One of the biggest telecom companies in Spain and Europe, Telefonica, has partnered with chip maker Qualcomm to collaborate in producing metaverse-related initiatives. According to the agreement, the telecom infrastructure of Telefonica will serve as a platform to deploy experiences created with Qualcomm technology.
The technology called Snapdragon Spaces is a full stack of programs that allow designers to focus on creating these experiences, especially for augmented reality headsets. Spaces is also a device-independent technology. Therefore, the metaverses designed using it can be run with any headset on the market, including the Meta Quest line of devices.
Telefonica will include this technology in initiatives to be developed via its Metaverse Hub, a location dedicated to metaverse, Web3, and augmented reality initiatives.
Daniel Hernandez, Telefonica’s VP of devices & consumer IoT, said that extended reality (XR) would bring a new dimension to the real and virtual world, allowing people to communicate, do business, socialize, and be entertained in new ways. He added that they are preparing for the future, building the infrastructure, evolving services, establishing partnerships, and upgrading equipment that will allow them to bring innovative new devices and services to customers.
The interest of the two companies in the metaverse and augmented reality technology is not new, as they have previously invested and established partnerships in the area. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, while giving his take on the metaverse in May, said it would be a massive opportunity for the companies involved. The company recently signed a deal with Meta to develop metaverse-specific silicon for Meta’s next line of headsets.
Moreover, Telefonica has also been involved in metaverse projects. The company invested an undisclosed amount in Gamium, a Spanish open world, through an open innovation platform of the company, Wayra.
Meta, the Facebook parent company, has rolled out parental supervision tools feature and a ‘family center’ program on its social media application ‘Instagram’ to ensure the safety of young users while allowing parents to manage the time spent by children on the site at the same time.
Meta has been working closely with parents and guardians and has been stressing the need to educate them about digital services and the safety aspects involved, a company official said.
“Over the years, Meta introduced many age-appropriate features and resources that have enhanced the experience of young people on Instagram.” Facebook India (Meta), Head-Public Policy, Natasha Jog said.
According to her, parents could keep track of the time their wards spend on Instagram and access the accounts they follow with the latest supervision tools.
Parents and guardians would also be informed when their children raise a complaint on Instagram. “With the launch of these supervision tools, Meta is trying to strike a balance between young people’s need for some autonomy while using Instagram and also allow supervision in a way that supports conversations,” Jog said.
A massive fire broke out at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin on Monday. As reported by local publications, the factory burst into flames after a massive pile of cardboard and wood suddenly caught fire. Around 800 cubic meters of the paper pile, cardboard, and wood were caught on fire, which resulted in a massive fire breakout.
As per a report by Electrek, the factory caught fire around 3:00 am CEST on Monday, which is around 7:00 am Indian Standard Timing. The fire reportedly was first caught near a recycling plant on the northeastern portion of the factory.
The report stated that more than 50 firefighters struggled to extinguish the fire, including 12 from Tesla’s own fire fighting brigade. It took the fighters hours to get the fire under control completely. No injuries or casualties have been reported.
Following the incident, the citizens’ initiative Grünheide (BI) is opposing the Tesla project due to environmental concerns. After the incident, the group demanded to halt the production process in the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin. A few months ago, the same group asked to revoke Tesla’s production permit after a paint leak incident in the factory.
It is not the first time Tesla faced issues related to burning cardboard. The Fremont, California facility reported a fire in cardboard pallets at the workplace parking lot earlier.
To recall, Tesla was fined by the EPA in 2019 for not disposing of highly flammable paints and solvent mixtures. The Fremont Fire Department also ordered the company to equip the facility with modern emergency response tools.
The report asks the government to consider the ethics of AI in education as an utmost priority and develop effective public-private partnerships to ensure that all students and teachers have access to the latest technology.
The 10-point recommendation by the UNESCO New Delhi Office also wants technology service providers to station data ownership with the students. A statement said that the state of education report introduces AI to demystify a subject that has survived various misconceptions. It also consists of an overview of opportunities and challenges in the Indian education sector that AI can address.
