The beach is there for all of us we just have to get there – Los Angeles Times

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When I first moved to Los Angeles in 2006, I imagined that Id be going to the beach all the time.

I changed the background of my Myspace profile to a picture of Venice Beach palm trees at sunset as part of my preparations to live out the sun-drenched California fantasy that brings so many people to this state. Obviously, I would get into surfing. The only question was how good would I be.

Fifteen years later, I have still never surfed, and my fantasy of a beachy lifestyle has run aground on a hard reality. The coast exists for all of us, and our right to beach access enjoys greater protections here than in almost any other state. But first, you have to get there.

In the quadratic equation of distance, parking, traffic and transfers we use to determine our every course of action across this city, the beach is one of the hardest to solve.

If you wake up too early, or drive too far out, you might be exhausted when you get there. If you wake up too late, youll probably pay much more to park and have to go much farther to find a spot. If you pay too much to park, youll feel ripped off if you leave early. If you dont pay to park youll exhaust yourself spending hours circling.

If you take the Expo line to Santa Monica, you can avoid all that. But then youll be at Santa Monica Beach, one of the most crowded tourist attractions in the city.

At least 12 Metro bus lines run to the beach, and theres also a county-run beach bus that you can reserve in advance with stops in San Gabriel Valley, the Antelope Valley, San Fernando Valley and East Los Angeles. But it can be a difficult ride if youre carrying a surfboard, cooler, tent or chairs.

Then theres the long, sweaty hike across hot sand as you attempt to triangulate via lifeguard and cellphone tower where your friends and family are. Even then, the fickle whims of the marine layer might blot out the sun and leave you shivering.

This is why I believe packing a morning picnic for the beach in Los Angeles is utter folly. Get some food, coffee and water before the journey, or you might never make it.

The beach exerts an upward influence on all of our rents and home prices, and we all pay for our proximity to it in some way. At least 80% of Californians live within an hours drive of a beach. According to a recent UCLA survey, the average cost for traveling to and from the beach is $22.09 not including the cost of parking, food and activities.

Homeowners engineer a myriad of ways to block access to our beaches, erecting fake no-parking signs, painting curbs red, installing their own gates and staircases and hiring private security. The California Coastal Commission fights back constantly, but there are less than a dozen enforcement officers for the whole state, and a caseload of more than 2,000.

Once you get to Malibu and park your car, youre now allowed to be there. You should feel comfortable, said Linda Locklin, director of the commissions beach access program. But the fact is you have so many roadblocks and pinch points on your way out there.

The pandemic brought the inequities of beach access into sharp focus. Beach parking lots were closed for months, during which only those in affluent, mostly white communities near the beach had ready access.

It was a reminder of the coasts history of segregation, when there were only two beaches that Black people could visit: Inkwell Beach and Bruces Beach. Anyone at Inkwell Beach who attempted to wade over the color line was met with truncheons and police dogs. The city of Manhattan Beach condemned Bruces Beach and seized it through eminent domain, as chronicled recently by my colleague Rosanna Xia.

Restricting access to the beach was and still is a common strategy of homeowners expressing racial bias. In the 1980s, wealthy Palos Verdes residents successfully petitioned the Rapid Transit District to forbid buses from entering the peninsula. A former Metropolitan Transportation Authority official testified that bus officials even added a transfer to bus lines running between Manhattan Beach and South-Central Los Angeles so that there would be no direct route.

These measures were effective. In the UCLA survey, 1 of every 3 African Americans said they visited the beach less than once a year. Perhaps their families remember when traveling to the beach meant passing through hostile communities and enduring routine verbal abuse and violence.

Three out 10 African Americans surveyed cited not knowing how to swim as a reason they didnt go to the beach more often. Perhaps thats because their parents were banned from swimming pools and beaches for so many years.

Protecting and regulating access to coasts is one thing. But its much harder to democratize access to the waves for surfing, boogie boarding and other water sports, said Lizelle Jackson, a surfer who grew up in Palmdale.

Jackson, 36, started surfing after the film Blue Crush came out when she was in high school, but she didnt hit her stride until she found waves and other surfers of color in places like Costa Rica, France and South Africa. Last year, when she came back to her home beaches, she was unpleasantly surprised by the aggressive, bullying and white-dominated culture sometimes found in local surf spots.

I understand respect. But these are all unspoken rules. How do you know what the rules are if no one explains that to you? she said. We didnt have parents who grew up surfing, because they werent allowed to go to the beach.

She and her friends started an organization called Color the Water to help other people of color learn to enjoy the ocean. They give free surfing lessons, provide wetsuits and even take surf photos of beginners catching their first waves.

To reach the ocean, Jackson and her family used to travel from Palmdale to Topanga Beach, a 140-mile odyssey round trip.

But recently she and a co-founder of the organization found an apartment near the Venice Pier. Inside, they store about 20 surfboards in their apartment for surfers who cant bring their own boards.

The sand is just steps away.

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The beach is there for all of us we just have to get there - Los Angeles Times

Sick after going to the beach? Experts say it could be poop in the water. – Houston Chronicle

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Environmental advocates estimate 57 million Americans contract a waterborne illness every year. And its likely that many dont notice because the symptoms are similar to the flu or COVID-19.

People usually think they just caught a bug, said Dr. Sara Andrabi, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. But this could have been from water exposure, she said.

Texas has a dirty water problem, and there are three main contributors, according to the 2021 Safe for Swimming report from Environment Texas Research and Policy Center: buildings and concrete pavement of natural areas, leaking city sewer systems and large livestock farms.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Galveston's Seawall is about to be packed with Model T replicas, a throwback to the 1900s

Fifty-five of the states 61 beaches were found to be dangerous for swimming at least once during the states regular testing, which usually occurs on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule.

For the first time, the report broke down water quality data by county and found that beaches in Harris County were unsafe on more than half of the days tested.

So about 90 percent of beaches were unsafe for swimming at least once in 2020, said Anna Sherman, clean water associate for Environment Texas. It speaks to the fact that we really are continuing to see failing infrastructure.

Sewage pipes break, leading to sewage leaking into waterways that eventually feed into the Gulf, making them unsafe for swimming, Sherman said. The rise of commercial farms 97 percent of hogs are now raised on big farms, she said has created an overflow of animal waste to flow into natural waterways, as well.

The rise of factory farms has resulted in large concentrations of livestock manure that cannot be stored safely and is often over-applied to crops, the report reads. All too often, rainfall washes excess manure from cropland into our waterways where it can put swimmers health at risk.

On HoustonChronicle.com: How to reintroduce your kid to the world post-pandemic

People should be able to use our beaches its not the use that is making them dirty, Sherman said. Its human-caused in the fact that we havent invested in our sewer infrastructure.

Kristina Mena, an environmental microbiologist and dean of the UTHealth School of Public Health in El Paso, conducts human health risk assessment, in which where she analyzes water quality data from different areas along with exposure rates. This helps predict whether that person will get sick from swimming in that body of water.

Recreational waterborne illnesses are very prevalent, Mena said. But its hard to assess just how common they are because most people who swim in beaches are healthy and do not stay sick for long if they come in contact with harmful bacteria.

Waterborne disease symptoms range from bacterial infections to gastrointestinal problems and breathing issues, Andrabi said. Polluted waters can cause diarrhea if a person swallows it, ear infections or swimmers ear if bacteria grows in their ear canal, or something more serious, like vibriosis, a flesh-eating bacterial infection.

When you get infected or ill from a pathogen, it will resolve on its own, or it will be mild with non-specific symptoms so it seems like its not linked to the water, Mena said. Nausea and gastroenteritis often have a lengthy incubation period, so it goes underreported because people dont connect it to the water.

