SwissCovid is a COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Switzerland. Use of the app is voluntary and based on a decentralized approach using Bluetooth Low Energy and Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (dp3t). == Development == The app was developed in collaboration with the FOPH by Federal Office for Information Technology, Systems and Communications FOITT, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) as well as other experts. == Non-interoperability with applications in European countries == There is an agreement between EU countries to make applications compatible. However, there is no legal basis for the SwissCovid application to be part of this portal even though technically speaking it is ready, according to Sang-Ill Kim, head of the digital transformation department of the Federal Office of Public Health. == Criticism == === Not full open source and dependence on Google and Apple === In June 2020, researchers Serge Vaudenay and Martin Vuagnoux published a critical analysis of the application, noting that it relies heavily on Google and Apple's exposure notification system, which is integrated into their respective Android and iOS operating systems. Since Google and Apple have not released the full source code of this system, this would call into question the truly open source nature of the application. The researchers note that the dp3t collective, which includes the developers of the application, has asked Google and Apple to release their code. Moreover, they criticize the official description of the application and its functionalities, as well as the adequacy of the legal basis for its effective operation. === Cyber attacks === Professor Serge Vaudenay and Martin Vuagnoux identify also various security vulnerabilities in the application. The system would thus allow a third party to trace the movements of a phone using the application by means of Bluetooth sensors scattered along its path, for example in a building. Another possible attack would be to copy identifiers from the phones of people who may be ill (for example, in a hospital), and to reproduce those identifiers in order to receive notification of exposure to COVID-19 and illegitimately benefit from quarantine (thus entitling them to paid leave, a postponed examination, or other benefits). The system would also allow a third party to use a phone using the application by means of Bluetooth sensors scattered along the way. Paul-Olivier Dehaye of Personaldata.io and professor Joel Reardon of the University of Calgary published in June 2020 several examples of AEM (Associated Encrypted Metadata) replay and manipulation attacks via software development kits (SDKs) found in benign third-party mobile applications downloaded by the general public and having the phone's Bluetooth access permissions and in September 2020 a paper indicating that "Bluetooth-based proximity tracing apps are fundamentally insecure with respect to an attacker leveraging a malevolent app or SDK". === Costs === According to a publication by the federal administration, "the costs of developing the software for the mobile phone application, the GR back-end and the code management system as well as the costs for access management for the cantonal doctors' services are estimated at a one-off amount of 1.65 million francs. However, the Zurich-based company Ubique, responsible for the development of the application, was finally awarded the mandate to develop the application for an amount of 1.8 million francs. Through the Botnar Foundation based in Basel, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne received 3.5 million Swiss francs for the development of the application
Retained mode
Retained mode in computer graphics is a major pattern of API design in graphics libraries, in which the graphics library, instead of the client, retains the scene (complete object model of the rendering primitives) to be rendered and the client calls into the graphics library do not directly cause actual rendering, but make use of extensive indirection to resources, managed – thus retained – by the graphics library. It does not preclude the use of double-buffering. Immediate mode is an alternative approach. Historically, retained mode has been the dominant style in GUI libraries; however, both can coexist in the same library and are not necessarily exclusionary in practice. == Overview == In retained mode the client calls do not directly cause actual rendering, but instead update an abstract internal model (typically a list of objects) which is maintained within the library's data space. This allows the library to optimize when actual rendering takes place along with the processing of related objects. Some techniques to optimize rendering include: managing double buffering treatment of hidden surfaces by backface culling/occlusion culling (Z-buffering) only transferring data that has changed from one frame to the next from the application to the library Example of coexistence with immediate mode in the same library is OpenGL. OpenGL has immediate mode functions that can use previously defined server side objects (textures, vertex buffers and index buffers, shaders, etc.) without resending unchanged data. Examples of retained mode rendering systems include Windows Presentation Foundation, SceneKit on macOS, and PHIGS.
Degree of truth
In classical logic, propositions are typically unambiguously considered as being true or false. For instance, the proposition one is both equal and not equal to itself is regarded as simply false, being contrary to the Law of Noncontradiction; while the proposition one is equal to one is regarded as simply true, by the Law of Identity. However, some mathematicians, computer scientists, and philosophers have been attracted to the idea that a proposition might be more or less true, rather than wholly true or wholly false. Consider this pizza is hot. In mathematics, this idea can be developed in terms of fuzzy logic. In computer science, it has found application in artificial intelligence. In philosophy, the idea has proved particularly appealing in the case of vagueness. Degrees of truth is an important concept in law. The term is an older concept than conditional probability. Instead of determining the objective probability, only a subjective assessment is defined. In adjudicative processes, 'substantive truth' is distinct from 'formal legal truth' which comes in four degrees: hearsay, balance of probabilities, proven beyond reasonable doubt and absolute truth (knowledge reserved unto God).
