Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning

What Is The Difference Between Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two very hot buzzwords right now, and often seem to be used interchangeably.

They are not quite the same thing, but the perception that they are can sometimes lead to some confusion. So I thought it would be worth writing a piece to explain the difference.

Both terms crop up very frequently when the topic is Big Data, analytics, and the broader waves of technological change which are sweeping through our world.

In short, the best answer is that:

Artificial Intelligence is the broader concept of machines being able to carry out tasks in a way that we would consider “smart”.

And,

Machine Learning is a current application of AI based around the idea that we should really just be able to give machines access to data and let them learn for themselves.

Early Days

Artificial Intelligence has been around for a long time – the Greek myths contain stories of mechanical men designed to mimic our own behavior. Very early European computers were conceived as “logical machines” and by reproducing capabilities such as basic arithmetic and memory, engineers saw their job, fundamentally, as attempting to create mechanical brains.

As technology, and, importantly, our understanding of how our minds work, has progressed, our concept of what constitutes AI has changed. Rather than increasingly complex calculations, work in the field of AI concentrated on mimicking human decision making processes and carrying out tasks in ever more human ways.

Artificial Intelligences – devices designed to act intelligently – are often classified into one of two fundamental groups – applied or general. Applied AI is far more common – systems designed to intelligently trade stocks and shares, or manoeuvre an autonomous vehicle would fall into this category.

Generalized AIs – systems or devices which can in theory handle any task – are less common, but this is where some of the most exciting advancements are happening today. It is also the area that has led to the development of Machine Learning. Often referred to as a subset of AI, it’s really more accurate to think of it as the current state-of-the-art.

The Rise of Machine Learning 

Two important breakthroughs led to the emergence of Machine Learning as the vehicle which is driving AI development forward with the speed it currently has.

10 biggest hacks,protect yourself in 2017

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How Does an IP Address Give Away Your Location?

While it's true that your IP address doesn't reveal your address or identity, it can reveal to someone what city or even general area you are in...within several miles in some instances. And it does it in an instant. (Remember—only people with some technical know-how can do that. The average person won't have a clue.)

That amazing technological feat is made possible by something called geolocation software. Like something from a movie, geolocation software first zeroes in on your country, and then your region, city, and often finally your ZIP code.

But what exactly is geolocation software, and does it work?

How they know where we are.

For the most part, anyone (an individual or business) can pay for geolocation services through a subscription service. There are also free geolocation services available, but the paid services tend to provide location services that are more accurate at zeroing in on a ZIP code level, for instance.

Geolocation services have access to a number of databases (different kinds) that give them the information needed to locate someone online through their IP address. A primary source for IP address data is the Regional Internet Registries. These are large, official organizations responsible for managing and distributing IP addresses in specific regions of the world. You can read more about RIRs here. The RIR for North America is called the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN).

That's just a start. To further zero in, geolocation services use other sources to try to find the location of your IP address. In the same way gold diggers mine for gold, geolocation services mine for data by digging for more information until they reach their objective...your neighborhood.

A service might probe data sources where your IP address has shown up before. For example, if you went to an online weather site and typed in your city or ZIP code, that information was linked to your IP address because you made the request online in real time. (That's why you get such instant and accurate weather data with a simple query.)

Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) also may contribute information to databases that is helpful to geolocation services. The services might use statistical formulas and other sophisticated analytical tools and analyze the data submitted by us in our specific online activities. This helps them fine-tune their search and improve their service to subscribers.

Here's how IP2Location, a geolocation provider, describes its product in a sales pitch:

"IP2LocationTM is a non-intrusive geo IP solution to help you to identify [a] visitor's geographical location, i.e.[,] country, region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code, time zone, connection speed, ISP, domain name, IDD country code, area code, weather station code and name, mobile carrier, elevation and usage type information using a proprietary IP address lookup database and technology without invading the Internet user's privacy. The solution is available as [a] database, programming API and hosted solution. Request your free copy of the demo database today."

Serious business.

