AI Content Detector Zero

AI Content Detector Zero — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • AI data center

    AI data center

    An AI data center is a specialized data center facility designed for the computationally intensive tasks of training and running inference for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models. Unlike general-purpose data centers, they are optimized for the parallel processing demands of AI workloads, typically using hardware such as AI accelerators (e.g., GPUs, TPUs) and high-speed interconnects. The global push to construct these specialized facilities accelerated dramatically during the AI boom of the 2020s. Memory manufacturers prioritized production of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) essential for AI servers, which led to a global memory supply shortage amid a broader competition for advanced chips, power, and infrastructure. Major tech companies are estimated to spend $650 billion on AI data centers in 2026. == Architecture == Data centers for building and running large machine learning models contain specialized computer chips, GPUs, that use 2 to 4 times as much energy as their regular CPU counterparts (250-500 watts). AI data centers use 60 or more kilowatts per server rack, whereas more standard data centers typically use 5 to 10 kilowatts per rack. == Operators == As of August 2025, The Information tracked 18 planned or existing AI data centers in the United States, operated by Amazon Web Services, CoreWeave, Crusoe, Meta, Microsoft/OpenAI, Oracle, Tesla, and xAI. Other AI data center operators include Digital Realty and Alibaba. Data centers are also being built in China, India, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. The New Yorker described CoreWeave as the most prominent AI data center operator in the United States. Two types of data center providers for machine learning have been noted: hyperscalers and neoclouds. The Verge listed large technology companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle and Amazon as hyperscalers. The New York Times described neoclouds as "a new generation of data center providers". CoreWeave, Nebius, Nscale, and Lambda have been described as examples of neoclouds. In January 2025, OpenAI, in partnership with Oracle and Softbank, announced the Stargate project, which as of September 2025 is composed of six built or proposed AI data centers in the United States. In response to the Stargate project, Amazon launched in October 2025 an AI data center on 1,200 acres of farmland in Indiana. This data center, known as Project Rainier, is one of the largest AI data centers in the world, with Amazon spending $11 billion on the project. Rainier is specifically intended for training and running machine learning models from Anthropic. As of that time, this facility contains seven data centers (out of an estimated 30 planned) and will use 2.2 gigawatts of electricity (equivalent to 1 million households) and millions of gallons of water per year. Computer chips from Annapurna Labs and Anthropic, Trainium 2, were designed for use in such facilities. Amazon pumped millions of gallons of water out of the ground to construct the data center, and as of June 2025, Indiana state officials are investigating whether this dewatering process led to dry wells for local residents. In November 2025, Anthropic announced a plan in partnership with Fluidstack to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States, including data centers in New York and Texas, worth $50 billion. Other AI data center projects include the Colossus supercomputer from xAI, a Louisiana-based project from Meta, Hyperion, expected to use 5 GW of power, and a second Ohio-based Meta project, Prometheus, with a capacity of 1 GW. A 3,200-acre AI data center, capable of 4.4-4.5 GW of power and located on the decommissioned Homer City Generating Station, is under construction as of 2025, and will use seven 30-acre gas generating stations supplied by EQT. As of December 2025, CRH is working on over 100 data centers in the United States. In 2025, ExxonMobil and NextEra announced plans to build a data center powered by natural gas and using carbon capture technology, with 1.2 GW of power capacity. They previously purchased 2,500 acres of land in the Southeastern United States and plan to market the data center to an artificial intelligence company. The increased interest in AI data centers has led to several executives from companies in that space becoming billionaires, including CoreWeave, QTS, Nebius, Astera Labs, Groq, Fermi (which is connected to former United States Secretary of Energy Rick Perry), Snowflake and Cipher Mining. Several companies involved in cryptocurrency mining, such as Bitdeer, CoreWeave, Cipher Mining, TeraWulf, IREN, Core Scientific, and CleanSpark have also been involved with AI data centers. == Finances == Between January and August 2024, Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon collectively spent $125 billion on AI data centers. Citigroup forecasted that $2.8 trillion would be spent on AI data centers by 2030, while McKinsey and Company estimated that almost $7 trillion would be spent globally by that time. According to S&P Global, $61 billion has been spent on the data center market as a whole in 2025, while debt issuance for data centers was $182 billion during the same year. Large technology companies have offloaded the financial risks of building AI data centers by setting up special purpose vehicles or by contracting with neoclouds. For example, Meta's Hyperion was mostly funded by Blue Owl Capital, which did so using a bond offering from PIMCO. Those bonds were sold to a number of clients, including BlackRock. Meta did not borrow money itself and instead established a special purpose vehicle from which it would rent the data center. This deal was structured by Morgan Stanley for $30 billion, the largest known private capital transaction as of 2025. Neoclouds such as CoreWeave have gone into debt to buy computer chips from Nvidia for their data centers, and the chips themselves have been used for loan collateral. As of December 2025, CoreWeave took out three GPU-backed loans, collectively worth $12.4 billion, from private credit firms (Blackstone, Coatue, BlackRock, PIMCO) and from banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo). Thus, these companies provide an indirect connection between private credit and established banks. Data centers have also established asset-backed securities, and debt for data centers has its own derivative financial products. The real estate industry, including asset managers, public companies and private investors, has also invested in data centers. == Energy sourcing == == Environmental footprint == Average AI data centers have an electricity footprint equivalent to 100,000 households, and use billions of gallons of water for cooling their hardware. In 2025, the International Energy Agency estimated that the larger AI data centers currently under construction could consume as much electricity as 2 million households. A 2024 report from the United States Department of Energy stated that data centers overall used 17 billion gallons of water per year in the United States, primarily due to "rapid proliferation of AI servers", and that this usage was forecasted to grow to nearly 80 billion gallons by 2028. Researchers estimated that AI data centers in the United States would emit 24-44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and use 731–1,125 million cubic meters of water per year between 2024 and 2030. Peaking power plants, which have been proposed as a power source for AI data centers, emit sulfur dioxide and have historically been located disproportionately near communities of color in the United States. Reciprocating internal combustion engines, proposed as another power source for a data center, emit PM 2.5, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds. == AI data centers in the United States == In the United States, both the Biden administration and second Trump administration supported the construction of AI data centers. In January 2025, then-president Joe Biden signed an executive order for federal government agencies to support AI data centers on federal sites built by private companies, study their effect on energy prices, and encourage their use of renewable energy. In April 2025, the United States Department of Energy suggested 16 possible sites, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In its July 2025 AI Action Plan, the second Trump administration supported increased production of AI data centers. Several US states have incentivized local data center construction. For example, in 2024, lawmakers in Michigan approved tax breaks for data center equipment and construction material. Some data center companies have also invested or promised to invest in the infrastructure of local communities. In December 2025, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal wrote to seven technology companies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix) that they w

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  • New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries

    New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries

    The New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries is a system of library classification developed by Lai Yung-hsiang since 1956. It is modified from "A System of Book Classification for Chinese Libraries" of Liu Guojun, which is based on the Dewey Decimal System. The scheme is developed for Chinese books and commonly used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. == Main classes == 000 Generalities 100 Philosophy 200 Religion 300 Sciences 400 Applied sciences 500 Social sciences 600 History of China and Geography of China 700 World history and Geography 800 Linguistics and Literature 900 Arts == Outline of the classification tables == 000 Generalities 000 Special collections 010 Bibliography; Literacy (Documentation) 020 Library and information science; Archive management 030 Sinology 040 General encyclopedia 050 Serial publications; Periodicals 060 General organization; Museology 070 General collected essays 080 General series 090 Collected Chinese classics 100 Philosophy 100 Philosophy: general 110 Thought; Learning 120 Chinese philosophy 130 Oriental philosophy 140 Western philosophy 150 Logic 160 Metaphysics 170 Psychology 180 Esthetics (Aesthetics) 190 Ethics 200 Religion 200 Religion: general 210 Science of religion 220 Buddhism 230 Taoism 240 Christianity 250 Islam (Mohammedanism) 260 Judaism 270 Other religions 280 Mythology 290 Astrology; Superstition 300 Sciences 300 Sciences: general 310 Mathematics 320 Astronomy 330 Physics 340 Chemistry 350 Earth science; Geology 360 Biological science 370 Botany 380 Zoology 390 Anthropology 400 Applied sciences 400 Applied sciences: general 410 Medical sciences 420 Home economics 430 Agriculture 440 Engineering 450 Mining and metallurgy 460 Chemical engineering 470 Manufacture 480 Commerce: various business 490 Commerce: administration and management 500 Social sciences 500 Social sciences: general 510 Statistics 520 Education 530 Rite and custom 540 Sociology 550 Economy 560 Finance 570 Political science 580 Law; Jurisprudence 590 Military science 600-700 History and geography 600 History and geography: General History and geography of China 610 General history of China 620 Chinese history by period 630 History of Chinese civilization 640 Diplomatic history of China 650 Historical sources 660 Geography of China 670 Local history 680 Topical topography 690 Chinese travels World history and geography 710 World: general history and geography 720 Oceans and seas 730 Asia: history and geography 740 Europe: history and geography 750 America: history and geography 760 Africa: history and geography 770 Oceania: history and geography 780 Biography 790 Antiquities and archaeology 800 Linguistics and literature 800 Linguistics: general 810 Literature: general 820 Chinese literature 830 Chinese literature: general collections 840 Chinese literature: individual works 850 Various Chinese literature 860 Oriental literature 870 Western literature 880 Other countries literatures 890 Journalism 900 Arts 900 Arts: general 910 Music 920 Architecture 930 Sculpture 940 Drawing and painting; Calligraphy 950 Photography; Computer art 960 Decorative arts 970 Arts and Crafts movement 980 Theatre 990 Recreation and leisure

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  • UMBEL

    UMBEL

    UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired at the end of 2019. UMBEL was first released in July 2008. Version 1.00 was released in February 2011. Its current release is version 1.50. The grounding of this information occurs by common reference to the permanent URIs for the UMBEL concepts; the connections within the UMBEL upper ontology enable concepts from sources at different levels of abstraction or specificity to be logically related. Since UMBEL is an open-source extract of the OpenCyc knowledge base, it can also take advantage of the reasoning capabilities within Cyc. UMBEL has two means to promote the semantic interoperability of information:. It is: An ontology of about 35,000 reference concepts, designed to provide common mapping points for relating different ontologies or schema to one another, and A vocabulary for aiding that ontology mapping, including expressions of likelihood relationships distinct from exact identity or equivalence. This vocabulary is also designed for interoperable domain ontologies. UMBEL is written in the Semantic Web languages of SKOS and OWL 2. It is a class structure used in Linked Data, along with OpenCyc, YAGO, and the DBpedia ontology. Besides data integration, UMBEL has been used to aid concept search, concept definitions, query ranking, ontology integration, and ontology consistency checking. It has also been used to build large ontologies and for online question answering systems. Including OpenCyc, UMBEL has about 65,000 formal mappings to DBpedia, PROTON, GeoNames, and schema.org, and provides linkages to more than 2 million Wikipedia pages (English version). All of its reference concepts and mappings are organized under a hierarchy of 31 different "super types", which are mostly disjoint from one another. Each of these "super types" has its own typology of entity classes to provide flexible tie-ins for external content. 90% of UMBEL is contained in these entity classes.

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  • STUDENT

    STUDENT

    STUDENT is an early artificial intelligence program that solves algebra word problems. It is written in Lisp by Daniel G. Bobrow as his PhD thesis in 1964 (Bobrow 1964). It was designed to read and solve the kind of word problems found in high school algebra books. The program is often cited as an early accomplishment of AI in natural language processing. == Technical description == Within Project MAC at MIT, the STUDENT system was an early example of a question answering software, which uniquely involved natural language processing and symbolic programming. Other early attempts for solving algebra story problems were realized with 1960s hardware and software as well: for example, the Philips, Baseball and Synthex systems. STUDENT accepts an algebra story written in the English language as input, and generates a number as output. This is realized with a layered pipeline that consists of heuristics for pattern transformation. At first, sentences in English are converted into kernel sentences, which each contain a single piece of information. Next, the kernel sentences are converted into mathematical expressions. The knowledge base that supports the transformation contains 52 facts. STUDENT uses a rule-based system with logic inference. The rules are pre-programmed by the software developer and are able to parse natural language. More powerful techniques for natural language processing, such as machine learning, came into use later as hardware grew more capable, and gained popularity over simpler rule-based systems.

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  • News analytics

    News analytics

    In trading strategy, news analysis refers to the measurement of the various qualitative and quantitative attributes of textual (unstructured data) news stories. Some of these attributes are: sentiment, relevance, and novelty. Expressing news stories as numbers and metadata permits the manipulation of everyday information in a mathematical and statistical way. This data is often used in financial markets as part of a trading strategy or by businesses to judge market sentiment and make better business decisions. News analytics are usually derived through automated text analysis and applied to digital texts using elements from natural language processing and machine learning such as latent semantic analysis, support vector machines, "bag of words" among other techniques. == Applications and strategies == The application of sophisticated linguistic analysis to news and social media has grown from an area of research to mature product solutions since 2007. News analytics and news sentiment calculations are now routinely used by both buy-side and sell-side in alpha generation, trading execution, risk management, and market surveillance and compliance. There is however a good deal of variation in the quality, effectiveness and completeness of currently available solutions. A large number of companies use news analysis to help them make better business decisions. Academic researchers have become interested in news analysis especially with regards to predicting stock price movements, volatility and traded volume. Provided a set of values such as sentiment and relevance as well as the frequency of news arrivals, it is possible to construct news sentiment scores for multiple asset classes such as equities, Forex, fixed income, and commodities. Sentiment scores can be constructed at various horizons to meet the different needs and objectives of high and low frequency trading strategies, whilst characteristics such as direction and volatility of asset returns as well as the traded volume may be addressed more directly via the construction of tailor-made sentiment scores. Scores are generally constructed as a range of values. For instance, values may range between 0 and 100, where values above and below 50 convey positive and negative sentiment, respectively. === Absolute return strategies === The objective of absolute return strategies is absolute (positive) returns regardless of the direction of the financial market. To meet this objective, such strategies typically involve opportunistic long and short positions in selected instruments with zero or limited market exposure. In statistical terms, absolute return strategies should have very low correlation with the market return. Typically, hedge funds tend to employ absolute return strategies. Below, a few examples show how news analysis can be applied in the absolute return strategy space with the purpose to identify alpha opportunities applying a market neutral strategy or based on volatility trading. Example 1 Scenario: The gap between the news sentiment scores for direction, S {\displaystyle S} , of Company X {\displaystyle X} and Market Y {\displaystyle Y} has moved beyond + 20 {\displaystyle +20} . That is, S X − S Y {\displaystyle S_{X}-S_{Y}} ≥ 20 {\displaystyle 20} . Action: Buy the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} and short the future on Market Y {\displaystyle Y} . Exit Strategy: When the gap in the news sentiment scores for direction of Company X {\displaystyle X} and Market Y {\displaystyle Y} has disappeared, S X − S Y {\displaystyle S_{X}-S_{Y}} = 0 {\displaystyle 0} , sell the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} and go long the future on Market Y {\displaystyle Y} to close the positions. Example 2 Scenario: The news sentiment score for volatility of Company X {\displaystyle X} goes above 70 {\displaystyle 70} out of 100 {\displaystyle 100} indicating an expected volatility above the option implied volatility. Action: Buy a short-dated straddle (the purchase of both a put and a call) on the stock of Company X {\displaystyle X} . Exit Strategy: Keep the straddle on Company X {\displaystyle X} until expiry or until a certain profit target has been reached. === Relative return strategies === The objective of relative return strategies is to either replicate (passive management) or outperform (active management) a theoretical passive reference portfolio or benchmark. To meet these objectives such strategies typically involve long positions in selected instruments. In statistical terms, relative return strategies often have high correlation with the market return. Typically, mutual funds tend to employ relative return strategies. Below, a few examples show how news analysis can be applied in the relative return strategy space with the purpose to outperform the market applying a stock picking strategy and by making tactical tilts to ones asset allocation model. Example 1 Scenario: The news sentiment score for direction of Company X {\displaystyle X} goes above 70 {\displaystyle 70} out of 100 {\displaystyle 100} . Action: Buy the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} . Exit Strategy: When the news sentiment score for direction of Company X {\displaystyle X} falls below 60 {\displaystyle 60} , sell the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} to close the position. Example 2 Scenario: The news sentiment score for direction of Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} goes above 70 {\displaystyle 70} out of 100 {\displaystyle 100} . Action: Include Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} as a tactical bet in the asset allocation model. Exit Strategy: When the news sentiment score for direction of Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} falls below 60 {\displaystyle 60} , remove the tactical bet for Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} from the asset allocation model. === Financial risk management === The objective of financial risk management is to create economic value in a firm or to maintain a certain risk profile of an investment portfolio by using financial instruments to manage risk exposures, particularly credit risk and market risk. Other types include Foreign exchange, Shape, Volatility, Sector, Liquidity, Inflation risks, etc. Below, a few examples show how news analysis can be applied in the financial risk management space with the purpose to either arrive at better risk estimates in terms of Value at Risk (VaR) or to manage the risk of a portfolio to meet ones portfolio mandate. Example 1 Scenario: The bank operates a VaR model to manage the overall market risk of its portfolio. Action: Estimate the portfolio covariance matrix taking into account the development of the news sentiment score for volume. Implement the relevant hedges to bring the VaR of the bank in line with the desired levels. Example 2 Scenario: A portfolio manager operates his portfolio towards a certain desired risk profile. Action: Estimate the portfolio covariance matrix taking into account the development of the news sentiment score for volume. Scale the portfolio exposure according to the targeted risk profile. === Computer algorithms using news analytics === Within 0.33 seconds, computer algorithms using news analytics can notify subscribers which company the news is about, if the news article sentiment is positive or negative, if the news is ranked as high or low relative importance … relative relevance. the stock price reaction and the increase in trade volume is concentrated in the first 5 seconds after an news article is released. === Algorithmic order execution === The objective of algorithmic order execution, which is part of the concept of algorithmic trading, is to reduce trading costs by optimizing on the timing of a given order. It is widely used by hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, and other institutional traders to divide up large trades into several smaller trades to manage market impact, opportunity cost, and risk more effectively. The example below shows how news analysis can be applied in the algorithmic order execution space with the purpose to arrive at more efficient algorithmic trading systems. Example 1 Scenario: A large order needs to be placed in the market for the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} . Action: Scale the daily volume distribution for Company X {\displaystyle X} applied in the algorithmic trading system, thus taking into account the news sentiment score for volume. This is followed by the creation of the desired trading distribution forcing greater market participation during the periods of the day when volume is expected to be heaviest. == Effects == Being able to express news stories as numbers permits the manipulation of everyday information in a statistical way that allows computers not only to make decisions once made only by humans, but to do so more efficiently. Since market participants are always looking for an edge, the speed of computer connections and the delivery of news analysis, measured in milliseconds, have become essential.

