Niantic acqui-hires Evertoon to add a social network to Pokémon Go and other apps

 Niantic, the company behind the hit mobile game Pokémon Go and its predecessor, Ingress, announced today it has acquired the team from the startup Evertoon to help it further build out its mobile products. Deal terms were not disclosed, but from how it’s described, the move seems to be more of an acqui-hire focused on gaining access to talent, rather than Evertoon’s IP. Launched… Read More
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3 Easy Ways to Access Sideloaded Apps on Android TV

As Android TV continues its impressive rise, more and more people are starting to adopt the platform. There are a wide variety of set-top boxes running the operating system. Some, such as the Nvidia Shield, cost a lot of money and are a cord cutter’s dream. Others are less powerful, but still let you give smart capabilities to old TVs, run Kodi and Plex, and enjoy apps such as Netflix and Hulu. If you’ve bought an Android TV device, you might have also sideloaded some apps. But how do you access and manage them? The answer isn’t necessarily straightforward. Let’s...

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Niantic acqui-hires Evertoon to add a social network to Pokémon Go and other apps

 Niantic, the company behind the hit mobile game Pokémon Go and its predecessor, Ingress, announced today it has acquired the team from the startup Evertoon to help it further build out its mobile products. Deal terms were not disclosed, but from how it’s described, the move seems to be more of an acqui-hire focused on gaining access to talent, rather than Evertoon’s IP. Launched… Read More

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9 New Settings Features in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Microsoft continues to change the Windows 10 Settings with each release, eventually aiming to phase out the Control Panel. With the Fall Creators Update, we’re going to take a look to see what new Settings features are available. From brand new functions like pairing your phone or customizing video playback, to improvements on existing ones like Gaming and Windows Update, Settings has seen some great improvements. If you’re looking to upgrade, see our article on things to do before installing the Fall Creators Update. If we’ve missed anything that you think is worth pointing out, head to the comments section...

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Twitter posts a new version of its rules with updated sections on abuse, spam, violence and more

 Twitter today published a new version of its rules, in an effort to further clarify its policies about abuse, spam, self-harm and other topics, as well as to better explain how it determines the appropriate action – like suspending an abuser’s account, for example. The company says the updated documentation doesn’t represent changes to the “fundamentals” of its… Read More
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Take Your Excel Dashboard to the Next Level With These Tips

An Excel dashboard is a great way to show off the most pertinent pieces of data from a big, unwieldy spreadsheet. Whether it’s for your own reference, or to pass on information to others, it’s a great way of separating the wheat from the chaff. In this guide, I’m going to produce a dashboard that will serve as a companion to my annual rewatch of the special Halloween episodes of The Simpsons. However, you can apply the same methods to anything from a workout planner to a sales report. How to Create Your Dashboard in Excel These three techniques will...

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Which of These 5 Linux Shells Is Best?

Happy using the bash shell in Linux? Or would you prefer to try out an alternative? There’s tsch, fish, KornShell, and Z Shell to choose from. But which of these Linux shells is best? What Is a Shell? Usually, when you write an application, it’s done in a high-level language that humans can understand. Examples of these are C#, Java, C++, etc. Believe it or not, your computer sees everything as 1s as 0s or, as commonly known, binary or machine code. A compiler will then translate the high-level language into a binary file like an executable. This binary file...

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12 Free Browser Match-3 Games to Enjoy on Your Next Break

When you need a break in your busy day, why not pop open a fun, challenging online match-three game? These unique options let you match classic items, create chains, take out zombies, and serve customers. All of this enjoyment is packed with the punch of the match-three puzzle genre. If you are ready for a great way to pass the time during lunch or a coffee break, check out these awesome online games. 1. Zoobies Match Move through the levels matching animals in Zoobies Match from Match3Games. This colorful game gives you a goal at the beginning of each level....