Geolocation services weren't and aren't designed to be harmful. In fact, in many ways they're highly beneficial for many of the industries and organizations that use them. The services are used in legitimate and important business practices in a variety of industries, including banking, telecommunications, travel, hospitality, entertainment and law enforcement. Banks themselves prevent "phishing" attacks, money laundering and other security breaches by determining the user's location as part of the authentication process.

Law enforcement will use the service to track online financial transactions to prevent money laundering. Investigative agencies will use geolocation to monitor online trafficking with suspected terrorist organizations, or online trading with banned nations. Geolocation services protect banks from transferring funds for illicit purposes.

IP address geolocation is also used in online fraud detection. Companies that sell merchandise online, credit card providers, and companies that handle online payments use geolocation to prevent fraudulent transactions. Here's how:

A customer puts in an order for valuable items. As the transaction is being processed, a company will compare the billing address, where the merchandise is to be sent, to the location of the IP address of the online customer. If a geolocation service reveals the online shopper is somewhere in China, but their shipment is going to a ZIP code in Charlotte, North Carolina, that could signal a fraudulent transaction—the shipment address might be a drop point for illegal activity. (At that point, the company would request more information to complete the transaction.)

Geolocation on your side.

If you visit the Trace Email page on our website, you can learn how to extract someone's IP address from their email to you. You can then use our Trace Email Analyzer to find the location of the person.

Why bother? Well, if an email from cousin Bernie says he's trapped overseas and needs money for a plane ticket back to the U.S., but his IP address reveals that he's really in Florida, there's a good chance it's not Bernie sending you the message. And you won't be out $1,000.

5 Everyday Habits That Kill Your Intelligence

You have already worked a lot to increase your intelligence and this is something you don’t want to lose. Many things you probably do every day have a negative influence on your brain and kill your intelligence. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid them.

1. Multitasking

Reading this article while watching TV and answering your text messages may make you think you are simply doing more things in a shorter amount of time, but it actually is not a good idea. Multimedia multitasking lowers gray matter density, affecting your cognitive and emotional control. People who constantly use gadgets can not concentrate and recall information as well as those who don’t. So, in fact,multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time.

2. Poor Nutrition

You should be concerned about consuming saturated fats and sugar not only for the sake of your health but also because such kind of foods reduce your cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to adapt to changing situations, and can affect your memory and ability to learn. Your brain (as well as your stomach) will also thank you for not taking the easy way by eating pre-cooked and processed foods, since they can lead to excessive cravings and contain ingredients that have the ability to affect your behaviors and cognitive functioning. And don’t think caffeine is truly the best way to start your day since it easily causes headaches and makes you less calm. Eating healthy homemade food is what is going to give you the energy you need.

3. Googling vs Being an Expert

Searching the Internet makes people believe they know more than they really do as they can find almost any answer online. However, that doesn’t mean that your brain is doing the work. Knowing you can easily access information, you don’t remember it that well, which also affects your critical thinking. Even if you are an expert in your field and use your own brain, psychologists have found that people who think they know much about a topic are more likely to claim that made-up facts are true. In fact, we are more likely to believe the statements that prove us right and thus tend not to question them.

4. Being Asocial

Our brains are made for socialization and we need to be in contact with other people to think and function properly. Studies show that people who socialize much perform better on cognitive tests than those who don’t. Being with friends also gives you a chance to take a break and avoid too much stress, which can help enhance your memory and mental acuity. Not enough social life increases the likelihood of developing psychological disorders, which can potentially damage your brain, so you should think twice before sacrificing time you could spend with your friends to concentrate on your work.

5. Lack of Sleep

You love sleep because your brain loves it too. Poor sleep damages your thinking skills, which makes studying all night long before an exam a really bad idea.Being sleepy negatively affects your short-term and long-term memory, attention and planning skills, as well as the ability to understand other people’s facial emotions. Needless to say that this all makes it harder for your brain to work effectively. Even if you are tired not because of the lack of sleep but because of the physical and mental exhaustion, you should probably take a break. Sleepiness can even lead to mental disorders like depression and anxiety, so even if you have a lot of things to do, you better take some time to rest and recharge your batteries.

