Someone Please Build A Machine Lawyer!
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| Someone Please Build A Machine Lawyer! | |
| Number | 3668 |
| Broadcast Date | DECEMBER 2, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 32:21 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang |
| Guests | Chris Mancini |
Chris Mancini from Comedy Film Nerds joins us to explain how the blurring of the lines between VFX in movies and fully rendered CGI cutscenes can lead to audience detachment from the content.
Guest
Quick Hits
- The FBI Portland field office has posted a warning about the risks of buying a smart TV. The posting warns about surveillance by TV software makers through tracking your viewing habits, but also about attackers gaining access to home networks through unpatched smart TV operating systems. The FBI recommends placing black tape over an unused smart TV camera, keeping your smart TV up-to-date with the latest patches and fixes, and to read the privacy policy to better understand what your smart TV is capable of.
- A programmer created an open-source algorithm to randomly generate secure passphrases in Welsh, which has the distinction of only being about 700,000 speakers strong. According to HowSecureIsMyPassword.net and My1Login.net, it would take 11 quattuordecillion years or 1 trillion trillion trillion years for a computer to crack various Welsh phrases. The programmer Alice warns thought: "It's probably not a good idea to actually use this, since the wordlist is freely available along with the algorithm being used."
- UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions estimate that the Huawei Mate 30 handsets are made without any US parts. Huawei cybersecurity official John Suffolk told the Wall Street Journal that all of Huawei's 5G hardware is now "America-free" as well.
- EU antitrust regulators are investigating how Facebook and Google customer data is, "gathered, processed, used and monetized including for advertising purposes." Questionnaires have gone out as part of a preliminary investigation into both companies.
- AWS announced it is expanding its Amazon Transcribe service to include support for medical speech. Amazon Transcribe Medical lets physicians dictate clinical notes in real time without human intervention. Amazon Transcribe does not require prompts like "comma" or "fulls top." Notes can be fed into ER systems or other medical language services. Amazon Transcribe Medical is HIPPA compliant and charges based on usage with no upfront fees. Amazon Transcribe Medical is available in the U.S. East (North Virginia) and U.S. West (Oregon) regions.
Top Stories
- Amazon announced DeepComposer, a a 32-key, 2-octave keyboard for developers to learn Generative Adversarial Networks or GANs. It comes with pretrained models or you can develop your own. GANs use two different neural networks to produce new and original digital works based on sample inputs. Developers create music based on a model, tweak it in the DeepComposer console in the AWS cloud, then generate music. Compositions can be shared on SoundCloud. This joins the DeepLens and DeepRacer machine learning teaching devices. Developers interested in DeepComposer can sign up for a preview when its available.
- Facebook began rolling out a tool to let users in Ireland transfer photos from Facebook to Google Photos. The tool is based on code from the open-source Data Transfer Project, which includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook. Facebook plans for worldwide availability in the first half of 2020. The company says it is starting with Google Photos and evaluating other services as well.
- As of December 1st, customers signing up for new mobile plans in China can have their face scanned to match with identity documents instead of submitting a picture. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the change in September, which uses “artificial intelligence and other technical methods” to verify identity. Previously, new mobile plans required showing state identification and having a photo taken.
- According to leaked documents obtained by the Financial Times, Chinese companies like ZTE, Dahua and China Telecom, have proposed new international standards on facial recognition, video monitoring, city and vehicle surveillance to the UN's International Telecommunication Union. ITU standards are often adopted in developing nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where the Chinese government supplies tech under its “Belt and Road Initiative." Critics say the proposals are more like policy recommendations than technical standards. The facial recognition proposal would store facial data in a central database, and suggest its use in public places by police, verifying worker attendance, and comparing “the country’s fugitive library with the local population library." Engadget notes that in June a standard was accepted for streetlight design that included an option for video monitoring. ZTE and China Mobile proposed that standard.
- NPR reports dairy farmers in Massachusetts are using machines from Vanguard Renewables to generate electricity from food waste. Whole Foods stores take food waste that cannot be used by food banks and put it into an industrial-strength grinder. The resulting slurry is loaded on trucks which deliver it to farmers who feed it into anaerobic digesters. Farmers also get food waste from other sources like creameries, breweries and juice plants. The waste is heated releasing methane which is captured and used to run a generator. Farmers may use around 10 percent of what is generated and feed the rest into the grid. Byproducts from the process can be used as fertilizer. Thousands of digesters are in operation in Europe and Vanguard hopes to expand beyond Massachusetts in the US.
Discussion
- Game Cutscenes vs Movie VFX
- Chris: "I just saw Midway and it was like watching a VFX tech demo or video game. Different VFX and graphics tech in VG and movies connect differently emotionally with audiences, and when one tries too much to be like the other there is an emotional disconnect and you end up watching a movie looking for the controller."
Thing of the Day
- Chris Christensen has a social tip for travelers to get deals on electronics.
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "VR is Milking It" |
Someone Please Build A Machine Lawyer! |
Followed by: "Are You Outraged? Citation Needed" |