New Algorithm Allows Modification of Talking Head Videos as Easily as Editing Text
June 6th, 2019Via: Stanford:
In television and film, actors often flub small bits of otherwise flawless performances. Other times they leave out a critical word. For editors, the only solution so far is to accept the flaws or fix them with expensive reshoots.
Imagine, however, if that editor could modify video using a text transcript. Much like word processing, the editor could easily add new words, delete unwanted ones or completely rearrange the pieces by dragging and dropping them as needed to assemble a finished video that looks almost flawless to the untrained eye.
A team of researchers from Stanford University, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Princeton University and Adobe Research created such an algorithm for editing talking-head videos – videos showing speakers from the shoulders up.
Towing an Iceberg to South Africa
June 6th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
“To make it economically feasible, the iceberg will have to be big,” Sloane says. Ideally, it would measure about 1,000 meters (3,281 feet) long, 500 meters wide, and 250 meters deep, and weigh 125 million tons. “That would supply about 20% of Cape Town’s water needs for a year.”
Sloane has already assembled a team of glaciologists, oceanographers, and engineers. He’s also secured a group of financiers to fund the pioneer tow, which he calls the Southern Ice Project. The expected cost is more than $200 million, much of it to be put up by two South African banks and Water Vision AG, a Swiss water technology and infrastructure company.
Amazon Claims Prime Air Drones Will Start Delivering Packages ‘Within Months’
June 6th, 2019Via: USA Today:
Within a matter of months, your future Amazon orders could be delivered by a self-driving drone.
Officials with the online shopping giant unveiled the latest Prime Air drone design Wednesday at Amazon’s re:MARS Conference (Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space) in Las Vegas.
“We’ve been hard at work building fully electric drones that can fly up to 15 miles and deliver packages under five pounds to customers in less than 30 minutes,” Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, wrote in a blog post this week. “And, with the help of our world-class fulfillment and delivery network, we expect to scale Prime Air both quickly and efficiently, delivering packages via drone to customers within months.”
The exact timing and where the drones will be making deliveries was not announced.
TSA Allowing Illegal Migrants to Fly Without Proper Documents
June 6th, 2019Via: Washington Examiner:
The federal agency tasked with overseeing security at transportation hubs has been violating its own policy by allowing migrants who have been released from federal custody onto flights despite not having required documents, according to several Department of Homeland Security officials.
For the past six months, the Transportation Security Administration has allowed migrants released from the custody of other Homeland Security agencies to board flights to other parts of the country despite the passengers lacking any of the 15 documents it states are the only acceptable forms of identification.
Pentagon Eyes Rare Earth Supplies in Africa in Push Away from China
June 6th, 2019In other news: Maybe Africa Really Will Be the New China.
Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Department of Defense has held talks with Malawi’s Mkango Resources Ltd and other rare earth miners across the globe about their supplies of strategic minerals, part of a plan to find diversified reserves outside of China, a department official said on Wednesday.
The push comes as China threatens to curb exports to the United States of rare earths, a group of 17 minerals used in a plethora of military equipment and high-tech consumer electronics.
Although China contains only a third of the world’s rare earth reserves, it accounts for 80% of U.S. imports of minerals because it controls nearly all of the facilities to process the material, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.
“We are looking for any source of supply outside China. We want diversity. We don’t want a single-source producer,” Jason Nie, a material engineer with the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency, said on the sidelines of the Argus U.S. Specialty Metals conference in Chicago.
Police Building Surveillance Networks with Amazon’s Ring Doorbells
June 5th, 2019Via: Cnet:
While residential neighborhoods aren’t usually lined with security cameras, the smart doorbell’s popularity has essentially created private surveillance networks powered by Amazon and promoted by police departments.
Police departments across the country, from major cities like Houston to towns with fewer than 30,000 people, have offered free or discounted Ring doorbells to citizens, sometimes using taxpayer funds to pay for Amazon’s products.
…
“Our township is now entirely covered by cameras,” said Captain Vincent Kerney, detective bureau commander of the Bloomfield Police Department. “Every area of town we have, there are some Ring cameras.”
Carnival Cruise Lines Hit With $20 Million Penalty For Environmental Crimes
June 5th, 2019A $20 million fine isn’t even a slap on the wrist for Carnival. On revenue of $18.8 billion, I wonder, in which column on their spreadsheet this will go?