To align India’s educational curriculum to the 21st century and to prepare the students for the artificial intelligence economy, India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 lays immense emphasis on the need to impart the required technical knowledge at all levels of education. It highlights the integration of AI in education systems to promote quality and skill-based education. UNESCO offers a glimpse of the varied suggestions and dimensions for future uses of AI in the school setting with this report.
The UN agency said that the publication is expected to serve as a helpful reference tool for enhancing and influencing programs and policies related to technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.
On Monday, September 26, Hugging Face, an AI startup, and ServiceNow Research, ServiceNow’s R&D arm, introduced BigCode. BigCode is an ambitious new project that seeks to develop “state-of-the-art” AI systems for code in an open and responsible manner. The main objective is to eventually make a dataset that can be used for training a code-generating system, which will then be applied to build a 15-billion-parameter model prototype using ServiceNow’s internal graphics card cluster.
Experts note that DeepMind’s AlphaCode, Amazon’s CodeWhisperer, and OpenAI’s Codex, which powers GitHub’s Copilot service, offer a fascinating preview of what AI is capable of today in the world of computer programming. However, only a small number of these AI systems have been made publicly accessible and open-sourced. For instance, OpenAI’s paid API provides access to Codex, whereas GitHub has started charging for access to Copilot. This inspires companies to explore the commercial opportunities of offering publicly accessible code-generating tools.
Anyone with a background in professional AI research and the time to contribute to the project is welcome to use in BigCode, which was inspired by Hugging Face’s BigScience initiative and BLOOM to open source highly sophisticated text-generating systems. The application form is now active.
BigCode is attempting to resolve some of the concerns that have come up regarding the use of AI-powered code generation, especially when it comes to fair use. It will achieve this by jointly developing a code-generating system that will be open-sourced under a license that will permit developers to reuse it subject to certain terms and conditions.
The initial objective of BigCode is to create a dataset of code that was gathered in the most ethically acceptable manner possible. In contrast to other releases that only scan all of GitHub for code, BigCode developers promise to go to great lengths to guarantee that only files from repositories with permissive licenses are included in the aforementioned training dataset. They assert that they would build “responsible” AI methods along the way for teaching and exchanging code-generating systems of all kinds and will seek input from relevant parties before announcing any policy changes.
Hugging Face and ServiceNow could not specify a date for when the project would be finished. However, they anticipate researching a number of code generation technologies over the coming several months, including auto-completion and code synthesis systems that operate across a wide range of domains, tasks, and programming languages. They added that the model prototype that will be built using the dataset would be smaller than AlphaCode, which has approximately 41.4 billion parameters, but larger than Codex, which has 12 billion parameters.
Meta Platforms said it has disrupted the first known China-based influence operation targeting users in the United States (US) with political content ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The network created fake accounts across Meta’s social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, but was unsuccessful and did not attract much of a following, Meta said in a report summarizing its findings.
Still, the report noted that the discovery was significant because it suggested a shift toward more direct interference in US domestic politics than previous known Chinese propaganda efforts. The Chinese operations Meta has taken down before talked mainly about America to the world, primarily in South Asia, and not to Americans about themselves.
Meta global threat intelligence lead Ben Nimmo said at a press briefing that the message was ‘America bad, China good.’ The new operation pushed messages targeting Americans on both sides of divisive issues like gun rights and abortion. Another Meta executive said the company did not have enough evidence to say who was behind the activity in China.
According to the report, the fake accounts have been masquerading as liberal and conservative Americans in different states, posting memes and lurking in the comments of public figures’ posts since November 2021. The same network also created fake accounts that posed as people in the Czech Republic criticizing the Czech government’s approach to China.
The report said Meta intercepted the biggest and most complex Russian-based operation since the war in Ukraine started, describing it as a sprawling network of over 60 websites, social media accounts, and petitions on sites like Avaaz.