If a person is thinking about going to the beach, they need to understand what is going on in surrounding areas. Has it rained recently? Could there be more polluted water runoff than normal?

The elderly, young children and immunocompromised individuals are most at risk of developing severe complications from a waterborne illness, Mena said. Dehydration can be a major problem for those suffering from longterm diarrhea and nausea, Andrabi added.

Texas Beach Watch, a service operated by the Texas General Land Office and funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, gives real time updates on water quality along beaches in Aransas, Brazoria, Cameron, Galveston, Harris, Jefferson, Matagorda, Nueces and San Patricio counties.

From May through September, water samples are collected weekly. Otherwise, samples are done every two weeks. The GLO works with local governments to issue advisories warning the public not to swim if bacteria levels exceed EPA standards.

On HoustonChronicle.com: How to stay hydrated in the Houston heat

The program samples the water for Enterococcus bacteria, a bacterium found in the gastrointestinal tracts of humans that is present in fecal matter, and biologists base the beachs safety rating off those findings.

Every year, the Safe for Swimming Report gives recommendations for how to solve bacteria-filled waters in Texas. These include increasing funding to fix sewage systems and preventing runoff pollution through natural, green infrastructure, like rain gardens.

Stopping the construction and expansion of large livestock farms in areas that flow toward waterways is another recommendation, as well as protecting wetlands by not building on them.

Sherman said the group will continue to watch how the Biden Administrations new infrastructure plan moves through Congress; the plan would set aside money for new ways to clean our natural waters and keep them clean.

It is breaking news we are talking about investing in infrastructure right now because its something weve failed to do for years, she said. Now is the time to invest in infrastructure to keep beaches clean and make sure the systems in place are working.

julie.garcia@chron.com

Twitter.com/reporterjulie

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Sick after going to the beach? Experts say it could be poop in the water. - Houston Chronicle

Long Beach woman is beautifying the streets of Skid Row one makeover at a time – KTLA Los Angeles

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Amid a contentious debate over the direction Los Angeles takes inaddressing homelessness in the city, Shirley Raines takes the side of the people at the center of the issue.

For the past six years, Raines has been taking one day out of every week to drive down from her home in Long Beach to Skid Row with a van full of food and beauty supplies, ready to serve people on a sidewalk along the citys corridor known for having the largest containment of unhoused people in the United States.

Its giving people a sense of purpose and something to feel good about themselves about, said Raines, founder and owner of Beauty 2 the Streetz, a nonprofit dedicated to helping homeless people look good and feel even better.

Every week, she leads a team of volunteers including licensed hairstylists, barbers, makeup artists and others to Skid Row and they turn it into an outdoor hair salon and barbeque event.

For Raines, caring for people experiencing homelessness in Skid Row has helped her heal a traumatic pain that stems from three decades ago, when she lost her young son in an accident.

I was trying to make sense of my pain, or find a purpose for my pain. I didnt know what direction I was leading in and someone suggested I help feed the homeless with them, she said. Then I came out here and felt the instant connection with the homeless all the brokenness, all the hurt, all the pain, all the trauma I felt like Im me in them.

Raines said that the connection she found by sharing her stories and listing to others stories is what inspired her to keep coming back and helping.

Thats what led me to stay out here, but they were more interested in my hair and my makeup versus the food I was trying to give them, so I was like I could give them some lashes and then it just turned and morphed into its own thing, she said.

While Raines is very much aware that her services serve as only a bandaid to help those living on Skid Row, she hopes Beauty 2 the Streetz can expand to help address other areas of peoples lives that help them feel whole and heal.

For now, Beauty 2 the Streetz has put a pause in taking in new applicants for volunteers, but those wishing to help can do so by sending in items needed from the nonprofits Amazon wishlist, dropping off clothing, food or hygiene supplies at a designated location or following her social media accounts for events on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

More information can be found at https://www.beauty2thestreetz.org/.

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Long Beach woman is beautifying the streets of Skid Row one makeover at a time - KTLA Los Angeles

These West Oahu Residents Are On A Mission To Clean Up The Island’s Beach Parks – Honolulu Civil Beat

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Lena Spain-Suzuki was fed up with the dirty bathrooms at Pokai Bay Beach Park. Last year, the beige comfort stations walls were covered with graffiti. The trash cans were overflowing and there was a pungent smell inside.

So she teamed up with residents from Puuhonua O Waianae a self-organized homeless community in Waianae to do something about it.

I said, Lets do this and we took it upon ourselves to get this place cleaned, Spain-Suzuki said.

In November 2020, Spain-Suzuki and the hui of Waianae residents and volunteers set out to beautify the otherwise rundown bathrooms. The group cleaned around the park and inside the bathrooms, removed the graffiti and primed the bathroom walls for a colorful mural painted by Westside artists.

We are taking back these spaces because once we clean, we own. Its all of our kuleana, Spain-Suzuki said.

The upkeep of parks is a concern for many Westside residents who feel like their beloved public spaces arent being taken care of.

Neglected, abused and overlooked are some of the adjectives that Westside residents used when discussing parks at a recent Civil Beat Talk Story event.

Their frustrations are based in reality.

Were seeing homelessness, illegal dumping, vandalism, theft, all of those things happening, says Department of Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Kehau Puu. All of the issues we see in our communities are magnified in our parks.

Litter and vandalism are the most common problems. According to an audit by the city auditors office, vandalism is one of the primary challenges for maintaining parks because of its unpredictable occurrence and costs.

Puu started with the parks department in June. A Nanakuli resident, she and her family frequent Kalanianaole Beach Park and although its her favorite, she noted the opala, or trash, she often sees after beach parties and long weekends.

So Puu can understand why people have a negative perception of how the parks are cared for. She shared that perception growing up and knows that things out in her neighborhood arent always the best.

We dont have the best health or economic statistics, but for our department, we want to make sure things are more equitable and that were taking care of all of our districts, Puu says.

Honolulus parks are divided into five districts. District 3 or the Leeward Oahu district encompasses 93 parks from Wahiawa to Ewa and Pearl City to Waianae. The largest and most visited parks in this district, according to a 2016 report, are Kapolei Regional Park, Makaha Beach Park, and Ewa Mahiko Park.

However, with over 300 parks on the island, Honolulu ranked 312th out of 319 comparable counties in the country in the 2020 National Community Survey, which measures the livability of counties across the states. Fewer than half of those surveyed thought the parks were excellent or good much lower than the national average.

Satisfaction with parks may come down to how well they are maintained. A 2019 city auditors report of the department found that more of the parks maintenance budget for groundskeeping, custodial and maintenance services went to parks in East Honolulu, despite the lower number of parks and recorded instances of vandalism.

Michael Loftin, cofounder and executive director of 808 Cleanups, sees active participation in their cleanups across the island. The environmental nonprofit has hosted litter and graffiti removal on Oahu since 2014 and has removed almost 700,000 pounds of rubbish with thousands of volunteers showing up and even spearheading their own community-led events.

Every community has people who are motivated to help. On the peoples side, there are always volunteers. The difference I see is on the government side and where resources are poured into. It seems like the Westside doesnt get as much, Loftin says.

And this may be why community members feel like they have to be the champions of their own parks. Scheduling weekly cleanups. Continual graffiti removal and repainting. Nightly patrols. Tracking improvement projects at neighborhood board meetings. All of these community-led efforts to keep parks safe and sanitary have become their prime responsibility.

There are more than a dozen groups on the Westside working to keep the parks usable for the public and most of the work is done by the community members themselves.

Its not always easy. Spain-Suzuki got a verbal warning for orchestrating the mural painting. The group didnt file proper paperwork with the parks department, but Spain-Suzuki questioned the permitting process from the beginning.

