10 March 2018

Some hard truths about Twitter’s health crisis


 It’s a testament to quite how control freaky and hermetically sealed to criticism the tech industry is that Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey went unscripted in front of his own brand livestreaming service this week, inviting users to lob awkward questions at him for the first time ever. Read More
Read Full Article

Essential really wants to solve the screen notch problem


 In a way, Essential is something of a pioneer. Before the iPhone X helped the world reluctantly embrace the screen notch, the company proudly displayed one atop its first flagship. Since then, of course, it’s become a feature, not a bug, with a long list of companies rushing to embrace it on their latest flagship. But Essential’s clearly hoping to solve the issue with a number… Read More

Read Full Article

5 Useful Resume Sites for Preparing a CV That Gets Read in 2018


useful-resume-sites

It’s 2018 and your resume needs to reflect that. With the right apps, you can create a modern, good-looking CV to apply for jobs. At this point, most resume makers know how to get past Applicant Tracking Systems. To stand out, you need more, like good design, or an online profile. But in the quest to be different, you need to ensure that you aren’t forgetting the basic elements of a resume either. 1. CV.Me: Simplest Free Resume With a Shareable Link In 2018, you need a resume that can be printed as well as shared via a link. CV.Me...

Read the full article: 5 Useful Resume Sites for Preparing a CV That Gets Read in 2018


Read Full Article

This robo-bug can improvise its walk like a real insect


 There are plenty of projects out there attempting to replicate the locomotion of insects, but one thing that computers and logic aren’t so good at is improvising and adapting the way even the smallest, simplest bugs do. This project from Tokyo Tech is a step in that direction, producing gaits on the fly that the researchers never programmed in. Read More

Read Full Article

Snapchat removes Giphy feature due to racial slur GIF


 Snapchat has temporarily removed its Giphy GIF sticker feature after a user saw an extremely racist GIF as an option. Snapchat confirms to TechCrunch “As soon as w were made aware, we removed the GIF and have disabled Giphy until we can be sure that this won’t happen again. The spokesperson says that all GIFs in Snapchat are meant to be “rated PG”, meaning… Read More

Read Full Article

Snapchat removes Giphy feature due to racial slur GIF


 Snapchat has temporarily removed its Giphy GIF sticker feature after a user saw an extremely racist GIF as an option. Snapchat confirms to TechCrunch “As soon as w were made aware, we removed the GIF and have disabled Giphy until we can be sure that this won’t happen again. The spokesperson says that all GIFs in Snapchat are meant to be “rated PG”, meaning… Read More
Read Full Article

Facebook launches AR effects tied to real-world tracking markers


 Facebook’s augmented reality camera is evolving beyond selfies masks and randomly placed 3D objects to using location markers in the real world that trigger AR experiences in a precise location.  Spotted today, Facebook confirms to TechCrunch that its testing the feature in closed beta with promotions for the upcoming Ready Player One and Wrinkle In Time films. And in April, it plans to… Read More

Read Full Article

Facebook launches AR effects tied to real-world tracking markers


 Facebook’s augmented reality camera is evolving beyond selfies masks and randomly placed 3D objects to using location markers in the real world that trigger AR experiences in a precise location.  Spotted today, Facebook confirms to TechCrunch that its testing the feature in closed beta with promotions for the upcoming Ready Player One and Wrinkle In Time films. And in April, it plans to… Read More
Read Full Article

Urban Airship announces new features for automated messaging


 Urban Airship recently announced new capabilities designed to allow app developers to deliver the right message to their users at exactly the right time. Senior Vice President of Product and Engineering Mike Herrick explained that the company (which started out as a platform for push notifications) has supported in-app messaging for years. However, those messages have been sent from Urban… Read More

Read Full Article

Giphy held talks to raise a massive new funding round


 We’re hearing from a number of sources that Giphy, the big platform for hosting GIFs that also runs a GIF keyboard, set out to raise huge new financing round — though it’s not clear if it ever crossed the finish line. Sources pegged the round at something as high as around $100 million, but that may have changed over time. We’ve been hearing about this attempted round… Read More

Read Full Article

5 Awesome Linux Laptops You Can Buy Right Now


Linux is amazing unless it won’t install. Then it just hurts. Fortunately, a number of laptop makers build Linux laptops that don’t suffer from driver or software faults. But how many of these offer good performance? Best Linux Laptop Companies Who makes Linux laptops in 2018? Several companies make purpose-built Linux-flavored laptops. The three best manufacturers are System76, ZaReason, and Dell. Other companies offer repackaged systems from Dell, HP, ASUS, and Lenovo that include Linux distributions optimized for that particular laptop. These devices normally come with Windows installed, but have been tested and certified for Ubuntu. There’s one downside to...