Despite a recent upgrade, Tesla plans to hold production at its Shanghai plant at about 93% of capacity through the end of the year, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, in a rare move for the US EV maker.
Since the plant opened in its second-largest market in late 2019, Tesla has sought to run the facility in China’s commercial hub at total capacity and recently upgraded its weekly output by 30% to a maximum of 22,000 vehicles.
The sources, who spoke on anonymity as the matter is not public, did not give a reason for the decision of not running the plant at full tilt, though one said the figure was lower than they had expected. Tesla did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
The company’s move comes during the growing competition from domestic manufacturers of electric vehicles in a sharply weakening economy, as consumption continues to fall amid strict COVID-19 curbs.
The sources added that the upgraded factory could produce 14,000 Model Ys and 8,000 Model 3s. Tesla has decided to keep it running at total capacity, except during the upgrade and a full-fledged COVID-19 lockdown for two months this year. The sources said that Tesla now plans to turn out 20,500 units a week for the rest of the year for 13,000 Model Ys and 7,500 Model 3s.
Figures from the China Passenger Car Association showed that Tesla’s China sales rose nearly 60% in the initial eight months of this year. But that pace is much slower than the overall market for new energy vehicles over a similar period, which saw sales more than double.
A New York City-based artist has been given the first registered copyright for artwork created utilizing latent diffusion artificial intelligence (AI).
Kris Kashtanova, a former programmer, announced on their Instagram post last week that Zarya of the Dawn, an AI-generated graphic book, has been registered for U.S. copyright. It could be the first content produced utilizing AI-art generators to get such recognition from the US Copyright Office, taking into account other authors’ previous inability to achieve this milestone.
On the graphic novel’s cover page, Kashtanova claimed that Midjourney, a commercial image synthesis service, was used in its creation. They said a legal acquaintance gave them the idea to register their creation as a “visual arts work” in an effort to set an example.
According to their announcement, Kashtanova pursued the registration by claiming that the artwork was not totally generated by AI but rather with AI assistance. The plot for the comic book was written by Kashtanova, who also designed the layout and made the creative decisions for the image montage.
The history of generative art is not new, as artists have previously registered works produced using machines or code-based algorithms. However, this is the first occasion that we are aware of that an artist has filed a copyright for work produced using the most latest trend of image synthesis models driven by latent diffusion, a topic that has proven controversial among artists.
Although this can be deemed to bring a radical transformation, legal experts and copyright holders still have a lot of work to do. Since AI lacks the human authorship essential to establish a copyright claim, the U.S. Protect Office has thus far rejected all requests to copyright the work it produces. However, it appears that the US office is aware that there is, except in this instance, a human artistic contribution.
At the very least, this allows for future discussion on joint work, including humans and AI, rather than just dismissing all discussions of AI-generated art.
This development takes place in the midst of continuous debate concerning AI programs like Midjourney, DALLE, Imagen, and Nightcafe. Recently, Getty Images notified users via email that it will no longer accept any submissions built using AI generative models like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion and that any previously submitted AI-generated artwork will be removed.
Several artists and photographers have attacked the art-making platforms for breaching their own copyrights. The AI-generative art tools comb through stock photos and artworks protected by the intellectual property to produce new artworks by replicating styles, prompting concerns about digital theft.
As a result, some creators wonder if AI will foster or stifle creativity, especially considering the fact that copyright rules in the United States and the European Union do not expressly include AI-generated art. The increasing use of AI to create magazine covers, posters, and logos raises the significant and tricky question of whether AI will slowly replace artists.
The recent advancements in diffusion models have led to state-of-the-art results for the majority of image generation Artificial intelligence tools like DALL-E. The use of diffusion processes in latent space as opposed to pixel space while taking into account the semantic input from the Transformers is known as latent diffusion modeling (LDM) – a concept used in making AI-generated artwork for Zarya of the Dawn.
Apple is expanding the Apple App Store’s support of NFT-based apps by standardizing their acceptability. However, the company is imposing its usual 30% transaction charge on all transactions, a move many NFT companies claim is unfair and just not practical for them as it would drain them out.