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Sources: Snap has acquired Metamarkets for less than $100M to step up its ad tech play

 As Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, gears up to report its quarterly earnings next week, it looks like the company is making some moves to beef up its primary business line, advertising. TechCrunch has learned that the company has acquired Metamarkets, an ad tech startup that provides programmatic ad data-related services to marketers, such as a data dashboard to measure how campaigns… Read More
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The 2017 Collins Word of the Year Is… “Fake News”

Collins Dictionary has named its Word of the Year for 2017 as “Fake News”. Literally. Even though it’s technically two words. Donald Trump’s favorite saying beat out competition from the likes of “Fidget Spinner”, “Gig Economy”, and “Echo Chamber” to cement its place in the English lexicon. 2017 is drawing to a close, which means we’ll see various institutions revealing their Word of the Year. Collins Dictionary has published early, deciding that “Fake News” deserves the plaudits for 2017. Which, for other organizations yet to decide on their WOTY, may itself constitute fake news. It’s Insta-Cuffing Season for Unicorns Collins...

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Don’t Miss Today’s Best Deals on Amazon

Today, you can save on one of the best universal remotes on the market, a refurbished Echo Dot, iPhone X accessories, and much more. Harmony Ultimate Remote Harmony Ultimate Remote - RF Control - Black Harmony Ultimate Remote - RF Control - Black Works with Alexa for voice control Buy Now At Amazon $139.99 When it comes to universal remotes, there’s nothing like a Logitech Harmony. Right now, you can get the Harmony Ultimate for its all-time low price! It’s only been this cheap one other time, so if you’ve been on the fence about picking up a high-end remote...

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Snapchat fell out of the top 10 for first time this year in Q3

 Snapchat’s mobile app fell out of the top 10 for the first time this year during Q3 2017, according to a recent report from Sensor Tower. The app, which had been ranked at #8 during Q2 2017 dropped to #18 on iOS during the quarter, but remained ranked at #2 on Google Play. Combined, that gave the app an overall ranking of #5 for the quarter, the report noted. Sensor Tower’s data… Read More

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Query friends or fans with new GIF and photo Facebook Polls

 Facebook Questions first launched in 2010 as a Quora wannabe before shifting into lighter-weight polls, but Facebook shut the feature down in 2012. Apparently it was just ahead of its time as Facebook went poll-crazy this year, adding them to Instagram Stories and Messenger group chat as well as buying hit teen anonymous polling app tbh. Plus it’s had bare-bones multiple-choice text… Read More

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Query friends or fans with new GIF and photo Facebook Polls

 Facebook Questions first launched in 2010 as a Quora wannabe before shifting into lighter-weight polls, but Facebook shut the feature down in 2012. Apparently it was just ahead of its time as Facebook went poll-crazy this year, adding them to Instagram Stories and Messenger group chat as well as buying hit teen anonymous polling app tbh. Plus it’s had bare-bones multiple-choice text… Read More
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How to Find More Music You’ll Love on Spotify

Do you have trouble discovering new music to enjoy? Even in this age of music streaming where we have millions of songs within a few clicks, it’s easy to fall into a rut of listening to the same old music time and time again. While you might think you need to visit websites to discover new music, that’s not always the case. In fact, Spotify has several built-in ways of helping you find new music that require little or no effort on your part. Here are five ways to make Spotify generate some new tunes for you. 1. Instantly Create...

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Google Doc’s Voice Typing: A Secret Weapon for Productivity

I was never a big fan of voice dictation. Having been born with keyboard and mouse in hand, I’ve always felt more comfortable that way, and my verbal WPM can’t compare to my typing speed. But I use Google Docs every single day, so when I learned that it has a Voice Typing feature, I figured I may as well try it out. I’m admittedly late to the game — it first debuted back in early 2016 — but better late than never, right? It turns out, Voice Typing is awesome! In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about...

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The Amazon Shopping Guide

Ever feel like you aren’t taking full advantage of Amazon’s online shopping? There are so many hidden features and benefits, there’s a good chance you haven’t exploited all the little tricks. But the good news is, you’ve found this guide. By the time you reach the end, you’ll be a smarter Amazon shopping master. What’s covered in this guide: tips and tricks for shopping, payments, digital content, rewards, personalization, and more. What’s not covered in this guide: setting up your own Amazon Store, hosting data on Amazon Web Services, or anything related to the business side of Amazon. Jump Ahead:...