Read the full article: 5 Awesome Linux Laptops You Can Buy Right Now


Read Full Article

iTunes Sucks: These 7 Cleanup Tips Make It Bearable Again


itunes-cleanup

Back in the 2000s, iTunes was the premier app for playing and managing your music. It was lightweight, fast, and offered a range of features that were previously unheard of in common music software. Even steadfast Windows users downloaded the app in droves. But over the course of the last decade, the app has been knocked off its perch. Apple has progressively attempted to transform it into a catch-all program for every type of multimedia. Today, iTunes a bloated mess. Most people wouldn’t include it in their list of best music players. But the situation is recoverable. Of course, much...

Read the full article: iTunes Sucks: These 7 Cleanup Tips Make It Bearable Again


Read Full Article

Who’s a very good Street View camera? You are!


 For its latest addition to Street View, Google has employed a trio very good (and extremely fuzzy) boys — Ako, Asuka and Puuko. In order to capture the snowy streets of ÅŒdate City, Japan, the company strapped 360 cameras to the backs of the three Akita dogs, which hail from the country’s cold and mountainous regions. The company can’t seem to decide between Dog View or Pup… Read More
Read Full Article

Twitter on Mac: The 7 Best Apps to Use in 2018


twitter-apps-osx

More than a decade after its debut, Twitter is still alive and growing. In fact, Twitter reported its first time earning a profit in February 2018, and in the same report, revenue exceeded projections by $46 million. If you thought Twitter was standing on its last legs, think again. Things are looking up for the social network, and there’s never been a better time to start using Twitter. But the age-old question remains: what’s the best way to use Twitter? A lot of people hate the Twitter web app, which is fine for checking out individual tweets but terrible for...

Read the full article: Twitter on Mac: The 7 Best Apps to Use in 2018


Read Full Article

The 5 Best Wired iPhone Headphones With Lightning Cable


best-wired-iphone-headphones

Apple made the decision to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack starting with the iPhone 7 line back in 2016. And despite the doom and gloom from many tech pundits who saw the move as anti-consumer, iPhone sales continue to grow. While many iPhone fans have switched to wireless Bluetooth headphones, or even Apple’s own AirPods, there is another option available if you still want to use wired headphones. What Are Lightning Headphones? Lightning headphones, as you could probably guess by the name, plug directly into the charging port of your device. A major advantage of Lightning headsets, compared to regular...

Read the full article: The 5 Best Wired iPhone Headphones With Lightning Cable


Read Full Article

These hackers put together a prosthetic Nerf gun


 How can you participate in a Nerf gun fight if you’re missing a hand? The ingenious Hackerloop collective of tinkerers solved that problem by putting together a prosthetic Nerf gun that you can control with your arm muscles. In other words, Nicolas Huchet became Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy VII or Mega Man for a day. And here’s what it looks like: Let’s look at the… Read More

Read Full Article

Google makes it easier to create custom Assistant commands for devices


 Not really the showiest of SXSW announcements, but Google’s got a nice little update for developers looking to differentiate Assistant integration on a product level. Custom Device Actions are way to add specific functions to products. In a blog post, the company gives the specific example of activating a specific color cycle on an Assistant-enabled washing machine machine. The new… Read More
Read Full Article

What Is a Router and How to Use One: The Beginner’s FAQ


whats-router

When was the last time you had to deal with the hardware that lets you connect to the internet? A router is one crucial piece in your internet setup. Let us explain what a router is and give you some basic tips for using it. What Is a Router? Routers are the nodes that make up a computer network like the internet. The router you use at home is the central node of your home network. It functions as an information manager between the internet and all devices that go online (i.e. all devices connected to the router). Generally speaking,...