Lawsuit: Texts between Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreessen say the Facebook founder may want to go into government

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has considered plans to go into government, according to court documents seen by Bloomberg.

The documents were filed as part of a shareholder lawsuit that alleges the
 board of Facebook failed to represent the best interests or holders of Facebook's common stock.

The lawsuit focuses on a change to Facebook's stock structure earlier this year.
 Zuckerberg currently holds a majority share of voting Facebook stock, giving him control of the company. But he wanted to be able to sell this off to fund his new philanthropy efforts — the "Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative" — without losing this control. (The Financial Times reports that the plaintiffs are accusing Zuckerberg of a "self-interested agglomeration of power.")

So Zuckerberg proposed creating a new class of shares for himself that would let that happen, and three board members were placed on a special committee
 to represent shareholders in the discussions. They were tasked with deciding whether Zuckerberg's request to sell stock but maintain control was fair to other
 shareholders. The committee eventually agreed to Zuckerberg's plan. The suit
alleges the plan diluted other shareholders' votes over the stock.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment to Business Insider.
A company rep told Bloomberg that "Facebook is confident that the special committee engaged in a thorough and fair process to negotiate a proposal
 in the best interests of Facebook and its shareholders."

One of the board members on the committee was Marc Andreessen, the Netscape cofounder-turned-Silicon Valley investor, who now runs Andreessen Horowitz, the VC fund.

Andreessen is specifically accused of a conflict of interest because he allegedly communicated with Zuckerberg repeatedly while serving on the committee that was supposed to be making an independent decision about the stock.

Some of the texts sent between Andreessen and Zuckerberg have been made public in court documents — providing unusual insight into the inner workings of the social network's leadership.

One of Zuckerberg's motivations was — allegedly — that he wanted to be able work in government while still retaining control of Facebook.

The documents allege that Erskine Bowles, one of Facebook board
members on the special committee, was "worried that one of the concessions Zuckerberg wanted -- to allow the billionaire to serve two years in government without
 losing control of Facebook -- would look particularly irresponsible,"
 according to Bloomberg. (Bowles is a former White House chief of staff.)

According to copies of the texts seen by The Guardian, Andreessen texted Zuckerberg in March that the "biggest issue" was "how to define the gov't service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment."

"I think the biggest remaining issue is still around the government service," Andreessen texted later.

"Erskine is just massively uncomfortable with you getting to low economic ownership and then going off on leave with no involvement by the board and retaining control,'' he said.

"We rediscuss it on every call ... I'm going to try to drag it over the line one more time. ☺ ''

"He's worried that it's the straw that breaks the camel's back on the optics of good governance."

"He's worried it's the thing people will point to on announcement and say 'what the fuck are you guys doing agreeing to this' Particularly since he thinks gov't service would require you to give up control of FB anyway and it's a moot point."

"My counter argument is that because it's likely a moot point let's just give on it and it will probably never matter."

Beyond that, the case is light on details as to what Zuckerberg's purported government ambitions entail — whether he had an elected role or an appointed one in mind, for example, or whether there was a possible area of focus.

Another of Zuckerberg's board members, Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel, also
has a new-found appetite for public service. Thiel was one of the few Silicon Valley leaders to back Donald Trump in the run-up to the election, and has now scored a position on Trump's transition team.

The case also claims that Marc Andreessen's texts to Mark Zuckerberg show
he texted Zuckerberg during discussions to give pointers on strategy and effective lines of argument: "This line of argument is not helping. ☺" he wrote
in one, and saying, "NOW WE'RE COOKING WITH GAS" in another.

Once Andreessen became sure that Bowles was persuaded to let Zuckerberg's plan go through, Andreessen allegedly texted to the CEO: "The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river."

Zuckerberg replied: "Does that mean the cat's dead?"