Chicken Feed?
Pocket Lint?
F-U-We’ll-Do-It-Again?
Via: NPR:
The cruise line giant Carnival Corporation and its Princess subsidiary have agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $20 million for environmental violations such as dumping plastic waste into the ocean. Princess Cruise Lines has already paid $40 million over other deliberate acts of pollution.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz approved the terms of the deal during a hearing Monday in Miami. She had appeared to grow increasingly frustrated as the company continued to flout environmental laws during the course of the years-long case.
…
Miami-based Carnival pleaded guilty Monday to six probation violations, including the dumping of plastic mixed with food waste in Bahamian waters. The company also admitted sending teams to visit ships before the inspections to fix any environmental compliance violations, falsifying training records and contacting the U.S. Coast Guard to try to redefine what would be a “major non-conformity” of their environmental compliance plan.
…
Carnival has had a long history of dumping plastic trash and oily discharge from its ships, with violations dating back to 1993.
Australia: Police Raid ABC Over Leaked Information That Detailed Special Forces Killings of Civilians in Afghanistan
June 5th, 2019Via: ABC:
Australian Federal Police officers have left the ABC’s Sydney headquarters more than eight hours after a raid began over a series of 2017 stories known as the Afghan Files.
The stories, by ABC investigative journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, revealed allegations of unlawful killings and misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan and were based off hundreds of pages of secret Defence documents leaked to the ABC.
The search warrant named Oakes, Clark and the ABC’s director of News Gaven Morris.
Related: The Afghan Files
Research Credit: D
Los Angeles: Homeless Disaster Getting Worse
June 4th, 2019I hope Catherine Austin Fitts investigates California’s spending on the homeless situation. Something is obviously very wrong.
Who is winding up with the billions of dollars?
Via: KTLA:
The number of homeless people counted across Los Angeles County jumped 12% over the past year to nearly 59,000, with more young and old residents and families on the streets, officials said Tuesday.
The majority of the homeless were found within the city of Los Angeles, which saw a 16% increase to 36,300, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said in presenting January’s annual count to the county Board of Supervisors.
…
Three years ago, Los Angeles voters approved a tax hike and $1.2 billion housing bond to make a decade’s worth of massive investments to help solve the homeless crisis. That bond money has been committed to build more than half of the 10,000 new housing units planned countywide over the next decade, Lynn said.
Related: California: The Poverty Capital of the U.S.
Apple Forces Developers to Place Its Login Button Above Google, Facebook
June 4th, 2019Just a few days ago, someone was asking me how to sign into the AirBNB app on her iPhone without using Google or Facebook credentials. I thought that there would be an option to enter her email and password, but there wasn’t. That app forces users to supply either Google or Facebook credentials.
I don’t trust Apple, but I trust Google and Facebook even less.
The alternative to Single Sign On in this case was to simply use the phone’s browser to sign in to her AirBNB account using her email and password. Probably not as nice as the app, but there you go.
I proposed using the AirBNB website from a computer and I might as well have suggested that she flap her arms up and down to take flight. Not happening.
I do try to explain that worrying about privacy while using a hardware and software platform designed specifically for surveillance is folly, but I think people need to feel in control somewhat as things spiral further out of control. However, by using one crook’s single sign on widget over another crook’s single sign on widget YOU’RE STILL USING SOME CROOK’S SURVEILLANCE BLOB IN THE APP.
By all means, though, go ahead and press the button if it makes you feel better!
As cynical as I am about this, I did grin at Apple’s optional trick of assigning random email addresses and then forwarding messages to your real email address. Sounds great! Just keep in mind, now Apple is in the middle of your email correspondence with these entities. You’re needing to trust Apple even more with your privacy.
Via: Reuters:
Apple Inc will require developers to position a new “Sign on with Apple” button in iPhone and iPad apps above rival buttons from Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc, according to developer guidelines released this week.
The move to give Apple prime placement is significant because users often select the default or top option on apps. And Apple will force apps to offer its button if they want to offer options to login with Facebook or Google.
Apple unveiled its login button on Monday, emphasizing users’ privacy and also introducing a feature that randomly generates an email address to avoid revealing the person’s true email.