2025 Bilderberg Conference
The 2025 Bilderberg Conference was held between June 12–June 15, 2025 at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, Sweden. The 2025 meeting was the 71st edition of the event. A Bilderberg Group press release listed 121 participants from 23 countries. Established in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Bilderberg conferences (or meetings) are an annual private gathering of the European and North American political and business elite. Events are attended by between 120 and 150 people each year invited by the Bilderberg Group's steering committee; including prominent politicians, CEOs, national security experts, academics and journalists. Bilderberg conferences operate under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that participants are sworn to secrecy and cannot disclose the identity or affiliation of any particular speaker. As a result, media are not invited and delegates rarely speak about what was discussed. Permits for two public demonstrations against the meeting were requested, one of which, a march from the Norrmalm Square to the Grand Hôtel, was planned for June 14. == Agenda == The key topics for discussion were announced on the Bilderberg website shortly before the meeting. These topics included: == Participants == A list of 121 participants was published on the Bilderberg website. This list may not be complete, as a source connected to the Bilderberg group told The Daily Telegraph in 2013 that some attendees do not have their names publicized. Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson attended the meeting despite his name not appearing on the published participant list.
Sunspring
Sunspring is a 2016 experimental science fiction short film entirely written by an artificial intelligence bot using neural networks. It was conceived by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Oscar Sharp and NYU AI researcher Ross Goodwin and produced by film production company, End Cue along with Allison Friedman and Andrew Swett. It stars Thomas Middleditch, Elisabeth Grey, and Humphrey Ker as three people, namely H, H2, and C, living in a future world and eventually connecting with each other through a love triangle. The script of the film was authored by a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory (LSTM) by an AI bot named Benjamin. Originally made for the Sci-Fi-London film festival's 48hr Challenge, it was released online by technology news website Ars Technica on 9 June 2016. == Premise == Sunspring narrates the story of three people - H (Middleditch), H2 (Grey), and C (Ker) - set in a futuristic world and entangled with murder and love. == Cast == Thomas Middleditch as H Elisabeth Grey as H2 Humphrey Ker as C == Production == Oscar Sharp originally created the film for the 48hr Film Challenge contest of Sci-Fi-London, a film festival which focuses on science fiction. For the challenge, contestants are given a set of prompts (mostly props and lines) that have to appear in a movie they make over the next two days. It eventually contested in the festival and was nominated among the final top ten films Sharp collaborated with his longtime associate Ross Goodwin, an AI researcher in New York University to create the AI bot, which was initially called Jetson. The bot, which later came to call itself Benjamin, wrote the screenplay including stage directions and dialog. The garbled script was then interpreted by Sharp who directed the actors to construe the plot points themselves and enact the play. According to Ars Technica, the final plot turned out to be a tale of romance and murder, set in a dark future world. === Benjamin, the automatic screenwriter === Called the world's first automatic screenwriter, Benjamin is a self-improving LSTM RNN machine intelligence trained on human screenplays conceived by Goodwin and Sharp. It was trained to write the screenplay by feeding it with a corpus of dozens of sci-fi screenplays found online—mostly movies from the 1980s and 90s. == Music == The film contains a song from Brooklyn-based electro-acoustic duo Tiger and Man, with lyrics written by Benjamin using a database of 30,000 folk songs. As well as a score written by composer Andrew Orkin. == Reception == CNet called it "a beautiful, bizarre sci-fi novelty." Critic Amanda Kooser said, "...probably won't start a rush for replacing human screenwriters with machines. Some day, neural networks may get better at imitating the art of coherent storytelling, but we're not there yet. That doesn't mean "Sunspring" isn't entertaining or worthy of viewing. It is. It's a thought experiment come to life, a novelty." As of April 2019, it has surpassed 1 million views on YouTube.
Personality computing
Personality computing is a research field related to artificial intelligence and personality psychology that studies personality by means of computational techniques from different sources, including text, multimedia, and social networks. == Overview == Personality computing addresses three main problems involving personality: automatic personality recognition, perception, and synthesis. Automatic personality recognition is the inference of the personality type of target individuals from their digital footprint. Automatic personality perception is the inference of the personality attributed by an observer to a target individual based on some observable behavior. Automatic personality synthesis is the generation of the style or behaviour of artificial personalities in Avatars and virtual agents. Self-assessed personality tests or observer ratings are always exploited as the ground truth for testing and validating the performance of artificial intelligence algorithms for the automatic prediction of personality types. There is a wide variety of personality tests, such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the MMPI, but the most used are tests based on the Five Factor Model such as the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Personality computing can be considered as an extension or complement of Affective computing, where the former focuses on personality traits and the latter on affective states. A further extension of the two fields is Character Computing which combines various character states and traits including but not limited to personality and affect. == History == Personality computing began around 2005 with the pioneering research in personality recognition by Shlomo Argamon and later by François Mairesse. These works showed that personality traits could be inferred with reasonable accuracy from text, such as blogs, self-presentations, and email addresses. In 2008, the concept of "portable personality" for the distributed management of personality profiles has been developed. A few years later, research began in personality recognition and perception from multimodal and social signals, such as recorded meetings and voice calls. In the 2010s, the research focused mainly on personality recognition and perception from social media, helped by the first workshops organized by Fabio Celli. In particular personality was extracted from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In the same years, automatic personality synthesis helped improve the coherence of simulated behavior in virtual agents. Scientific works by Michal Kosinski demonstrated the validity of Personality Computing from different digital footprints, in particular from user preferences such as Facebook page likes, showed that machines can recognize personality better than humans and raised a warning against Cambridge Analytica and misuse of this kind of technology. == Applications == Personality computing techniques, in particular personality recognition and perception, have applications in Social media marketing, where they can help reducing the cost of advertising campaigns through psychological targeting.