Read the full article: What Is a Router and How to Use One: The Beginner’s FAQ


Read Full Article

The Tapplock One is a fingerprint padlock with solid smarts


 Apple’s Touch ID was a step change in convenience for securing its mobile devices, and now that same level of convenience is available in a padlock. The Tapplock One is now shipping, and features a fingerprint sensor for unlocking, as well as a companion app with a Bluetooth unlock backup. The Tapplock One began its existence on Indiegogo with a crowdfunding campaign back in 2016, but… Read More

Read Full Article

09 March 2018

Introducing the iNaturalist 2018 Challenge




Thanks to recent advances in deep learning, the visual recognition abilities of machines have improved dramatically, permitting the practical application of computer vision to tasks ranging from pedestrian detection for self-driving cars to expression recognition in virtual reality. One area that remains challenging for computers, however, is fine-grained and instance-level recognition. Earlier this month, we posted an instance-level landmark recognition challenge for identifying individual landmarks. Here we focus on fine-grained visual recognition, which is to distinguish species of animals and plants, car and motorcycle models, architectural styles, etc. For computers, discriminating fine-grained categories is challenging because many categories have relatively few training examples (i.e., the long tail problem), the examples that do exist often lack authoritative training labels, and there is variability in illumination, viewing angle and object occlusion.

To help confront these hurdles, we are excited to announce the 2018 iNaturalist Challenge (iNat-2018), a species classification competition offered in partnership with iNaturalist and Visipedia (short for Visual Encyclopedia), a project for which Caltech and Cornell Tech received a Google Focused Research Award. This is a flagship challenge for the 5th International Workshop on Fine Grained Visual Categorization (FGVC5) at CVPR 2018. Building upon the first iNaturalist challenge, iNat-2017, iNat-2018 spans over 8000 categories of plants, animals, and fungi, with a total of more than 450,000 training images. We invite participants to enter the competition on Kaggle, with final submissions due in early June. Training data, annotations, and links to pretrained models can be found on our GitHub repo.

iNaturalist has emerged as a world leader for citizen scientists to share observations of species and connect with nature since its founding in 2008. It hosts research-grade photos and annotations submitted by a thriving, engaged community of users. Consider the following photo from iNaturalist:
The map on the right shows where the photo was taken. Image credit: Serge Belongie.
You may notice that the photo on the left contains a turtle. But did you also know this is a Trachemys scripta, common name “Pond Slider?” If you knew the latter, you possess knowledge of fine-grained or subordinate categories.

In contrast to other image classification datasets such as ImageNet, the dataset in the iNaturalist challenge exhibits a long-tailed distribution, with many species having relatively few images. It is important to enable machine learning models to handle categories in the long-tail, as the natural world is heavily imbalanced – some species are more abundant and easier to photograph than others. The iNaturalist challenge will encourage progress because the training distribution of iNat-2018 has an even longer tail than iNat-2017.
Distribution of training images per species for iNat-2017 and iNat-2018, plotted on a log-log scale, illustrating the long-tail behavior typical of fine-grained classification problems. Image Credit: Grant Van Horn and Oisin Mac Aodha.
Along with iNat-2018, FGVC5 will also host the iMaterialist 2018 challenge (including a furniture categorization challenge and a fashion attributes challenge for product images) and a set of “FGVCx” challenges representing smaller scale – but still significant – challenges, featuring content such as food and modern art.

FGVC5 will be showcased on the main stage at CVPR 2018, thereby ensuring broad exposure for the top performing teams. This project will advance the state-of-the-art in automatic image classification for real world, fine-grained categories, with heavy class imbalances, and large numbers of classes. We cordially invite you to participate in these competitions and help move the field forward!

Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank our colleagues and friends at iNaturalist, Visipedia, and FGVC5 for working together to advance this important area. At Google we would like to thank Hartwig Adam, Weijun Wang, Nathan Frey, Andrew Howard, Alessandro Fin, Yuning Chai, Xiao Zhang, Jack Sim, Yuan Li, Grant Van Horn, Yin Cui, Chen Sun, Yanan Qian, Grace Vesom, Tanya Birch, Wendy Kan, and Maggie Demkin.