Why do I have to ask for approval for this when the bathrooms cant even be kept clean? When we are the ones doing the cleaning? she said.

Puu said that she loved seeing the community efforts at Pokai before she started in her position. Seeing the restoration of the Kuilioloa Heiau at the bays edge actually gave her more confidence in joining the city department.

We really do want to work with our community to make these places better because theyre our spaces, Puu says.

Although she says its the citys job to maintain and fix up the parks, Puu believes that it is a kakou kuleana or a shared responsibility to take care of them.

The biggest question for her is, how can the city work better with the community?

We really do appreciate and mahalo the community for their efforts, but were open to new ideas and new ways to connect with them, Puu says.

Some residents want more communication and transparency from the parks department, but others find it hard to get their own community involved. One solution, Spain-Suzuki says, may be to tell the history and the stories of these places.

Spain-Suzuki wants her beloved park to have official signs to mark the moolelo stories that makes this place special. She envisions a walkway up to the heiau that kupuna can exercise on, with recognition of the sacred structure. Spain-Suzuki believes that knowing the story behind these beloved places will motivate the community to care for them.

There are so many beautiful stories for these places that we are disconnected from, but we will get back to that. Thats how we can build true community, Spain-Suzuki says.

Here are three parks on the Westside and the people who love them and want to keep them in order:

Micah Doane currently resides in Waikele, but his special connection to Keaau Beach Park comes from his Makua-born grandmother. She used to take him, along with his siblings and uncles, to these Westside beaches, calling it heaven on earth.

As the founder of Protectors of Paradise, a stewardship nonprofit focused on Westside beaches from Keaau on, Doane works to protect the paradise of his grandparents for his children. He calls all of the litter and vandalism of these public spaces abuse and doesnt think his children should grow up in places that are so neglected and disrespected.

Majority of the time my 4-year-old son goes to the beaches, its because Im cleaning it up, Doane says.

Its frustrating work knowing that the beach wont stay clean past a couple of hours. In the five years since launching his nonprofit, Doane says his hui has removed thousands of pounds of trash with little long term improvement. So, theyre hoping for more assistance from the city.

Its so easy to lose morale and money, so we want to see what kind of support we can get from the government to continue our work there, Doane says.

He also points to another change hes seen over the years: the influx of tourists to Westside beaches.

Before we felt really isolated out there, but with social media, now our beaches have become a popular spot for visitors, Doane says.

His dream is to have a cultural classroom out at the park, so that locals and tourists alike can learn about the area and how to mlama ina take care of the land. Doane and his group have started small gardens across the Waianae Coast at various parks, hoping to create an incentive for the community to get involved.

The land offers a lot of opportunities for usage, besides just sitting back and relaxing, Doane says.

Penelope Parnes is used to seeing large groups of volunteers cleaning up Oneula Beach Park. She says that the young and old, students and veterans even residents who dont live in the neighborhood come out to maintain this park.

Shes lived in Ewa for 15 years and counting, often facilitating cleanups at Hau Bush in partnership with other organizations, like Ewa Surf Club, Blue Zones and the local JROTC program. She also joined 808Cleanups in 2017.

Weve removed over 60,000 pounds of rubbish from Hau Bush and this happened because of the continued stewardship of community volunteers, Parnes says.

The biggest issue she sees is the lack of a dedicated city-appointed caretaker. She believes that an individual, who overlooks the park maintenance, would improve the park and create accountability.

Parnes also thinks that the parks department should collaborate with the community more. In one of her Ewa Neighborhood Board Parks Committee meetings, the group pitched an improvement plan that included graveling and expanding the beach area. When they sent it to the parks department, Parnes says she was told to hold off until the department can fully review the environmental impacts.

Its impossible to even get answers to questions, let alone establish a partnership, Parnes says.

In a recent Ewa Neighborhood Board meeting, Parnes, who serves on the board, told the parks department director, Laura Thielen, that her community would like a better relationship with parks staff.

I want to support the different efforts going on. The parks are loved a lot, but they also get loved to death, so we definitely need the help, Thielen responded.

Parnes just wants to see improvements done when they say they will be done. The published Oneula Beach Park Master Plan mapped out two comfort stations, a community center and ball field for that Ewa area. So far, only one bathroom has been built.

The community is and has done everything in our power to maintain our parks, Parnes says, I invite anyone to see that we care with our hearts and our hands.

Lena Spain-Suzuki grew up a mile from Pokai Bay Beach Park. Her fondest childhood memories happened there from birthdays to just hanging out on the weekend. She remembers playing on the bays rock wall, feeling the strongest sense of community with other Westside kids.

It didnt matter if you were from Makaha or Lualualei. We were all just playing together, Spain-Suzuki says.

Since the mural painting last November, she and her fellow ina warriors have held multiple cleanups and gatherings at the park. Almost 200 volunteers came in February to clean up the beach, playground and heiau. She has also worked with the homeless community that lives at the park, calling on them to be good stewards of the area, often bringing food and supplies as well as connecting them to social workers and services.

Along with Puuhonua O Waianaes Hui Aloha, some have formed a bathroom brigade, cleaning the bathrooms when other volunteers cant make it out. Spain-Suzuki says that they have helped six people find housing.

Her greatest success, she says, was seeing local kupuna and homeless community members come together to make lei in celebration of May Day. The group played music and Spain-Suzuki even got up to dance a hula for her friends. At one of her La Kupuna or kupuna days they sat together in the grass and talked about the future of their shared Pokai Bay.

Good stewardship means including everyone in your village and doing what is right for the place that youre in, Spain-Suzuki says.

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These West Oahu Residents Are On A Mission To Clean Up The Island's Beach Parks - Honolulu Civil Beat

Maryland familys vacation begins with memorable mammal sighting in Surfside Beach – WBTW

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SURFSIDE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) The first day of a Maryland familys vacation was a memorable one as they witnessed a large mammal that had washed ashore Saturday in Surfside Beach.

Peggy Haney, of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, said her family has been vacationing in the Myrtle Beach area for years, but they have never seen anything like what they saw after going to the beach a few hours after arriving on Saturday.

We saw some police activity and a crowd of people on the beach, and we asked our oldest son to do down there and check it out, she said. He went down and looked, and when he came back, he said he thought it was some sort of whale.

The family is staying in the 1200 block of South Ocean Boulevard, and Haney said the mammal was on the beach about two blocks north of where theyre staying. She said there was a crowd gathered and a beach patrol officer was also there.

It was actually really sad, Haney said. We didnt know what it was. It looked like it could be a shark at first.

Haney said she does not know how long the mammal had been on the beach or anything about how it was removed. WBTW has reached out to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to try to get more information.

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Maryland familys vacation begins with memorable mammal sighting in Surfside Beach - WBTW

AI in the courts – The Indian Express

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Written by Kartik Pant

Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be catching the attention of a large section of people, no doubt because of the infinite possibilities it offers. It assimilates, contributes as well as poses challenges to almost all disciplines including philosophy, cognitive science, economics, law, and the social sciences. AI and Machine Learning (ML) have a multiplier effect on increasing the efficiency of any system or industry. If used effectively, it can bring about incremental changes and transform the ecosystem of several sectors. However, before applying such technology, it is important to identify the problems and the challenges within each sector and develop the specific modalities on how the AI architecture will have the highest impact.

In the justice delivery system, there are multiple spaces where the AI application can have a deep impact. It has the capacity to reduce the pendency and incrementally increase the processes. The recent National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) shows that 3,89,41,148 cases are pending at the District and Taluka levels and 58,43,113 are still unresolved at the high courts. Such pendency has a spin-off effect that takes a toll on the efficiency of the judiciary, and ultimately reduces peoples access to justice.