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The Best VR Apps for Creative Immersive Fun

There’s a common misconception that virtual reality (VR) is just for gaming. The truth is that VR has far-reaching implications for every aspect of human life, and some of the best VR experiences already aren’t even gaming-related at all. Read on and I guarantee you’ll find at least one creative pursuit you need to try in VR. Sculpting: Oculus Medium Oculus Medium gives you an endless supply of virtual clay to push, pull, and paint to your heart’s content. Although difficult to use for technical/CAD modeling, Medium is ideally suited to organic objects, where precise measurements are less important. As...

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Learn These Tips to Solve Battery Issues on Apple and Windows Devices

A battery isn’t just a battery — it has its own nature and characteristics. That’s why managing your battery’s life depends on the type of battery it is. For instance, the two more popular kinds rechargeable batteries these days are Lithium-Ion and Lithium-Polymer. The older Nickel-Cadmium are obsolete. One thing is constant: a battery goes through a certain number of discharge cycles before you can give up on it. You can remove a battery to “prolong” its life when you aren’t using a laptop for a long time. But for everyday use, it’s not a practical idea. The better option is to become...

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3 Email Pranks for Messing With Your Friends

Most people spend a ton of time in their email inbox. If you want to have some fun with your friends, you can take advantage of this by playing a few pranks on them via email: Send the entire dictionary as a text file. Doing so will screw up your friend’s email search results. Every time they search for a word to find an email, the message you sent with the English word list will pop up. It’s subtle, but annoying. You can grab a massive list of words on this page — just copy and paste the entire thing...

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Xbox One X review: This is the ultimate Xbox

 This is the Xbox One X. It’s the fastest and smallest Xbox and the first to offer games in 4K. At $499 the higher resolution comes at a steep price. After a week with the console and hours of gaming, I can firmly state the Xbox One X is the best Xbox to date. This Xbox has everything. Think about it. The Xbox One X is the culmination of the Xbox project and, right now, at this moment… Read More

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Use This Clever Hack to See Your First-Ever Tweet

Twitter remains unsurpassed as a way to chat in real-time about any topic with people from all over the globe. One thing it does not do well, however, is tweet history. It’s almost impossible to use either the web app or the mobile app to casually browse your past posts. If you’re a serial tweeter, you probably can’t even remember what you said last week, let alone what your first ever tweet was. But wouldn’t it be cool to find out? Well, there is a way. And best of all, this hack doesn’t require any third-party apps or tools. How...

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What Are Evernote Stacks and Why Use Them?

If you’ve been using Evernote for a while, you’ve probably accumulated a huge collection of notebooks. If they’re in disarray, one small Evernote feature can get them under control: Stacks. Stacks are basically collections of notebooks. Just keep in mind that while you can share individual notebooks with your contacts, you cannot share Stacks. How to Create Evernote Stacks Mac and Windows: To create a stack in the Mac or Windows desktop app, drag one notebook onto another. This will create a new group of notebooks. To add a notebook to an existing stack, just drag the notebook onto that stack. iOS: Open a notebook...

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Qualcomm sues Apple, alleging it shared chip code with Intel

 Qualcomm has levied another lawsuit against Apple, this time alleging that the iPhone maker took advantage of its “unprecedented access” to Qualcomm’s code to aid Intel, Bloomberg reports. The news lends credence to a report in Reuters that Apple has designed iPhones bereft of Qualcomm technologies that it could ship as early as next year. Read More

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Trump’s Twitter account temporarily deactivated due to employee error

 President Trump’s infamous Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump went briefly offline on Thursday, setting forth a wave of confusion and emotions. If Trump's Twitter is down, does this technically mean he's no longer POTUS? I mean, it's the only part of the job he pays attention to. — John Schindler (@20committee) November 2, 2017 Some wondered if Trump had… Read More
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AutoML for large scale image classification and object detection

Posted by Barret Zoph, Vijay Vasudevan, Jonathon Shlens and Quoc Le, Research Scientists, Google Brain Team


A few months ago, we introduced AutoML, an approach that automates the design of machine learning models. While we found that AutoML can design small neural networks that perform on par with neural networks designed by human experts, these results were constrained to small academic datasets like CIFAR-10, and Penn Treebank. We became curious how this method would perform on larger more challenging datasets, such as ImageNet image classification and COCO object detection. Many state-of-the-art machine learning architectures have been invented by humans to tackle these datasets in academic competitions.