Transaction fees in a typical NFT marketplace range from 2 to 3 percent, however, apple charges 30% for all transactions, including in-app purchases. This prompted NFT company Magic Eden to discontinue trading on its app, even when Apple dropped its commission to 15% for enterprises making less than $1 million yearly. This is due to the fact that, despite the reduction, NFT companies will still lose money on every sale due to Apple’s App Store restrictions. Additionally, since the iPhone manufacturer does not wish to conduct transactions utilizing cryptocurrencies, in-app purchases made through the App Store must be made in US dollars. Setting a translated dollar amount is extremely challenging because of the intrinsically unstable nature of cryptocurrencies and their value.
Even the CEO of Rarible, Alexei Falin, is concerned about how unfairly Apple handles fixed pricing for in-app purchases. According to Falin, the tech giant “doesn’t really want App Store customers” to purchase or sell non-fungible assets.
Hence, it is safe to assume that Apple could attract more investors and firms to its marketplace if it stops charging NFT purchases on the App Store. Additionally, this would allow for some market experimentation by developers.
At the time this article was being written, the Magic Eden app was still available on the app store. Apart from Magic Eden, NFT marketplace apps on the app store currently include OpenSea, Rarible, and marketplaces in crypto trading apps include Binance, Crypto.com and Coinbase Wallet.
While this is happening, some NFT traders alleged that Apple is biased against them due to the slow approval processes for NFT and Crypto applications in contrast to the speedy approval processes on the Google Play store.
It should be noted that not everyone disagrees with Apple’s choice to introduce NFTs to the market. According to Gabriel Leydon, CEO of Web3 game company Limit Break, this could conceivably include an Ethereum wallet in any mobile game. Leydon remarked, “I’m happy to give Apple a 30 percent commission on a free NFT.”
It’s not the first time companies have fought with Apple about its commissions. For instance, Epic Games has filed legal action after its flagship game Fortnite was removed from the App Store in August 2020 after the publisher tried to market in-game transactions that avoided Apple’s fees.
As industries are generating a large amount of data, there is a demand for skilled data professionals. However, while taking your initial steps toward a career as a data analyst, it is essential to know the basic concepts, ideas, and trends of data. You can learn the basic concepts of data analytics with some of the top books on data analytics listed in this article.
Data Analytics using R
Written by Seema Acharya, Data Analytics using R is a perfect book for students who want to pursue a career in data analytics. This book is also helpful for IT professionals, data analysts, and decision-makers responsible for strategic initiatives.
With this book, you can learn the potential of the R language as statistical data analysis and visualization tool. Seema Acharya also introduces readers to several data mining algorithms and charts. She has explained many real-life case studies in the book, such as fraud detection, customer insights analysis, sales forecasting, and more.
Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, Numpy, and IPython
This book by Wes Mckinney is the perfect book to learn data analysis with Python programming language. You will learn to use the latest version of Pandas, IPython, and Numpy in the data analysis process.
This book is a practical and modern introduction to data science tools in Python. With this book, you can learn to use the IPython shell and advanced features in Numpy. You can also learn to use the data analysis tools in Pandas library and other flexible tools to clean, transform, merge and reshape data.
While reading this book, you can analyze and manipulate regular and irregular time series data and solve real-life data analysis problems with detailed examples.
Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, Numpy, and IPython Third Edition
Written by Wes Mckinney, Python for Data Analysis: Third Edition is a hands-on guide through practical case studies, showing you how to solve real-life data analysis problems. This book is an updated version of Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, Numpy, and IPython.
This book is updated with Python 3.10 and Pandas 1.4. The code examples and the datasets used in this book are readily available on GitHub.
Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas: A Python data science handbook for data collection, wrangling, analysis, and visualization, 2nd Edition
Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas: A Python data science handbook for data collection, wrangling, analysis, and visualization, 2nd Edition by Stefanie Molin is another good book learning efficient data analysis and manipulation tasks using Pandas 1. x.