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  • AgMES

    AgMES

    The AgMES (Agricultural Metadata Element set) initiative was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and aims to encompass issues of semantic standards in the domain of agriculture with respect to description, resource discovery, interoperability, and data exchange for different types of information resources. There are numerous other metadata schemas for different types of information resources. The following list contains a list of a few examples: Document-like Information Objects (DLIOs): Dublin Core, Agricultural Metadata Element Set (AgMES) Events: VCalendar Geographic and Regional Information: Geographic information—Metadata ISO/IEC 11179 Standards Persons: Friend-of-a-friend (FOAF), vCard Plant Production and Protection: Darwin Core (1.0 and 2.0) (DwC) AgMES as a namespace is designed to include agriculture specific extensions for terms and refinements from established standard metadata namespaces like Dublin Core, AGLS etc. Thus, to be used for Document-like Information Objects, for example like publications, articles, books, web sites, papers, etc., it will have to be used in conjunction with the standard namespaces mentioned before. The AgMES initiative strives to achieve improved interoperability between information resources in agricultural domain by enabling means for exchange of information. Describing a DLIO with AgMES means exposing its major characteristics and contents in a standard way that can be reused easily in any information system. The more institutions and organizations in the agricultural domain that use AgMES to describe their DLIOs, the easier it will be to interchange data in between information systems like digital libraries and other repositories of agricultural information. == Use of AgMES == Metadata on agricultural Document-like Information Objects (DLIOs) can be created and stored in various formats: embedded in a web site (in the manner as with the HTML meta tag) in a separate metadata database in an XML file in an RDF file AgMES defines elements that can be used to describe a DLIO that can be used together with other metadata standards such as the Dublin Core, the Australian Government Locator Service. A complete list of all elements, refinements and schemes endorsed by AgMES is available from the AgMES website. === Creating application profiles === Application profiles are defined as schemas which consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespaces, combined by implementers, and optimized for a particular local application. Application profiles share the following four characteristics: They draw upon existing pool of metadata definition standards to extract suitable application- or requirement oriented elements. An application profile cannot create new elements. Application profiles specify the application specific details such as the schemes or controlled vocabularies. An application profile also contains information such as the format for the element value, cardinality or data type. Lastly, an application profile can refine standardized definitions as long as it is "semantically narrower or more specific". This capability of application profiles caters to situations where a domain specific terminology is needed to replace a more general one. === Sample application profiles using AgMES === The AGRIS Application Profile is a standard created specifically to enhance the description, exchange and subsequent retrieval of agricultural Document-like Information Objects (DLIOs). It is a format that allows sharing of information across dispersed bibliographic systems and is based on well-known and accepted metadata standards. The Event Application Profile is a standard created to allow members of the Agricultural community to 'know' about an upcoming event and guide them to the event Web site where they can find further information. The information communicated is thus minimum yet interoperable across domains and organizations. == AgMES and the semantic web == One of the advantages of the AgMES metadata schema is the ability to link between the metadata element and controlled vocabularies. The use of controlled vocabulary provides a "known" set of options to the indexer (and the search programmer) as to how the field can be filled out. Often the values may come from a specific thesaurus (e.g. AGROVOC) or classification schemes (e.g. the AGRIS/CARIS classification scheme) etc. Thanks to the possibility to use controlled vocabularies for metadata elements, the user is provided with the most precise information. In this context, work is also being carried out on exploiting the power of controlled vocabularies expressed as using URIs and machine-understandable semantics. In this context, FAO is promoting the Agricultural Ontology Service (AOS) initiative with the objective of expressing more semantics within the traditional thesaurus AGROVOC and build a Concept Server as a repository from which it will be always possible to extract traditional KOS.