Eden: It's an Endless World!
Eden: It's an Endless World!, also known simply as Eden (stylized in all caps), is a Japanese science fiction manga series written and illustrated by Hiroki Endo. It was serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon from September 1997 to June 2008, with its chapters collected in 18 tankōbon volumes. == Premise == The story is set in the near future, following the "closure virus" pandemic has killed 15 percent of the world's population, crippled or disfigured many more, with catastrophic effect on global politics. Its themes and many character names are taken from Gnostic mythology. == Plot == The series begins with a long introduction, with the characters Ennoia and Hannah living a peaceful life on a remote and isolated island called Eden, with researcher Lane Morris, who is their guardian and a victim of the pandemic. The events that led to this situation are revealed in flashbacks, leading up to the return of Ennoia's father, along with the forces of the Propater Federation. Following this, the story moves forwards twenty years, and focuses on Ennoia's son, Elijah, the main character, and his own conflict with the powerful and monopolistic Propater federation to save his sister, Mana Ballard, kidnapped by Propater when he was very young. She is being held to threaten Ennoia Ballard, father of the two characters, who has become a powerful drug lord in South America, feared and despised by many, including, to an extent, his own family. During a terrorist attack, Elijah, aged 15, is separated from his mother and his sister is kidnapped, along with his mother Hannah and now has to handle things on his own. Eden is about his coming-of-age as a man and trying to survive both bodily and morally in world that is too complex for mere "black and white". He encounters many other characters, both allies and enemies, all sharing the same struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world. Many stories are included of the people Elijah meets, telling their past or following life, sometimes volumes later, furthering understanding of the characters and giving increased depth to the world of the book as a whole. Later in the series, the story once again moves forwards in time, jumping four more years ahead. The Closure Virus, the cause of the original pandemic, mutates, this time assimilating non-organic matter as well as organic, known as "colloid" (or "Disclosure Virus"). The story rejoins Elijah, now 19 years old, as well as many other old characters, and some new, as the world begins to deal with this new threat that is swallowing many cities in the world, leaving lakes and craters, and many people. It is later discovered that the several colloids in the world, are linked with a net of underground auto-built "cables," and that the colloid itself, stores all the memories of the people it swallows. == Characters == Elijah Ballard (エリヤ・バラード, Eriya Barādo) Elijah is introduced while on the run from Propater. He becomes involved in his father's criminal activities, and undergoes a coming of age into adulthood. Ennoia Ballard (エンノイア・バラード, Ennoia Barādo) Elijah's father. Hannah Mayall (ハナ・メイオール, Hana Meiōru) Elijah's mother. Mana Ballard (マナ・バラード, Mana Barādo) Elijah's sister, who remains in Propater hands whilst her mother is rescued. Elijah's fight to free her is a focus of the later parts of the story. Nazarbaiev Khan (ナザルバイエフ・カーン, Nazarubaiefu Kān) Colonel Khan is an old soldier from Azerbaijan. He leads the Nomad group (including Kenji and Sophia) fleeing Propater at the start of the series. Khan became Kenji's mentor after killing his brother, and the two share a slightly strained, but at the same time, trusting, relationship. Sophia Theódores (ソフィア・テオドレス, Sofia Teodoresu) A powerful Greek computer hacker, and full-body cyborg. Maya (マーヤ, Māya) A nearly godlike AI, which seems to roughly correspond to the savior of Gnostic mythology. Kenji Asai (ケンジ・アサイ) The brother of a low-level yakuza boss. Helena Montoya (ヘレナ・モントーヤ, Herena Montōya) A prostitute now working in a brothel. Has a complex relationship with Elijah and acts as a surrogate big sister. == Media == === Manga === Eden: It's an Endless World! was written and illustrated by Hiroki Endo. The series ran in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine from September 25, 1997, to June 25, 2008. Kodansha collected its chapters into 18 tankōbon volumes, released from April 21, 1998, to July 23, 2008. In July 2005, Dark Horse Comics announced in San Diego Comic-Con that it has licensed Eden for North American distribution, with publication to begin in November of that year. As of March 2014, 14 volumes were released in total. ==== Volumes ==== == Reception == Eden was named Wizard magazine's best manga of 2007. In his review of another work by Hiroki Endo titled Hiroki Endo's Tanpenshu, David F. Smith of Newtype USA has called Eden one of the best manga American money can buy.