; if the researchers can develop tools to help farmers detect disease early, it would enable farmers to target fungicide sprays before ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “Not all robots are good at math. Take ProJo, a program that researchers are testing to help students of all ages spot their math and science mistakes, embodied in a small, humanoid robot. Instead of standing in for an instructor, ProJo acts as a peer, inviting the students themselves to help it solve problems. “Let’s take turns,” it might say. “I’m not so good at this.” ProJo can also help students work together and assess their growth and weaknesses, in both robot form and on a computer screen. It is one of a variety of teaching aids in development, b ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “AI in the future might optimize not only individual curriculums, but also entire classrooms. For example, Goel says AI could be used for “matchmaking” — pairing students with the teachers and schools that are best suited to them based on their learning style. Meanwhile, Sean Ryan, president of the School Group at McGraw-Hill, says there’s an opportunity to organize students into classes based on aptitude instead of age. “For the most part, today we sort students chronologically no matter what. But AI gives us the ability to group students based on what ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “Assistive technologies such as handheld tablets and eye-tracking devices are increasingly helping give voice to individuals with paralysis and speech impediments who otherwise would not be able to communicate. Now, researchers are directly harnessing electrical brain activity to help these individuals. In a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, describe an approach that combines a brain-computer interface and machine learning models that allowed them to generate text fro ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “A human-free autonomous boat known as the Saildrone Surveyor has successfully sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii to cross the Pacific Ocean while mapping the topography of the seabed, an achievement made less than a month after a similar IBM-powered boat failed. The Saildrone Surveyor, 22 metres long and and weighing 12,700 kilograms, sailed 2,250 nautical miles over 28 days to map 6,400 nautical miles of seafloor. The project is the largest attempt yet to map Earth’s undersea landscape; we have mapped the Moon more than our planet’s deep oceans.” — K ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “A new cosmic map revealed hidden structures connecting galaxies, which could help scientists model a future collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda, our galaxy’s nearest neighbor. The map, made with machine learning, may also shed more light on dark matter’s influence in the evolution of our universe, participating scientists said in a statement from Pennsylvania State University. “ — Elizabeth Howell, Writer Learn More from Space > #Not Awesome “During the George Floyd protests in South Florida, facial-recognition technology was deployed to i ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “Eventually AI detection networks may even be able to measure the risk of fires before they start. This requires training a system to combine historical data from camera images with a variety of factors known to contribute to a fire starting, such as precipitation, humidity and moisture levels in vegetation. AI can process and assemble millions of such data points in real time, far faster than humans can. “When all these puzzle pieces snap together into a potential for fire, we will be able to predict where fires might actually break out,” Sahota says. After ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “Facial recognition technology is rapidly becoming ubiquitous, used in everything from security cameras to smartphones. But in the near future, humans may not be the only ones to be digitally captured. Researchers are training forms of artificial intelligence to recognize individual animals by their faces alone — and even discern their emotional state just by reading their expressions.” — Laura Bridgeman, Writer Learn More from VOX > #Not Awesome “Clearview’s massive surveillance apparatus claims to hold 3 billion photos, accessible to any law enforc ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “Machine learning tools can identify sickle cell disease (SCD) patients at high risk of progressive kidney disease as early as six months in advance, a study shows. Chronic kidney disease is more prevalent in SCD patients, who experience a faster decline in kidney function compared with the general population. As rapid kidney function decline in patients is associated with increased mortality, identifying those at risk early may help with timely use of preventive interventions.” — Steve Bryson PhD, Writer Learn More from BioNews > #Not Awesome ..read more

Awesome, not awesome. #Awesome “Canadian researchers have developed a machine-learning model that accurately predicts diabetes in a population using routinely collected health data. Using the validated data collected including variables like body mass index and high blood pressure, the algorithm was 80 per cent accurate in predicting who was at risk of type 2 diabetes in the population over several years.” — Christy Stomos, Writer Learn More from CTV News > #Not Awesome “Lemonade, the fast-growing, machine learning-powered insurance app, put out a real lemon of a Twitter thre ..read more