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  • Leela Zero

    Leela Zero

    Leela Zero is a free and open-source computer Go program released on 25 October 2017. It is developed by Belgian programmer Gian-Carlo Pascutto, the author of chess engine Sjeng and Go engine Leela. Leela Zero's algorithm is based on DeepMind's 2017 paper about AlphaGo Zero. Unlike the original Leela, which has a lot of human knowledge and heuristics programmed into it, the program code in Leela Zero only knows the basic rules and nothing more. The knowledge that makes Leela Zero a strong player is contained in a neural network, which is trained based on the results of previous games that the program played. Leela Zero is trained by a distributed effort, which is coordinated at the Leela Zero website. Members of the community provide computing resources by running the client, which generates self-play games and submits them to the server. The self-play games are used to train newer networks. Generally, over 500 clients have connected to the server to contribute resources. The community has provided high quality code contributions as well. == Version history == Leela Zero finished third at the BerryGenomics Cup World AI Go Tournament in Fuzhou, Fujian, China on 28 April 2018. The New Yorker at the end of 2018 characterized Leela and Leela Zero as "the world’s most successful open-source Go engines". In early 2018, another team branched Leela Chess Zero from the same code base, also to verify the methods in the AlphaZero paper as applied to the game of chess. AlphaZero's use of Google TPUs was replaced by a crowd-sourcing infrastructure and the ability to use graphics card GPUs via the OpenCL library. Even so, it is expected to take a year of crowd-sourced training to make up for the dozen hours that AlphaZero was allowed to train for its chess match in the paper. The distributed training server was shut down on 2021-02-15, marking the end of Leela Zero project. The page now directs visitors to KataGo and SAI. The model sizes increased steadily over time. The first released model has hash name d645af97, size 1x8 (1 layer, 8 channels), and released at 2017-11-10 13:04. The last released model has hash name 0e9ea880, size 40x256, and was released at 2021-02-15 09:04. == Technology == Leela Zero is an (almost) exact replication of AlphaGo Zero in both training process and architecture. The training process is Monte-Carlo Tree Search with self-play, exactly the same as AlphaGo Zero. The architecture is the same as AlphaGo Zero (with one difference). Consider the last released model, 0e9ea880. It has 47 million parameters, and the following architecture: The stem of the network takes as input a 18x19x19 tensor representation of the Go board. 8 channels are the positions of the current player's stones from the last eight time steps. (1 if there is a stone, 0 otherwise. If the time step go before the beginning of the game, then 0 in all positions.) 8 channels are the positions of the other player's stones from the last eight time steps. 1 channel is all 1 if black is to move, and 0 otherwise. 1 channel is all 1 if white is to move, and 0 otherwise. (This channel is not present in the original AlphaGo Zero) The body is a ResNet with 40 residual blocks and 256 channels. There are two heads, a policy head and a value head. Policy head outputs a logit array of size 19 × 19 + 1 {\displaystyle 19\times 19+1} , representing the logit of making a move in one of the points, plus the logit of passing. Value head outputs a number in the range ( − 1 , + 1 ) {\displaystyle (-1,+1)} , representing the expected score for the current player. -1 represents current player losing, and +1 winning.

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  • Karen Hao

    Karen Hao

    Karen Hao (born in the United States c. 1993) is an American journalist and author. Currently a freelancer for publications like The Atlantic and previously a foreign correspondent based in Hong Kong for The Wall Street Journal and senior artificial intelligence editor at the MIT Technology Review, she is best known for her coverage on AI research, technology ethics and the social impact of AI. Hao also co-produced the podcast In Machines We Trust and wrote the newsletter The Algorithm. Previously, she worked at Quartz as a tech reporter and data scientist and was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of X Development. Hao's writing has also appeared in Mother Jones, Sierra Magazine, The New Republic, and other publications. == Early life and education == Hao is the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents, and grew up in New Jersey. She is a native speaker of both English and Mandarin Chinese. She graduated from The Lawrenceville School in 2011. She then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and a minor in energy studies in 2015. == Career == Hao is known in the technology world for her coverage of new AI research findings and their societal and ethical impacts. Her writing has spanned research and issues regarding big tech data privacy, misinformation, deepfakes, facial recognition, and AI healthcare tools. In March 2021, Hao published a piece that uncovered previously unknown information about how attempts to combat misinformation by different teams at Facebook using machine learning were impeded and constantly at odds with Facebook's drive to grow user engagement. Upon its release, leaders at Facebook including Mike Schroepfer and Yann LeCun immediately criticized the piece through Twitter responses. AI researchers and AI ethics experts Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell responded in support of Hao's writing and advocated for more change and improvement for all. Hao also co-produced the podcast In Machines We Trust, which discusses the rise of AI with people developing, researching, and using AI technologies. The podcast won the 2020 Front Page Award in investigative reporting. Hao has occasionally created data visualizations that have been featured in her work at the MIT Technology Review and elsewhere. In 2018, her "What is AI?" flowchart visualization was exhibited as an installation at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. She has been an invited speaker at TEDxGateway, the United Nations Foundation, EmTech, WNPR, and many other conferences and podcasts. Her TEDx talk discussed the importance of democratizing how AI is built. In March 2022, she was hired by The Wall Street Journal to cover China technology and society, while being based in Hong Kong. She left the WSJ in 2023. In May 2025, Hao released the book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. The book became a New York Times Bestseller and was named a Book of the Year by the Financial Times. In December 2025, after criticism from readers, Hao issued a correction to her book where she had previously overestimated the water consumption of a data center in Chile compared to the community's water consumption by factor of 1,000, due to an error in a government document. In April 2026 the book won the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. === Selected awards and honors === 2019 Webby Award nominee for best newsletter, as a writer of The Algorithm 2021 Front Page Award in investigative reporting, as a co-producer for In Machines We Trust 2021 Ambies Award nominee for best knowledge and science podcast, as a co-producer for In Machines We Trust 2021 Webby Award nominee for best technology podcast, as a co-producer for In Machines We Trust 2024 American Humanist Media Award 2025 TIME100 AI, named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence 2026 New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism 2026 Whiting Award in Non-fiction