In Learning Transferable Architectures for Scalable Image Recognition, we apply AutoML to the ImageNet image classification and COCO object detection dataset -- two of the most respected large scale academic datasets in computer vision. These two datasets prove a great challenge for us because they are orders of magnitude larger than CIFAR-10 and Penn Treebank datasets. For instance, naively applying AutoML directly to ImageNet would require many months of training our method.

To be able to apply our method to ImageNet we have altered the AutoML approach to be more tractable to large-scale datasets:

• We redesigned the search space so that AutoML could find the best layer which can then be stacked many times in a flexible manner to create a final network.
• We performed architecture search on CIFAR-10 and transferred the best learned architecture to ImageNet image classification and COCO object detection.

With this method, AutoML was able to find the best layers that work well on CIFAR-10 but work well on ImageNet classification and COCO object detection. These two layers are combined to form a novel architecture, which we called “NASNet”.

Our NASNet architecture is composed of two types of layers: Normal Layer (left), and Reduction Layer (right). These two layers are designed by AutoML.

On ImageNet image classification, NASNet achieves a prediction accuracy of 82.7% on the validation set, surpassing all previous Inception models that we built [2, 3, 4]. Additionally, NASNet performs 1.2% better than all previous published results and is on par with the best unpublished result reported on arxiv.org [5]. Furthermore, NASNet may be resized to produce a family of models that achieve good accuracies while having very low computational costs. For example, a small version of NASNet achieves 74% accuracy, which is 3.1% better than equivalently-sized, state-of-the-art models for mobile platforms. The large NASNet achieves state-of-the-art accuracy while halving the computational cost of the best reported result on arxiv.org (i.e., SENet) [5].

Accuracies of NASNet and state-of-the-art, human-invented models at various model sizes on ImageNet image classification.

We also transferred the learned features from ImageNet to object detection. In our experiments, combining the features learned from ImageNet classification with the Faster-RCNN framework [6] surpassed previous published, state-of-the-art predictive performance on the COCO object detection task in both the largest as well as mobile-optimized models. Our largest model achieves 43.1% mAP which is 4% better than the previous, published state-of-the-art.

Example object detection using Faster-RCNN with NASNet.

We suspect that the image features learned by NASNet on ImageNet and COCO may be reused for many computer vision applications. Thus, we have open-sourced NASNet for inference on image classification and for object detection in the Slim and Object Detection TensorFlow repositories. We hope that the larger machine learning community will be able to build on these models to address multitudes of computer vision problems we have not yet imagined.

Special thanks to Jeff Dean, Yifeng Lu, Jonathan Huang, Vivek Rathod, Sergio Guadarrama, Chen Sun, Jonathan Shen, Vishy Tirumalashetty, Xiaoqiang Zheng, Christian Sigg and the Google Brain team for the help with the project.

References

[1] Learning Transferable Architectures for Scalable Image Recognition, Barret Zoph, Vijay Vasudevan, Jonathon Shlens, and Quoc V. Le. Arxiv, 2017.
[2] Going Deeper with Convolutions, Christian Szegedy, Wei Liu, Yangqing Jia, Pierre Sermanet, Scott Reed, Dragomir Anguelov, Dumitru Erhan, Vincent Vanhoucke, and Andrew Rabinovich. CVPR, 2015.
[3] Rethinking the inception architecture for computer vision, Christian Szegedy, Vincent Vanhoucke, Sergey Ioffe, Jonathon Shlens, and Zbigniew Wojna. CVPR, 2016.
[4] Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning, Christian Szegedy, Sergey Ioffe, Vincent Vanhoucke, and Alex Alemi. AAAI, 2017.
[5] Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks, Jie Hu, Li Shen and Gang Sun. Arxiv, 2017.
[6] Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks, Shaoqing Ren, Kaiming He, Ross Girshick and Jian Sun. NIPS, 2015.