In this week’s top stories: Google releases its first preview of Android 12, Samsung is purportedly killing the most background apps, Pixel phones poised to gain face-based Auto-Rotate, and more.
The biggest Google-related news this week is that, on Thursday, we all got our first taste of the next version of Android thanks to Android 12 Developer Preview 1. Our Abner Li has collected all of…
As we reported ahead of the first developer preview’s release, one of the big new features coming to Android 12 is advanced theming features. While these new options aren’t live in the first developer preview, one clever developer was able to give us a first look at the…
Nintendo knocks Sony off its TV ad impressions perch
February 20, 2021
Thanks in part to an ad that aired during the Super Bowl Kickoff Show on CBS, Nintendo led gaming industry TV ad impressions during a recent 30-day period. Overall, 13 brands aired 36 spots over 3,000 times, generating 387.3 million TV ad impressions, 79.3% of which came…
Android 12 Will Support AVIF Photos
February 20, 2021
The first preview of Android 12 has landed, and it brings news that the mobile operating system will have platform support for the AV1 Image File Format (AVIF), which has dramatically better image quality for the same file size when compared with image formats such as JPEG.
AVIF is an image file format that uses AV1 compression (the open, royalty-free video coding format designed for video…
ER Doctor Documents COVID-19 Battle in a LA Hospital with His Camera
February 20, 2021
There have been some dramatic images coming out of the coronavirus battle around the world and stateside as well. However, when a doctor attending on the patients is himself the photographer, there is a greater intimacy level involved as he understands what the caregivers…
Awesomely weird Alibaba electric vehicle of the week: Electric go-karts under $400!
February 20, 2021
Go-karts are the perfect fun-mobiles to bring out the kid in anyone. But gone are the days when you had to choke down a cloud of exhaust to the deafening roar of a single screaming, overworked piston. These days, electric go-karts are providing kids and adults alike with…
Google today announced the release of Model Search, an open source platform designed to help researchers develop machine learning models efficiently and automatically. Instead of focusing on a specific domain, Google says that Model Search is domain-agnostic, making it capable of finding a model architecture that fits a dataset and problem while minimizing coding time and compute resources.
The…
Google fires Ethical AI lead Margaret Mitchell
February 20, 2021
Google fired Margaret “Meg” Mitchell, lead of the Ethical AI team, today. The move comes just hours after Google announced diversity policy changes and Google AI chief Jeff Dean sent an apology in the wake of the firing of former Google AI ethics lead Timnit Gebru in…
In January, AI research lab OpenAI released Dall-E, a machine learning system capable of creating images to fit any text caption. Given a prompt, Dall-E generates photos for a range of concepts, including cats, logos, and glasses.
The results are impressive, but training…
Ken Rockwell Patents ‘Smart Cropping’ Camera Software for Zooms
February 20, 2021
Ken Rockwell has announced that he has patented a software addition that would leverage the ability for full-frame cameras to shoot in crop modes and automatically apply that feature when a lens is zoomed for extra optical throw in situations like bird photography.
Rockwell says that he along with optical patent attorney and co-inventor Ben Langlotz have been granted a ptatent that he claims…