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  • Genigraphics

    Genigraphics

    Genigraphics is a large-format printing service bureau specializing in providing poster session services to medical and scientific conferences throughout the US and Canada. The company began in 1973 as a division of General Electric. == History == Genigraphics began as a computer graphics system, developed by General Electric in the late 1960s, for NASA to use in space flight simulation. The technologies thus developed provided a foundation for the company's expansion into the commercial market. The Computed Images System & Services division (CISS, to become Genigraphics Corporation) of GE delivered the first presentation graphics system to Amoco Oil's corporate headquarters in 1973. It was named the 100 Series, and was based on DEC's PDP 11 series of mini computer systems. The first Genigraphics systems (100 Series and 100A Series) used an array of buttons, dials, knobs and joysticks, along with a built in keyboard, as the means of user interface. The PDP-11/40 computer was housed in a tall cabinet and used random access magnetic tape drives (DECtape) for storing completed presentations. The graphics generator (Forox recorder) was capable of outputting 2,000 line resolution, suitable for 35mm and 72mm film and large sheet film positive using larger cassettes for recording. 4000 and 8000 line resolution was later achieved with duplex scanning and 4x scanning by modifying to the Forox recorder's settings menu. Subsequent models (100B,C,D,D+ and D+/GVP) replaced the knobs and dials with an on screen, text based menu system, a graphics tablet and a pen. The pen/tablet combination gave way to a mouse like device in later models, and served to provide the interface with the graphics tools. User interaction with the computer for functions such as media initialization or modem to modem data transfer required a DECwriter serial terminal. In 1982, GE divested the Genigraphics division along with a host of other "non essential" business units (Genitext, Geniponics) and Genigraphics Corporation was born. Shortly after the divestiture, the headquarters of Genigraphics was moved from Liverpool, New York to Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Major success followed as the company grew exponentially over the next few years selling both systems and slide creation services. Genigraphics film recorders produced high-resolution digital images on 35mm film. The computer-generated scenes for The Last Starfighter were calculated on a Cray X-MP supercomputer and mastered with a Genigraphics film recorder. At its peak, Genigraphics Corporation employed roughly 300 people in 24 offices worldwide, with revenues upwards of $70 million annually. By the late 1980s Genigraphics saw demand for its proprietary systems dwindle and began selling the MASTERPIECE 8770 film recorder and GRAFTIME software as a peripheral for DEC Vaxes, IBM PC AT’s, and Mac NuBus machines. But the MASTERPIECE film recorder proved too expensive to sell in volume. In 1988, the company began a partnership with Microsoft to help develop the PowerPoint software. In exchange, every copy of PowerPoint included a “Send to Genigraphics” link to have files sent to a Genigraphics service bureau to be produced as 35mm slides. This partnership continued until 2001. In 1989, after three years of flat revenue, Genigraphics sold its hardware business in order to focus on its service bureau business and partnership with Microsoft via PowerPoint. In 1994, all assets of Genigraphics, including equipment, software development, in-house artwork, trademarks, and rights to the Microsoft partnership, were sold to InFocus Corporation of Wilsonville, Oregon who continued to operate under the Genigraphics brand name. The twenty-four service bureaus were consolidated to a 20,000 square foot facility next to the FedEx hub in Memphis, Tennessee. This allowed PowerPoint slide orders to be received until 10pm and delivered across the United States by the following morning. In 1995, InFocus registered www.genigraphics.com and was among the first to offer a form of ecommerce allowing 35mm slides, color prints and transparencies, printed booklets, and digital projectors to be purchased online. In 1998, then current management bought Genigraphics from InFocus and have operated it continuously ever since as Genigraphics LLC. That same year, InFocus projector rentals were added to the “Send to Genigraphics” link in PowerPoint and Genigraphics became the rental and repair center for all InFocus national accounts. It also marked Genigraphics entry into the new industry of large format printing; leveraging their knowledge of, and access to, PowerPoint programming code to develop a proprietary printer driver to output directly to an Epson 9500 wide format printer. At the time, Genigraphics was the exclusive 35mm slide vendor for all Kinko’s stores in the United States and poster printing was added to the arrangement. In 2003, Genigraphics closed their 35mm slide E6 photo lab – one of the last high-volume commercial E6 labs in the US – and expanded their large format printing capabilities. Since 2003, Genigraphics has become a major player in the poster session market, providing printing and on-site services to medical and scientific conferences throughout the US and Canada. As of February 2019, over 150,000 medical or scientific ‘ePosters’ are made available through their ResearchPosters.com archive service. === Partnership with Microsoft and development of PowerPoint === As presentations began to be created on personal computers in the late 80’s, Genigraphics sought presentation software partners in Silicon Valley who would be interested in sending files to Genigraphics via dial-up modem to be produced on 35mm slides. In 1987, Michael Beetner, Director of Marketing Planning for Genigraphics, met with Robert Gaskins, head of Microsoft's Graphics Business Unit, who was leading the development of the newly released PowerPoint software. A joint development agreement between Microsoft and Genigraphics was agreed upon and announced at Mac World 1988. According to Erica Robles-Anderson and Patrik Svensson, "It would be hard to overestimate Genigraphics’ influence on PowerPoint. PowerPoint 2.0 was designed for Genigraphics film recorders. It shipped with Genigraphics color palettes, schemes, and the distinctively Genigraphics color-gradient backgrounds. The application contained a ‘Send to Genigraphics’ menu item that wrote the presentation to floppy disk or transmitted the order directly via modem. Within three and a half months PowerPoint orders accounted for ten percent of revenue at Genigraphics service centers. PowerPoint 3.0 was even more intimately dependent upon Genigraphics. The software incorporated a collection of clip art images and symbols that had been produced by hundreds of artists at dozens of service centers across tens of thousands of presentations. Genigraphics artists designed PowerPoint 3.0 colors, templates, and sample presentations. The software even used Genigraphics (rather than Excel) chart style. Bar charts were rendered two-dimensionally with apparent thickness added to make them seemingly recede from the axes. The technique made it easier for viewers to compare bar heights and estimate values from axis ticks and labels. Pie charts were handled analogously. Microsoft paid Genigraphics to produce more than 500 clip art drawings and symbols used in Microsoft programs.” In exchange for Genigraphics development efforts, Microsoft included a “Send to Genigraphics” link in every copy of PowerPoint through the 10.0 version (2000/2001). The arrangement came to an end when Microsoft restructured as a result of anti-trust lawsuits.

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  • GPT-5.3-Codex

    GPT-5.3-Codex

    GPT-5.3-Codex (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 5.3 Codex) is a large language model (LLM) announced and released by OpenAI on February 5, 2026. It is made as a competitor to Claude's Opus 4.6, focusing on code generation, speed and the ability to search repositories, run terminal commands and at the same time, debug code. In technical benchmarks, it is reported that GPT-5.3 Codex is 25% faster than Opus 4.6. GPT-5.3 Codex is available in the Codex app and on the web; access via API is also planned. According to OpenAI, GPT-5.3-Codex is the company's "first model that was instrumental in creating itself." On February 12, 2026, GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark was released in a research preview, which is a smaller version of GPT-5.3-Codex which supports text-only input. As of February 2026, GPT-5.3-Codex is only available for ChatGPT Pro ($200/month) subscribers.

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  • TasteDive

    TasteDive

    TasteDive (formerly named TasteKid) is an entertainment recommendation engine for films, TV shows, music, video games, books, people, places, and brands. It also has elements of a social media site; it allows users to connect with "tastebuds", people with like minded interests. == History == TasteDive was founded in 2008 as TasteKid by brothers Andrei Oghina and Felix Oghina. In 2019, it was acquired by Qloo headquartered in NYC. "Qloo has built for developers and enterprises what TasteDive has built for individuals". == Description == When a user types in the title of a film or TV show, the site's algorithm provides a list of similar content. It provides recommendations for TV shows to watch based on films liked by the user, and vice versa. It also provides recommendations for music, video games, and books, and includes film and TV trailers and music videos. An account is free and is not required to receive recommendations, but recommendations are more accurate for those with an account. The more a user explores the site, the more the site learns about the user's preferences and the better the results become. The site also has a social media aspect where one can see activity and gain recommendations from other users, how many others in the community like or dislike any recommendation, and how popular their tastes are within the TasteDive community. The main competitors of TasteDive are Taste App, Trakt.tv and Tastoid.

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  • Artificial intelligence in Wikimedia projects