The use of AI in the justice system depends on first identifying various legal processes where the application of this technology can reduce pendency and increase efficiency. The machine first needs to perceive a particular process and get information about the process under examination. For example, to extract facts from a legal document, the programme should be able to understand the document and what it entails. Over time, the machine can learn from experience, and as we provide more data, the programme learns and makes predictions about the document, thereby making the underlying system more intelligent every time. This requires the development of computer programmes and software which are highly-complex requiring advanced technologies. Additionally, there is a need of constantly nurturing to reduce any bias, and increase learning.

One such complex tool named SUPACE (Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court Efficiency) was recently launched by the Supreme Court of India. Designed to first understand judicial processes that require automation, it then assists the Court in improving efficiency and reducing pendency by encapsulating judicial processes that have the capability of being automated through AI.

Similarly, SUVAS is an AI system that can assist in the translation of judgments into regional languages. This is another landmark effort to increase access to justice. The technology, when applied in the long run to solve other challenges of translation in filing of cases, will reduce the time taken to file a case and assist the court in becoming an independent, quick, and efficient system.

Through these steps, the Supreme Court has become the global frontrunner in application of AI and Machine Learning into processes of the justice system. But we must remember that despite the great advances made by the apex court, the current development in the realm of AI is only scratching the surface.

Over time, as one understands and evaluates various legal processes, AI and related technologies will be able to automate and complement several tasks performed by legal professionals. It will allow them to invest more energy in creatively solving legal issues. It has the possibility of helping judges conduct trials faster and more effectively thereby reducing the pendency of cases. It will assist legal professionals in devoting more time in developing better legal reasoning, legal discussion and interpretation of laws.

However, the integration of these technologies will be a challenging task as the legal architecture is highly complex and technologies can only be auxiliary means to achieve legal justice. There is also no doubt that as AI technology grows, concerns about data protection, privacy, human rights and ethics will pose fresh challenges and will require great self-regulation by developers of these technologies. It will also require external regulation by the legislature through statute, rules, regulation and by judiciary through judicial review qua constitutional standards. But with increasing adoption of the technology, there will be more debates and conversations on these problems as well as their potential solutions. In the long-run all this would help in reducing the pendency of cases and improving overall efficiency of justice system.

The writer is founding partner, Prakant Law offices and a public policy consultant

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AI in the courts - The Indian Express

Tor Encryption can Allegedly be Accessed by the NSA, Says Security Expert – Tech Times

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Urian B., Tech Times 09 July 2021, 03:07 am

(Photo : Screenshot from Tor Browser) Tor Encryption can Allegedly be Accessed by the NSA, Says Security Expert

Tor encryption can allegedly be accessed by the NSA according to a security expert. While the Tor browser is popular amongst people who would prefer to protect their identity and what they are doing online, a security expert suggests that the NSA might still be able to access the encrypted data.

When it actually turned out that the popular Firefox JavaScript Tor vulnerability shenanigans directly came from the NSA and not really the FBI, it became pretty clear that the popular agency was really looking to undermine the access of Tor's vastly used anonymous internet. According to Gizmodo, it's pretty much like a moth to a flame.

A security expert by the name of Robert Graham, however, has outlined his reasons for actually believing that the NSA might not even need tricks and paltry exploits in order for them to gain access to Tor, according to a blog post on Erratasec. Why? The security expert notes that this is because they might already have the keys to the kingdom. If they don't, then they might be able to, according to arsTechnica.

Tor uses 1024 bit keys in order for it to be able to run a lot of its encryption and it is currently pretty much agreed that the actual NSA is capable of cracking these with the use of custom chips that IBM along with other manufacturers make for them. It was noted that this is especially true for anyone that is still using the older versions of Tor like the Tor 2.3 version.

The newer Tor 2.4 version, however, has better security but it was said that only about 10% of Tor's total servers have actually been upgraded. The security researcher, Graham, ran a sort of "hostile" exit node on a massive 22,920 Tor connections in order to look at the encryption that is mediated by algorithms on the incoming connections.

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There were only about 24% that were using the newer Tor 2.4 version software. This means that there are still about 76% of users that were still using the older, NSA-vulnerable version keys.

According to the article by arsTechnica, Graham then called on Tor Project leaders to try and do a better job of getting their end users to finally upgrade to the newer 2.4 version. He then wrote that of course, this is basically just guessing when it comes to finding out the NSA's true capabilities.

He also noted that it turns out that the newer elliptical keys can turn out to be much easier to be cracked than previously thought. This means that the older software might actually be more secure. It was noted however that due to the 1024 bit RSA/DH being used as a popular SSL encryption, Graham assumes that the NSA is best at cracking it.

Related Article:Department of Health Probe by UK Information Commissioner Launched Due to Private Emails Used for Alleged Official Business

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Tor Encryption can Allegedly be Accessed by the NSA, Says Security Expert - Tech Times

Voice Biometrics Technology Market: Year 2021-2028 and its Detail Analysis by Focusing on Top Key Players like 3M Cogent, NEC Corporation of America,…

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The recently revealed Report titled Global Voice Biometrics Technology Market report presents the market analysis on the basis of several factors. Report gives the in-depth analysis on the major countries of key regions where the market is growing. In addition, report describes the wide-ranging knowledge about the major companies in this industry and the key strategies accepted by them to survive and rise in the studied industry.

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3M Cogent, NEC Corporation of America, AcSys Biometrics Corp, AGNITiO S.L., Cognitec Systems GmbH, Nuance Communications, Eurotech S.P.A, Ivrnet, Kimaldi Electronics S.L., National Security Resources, Neurotechnology (Lithuania), PSP Security Co. Ltd,

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Global Voice Biometrics Technology Market Segmentation by Regions:

In regional analysis, Voice Biometrics Technology market research report provides the detailed analysis from various regions and also contains the detailed analysis of country. Along with market revenue, market value report also offers the forecast analysis for the following countries and regions. Global Voice Biometrics Technology market report covers the various geographical regions such as North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Also, various countries included are Canada, U.K., France, the U.S., Japan, China, India, and Germany and so on.

Voice Biometrics Technology Market Report covers size, share and forecast (value and volume) by regions, high players, product varieties and applications, with historical knowledge in conjunction with forecast from 2021 to 2028.

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Voice Biometrics Technology Market Report offers the following points:

The Report covers Associate in Nursing thorough description, competitive state of affairs, wide product portfolio of key vendors and business strategy adopted by competitors in conjunction with their SWOT analysis, revenue, sales and Porters 5 Forces Analysis.

The markets factors delineate during this Report are:

Key Strategic Developments: The analysis includes the key strategic developments of the market, comprising R&D, M&A, agreements, new product launch, collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures, and regional growth of the key competitors functioning within the market on a worldwide and regional scale.

Key Market Features: The Report assessed key market options, as well as revenue, capacity, price, capability utilization rate, production rate, gross, production, consumption, import/export, supply/demand, cost, market share, CAGR, and profit margin. Additionally thereto, the study provides a comprehensive analysis of the key market factors and their latest trends, in conjunction with relevant market segments and sub-segments.

Analytical Tools: the worldwide phase change Condensers Market Report provides the strictly studied and evaluated knowledge of the highest trade players and their scope within the market by suggests that of many analytical tools. The analytical tools like Porters 5 forces analysis, feasibleness study, SWOT analysis, and ROI analysis are practiced reviewing the expansion of the key players operative within the market.

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Major Points from Table of Contents:

The Global Voice Biometrics Technology Market analyzing 15 Chapters in detail:

Chapter 1, to describe Voice Biometrics Technology Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force.

Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Voice Biometrics Technology , with sales, revenue, and price of Voice Biometrics Technology , in 2015 to 2021;

Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2015 to 2021;

Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Voice Biometrics Technology , for each region, from 2015 to 2021;

Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;

Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2021 to 2028;

Chapter 12, Voice Biometrics Technology market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2021 to 2028;

Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Voice Biometrics Technology sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.

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Voice Biometrics Technology Market: Year 2021-2028 and its Detail Analysis by Focusing on Top Key Players like 3M Cogent, NEC Corporation of America,...

Facial Recognition System Market Will Generate Revenue, Opportunity and Huge Sales Near Future 2021-2027 The Manomet Current – The Manomet Current

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The study explores in depth the profiles of the Facial Recognition System market players and their main financial aspects. The competitive analysis includes key players and the innovations and business strategies they have implemented. The report also captures the best long-term growth opportunities for the industry and includes the latest process and product developments. It also offers a special perspective of the Facial Recognition System market with the help of the competitive landscape of leading manufacturers and helps enterprises to earn revenue by understanding the growth approaches.

More importantly, This comprehensive business analyst report is useful for all existing and new entrants as they design their business strategies. The keyword report provides basic information of the companies along with their market position, history, market capitalization, revenue, emerging industry developments with the business drivers, challenges, restraints, and opportunities in the market to provide insight correct and final scenario for the appropriate decisions.

The major manufacturers in this industryinclude:3M, Animetrics, Aware, Inc., Ayonix Corporation, Cognitec Systems, Daon, Gemalto NV, Herta Security, IDEMIA, KeyLemon S.A., NEC Corporation, Neurotechnology, NVISO SA., Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co., Ltd., and Techno Brain

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Potential and niche segments/regions exhibiting promising growth.

Market provide Extensive research on the competitive landscape of global keyword

A comprehensive list of key market players operating in the global keyword market.

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Historical, current, and projected market size in terms of volume and value

Lead competitive strategies, market trends, and analysis are studied in this report.

Statistical analysis of the key players in the market has highlighted the Impact on positives and negatives of direct & indirect sales channels

Discussion of R&D, and the demand for new products launches and applications.

Wide-ranging company profiles of leading participants in the industry.

Coherent market insights recently published Facial Recognition System market research report 2021. It provides the development of companies in terms of new launches, mergers and acquisitions, and expansion. The market significantly Increases competitive business strategy. The report makes use of several diagrams, charts, tables, etc.

The Facial Recognition System document offers an extensive analysis of significant statistics, vital insights, informative trends, as well a competitive landscape. The expert report explains facts and figures of the industry, competitive landscape, which is expected to boost the market performance during the forecasted period. The Facial Recognition System market assists an effective market strategies and investment plan to make a change in their business outlook; also covers all the recent development and changes recorded during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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The report covers the estimate and investigation for the worldwide keyword market on a worldwide and local level.

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Which are the prominent Facial Recognition System market players across the globe? Can i Add Specific Company?

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Companies Covered as part of this study include: 3M, Animetrics, Aware, Inc., Ayonix Corporation, Cognitec Systems, Daon, Gemalto NV, Herta Security, IDEMIA, KeyLemon S.A., NEC Corporation, Neurotechnology, NVISO SA., Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co., Ltd., and Techno Brain,

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Facial Recognition System Market Will Generate Revenue, Opportunity and Huge Sales Near Future 2021-2027 The Manomet Current - The Manomet Current

Image Recognition AI Camera Market Business Strategies and Opportunities, Challenges with Top Trending Key Players || Catchoom, Honeywell…

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Latest published market study on Image Recognition AI Camera Market provides an overview of the current market dynamics in the Global Market, as well as what our survey respondentsall outsourcing decision-makerspredict the market will look like in 2027. The study breaks market by revenue and volume (wherever applicable) and price history to estimates size and trend analysis and identifying gaps and opportunities.

Get ready to identify the pros and cons of regulatory framework, local reforms and its impact on the Industry. Know how Leaders in Image Recognition AI Camera Market are keeping themselves one step forward with our latest survey analysis.

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Summary: Image recognition AI camera market will grow at a rate of 23.40% for the forecast period of 2020 to 2027. Data Bridge Market Research report image recognition AI camera market provides analysis and insights regarding the various factors expected to be prevalent.

Image Recognition AI Camera Market- Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2027 report provides the market size forecast and the projected growth rate for the next Seven years. The report covers industry analysis including the key market drivers, emerging technology trends, and major challenges faced by market participants. It also offers insights regarding key factors and government programs that are expected to influence the demand for Image Recognition AI Camera Market over the forecast period.

Key Players of Image Recognition AI Camera Market: The major players covered in image recognition AI camera market report are NEC Corporation, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc, Google, LTUTech, Catchoom, Honeywell International Inc, Hitachi, Ltd., Wikitude GmbH, Slyce, Attrasoft, Inc., JASTEC Co. Ltd., Apple Inc., Facebook, Twitter, IDEMIA, Gemalto NV, Ayonix Face Technologies, Cognitec Systems GmbH, Aware, Inc., Daon, Neurotechnology, Herta Security, and KeyLemon Ind. among other domestic and global players.

Strategic Points Covered in Global Image Recognition AI Camera Market Table of Content:

Chapter 1: Introduction, the basic information of the Global Image Recognition AI Camera Market & product overview

Chapter 2: Objective of Study and Research Scope of the Image Recognition AI Camera Market

Chapter 3: Image Recognition AI Camera Market Dynamics- driving growth factors, disruptive forces, Trends and Challenges & Opportunities

Chapter 4: Market Factor Analysis, Image Recognition AI Camera Market Value Chain, PESTEL & PORTER Model, Market Entropy, Patent/Trademark Analysis

Chapter 5: Player Analysis; Competitive Landscape, Peer Group Analysis of Image Recognition AI Camera Market, Strategic Group Analysis, Perpetual Mapping, BCG Matrix & Company Profiling

Chapter 6: Displaying Market Revenue Size by Type, application /vertical or end users, other Segments

Chapter 7: To evaluate the market by countries further broken down by countries

Chapter 8: Research Methodology

Chapter 9: Data Source

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Major Highlights of Image Recognition AI Camera Market Competitive Landscape:

The company profile section of Image Recognition AI Camera Market study analyses the companys operational structure, major products and services offering, geographic footprints and subsidiaries, key management executives and their biographies along with major and closest peer competitors.

Understand and respond to Global Image Recognition AI Camera Market competitors; business strategies, and capitalize on strength and weakness with SWOT analysis.

Latest developments of Image Recognition AI Camera Market players and track findings and outcome following development.

Potential investments and merger & acquisition targets set by giants in Image Recognition AI Camera Market Industry, with detailed insight into the companys strategic & top-line and bottom-line performance.

Highlighting key financial ratio and metrics of public and private companies of Image Recognition AI Camera Market that include the revenue trends, growth margins, liquidity and leverage and efficiency ratios.

To add value to product and services; Image Recognition AI Camera Market research comprises of valuable measures showing distinguishable traits/features that influence end users behaviour and demand metrics.

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Infrared cameras and artificial intelligence provide insight into boiling – MIT News

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Boiling is not just for heating up dinner. Its also for cooling things down. Turning liquid into gas removes energy from hot surfaces, and keeps everything from nuclear power plants to powerful computer chips from overheating. But when surfaces grow too hot, they might experience whats called a boiling crisis.

In a boiling crisis, bubbles form quickly, and before they detach from the heated surface, they cling together, establishing a vapor layer that insulates the surface from the cooling fluid above. Temperatures rise even faster and can cause catastrophe. Operators would like to predict such failures, and new research offers insight into the phenomenon using high-speed infrared cameras and machine learning.