With this book, you can learn to use Pandas in different real-world problems with the help of step-by-step explanations. This book helps you analyze data, start with machine learning algorithms, and work with Python libraries such as Numpy, Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Sci-kit learn.
While reading this book, you can learn to use Pandas library to perform data wrangling for reshaping, cleaning, and aggregating data. You will also learn how to conduct exploratory data analysis with statistics and visualization of data patterns.
This book is suitable for data science beginners, Python developers, and data analysts who want to explore every data analysis stage with various datasets.
Data Analysis and Machine Learning with Kaggle: How to compete on Kaggle and build a successful career in data science
Written by Konrad Banachewicz, Luca Massaron, and Anthony Goldbloom, Data Analysis and Machine Learning with Kaggle is one of the most recommended books for data analysis.
With this book, you can learn how Kaggle works and sharpen your skills with ensembling, AutoML, feature engineering, and adversarial validation. You will also be exposed to general techniques for approaching tasks based on image, text, tabular data, and reinforcement learning.
This is one of the best books for anyone new to Kaggle who wants to study data analysis or to perform better in Kaggle competition and secure jobs in data analysis.
SQL for Data Analysis: Advanced Techniques for Transforming Data into Insights (Grayscale Indian Edition)
SQL for Data Analysis: Advanced Techniques for Transforming Data into Insights (Grayscale Indian Edition) by Cathy Tanimura is the perfect book to learn data analysis with SQL. It provides different ways to improve your SQL skills and solve real-life data analysis problems.
With this book, you can learn the basic steps to prepare your data for analysis. Using the SQL’s date and time manipulations, you can perform a time series analysis. While reading this book, you can also explore SQL’s powerful functions and operators that are useful for text analysis.
This book is suitable for people interested in learning data analysis with SQL language by using functions like joins, subqueries, regular expressions, and window functions.
Microsoft Excel 2016 Data Analysis and Business Modelling
Written by Wayne L. Winston, the Microsoft Excel 2016 Data Analysis and Business Modelling book enables you to master data analysis and business modeling with Microsoft Excel 2016. With this book, you can also transform data into bottom-line results.
This book helps you use Excel’s new tools to ask the right questions and get accurate or actionable answers. It contains over 150 data analysis problems with solutions and a chapter of basic spreadsheet models to help you get started.
Data Analysis with Open Source Tools: A Hands-On Guide for Programmers and Data Scientists
Philipp K Janet’s book is one of the best resources for working with data in a business environment. With this book, you can learn what data contains, how to capture conceptual ideas in data, and then use this understanding in organizations with the help of business plans, metrics dashboards, and other applications.
This book uses graphics for describing data with one, two, or many variables. This book can teach you to create conceptual models using calculations and probability arguments.
With this book, you can learn to mine data using computationally intensive clustering and simulation. You also learn to use dimensionality reduction techniques and predictive analytics to conquer data analysis solutions.
Pandas for Everyone: Python Data Analysis, First Edition
Written by Daniel Y. Chen, Pandas for Everyone: Python Data Analysis, First Edition is one of the best books for learning data analysis with Python. Daniel Y. Chen explains every concept with relevant examples from modern data analysis.
With this book, you can learn the open-source Pandas library and use Python for rapidly automating and performing any data analysis task virtually, no matter how large or complex.
Pandas library helps you ensure your data’s accuracy, visualize it for effective decision making and reliably reproduce analyses across many datasets.
The Data Analytics using Python book by Bharti Motwani aims to make students understand analytics applications in different domains with proper code and explanation. This book explains the basics of Python to machine learning concepts. It mainly focuses on deep learning models like MLP, RNN, and CNN to train models for text and image data and to develop chatbots. The book consists of different chapters, such as core libraries in Python, programming in Python, tools, and techniques used for data analysis in Python.
Dr. Bharti Motwani has over 22 years of experience in research, teaching, corporate, and consultancy. She has written many data analytics books and demonstrated proficiency in helping Ph.D. candidates, editing books, and reviewing journals.