    Artificial intelligence in Wikimedia projects

    Some editors of Wikimedia projects use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning programs to edit existing articles or create new ones. Some applications of artificial intelligence, like using large language models (LLMs) to create new articles from scratch, have been more controversial than others for the Wikipedia community. In August 2025, English Wikipedia adopted a policy that allowed editors to nominate suspected LLM-generated articles for speedy deletion. This was followed by a March 2026 decision to prohibit the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content, with exceptions for copyediting one's own writing and machine translation from another language's Wikipedia. Wikipedia has also been a significant source of training data for some of the earliest artificial intelligence projects. This has received mixed reactions including concern about companies not citing Wikipedia when relying on it to answer a question as well as Wikipedia's increased costs from data scraping. == AI usage == === Earliest use of automated tools, machine learning and AI === Since 2002, bots have been allowed to run on Wikipedia but must be approved and supervised by a human. A bot created in 2002, rambot, transformed census data into short new articles about towns in the United States; the vast majority of town, city, and county articles were started by it. Fighting vandalism has been a major focus of machine learning and AI bots and tools. The 2007 ClueBot relied on simple heuristics to identify likely vandalism, while its 2010 successor, ClueBot NG, uses machine learning through an artificial neural network. Machine translation software has also been used by Wikimedia contributors for a number of years. Aaron Halfaker's Objective Revision Evaluation Service (ORES) project was launched in late 2015 as an artificial intelligence service for grading the quality of Wikipedia edits. === Generative AI and LLMs === In 2022, the public release of ChatGPT inspired more experimentation with AI and writing Wikipedia articles. A debate was sparked about whether and to what extent such large language models are suitable for such purposes in light of their tendency to generate plausible-sounding misinformation, including fake references; to generate prose that is not encyclopedic in tone; and to reproduce biases. An early experiment on December 6, 2022 by a Wikipedia contributor named Pharos occurred when he created the article "Artwork title" using ChatGPT for the initial draft. Another editor who experimented with this early version of ChatGPT said that ChatGPT's overview of "Weaponized incompetence" was decent, but that the citations were fabricated. Since 2023, work has been done to draft an English Wikipedia policy regarding ChatGPT and similar LLMs, at times recommending that users who are unfamiliar with LLMs should avoid using them due to the aforementioned risks, as well as noting the potential for libel or copyright infringement. In early 2023, the Wiki Education Foundation reported that some experienced editors found AI to be useful in starting drafts or creating new articles. It said that ChatGPT "knows" what Wikipedia articles look like and can easily generate one that is written in the style of Wikipedia, but warned that ChatGPT had a tendency to use promotional language, among other issues. In 2023, a ban on AI was deemed "too harsh" by the community given the productivity benefits it offered editors. In 2023, members of the English Wikipedia community created a WikiProject named AI Cleanup to assist in the removal of poor quality AI content from Wikipedia. Miguel García, a former Wikimedia member from Spain, said in 2024 that when ChatGPT was originally launched, the number of AI-generated articles on the site peaked. He added that the rate of AI articles has now stabilized due to the community's efforts to combat it. He said that majority of the articles that have no sources are deleted instantly or are nominated for deletion. In October 2024, a study by Princeton University found that about 5% of 3,000 newly created articles (created in August 2024) on English Wikipedia were created using AI. The study said that some of the AI articles were on innocuous topics and that AI had likely only been used to assist in writing. For some other articles, AI had been used to promote businesses or political interests. In October 2024, Ilyas Lebleu, founder of WikiProject AI Cleanup, said that they and their fellow editors noticed a pattern of unnatural writing that could be connected to ChatGPT. They added that AI is able to mass-produce content that sounds real while being completely fake, leading to the creation of hoax articles on Wikipedia that they were tasked to delete. In June 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation started testing a "Simple Article Summaries" feature which would provide AI-generated summaries of Wikipedia articles, similar to Google Search's AI Overviews. The decision was met with immediate and harsh criticism from some Wikipedia editors, who called the feature a "ghastly idea" and a "PR hype stunt." They criticized a perceived loss of trust in the site due to AI's tendency to hallucinate and questioned the necessity of the feature. The criticism led the Wikimedia Foundation to halt the rollout of Simple Article Summaries that same month while still expressing interest in integrating generative AI more into Wikipedia. The project hints at tensions within the community and with the Foundation over when to use AI.In August 2025, the English Wikipedia community created a policy that allowed users to nominate suspected AI-generated articles for speedy deletion. Editors might recognize AI-generated articles because they use citations that are not related to the subject of the article or fabricated citations or the wording has particular quirks. If an article uses language that reads like an LLM response to a user, such as "Here is your Wikipedia article on" or "Up to my last training update", the article is typically tagged for speedy deletion. Other signs of AI use include excessive use of em dashes, overuse of the word "moreover", promotional material in articles that describes something as "breathtaking" and formatting issues like using curly quotation marks instead of straight versions. During the discussion on implementing the speedy deletion policy, one user, who is an article reviewer, said that he is "flooded non-stop with horrendous drafts" created using AI. Other users said that AI articles have a large amount of "lies and fake references" and that it takes a significant amount of time to fix the issues. English Wikipedia created a guide on how to spot signs of AI-generated writing in August 2025, titled "Signs of AI writing". In January 2026, the Wiki Education Foundation continued to caution against copying and pasting outputs from generative AI into Wikipedia and to avoid it for creating new articles explaining that the text often failed verification with the sources provided. The foundation created a training module that encourages editors to use AI for identifying gaps in articles, finding access to sources and finding relevant sources. In March 2026, the English Wikipedia community prohibited the use of AI to add content to articles, with exceptions for copy editing and machine translation from another language's Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia community holds the position that LLMs often violate core content policies. == Using Wikipedia for artificial intelligence == A 2017 paper described Wikipedia as the mother lode for human-generated text available for machine learning. In the development of the Google's Perspective API that identifies toxic comments in online forums, a dataset containing hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia talk page comments with human-labelled toxicity levels was used. As of 2023, subsets of the Wikipedia corpus were considered one of the largest well-curated data sets available for AI training, used to train every LLM to-date according to Stephen Harrison. This use of Wikipedia was divisive as of 2023. The Wikimedia Foundation and many of its projects supporters worry that attribution to Wikipedia articles is missing in many large-language models like ChatGPT (as well as AI like Siri and Alexa). While Wikipedia's licensing policy lets anyone use its texts, including in modified forms, it does have the condition that credit is given, implying that using its contents in answers by AI models without clarifying the sourcing may violate its terms of use. The Foundation expressed concern that without attribution, people will not visit the site as much or be as motivated to donate to support the project if they do not know when they are benefiting from it. They also noticed an 8% decrease in visitors to Wikipedia in 2025 which they attributed both to the increased popularity of generative AI and social media. In 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation has cited absorbing increased costs associated with scra

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  • Radar geo-warping

    Radar geo-warping

    Radar geo-warping is the adjustment of geo-referenced radar images and video data to be consistent with a geographical projection. This image warping avoids any restrictions when displaying it together with video from multiple radar sources or with other geographical data including scanned maps and satellite images which may be provided in a particular projection. There are many areas where geo warping has unique benefits: Single radar video signal displayed together with maps of different geographical projections. E.g. Mercator UTM stereographic Multiple radar video signals displayed simultaneously: Having the computing power to do so on one computer. Adapting the projection of all radar signals allowing the geographically correct display and accurate superimposition of those videos. Slant range correction: a modern 3D radar system can measure the height of a target and hence it is possible to correct the radar video by the real corrected range of the target. Slant Range Correction also allows to compensate the radar tower height e.g. for maritime surveillance radars. == Introduction == Radar video presents the echoes of electromagnetic waves a radar system has emitted and received as reflections afterwards. These echoes are typically presented on a computer screen with a color-coding scheme depicting the reflection strength. Two problems have to be solved during such a visualization process. The first problem arises from the fact that typically the radar antenna turns around its position and measures the reflection echo distances from its position in one direction. This effectively means that the radar video data are present in polar coordinates. In older systems the polar oriented picture has been displayed in so called plan position indicators (PPI). The PPI-scope uses a radial sweep pivoting about the center of the presentation. This results in a map-like picture of the area covered by the radar beam. A long-persistence screen is used so that the display remains visible until the sweep passes again. Bearing to the target is indicated by the target's angular position in relation to an imaginary line extending vertically from the sweep origin to the top of the scope. The top of the scope is either true north (when the indicator is operated in the true bearing mode) or ship's heading (when the indicator is operated in the relative bearing mode). For visualization on a modern computer screen the polar coordinates have to be converted into Cartesian coordinates. This process called radar scan conversion is presented with more detail in the next section. The second problem to solve arises from the fact that a radar system is placed in the real world and measures real world echo positions. These echoes have to be displayed together with other real world data like object positions, vector maps and satellite images in a consistent way. All this information refers to the curved earth surface but is displayed on a flat computer display. Building a link from real world earth positions to display pixels is commonly called geographical referencing or in short geo-referencing. Part of the geo-referencing process is to map the 3D earth surface onto a 2D display. This process of a geographical projection can be performed in many ways, but different data sources have their own 'natural' projection. E.g. Cartesian radar video data from a radar source on the earth surface are geo-referenced by a so-called radar projection. When using this radar projection the Cartesian radar video pixels can directly displayed on a computer screen (only being linearly transformed according to the current position on the screen and e.g. the current zoom level). A problem now arises if e.g. also a satellite map shall be shown together with the radar video data. The 'natural' geographical projection of a satellite image would be a satellite projection which depends on the satellite orbit, position and further parameters. Now either the satellite image has to be reprojected to a radar projection or the radar video has to use the satellite projection. This geographical re-projection is also called geographical warping or Geo Warping where each image pixel has to be transformed from one projection into another. This article describes in further detail the Geo Warping of radar video images in real time. It will also show that radar video Geo Warping is done most efficiently when it is integrated with the radar scan conversion process. == Radar-scan conversion == This section describes the principles of the radar-scan conversion (RSC) process. The radar supplies its measured data in polar coordinates (ρ,θ) directly from the rotating antenna. ρ defines the target/echo distance and θ the target angle in polar world coordinates. These data are measured, digitized and stored in a polar coordinate polar store or polar pixmap. The main RSC task is to convert these data to Cartesian (x, y) display coordinates, creating the necessary display pixels. The RSC process is influenced by the current zoom, shift and rotation settings defining which part of the 'world' shall be visible in the display image. As detailed later the RSC process also takes the currently used geographical projection into account when the radar video images are Geo Warped. The OpenGL RSC is implemented using a reverse scan conversion approach which calculates for every image pixel the most appropriate radar amplitude value in the polar store. This approach generates an optimal image without any artifacts known from forward spoke fill algorithms. By applying bi-linear filtering between adjacent pixels in the polar store during the conversion process the OpenGL RSC finally achieves a very high visual quality radar display image for every zoom level, creating smooth images of the radar echoes. == Radar projection == This section illustrates how radar video data are geo referenced and displayed on a computer screen. The radar sensor is positioned on the earth surface with a height h above the ground. It measures the direct distance d to the target (and not e.g. the distance the target is away from the radar if one would move on the earth surface). This distance is then used in the display plane after adjustment to the current display zoom level by the radar scan converter (RSC). Now it has to be clarified how the radar video data is geo referenced. This basically means, that if we want to display a geographical real world object (like e.g. a light house) which is at the same real world position as the radar target, that it also shall appear at the same position in the display plane. This is realized by calculating the distance from the radar sensor to the respective real world object and use that distance in the display plane. The position of the real world object is typically given in geographical coordinates (latitude, longitude and height above the earth surface). In other words, using a radar projection with geographical data is done by simulating a radar measurement process with the real world objects and use the resulting range and azimuth in the display plane. The second picture to the right shows an example radar projection with the center of projection (COP) at latitude 50.0° and longitude 0.0° which is also the radar position. The dashed lines are the equal-latitude and equal-longitude lines on top of the background map. The solid lines show equal-range and equal-azimuth with the respect to the radar position. It is a feature of the radar projection that equal-range lines are circles and equal-azimuth lines are straight lines. This is necessary to display radar video consistently with other map data when using a radar projection where the projection center has to be the radar position. == Geo Warping process == This section explains the actual geo warping or re-projection process when applied to radar video in real time. Assume we want to display radar video on top of a satellite image. As an example we use the CIB projection which is used to display satellite data in CIB (Controlled Image Base) format. The Figure Geo Warping Radar to CIB Projection shows dashed the maximal range circle for a range of 111 km or 60 miles using the radar projection. Such a range is typical for long range coastal surveillance radars. As stated in the last section this is a perfect circle also on the computer screen. The solid line ellipse shows the same range circle for the CIB projection. Typically the errors occurring without Geo Warping are smallest near the radar position if at least the projection center (COP) coincides with the radar position, as realized in our example. Otherwise the error distribution depends both on the used projection and also on the projection parameters. Thus, in our case the errors are most significant near the maximum radar range. The CIB projection error corrected in east–west direction at half the radar range is 2.6 km and is 5.3 km at the full radar range of 111 km. An error of 5.3 km is