Matteo Bucci, the Norman C. Rasmussen Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, led the new work,published June 23 inApplied Physics Letters. In previous research, his team spent almost five years developing a technique in which machine learning could streamline relevant image processing. In the experimental setup for both projects, a transparent heater 2 centimeters across sits below a bath of water. An infrared camera sits below the heater, pointed up and recording at 2,500 frames per second with a resolution of about 0.1 millimeter. Previously, people studying the videos would have to manually count the bubbles and measure their characteristics, but Bucci trained a neural network to do the chore, cutting a three-week process to about five seconds. Then we said, Lets see if other than just processing the data we can actually learn something from an artificial intelligence, Bucci says.

The goal was to estimate how close the water was to a boiling crisis. The system looked at 17 factors provided by the image-processing AI: the nucleation site density (the number of sites per unit area where bubbles regularly grow on the heated surface), as well as, for each video frame, the mean infrared radiation at those sites and 15 other statistics about the distribution of radiation around those sites, including how theyre changing over time. Manually finding a formula that correctly weighs all those factors would present a daunting challenge. But artificial intelligence is not limited by the speed or data-handling capacity of our brain, Bucci says. Further, machine learning is not biased by our preconceived hypotheses about boiling.

To collect data, they boiled water on a surface of indium tin oxide, by itself or with one of three coatings: copper oxide nanoleaves, zinc oxide nanowires, or layers of silicon dioxide nanoparticles. They trained a neural network on 85 percent of the data from the first three surfaces, then tested it on 15 percent of the data of those conditions plus the data from the fourth surface, to see how well it could generalize to new conditions. According to one metric, it was 96 percent accurate, even though it hadnt been trained on all the surfaces. Our model was not just memorizing features, Bucci says. Thats a typical issue in machine learning. Were capable of extrapolating predictions to a different surface.

The team also found that all 17 factors contributed significantly to prediction accuracy (though some more than others). Further, instead of treating the model as a black box that used 17 factors in unknown ways, they identified three intermediate factors that explained the phenomenon: nucleation site density, bubble size (which was calculated from eight of the 17 factors), and the product of growth time and bubble departure frequency (which was calculated from 12 of the 17 factors). Bucci says models in the literature often use only one factor, but this work shows that we need to consider many, and their interactions. This is a big deal.

This is great, says Rishi Raj, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology at Patna, who was not involved in the work. Boiling has such complicated physics. It involves at least two phases of matter, and many factors contributing to a chaotic system. Its been almost impossible, despite at least 50 years of extensive research on this topic, to develop a predictive model, Raj says. It makes a lot of sense to us the new tools of machine learning.

Researchers have debated the mechanisms behind the boiling crisis. Does it result solely from phenomena at the heating surface, or also from distant fluid dynamics? This work suggests surface phenomena are enough to forecast the event.

Predicting proximity to the boiling crisis doesnt only increase safety. It also improves efficiency. By monitoring conditions in real-time, a system could push chips or reactors to their limits without throttling them or building unnecessary cooling hardware. Its like a Ferrari on a track, Bucci says: You want to unleash the power of the engine.

In the meantime, Bucci hopes to integrate his diagnostic system into a feedback loop that can control heat transfer, thus automating future experiments, allowing the system to test hypotheses and collect new data. The idea is really to push the button and come back to the lab once the experiment is finished. Is he worried about losing his job to a machine? Well just spend more time thinking, not doing operations that can be automated, he says. In any case: Its about raising the bar. Its not about losing the job.

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Infrared cameras and artificial intelligence provide insight into boiling - MIT News

COVID: Artificial intelligence in the pandemic – DW (English)

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If artificial intelligence is the future, then the future is now. This pandemic has shown us just how fast artificial intelligence, or AI, works and what it can do in so many different ways.

Right from the start, AI has helped us learn about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 infections.

It's helped scientists analyse the virus' genetic information its DNA at speed. DNA is the stuff that makes the virus, indeed any living thing, what it is. And if you want to defend yourself, you had better know your enemy.

AI has also helped scientists understand how fast the virus mutates and helped them develop and test vaccines.

We won't be able to get into all of it this is just an overview. But let's start by recapping the basics about AI.

An AI is a set of instructions that tells a computer what to do, from recognizing faces in the photo albums on our phones to sifting through huge dumps of data for that proverbial needle in a haystack.

People often call them algorithms. It sounds fancy but an algorithm is nothing more thana static list of rules that tells a computer: "If this, then that."

A machine learning (ML) algorithm, meanwhile, is the kind of AI that many of us like to fear. It's an AI that can learn from the things it reads and analyzes and teach itself to do new things. And wehumansoften feel like we can't control or even know what ML algorithms learn. But actually, we can because we write the original code. Soyou can afford to relax. A bit.

In summary, AIs and MLs are programs that let us process lots and lots of information, a lot of it "raw" data, very fast. They are not all evil monsters out to kill us or steal our jobs not necessarily, anyway.

With COVID-19, AI and ML may have helped save a few lives. They have been used in diagnostic tools that read vast numbers of chest X-raysfaster than any radiologist. That's helped doctors identify and monitor COVID patients.

In Nigeria, the technology has been used at a very basic but practical level to help people assess their of risk of getting infected. People answer a series of questions online and depending on their answers, are offered remote medical advice or redirected to a hospital.

The makers, a company called Wellvis, say it has reduced the number of people calling disease control hotlines unnecessarily.

One of the most important things we've had to handle is finding out who is infected fast. And in South Korea, artificial intelligence gave doctors ahead start.

Way back when the rest of the world was still wondering whether it was time to go into the first lockdown, a company in Seoul used AI to develop a COVID-19 test in mere weeks. It would have taken them months without AI.

It was "unheard of," said Youngsahng "Jerry" Suh, head of data science and AI development at the company, Seegene, in an interview with DW.

Seegene's scientists ordered raw materials for the kits on January 24 and by February 5, the first version of the test was ready.

It was only the third time the company had used its supercomputer and Big Data analysis to design a test.

But they must have done something right because by mid-March 2020, international reports suggested that South Korea had tested 230,000 people.

And, at least for a while, the country was able to keep the number of new infections per day relatively flat.

"And we're constantly updating that as new variants and mutations come to light. So, that allows our machine learning algorithm to detect those new variants as well," says Suh.

One of the other major issues we've had to handle is tracking how the disease especially new variants and their mutations spread through a community and from country to country.

In South Africa, researchers used an AI-based algorithm to predictfuture daily confirmed cases of COVID-19.

It was based on historical data from South Africa's past infection history and other information, such as the way people move from one community to another.

In May, they say they showed the country had a low risk of a third wave of the pandemic.

"People thought the beta variant was going to spread around the continent and overwhelm our health systems, but with AI we were able to control that," says Jude Kong, who leadsthe Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium.

The project is a collaboration between Wits University and the Provincial Government of Gauteng in South Africa and York University in Canada, where Kong, who comes from Cameroon, is an assistant professor.

Kong says "data is very sparse in Africa" and one of the problems is getting over the stigma attached to any kind of illness, whether it's COVID, HIV, Ebola or malaria.

But AI has helped them "reveal hidden realities" specific to each area, and that's informed local health policies, he says.

They have deployed their AI modelling in Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

"A lot of information is one-dimensional," Kong says. "You know the number of people entering a hospital and those that get out. But hidden below that is their age, comorbidities, and the community where they live. We reveal that with AI to determine how vulnerable they are and inform policy makers."

Other types of AI, similar to facial recognition algorithms, can be used to detect infected people, or those with elevated temperatures, in crowds. And AI-driven robots can clean hospitals and other public spaces.

But, beyond that, there are experts who say AI's potential has been overstated.

They include Neil Lawrence, a professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge who was quoted in April 2020, calling out AI as "hyped."