Andreessen responded: "Mission accomplished ☺"

Design Your Future

To Design Your Future You have to Let go of Your Past

Our future is unwritten and can be designed to our own liking. But often what we do is we let our past determine the design of our future. And as a result, it looks quite similar to our past. We repeat the same mistakes because we bring our baggage from the past into the next chapter of our lives.

Sure we want to learn from the past and from our mistakes. But when that learning turns into so much baggage that the future looks exactly like our past, the value of that learning diminishes. The future is a blank slate that is completely open for invention.

If we’re going to effectively design our future, at some point we have to let go of our past. We have to let go of all the pain, all the agony, all the grief, and all the bullshit that’s in our heads.

1. Forgive the People Who Hurt You

Our forgiving depends solely on us, regardless of how the other party responds or doesn’t. — John Certalic

Bob Goff once said to me in a conversation on the Unmistakable Creative “everybody is doing the best they can with what they have.” When I think about the people who have hurt or betrayed me in some way, I try to remember that.

If you hang on to rage, disappointment, and ill will towards those who have harmed you, it’s effectively letting them control your future. As Zig Ziglar once said “just because somebody screwed up your past, it doesn’t mean you should give them permission to screw up your future.”

There’s a difference between forgiving and forgetting. Pain engraves indelible wounds, that turn into scars, and deeper memories. We won’t ever forget. But forgiveness is our choice and often our pathway to freedom and a brighter future.

3. Write Everything You’re Feeling Down

There’s something about writing things down that is incredibly healing. The work of James Pennebaker even shows that there’s actually research to back this up. When I was going through a really dark period, constantly ruminating on everything that was going wrong, my therapist encouraged me to write it all down. This way you get it out of your head and onto the page.

If we are constantly thinking about the past, we take up mental energy and space that could be used to design our future. When we are thinking about the past, we live in a sort of suspended reality, in which we don’t move forward or backward. Write it down, leave it behind, and let it go.

3. See a Therapist or Counselor

For a while, I thought therapy was only for crazy people until I found myself in the office of a therapist. A therapist can be a guide to finding your way out of the darkness and back into the light. And as you find your way back into the light, you’re more easily able to leave the past behind, and focus on the future. If Brene Brown, whose work is a form of therapy, and who has rocked the stage at TED has no issues seeing a therapist you shouldn’t either.

4. Describe Your New Life

To design your future you have to see the world as malleable, something that can be shaped to your own liking. And you have to see yourself as the kind of person who has the ability to take the world in your head and impose it on the world around you until the world around you looks like the one in your head.

In his collection of essays, The Life and Times of a Remarkable Misfit, my friend AJ Leon has people do the following exercise:

The greatest opportunity cost you have as a human is not taking your own ideas seriously. Write a 500 word description of what you want your life to look like in 2 years. This will act as your signpost. Then (and here’s the kicker) post it on your blog or email it to someone who will “get it”. It’s hard to go back on a revolution that you’ve already announced.

I return to this exercise at least once a month.

Through simple daily actions, and designing environment conducive to the person you want to become, the future you’ve designed eventually becomes your new present.

Destiny has a way of creating chain reactions in our lives. And sometimes this chain reaction occurs when the shit hits the fan or we hit rock bottom, setting in a motion a series of events that you couldn’t have planned for or predicted. Friends we’ve yet to meet, opportunities we’ve yet to receive, and lovers whose stars have yet to cross with ours. And with each of these events our destiny unfolds into a journey worthy of our heart and soul, a life worthy of living, full contact, in full color. Remember this through fortune and misfortune, joy and grief, good times and bad ones.

Carry it with you. Let it guide you in the direction you’re destined to go, along with the path that you are destined to take. The future is an unpaved road and a destiny that is yours to shape.

FB pays users Rs 1,030

FB pays users Rs 1,030 for using their photos without consent

The weeks since the 2016 presidential election has put Facebook under the spotlight for its role in the circulation of fake news articles, which included President Barack Obama weighing in during a press conference earlier this week. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made an effort to sidestep the blame leveled against his company for the rise of these articles, he had said that the company has more work to do in combatting misinformation.