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  • Vilém Flusser

    Vilém Flusser

    Vilém Flusser (May 12, 1920 – November 27, 1991) was a Czech-born Brazilian philosopher, writer and journalist, best known for his contributions to media studies, communication theory, and the philosophy of language. He lived for a long period in São Paulo (where he became a Brazilian citizen) and later in France, and his works are written in many different languages. His early work was marked by discussion of the thought of Martin Heidegger, and by the influence of existentialism and phenomenology. Phenomenology would play a major role in the transition to the later phase of his work, in which he turned his attention to the philosophy of communication and of artistic production. He contributed to the dichotomy logic theory through history: the period of image worship, and period of text worship, with deviations consequently into idolatry and "textolatry". == Life == Flusser was born in 1920 in Prague, Czechoslovakia into a family of Jewish intellectuals. His father, Gustav Flusser, studied mathematics and physics (under Albert Einstein among others). Vilém attended German and Czech primary schools and later a German grammar school. In 1938, Flusser started to study philosophy at the Juridical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. In 1939, shortly after the Nazi occupation, Flusser emigrated to London (with Edith Barth, his later wife, and her parents) to continue his studies for one term at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Vilém Flusser lost all of his family in the German concentration camps: his father died in Buchenwald in 1940; his grandparents, his mother and his sister were brought to Theresienstadt and later to Auschwitz where they were killed. The next year, he emigrated to Brazil, living both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. He started working at a Czech import/export company and then at Stabivolt, a manufacturer of radios and transistors. In 1960 he started to collaborate with the Brazilian Institute of Philosophy (IBF) in São Paulo and published in the Revista Brasileira de Filosofia; by these means he seriously approached the Brazilian intellectual community. Flusser had as his friend and closest interlocutor the Brazilian philosopher Vicente Ferreira da Silva. Flusser and Vicente Ferreira da Silva met in São Paulo in the 1960s and began a close intellectual dialogue that continued until Ferreira da Silva's death in 1963. Flusser wrote several essays on Ferreira da Silva's work and that Ferreira da Silva's concept of "Fundamental ontology” had a significant impact on Flusser's understanding of the nature of reality. During the 60s Flusser published and taught at several schools in São Paulo, being Lecturer for Philosophy of Science at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo and Professor of Philosophy of Communication at the Escola Dramática and the Escola Superior de Cinema in São Paulo. He also participated actively in the arts, collaborating with the Bienal de São Paulo, among other cultural events. Beginning in the 1950s he taught philosophy and worked as a journalist, before publishing his first book Língua e realidade (Language and Reality) in 1963. In 1972 he decided to leave Brazil. Some say it was because it was becoming difficult to publish because of the military regime. Others dispute this reason, since his work on communication and language did not threaten the military. In 1970, when a reform took place at the University of São Paulo by the Brazilian military government, all Lecturers of Philosophy (members of the Department of Philosophy) were dismissed. Flusser, who taught at the Engineering School (Escola Politécnica), had to leave the university as well. In 1972 he and his wife Edith settled temporarily in Merano (Tyrol). Further short stays in various European countries followed until they moved to Robion in southern France in 1981, where they remained until Flusser's death in 1991. To the end of his life, he was quite active writing and giving lectures around media theory and working with new topics (Philosophy of Photography, Technical Images, etc.). He died in 1991 in a car accident near the Czech–German border, while trying to visit his native city, Prague, to give a lecture. Vilém Flusser is the cousin of David Flusser. == Philosophy == Flusser's essays are short, provocative and lucid, with a resemblance to the style of journalistic articles. Critics have noted he is less a 'systematic' thinker than a 'dialogic' one, purposefully eclectic and provocative (Cubitt 2004). However, his early books, written in the 1960s, primarily in Portuguese, and published in Brazil, have a slightly different style. Flusser's writings relate to each other, however, which means that he intensively works over certain topics and dissects them into a number of brief essays. His main topics of interest were: epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, ontology, language philosophy, semiotics, philosophy of science, the history of Western culture, the philosophy of religion, the history of symbolic language, technology, writing, the technical image, photography, migration, media and literature, and, especially in his later years, the philosophy of communication and of artistic production. His writings reflect his wandering life: although the majority of his work was written in German and Portuguese, he also wrote in English and French, with scarce translation to other languages. Because Flusser's writings in different languages are dispersed in the form of books, articles or sections of books, his work as a media philosopher and cultural theorist is only now becoming more widely known. The first book by Flusser to be published in English was Towards a Philosophy of Photography in 1984 by the then new journal European Photography, which was his own translation of the work. The Shape of Things, was published in London in 1999 and was followed by a new translation of Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Flusser's archives have been held by the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and are currently housed at the Berlin University of the Arts. === Philosophy of photography === Writing about photography in the 1970s and 80s, in the face of the early worldwide impact of computer technologies, Flusser argued that the photograph was the first in a number of technical image forms to have fundamentally changed the way in which the world is seen. Historically, the importance of photography had been that it introduced nothing less than a new epoch: 'The invention of photography constitutes a break in history that can only be understood in comparison to that other historical break constituted by the invention of linear writing.' Whereas ideas might previously have been interpreted in terms of their written form, photography heralded new forms of perceptual experience and knowledge. As Flusser Archive Supervisor Claudia Becker describes, "For Flusser, photography is not only a reproductive imaging technology, it is a dominant cultural technique through which reality is constituted and understood". In this context, Flusser argued that photographs have to be understood in strict separation from 'pre-technical image forms'. For example, he contrasted them to paintings which he described as images that can be sensibly 'decoded', because the viewer is able to interpret what he or she sees as more or less direct signs of what the painter intended. By contrast, even though photography produces images that seem to be 'faithful reproductions' of objects and events they cannot be so directly 'decoded'. The crux of this difference stems, for Flusser, from the fact that photographs are produced through the operations of an apparatus. And the photographic apparatus operates in ways that are not immediately known or shaped by its operator. For example, he described the act of photographing as follows: The photographer's gesture as the search for a viewpoint onto a scene takes place within the possibilities offered by the apparatus. The photographer moves within specific categories of space and time regarding the scene: proximity and distance, bird- and worm's-eye views, frontal- and side-views, short or long exposures, etc. The Gestalt of space–time surrounding the scene is prefigured for the photographer by the categories of his camera. These categories are an a priori for him. He must 'decide' within them: he must press the trigger. Roughly put, the person using a camera might think that they are operating its controls to produce a picture that shows the world the way they want it to be seen, but it is the pre-programmed character of the camera that sets the parameters of this act and it is the apparatus that shapes the meaning of the resulting image. Given the central role of photography to almost all aspects of contemporary life, the programmed character of the photographic apparatus shapes the experience of looking at and interpreting photographs as well as most of the cultural contexts in which we do so. Flusse

