Day's Headlines: Born Criminal; Frozen and Lost; Leader Angela; The Philippine Bow; NATO-Russian Missile Dance; Light AI; Electa-Aid; and Weather Chasing Satellite

Monday, November 21, 2016

Born Criminal; Frozen and Lost; Leader Angela; The Philippine Bow; NATO-Russian Missile Dance; Light AI; Electa-Aid; and Weather Chasing Satellite

Society

Troubling Study Says Artificial Intelligence Can Predict Who Will Be Criminals Based on Facial Features theintercept

The bankrupt attempt to infer moral qualities from physiology was a popular pursuit for millennia, particularly among those who wanted to justify the supremacy of one racial group over another. But phrenology britannica, which involved studying the cranium to determine someone’s character and intelligence, was debunked around the time of the Industrial Revolution, and few outside of the pseudo-scientific fringe would still claim that the shape of your mouth or size of your eyelids might predict whether you’ll become a rapist or thief.

Not so in the modern age of Artificial Intelligence, apparently: In a paper titled “Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images,” two Shanghai Jiao Tong University sjtu.edu.cn researchers say they fed “facial images of 1,856 real persons” into computers and found “some discriminating structural features for predicting criminality, such as lip curvature, eye inner corner distance, and the so-called nose-mouth angle.” They conclude that “all four classifiers perform consistently well and produce evidence for the validity of automated face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding the topic.”

Dying UK Girl Convinces Judge to Let Her Body Be Frozen nbcnews

I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up, the 14-year-old wrote to a judge before her recent death.

Germany

How Angela Merkel, a conservative, became the ‘leader of the free world’ washingtonpost

One of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's most distinct character traits has been to often wait longer than others before making a decision. And these cautious ways have served her well: sidelining many critics or rivals as Germany awaited her views and allowing her time to study the political winds and change course when necessary.

Also see Germany’s Merkel will seek a fourth term, face populist tide usatoday and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Seek Fourth Term wsj v

Philippines

With support of China's Xi, Philippine leader to ban fishing in disputed lagoon reuters

Duterte will make a unilateral declaration barring fishermen from exploiting marine life at a tranquil lagoon that was central to years of bitter squabbling, and the basis of an arbitration case brought and won by the Philippines.

The establishment of a protected marine zone, if successful, could provide both countries a face-saving way to break the diplomatic deadlock without making a political agreement or formal concessions.

Russia

Russia responds to NATO advance with missiles in its Europe enclave cbsnews

A Russian deployment of S-400 surface-to-air missiles and nuclear-capable Iskander balistic missiles to Kaliningrad, with its proximity to NATO member states, will undoubtedly heighten concerns among leaders of the transatlantic security alliance, who were already nervous over incoming American leader Donald Trump’s commitment to their collective defense pact.

Research

Light-based neural network could lead to super-fast AI engadget

It's one thing to create computers that behave like brains, but it's something else to make them perform as well as brains. Conventional circuitry can only operate so quickly as part of a neural network, even if it's sometimes much more powerful than standard computers. However, Princeton researchers might have smashed that barrier: they've built what they say is the first photonic neural network. The system mimics the brain with "neurons" that are really light waveguides cut into silicon substrates. As each of those nodes operates in a specific wavelength, you can make calculations by summing up the total power of the light as it's fed into a laser -- and the laser completes the circuit by sending light back to the nodes. The result is a machine that can calculate a differential math equation 1,960 times faster than a typical processor.

Electronic bandages that monitor biosignals for medical applications and provide therapeutic stimulation innovationtoronto v

“It can intimately adhere to the skin and simultaneously provide medically useful biofeedback such as electrophysiological signals,” said Chi Hwan Lee, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Purdue University purdue.edu. “Uniquely, this work combines high-quality nanomaterials into a skin-like device, thereby enhancing the mechanical properties.”

Space

Atlas V rocket blasts off with next-gen weather satellite usatoday

The $1 billion GOES-R satellite goes-r.gov is the first of four to fly as part of an $11 billion upgrade to NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program, or GOES.

The new satellite’s centerpiece imaging instrument, provided by Harris Corp., promises to deliver a performance improvement that officials liken to jumping from black-and-white to high-definition color TV.

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