In a post to Facebook last night, Zuckerberg outlined the steps that Facebook is taking to limit the spread of false information, but reiterated his belief that the company should not become the "arbiters of truth."

Some of the projects currently underway at Facebook include new systems that will help flag false information, better ways for people to report misinformation and flags to users once fake articles are reported, better recommendations when an article is clicked on, and updating its ad policies to discourage spam sites, which profit off of the exposure. He also noted that Facebook would be working with journalists and "respected fact checking organizations" to understand how they work to verify information, so that the company could learn from their efforts and experience.

While Zuckerberg outlined a number of fairly straightforward steps to limit fake articles, he did not indicate any sort of timeline for when — if ever — these stories are rolled out to regular users, noting that "some of these ideas will work well, and some will not." He also explained that the company has utilized user feedback and other sources to weigh the content appropriately so that it doesn’t spread as quickly through user news feeds.

However, Facebook has had numerous problems with these sorts of automated systems in the past: after firing its entire Trending Topics editorial team earlier this summer, the site subsequently picked up a number of false stories, which gave false content considerable visibility. While Zuckerberg tries to avoid putting his company in the midst of a philosophical argument, it’s clear that the automated systems that it presently uses are flawed and the spread of false information over the course of the election shows that there are considerable challenges ahead for the company.

Letter to CEOs

A powerful trade body for big publishers sent a letter to Google and Facebook's CEOs imploring them to tackle fake news.

Digital Content Next (DCN), a US trade body that represents premium online publishers, has sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, calling on the two companies to do more to tackle the fake news being discovered and shared across their sites.

The letter, obtained by Business Insider (which you can read in full below) was written by DCN CEO Jason Kint, says both companies "bear a special responsibility, one that you sometimes appear naive to" to clean up the "garbage littering the digital media ecosystem."

Both Google and Facebook are facing increased scrutiny about their efforts to tackle fake news following the US presidential election.

False stories claiming Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump and that Hillary Clinton had sold weapons to ISIS were widely shared on Facebook. Meanwhile, the top Google News result for "final election count" was at one point surfacing a fake story from a Wordpress blog, incorrectly claiming Trump had won the popular vote by a margin of almost 700,000.

After first dismissing the notion that fake news on Facebook could have swung the presidential election as "crazy," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged a "small amount" of content on the site is hoaxes and said the company has more work to do in order to rid the site of fake news. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, on the other hand, was immediately more open to the suggestion that fake news might have affected the election and said the company has been looking at how to fact-check articles and promote stories from trusted sources. This month,both companies also moved to ban fake news sites from their ad networks.

But Kint of DCN says these efforts, while "encouraging and constructive" are not enough and that they should apply themselves to ridding their services of fake news with the same "excitement, investment, and vigilance as their sexier forward-thinking technology projects, often referred to at Google as "moonshots."

Kint writes:

"However, to paraphrase a recent New York Times editorial, we believe you owe your users, and democracy itself, far more. Your companies make it a point to celebrate 'moonshots' that require extraordinary vision, resources and engineering prowess. Your capacity to pursue these projects is built on your extraordinary dominance over the digital media landscape.

"Wouldn't it make sense for you to pursue cleaning-up the garbage littering the digital media ecosystem with the same excitement, investment and vigilance with which you pursue these huge, visionary projects? We don't see that in your public statements or actions. Over the years, you have claimed repeatedly that you are not media companies; instead, the word "utility" has been used, occasionally by your own executives. But if even 1% of the water in our local utility was polluted, wouldn't it be right to move heaven and earth to clean it up?"

DCN represents more than 70 media brands including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Viacom, Business Insider, The Financial Times, Time Inc., Hearst, Gannett, Bloomberg, ESPN, AP, and BBC.com.