It was not surprising, he said, that in a pandemic, researchers fell back on tried and tested techniques, like simple mathematical modelling. But one day, he said, AI might be useful.

That was only 15 months ago. And look how far we've come.

That's how to do it: If humans have COVID-19, dogs had better cuddle with their stuffed animals. Researchers from Utrecht in the Netherlands took nasal swabs and blood samples from 48 cats and 54 dogs whose owners had contracted COVID-19 in the last 200 days. Lo and behold, they found the virus in 17.4% of cases. Of the animals, 4.2% also showed symptoms.

About a quarter of the animals that had been infected were also sick. Although the course of the illness was mild in most of the animals, three were considered to be severe. Nevertheless, medical experts are not very concerned. They say pets do not play an important role in the pandemic. The biggest risk is human-to-human transmission.

The fact that cats can become infected with coronaviruses has been known since March 2020. At that time, the Veterinary Research Institute in Harbin, China, had shown for the first time that the novel coronavirus can replicate in cats. The house tigers can also pass on the virus to other felines, but not very easily, said veterinarian Hualan Chen at the time.

But cat owners shouldn't panic. Felines quickly form antibodies to the virus, so they aren't contagious for very long. Anyone who is acutely ill with COVID-19 should temporarily restrict outdoor access for domestic cats. Healthy people should wash their hands thoroughly after petting strange animals.

Should this pet pig keep a safe distance from the dog when walking in Rome? That question may now also have to be reassessed. Pigs hardly come into question as carriers of the coronavirus, the Harbin veterinarians argued in 2020. But at that time they had also cleared dogs of suspicion. Does that still apply?

Nadia, a four-year-old Malaysian tiger, was one of the first big cats to be detected with the virus in 2020 at a New York zoo. "It is, to our knowledge, the first time a wild animal has contracted COVID-19 from a human," the zoo's chief veterinarian told National Geographic magazine.

It is thought that the virus originated in the wild. So far, bats are considered the most likely first carriers of SARS-CoV-2. However, veterinarians assume there must have been another species as an intermediate host between them and humans in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Only which species this could be is unclear.

This racoon dog is a known carrier of the SARS viruses. German virologist Christian Drosten spoke about the species being a potential virus carrier. "Racoon dogs are trapped on a large scale in China or bred on farms for their fur," he said. For Drosten, the racoon dog is clearly the prime suspect.

Pangolins are also under suspicion for transmitting the virus. Researchers from Hong Kong, China and Australia have detected a virus in a Malaysian Pangolin that shows stunning similarities to SARS-CoV-2.

Hualan Chen also experimented with ferrets. The result: SARS-CoV-2 can multiply in the scratchy martens in the same way as in cats. Transmission between animals occurs as droplet infections. At the end of 2020, tens of thousands of martens had to be killed in various fur farms worldwide because the animals had become infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Experts have given the all-clear for people who handle poultry, such as this trader in Wuhan, China, where scientists believe the first case of the virus emerged in 2019. Humans have nothing to worry about, as chickens are practically immune to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as are ducks and other bird species.

Author: Fabian Schmidt

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COVID: Artificial intelligence in the pandemic - DW (English)

The smart role of Artificial Intelligence in todays world – BL on Campus

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been redefining society in ways we have never anticipated. Technology is clinging to us in every walk of our lives, right from unlocking our smartphones to our day-to-day activities, online shopping, intelligent car dashboards, autonomous robots and so on. Though the concept of AI was first talked about in the early 1950s, forming a basis for many computer learning and complex decision-making processes, it is only of late, where processing huge amounts of data is required, that this field of technology is picking up pace.

What is in the AI basket?

AI is not a technology, rather it is a science or field of study. It is a constellation that encompasses a lot of statistical computation methods, pre and post analyses techniques for handling structured and unstructured data. It is an interesting endeavour of replicating and stimulating human intelligence through machine and deep learning platforms, natural language generation, virtual agents, text-voice-image recognition, AI optimised hardware, robotic process automation, cognitive search system and so on. It has a goal of utilising all the technologies to make intelligent machines.

Growth of AI in India

AI is the tool of innovation being experimented with, in almost all Indian domains, including healthcare, education, agriculture, finance, automobiles, energy, retail, manufacturing, scientific research with autonomous discoveries in place. In India, companies like Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung are into AI-based research and product offerings. Still, our country has a lot of potential to expand its research in this cutting-edge technology. Most of our educational, government and private institutes cradle and motivate AI researchers, innovations and start-ups.

The Government is pushing the private sector and offers many opportunities through DST, Niti Aayog, IndiaAI and many more, to create innovative technological solutions and fund AI-based start-ups. The start-ups are focussed in the cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi for AI-based businesses.

Why AI matters in todays scenario

AI, which emerged from the research world as a proof-of-concept has been strategically scaling up due to the pace of digitisation. AI is favoured for its large data processing, end-to-end efficiency of decoding complex processes, improved accuracy and help in decision-making, intelligent offerings, smart services - content, task automation and so on. We can see its overwhelming development in healthcare, pharmaceutical, scientific research, and e-commerce.

The interactive applications of Google, DeepMinds Alpha Fold, BenevolentAI, chatbots such as Clara and Zini; Aryoga Setu, Co-Win, Amazon, Zomato, Swiggy are among the few proving to be our pandemic tech saviours.

Impact of AI in business

Business over the years has evolved from local corner shops to the booming online shopping platforms. These modernised techniques not only make individual lives easier, but also streamline business processes for improving consumer experience, sales forecasting and automated decision making to meet business goals. Businesses work well when humans, machines and technologies integrate for each others benefit. Todays business world is solely dependent on AI, Cloud, Big Data technologies of which e-commerce and m-commerce are the mainstream, having a great business impact globally. In synch with global developments in innovation and automation, India too has brought about a digital transformation over the last two decades. Now, technological developments have gained pace more than what has been predicted; the pandemic played a great role in its quick transformation and adoption.

How to look for jobs in AI?

Today, Artificial Intelligence is a lucrative domain, promising job growth in a competitive IT industry. Four out of five C-suite executives believe that they need to speed up data processing and automation, if they have to survive in their business. So, recruiters look for advanced technical skills, extensive practical experience. AI skills secure the top place among the fastest growing job profiles over the recent years. The prominent job roles include big data engineer, business intelligence developer, data scientist, data analyst, cyber analyst and expert, AI-Deep learning-machine learning engineer, computer vision specialist along with equivalent research jobs.

How can one find a good job in AI? The answer is, there are several avenues and opportunities to be had by connecting with experts via LinkedIn, technical blogs, career fairs and company career sites. The tech talks given by companies in university, conclaves hosting academics-government-industry groups will help you understand the actual employment needs and goals. Always aim to seek opportunities at government and industry-funded research labs during the early years of your higher education. This will help you to nurture your skillset to the best. Work for open-source and stack overflow contributions which will add value to your technical profile. Technical competitions like hackathons/ideathons/makeathons will upskill your innovative ideas along with the required life skills.

Globally, today we are in a challenging situation. All, irrespective of the sectors, are working on the revamp strategy to balance the economy post Covid-19. AI will endeavour to revive the profitability and development of industry . New and advanced opportunities are expected to open up.

AI is and will be driving a promising future in the new normal. It will be the main driver for emerging and new technologies. So, take an interdisciplinary approach to hone your skills in an ever-evolving field. Think big, start small, act fast.

(The writer is Professor & Chairperson, School of Computing, SRM Institute of Science and Technology.)

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Which companies are leading the way for artificial intelligence in the aerospace, defence & security sector? Companies leading the way for…

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Fujitsu Ltd and Honeywell International Inc are leading the way for artificial intelligence investment among top aerospace, defense & security companies according to our analysis of a range of GlobalData data.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the key themes in the aerospace, defense & security sector of late, with companies hiring for increasingly more roles, making more deals, registering more patents and mentioning it more often in company filings.