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  • Computational creativity

    Computational creativity

    Computational creativity (also known as artificial creativity, mechanical creativity, creative computing or creative computation) is a multidisciplinary endeavour that is located at the intersection of the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and the arts (e.g., computational art as part of computational culture). Is the application of computer systems to emulate human-like creative processes, facilitating the generation of artistic and design outputs that mimic innovation and originality. The goal of computational creativity is to model, simulate or replicate creativity using a computer, to achieve one of several ends: To construct a program or computer capable of human-level creativity. To better understand human creativity and to formulate an algorithmic perspective on creative behavior in humans. To design programs that can enhance human creativity without necessarily being creative themselves. The field of computational creativity concerns itself with theoretical and practical issues in the study of creativity. Theoretical work on the nature and proper definition of creativity is performed in parallel with practical work on the implementation of systems that exhibit creativity, with one strand of work informing the other. The applied form of computational creativity is known as media synthesis. == Theoretical issues == Theoretical approaches concern the essence of creativity. Especially, under what circumstances it is possible to call the model a "creative" if eminent creativity is about rule-breaking or the disavowal of convention. This is a variant of Ada Lovelace's objection to machine intelligence, as recapitulated by modern theorists such as Teresa Amabile. If a machine can do only what it was programmed to do, how can its behavior ever be called creative? Indeed, not all computer theorists would agree with the premise that computers can only do what they are programmed to do—a key point in favor of computational creativity. == Defining creativity in computational terms == Because no single perspective or definition seems to offer a complete picture of creativity, the AI researchers Newell, Shaw and Simon developed the combination of novelty and usefulness into the cornerstone of a multi-pronged view of creativity, one that uses the following four criteria to categorize a given answer or solution as creative: The answer is novel and useful (either for the individual or for society) The answer demands that we reject ideas we had previously accepted The answer results from intense motivation and persistence The answer comes from clarifying a problem that was originally vague Margaret Boden focused on the first two of these criteria, arguing instead that creativity (at least when asking whether computers could be creative) should be defined as "the ability to come up with ideas or artifacts that are new, surprising, and valuable". Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that creativity had to be considered instead in a social context, and his DIFI (Domain-Individual-Field Interaction) framework has since strongly influenced the field. In DIFI, an individual produces works whose novelty and value are assessed by the field—other people in society—providing feedback and ultimately adding the work, now deemed creative, to the domain of societal works from which an individual might be later influenced. Whereas the above reflects a top-down approach to computational creativity, an alternative thread has developed among bottom-up computational psychologists involved in artificial neural network research. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, such generative neural systems were driven by genetic algorithms. Experiments involving recurrent nets were successful in hybridizing simple musical melodies and predicting listener expectations. == Historical evolution of computational creativity == The use computational processes to generate creative artifacts has been present from early times in history. During the late 1800's, methods for composing music combinatorily were explored, involving prominent figures like Mozart, Bach, Haydn, and Kiernberger. This approach extended to analytical endeavors as early as 1934, where simple mechanical models were built to explore mathematical problem solving. Professional interest in the creative aspect of computation also was commonly addressed in early discussions of artificial intelligence. The 1956 Dartmouth Conference, listed creativity, invention, and discovery as key goals for artificial intelligence. As the development of computers allowed systems of greater complexity, the 1970's and 1980's saw invention of early systems that modelled creativity using symbolic or rule-based approaches. The field of creative storytelling investigated several such models. Meehan's TALE-SPIN (1977) generated narratives through simulation of character goals and decision trees. Dehn's AUTHOR (1981) approached generation by simulating an author's process for crafting a story. Beyond narrative generation, computational creativity expanded into artistic and scientific domains. Artistic image generation was one of the disciplines that saw early potential in generated artifacts through computational creativity. One of the most prominent examples was Harold Cohen's AARON, which produced art through composition and adaptation of figures based on a large set of symbolic rules and heuristics for visual composition. Some systems also tackled creativity in scientific endeavors. BACON was said to rediscover natural laws like Boyle's Law and Kepler's law through hypothesis testing in constrained spaces. By the 1990's the modeling techniques became more adaptive, attempting to implement cognitive creative rules for generation. Turner's MINSTREL (1993) introduced TRAMs (Transform Recall Adapt Methods) to simulate creative re-use of prior material for generative storytelling. Meanwhile, Pérez y Pérez's MEXICA (1999) modeled the creative writing process using cycles of engagement and reflection. As systems increasingly incorporated models of internal evaluation, another approach that emerged was that of combining symbolic generation with domain-specific evaluation metrics, modeling generative and selective steps to creativity In the field of generational humor, the JAPE system (1994) generated pun-based riddles using Prolog and WordNet, applying symbolic pattern-matching rules and a large lexical database (WordNet) to compose riddles involving wordplay. WordNet is a system developed by George Miller and his team at Princeton, its platform and inspired word-mapping structures have been used as the backbone of several syntactic and semantic AI programs. A notable system for music generation was David Cope's EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) or Emmy, which was trained in the styles of artists like Bach, Beethoven, or Chopin and generated novel pieces in their style through pattern abstraction and recomposition. In the 2000s and beyond, machine learning began influencing creative system design. Researchers such as Mihalcea and Strapparava trained classifiers to distinguish humorous from non-humorous text, using stylistic and semantic features. Meanwhile custom computational approaches led to chess systems like Deep Blue generating quasi-creative gameplay strategies through search algorithms and parallel processing constrained by specific rules and patterns for evaluation. The institutional development of computational creativity grew along its technical advances. Dedicated workshops such as the IJWCC emerged in the 1990s, growing out of interdisciplinary conferences focused on AI and creativity. By the early 2000s, the field coalesced around annual conferences like the International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC). Recently, with the advent of Deep Learning, Transformers, and further refinement in Machine Learning structures, computational creativity's implementation space has new tools for development. == Machine learning for computational creativity == While traditional computational approaches to creativity rely on the explicit formulation of prescriptions by developers and a certain degree of randomness in computer programs, machine learning methods allow computer programs to learn on heuristics from input data enabling creative capacities within the computer programs. Especially, deep artificial neural networks allow to learn patterns from input data that allow for the non-linear generation of creative artefacts. Before 1989, artificial neural networks have been used to model certain aspects of creativity. Peter Todd (1989) first trained a neural network to reproduce musical melodies from a training set of musical pieces. Then he used a change algorithm to modify the network's input parameters. The network was able to randomly generate new music in a highly uncontrolled manner. In 1992, Todd extended this work, using the so-called distal teacher approach that had been d

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