Kint says in the letter that these publishers - who do sometimes get things wrong but are trusted by consumers to provide accurate and fair coverage and admit when they have made mistakes - are willing to "devote time, resources, and energy to help clean up this mess."

Spokespeople for Google and Facebook were not immediately available for comment.

Here is the letter from Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai in full:

Mark Zuckerberg
Chairman, Founder and CEO
Facebook
1 Hacker Way
Menlo Park, CA 94025

Sundar Pichai
CEO
Google 
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
November 22, 2016

Dear Mark and Sundar,

As the trade organization representing brands that seek long-term consumer trust through the creation of high quality news, information and entertainment, we feel compelled to provide our perspective on the dangerous proliferation of "fake news" throughout the digital ecosystem. Digital Content Next (DCN) members include companies that have earned the trust of consumers for more than a century to companies born in the digital era.

The common thread that weaves these companies together is the trust they seek to earn every day by providing the highest quality content. We're not suggesting that our members always "get it right," but accuracy, depth and fairness are core to their mission. And transparency is vital when things go wrong. Your services succeed or fail depending on the efficacy of our work. We are writing this letter to offer our help in fixing the issue. We are the only trade association that exclusively represents more than 75 premium publishers - arguably the world's experts at creating real and trusted content.

To be clear, our plea is not that you somehow attempt to evaluate bias or censor legitimate speech. Moreover, your recent statements about potentially identifying "fake news" for what it is, and depriving the providers of this noxious material the economic sustenance to create it in the first place, are encouraging and constructive.

However, to paraphrase a recent New York Times editorial, we believe you owe your users, and democracy itself, far more. Your companies make it a point to celebrate "moonshots" that require extraordinary vision, resources and engineering prowess. Your capacity to pursue these projects is built on your extraordinary dominance over the digital media landscape.

Wouldn't it make sense for you to pursue cleaning-up the garbage littering the digital media ecosystem with the same excitement, investment and vigilance with which you pursue these huge, visionary projects? We don't see that in your public statements or actions. Over the years, you have claimed repeatedly that you are not media companies; instead, the word "utility" has been used, occasionally by your own executives. But if even 1% of the water in our local utility was polluted, wouldn't it be right to move heaven and earth to clean it up?

Our members serve the public across the political spectrum. The last thing we would want is a litmus test for truth. We celebrate the fact that new, trusted brands can emerge online and truly allow the First Amendment to flourish. No one wishes to go back to a world of "gatekeepers" and distribution scarcity. It is for precisely this reason that you bear a special responsibility in society, one that you sometimes appear naive to. Our brands are proxies for the kind of accuracy that your users deserve. We won't reprise here the many examples of untruths that were propagated during the recent election campaign. We will simply state that our brands exist to guard against these outcomes, and that we all win when advertisers and consumers are served the highest quality content.

In a world where ever-increasing numbers of people get their news and information through globally scaled, algorithmically determined "feeds," it is simply unacceptable to tolerate the blatantly false and misleading "fake news" that has come to litter the digital landscape. We regard our relationship as symbiotic; we all want the citizens of our societies to have access to the best possible information. We are in this together and regard our companies as essential partners in this effort. We are ready to devote time, resources and energy to help clean up this mess and welcome the opportunity to collaborate on solutions.

Yours truly, Jason Kint CEO Digital Content Next

technical

HACKERS STOLE PERSONAL DATA BELONGING TO MORE THAN 130,000 US NAVY SAILORS

Hackers have gained access to sensitive information, including names and social security numbers, of more than 130,000 current and former sailors, US Navy officials revealed on Wednesday.

It’s believed that a laptop used by a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services employee operating under a naval contract was hacked, leading to the data breach. The firm first notified the Navy on October 27.

“The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously — this is a matter of trust for our sailors,” said Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral Robert Burke in a statement. He then went on to add that the investigation is still in its “early stages.”

At present, there’s no evidence to suggest that the information has been misused by the hackers. However, the Navy is following all of the required procedures to take care of those affected by the breach.