These themes, of which artificial intelligence is one, are best thought of as any issue that keeps a CEO awake at night, and by tracking and combining them, it becomes possible to ascertain which companies are leading the way on specific issues and which are dragging their heels.

According to GlobalData analysis, Fujitsu Ltd is one of the artificial intelligence leaders in a list of high-revenue companies in the aerospace, defense & security industry, having advertised for 298 positions in artificial intelligence, made two deals related to the field, filed 375 patents and mentioned artificial intelligence three times in company filings between January 2020 and June 2021.

Our analysis classified nine companies as Most Valuable Players or MVPs due to their high number of new jobs, deals, patents and company filings mentions in the field of artificial intelligence. An additional seven companies are classified as Market Leaders and zero are Average Players. Five more companies are classified as Late Movers due to their relatively lower levels of jobs, deals, patents and company filings in artificial intelligence.

For the purpose of this analysis, weve ranked top companies in the aerospace, defense & security sector on each of the four metrics relating to artificial intelligence: jobs, deals, patents and company filings. The best-performing companies the ones ranked at the top across all or most metrics were categorised as MVPs while the worst performers companies ranked at the bottom of most indicators were classified as Late Movers.

Raytheon Technologies Corp is spearheading the artificial intelligence hiring race, advertising for 1,677 new jobs between January 2020 and June 2021. The company reached peak hiring in October 2020, when it listed 270 new job ads related to artificial intelligence.

Honeywell International Inc followed Raytheon Technologies Corp as the second most proactive artificial intelligence employer, advertising for 920 new positions. Leidos Holdings Inc was third with 902 new job listings.

When it comes to deals, Northrop Grumman Corp leads with 11 new artificial intelligence deals announced from January 2020 to June 2021. The company was followed by Honeywell International Inc with four deals and Fujitsu Ltd with two.

GlobalData's Financial Deals Database covers hundreds of thousands of M&A contracts, private equity deals, venture finance deals, private placements, IPOs and partnerships, and it serves as an indicator of economic activity within a sector.

One of the most innovative aerospace, defense & security companies in recent months was Fujitsu Ltd, having filed 375 patent applications related to artificial intelligence since the beginning of last year. It was followed by The Boeing Co with 56 patents and Honeywell International Inc with 54.

GlobalData collects patent filings from 100+ counties and jurisdictions. These patents are then tagged according to the themes they relate to, including artificial intelligence, based on specific keywords and expert input. The patents are also assigned to a company to identify the most innovative players in a particular field.

Finally, artificial intelligence was a commonly mentioned theme in aerospace, defense & security company filings. Leidos Holdings Inc mentioned artificial intelligence six times in its corporate reports between January 2020 and June 2021. Lockheed Martin Corp. filings mentioned it six times and General Dynamics Corp mentioned it four times.

Methodology:

GlobalDatas unique Job analytics enables understanding of hiring trends, strategies, and predictive signals across sectors, themes, companies, and geographies. Intelligent web crawlers capture data from publicly available sources. Key parameters include active, posted and closed jobs, posting duration, experience, seniority level, educational qualifications and skills.

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Navigating the Intersections of Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Privacy – JD Supra

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Companies can expertly address AI-related privacy concerns with the right knowledge and team.

While the U.S. is figuring out privacy laws at the state and federal level, artificial and augmented intelligence (AI) is evolving and becoming commonplace for businesses and consumers. These technologies are driving new privacy concerns. Years ago, consumers feared a stolen Social Security number. Now, organizations can uncover political views, purchasing habits, and much more. The repercussions of data are broader and deeper than ever.

H5 recently convened a panel of experts to discuss these emerging issues and ways leaders can tackle their most urgent privacy challenges in the webinar Everything Personal: AI and Privacy.

The panel featured Nia M. Jenkins, Senior Associate General Counsel, Data, Technology, Digital Health & Cybersecurity at Optum (UnitedHealth Group); Kimberly Pack, Associate General Counsel, Compliance, at Anheuser-Busch; Jennifer Beckage, Managing Director at Beckage; and Eric Pender, Engagement Manager at H5; and was moderated by Sheila Mackay, Managing Director, Corporate Segment at H5.

While the regulatory and technology landscape continues to rapidly change, the panel highlighted some key takeaways and solutions to protect and manage sensitive data leaders should consider:

Build, nurture, and utilize cross-functional teams to tackle data challenges

Develop robust and well-defined workflows to work with AI technology

Understand the type and quality of data your organization collects and stores

Engage with experts and thought leadership to stay current with evolving technology and regulations

Collaborate with experts across your organization to learn the needs of different functions and business units and how they can deploy AI

Enable your companys innovation and growth by understanding the data, technology, and risks involved with new AI

While addressing challenges related to data and privacy certainly requires technical and legal expertise, the need for strong teamwork and knowledge sharing should not be overlooked. Nia Jenkins said her organization utilizes cross-functional teams, which can pull together privacy, governance, compliance, security, and other subject matter experts to gain a line of sight into the data thats coming in and going out of the organization.

We also have an infrastructure where people are able to reach out to us to request access to certain data pools, Jenkins said. With that team, we are able to think through, is it appropriate to let that team use the data for their intended purpose or use?

In addition to collaboration, well-developed workflows are paramount too. Kimberly Pack explained that her company does have a formalized team that comes together on a bi-monthly basis and defined workflows that are improving daily. She emphasized that it all begins with having clarity about how business gets done.

Jennifer Beckage highlighted the need for an organization to develop a plan, build a strong team, and understand the type and quality of the data it collects before adopting AI. Businesses have to address data retention, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and many other potential risks before taking full advantage of AI technology.

Keeping up with a dynamic regulatory landscape requires expanding your information network. Pack was frank that its too much for one person to learn themselves. She relies on following law firms, becoming involved in professional organizations and forums, and connecting with privacy professionals on LinkedIn. As she continually educates herself, she creates training for various teams at her organization, including human resources, procurement, and marketing.

Really cascade that information, said Pack. Really try to tailor the training so that it makes sense for people. Also, try to have tools and infographics, so people can use it, pass it along. Record all your trainings because everyones not going to show up.

The panel discussed how their companies are using AI and whether theres any resistance. Pack noted her organization has carefully taken advantage of AI for HR, marketing, enterprise tools, and training. She noted that providing your teams with information and assistance is key to comfort and adoption.

AI is just a tool, right? Pack said. Its not good, its not bad. The privacy team conducts a privacy impact assessment to understand how the business can use the technology. Then her team places any necessary limitations and builds controls to ensure the team uses the technology ethically. Pack and Jenkins both noted that the companies must proactively address potential bias and not allow automated decision-making.

The panel agreed organizations should adopt AI to remain competitive and meet consumer expectations. Pack pointed out the purpose of AI technology is for it to learn. Businesses adopting it now will see the benefits sooner than those that wait.

Eric Pender noted advanced technologies are becoming more common for particular uses: cybersecurity breach response, production of documents, including privilege review and identifying Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and defensible disposal. Many of these tasks have tight timelines and require efficiency and accuracy, which AI provides.

The risks of AI depend on the nature of the specific technology, according to Beckage. Its each organizations responsibility to perform a risk assessment, determine how to use the technology ethically, and perform audits to ensure the technology is working without unintended consequences.

It is also important to remember that in-house and outside counsel dont have to be dream killers when it comes to innovation. Lawyers with a good understanding of their companys data, technology, and ways to mitigate risk can guide their businesses in taking advantage of AI now and years down the road.

Pack encouraged compliance professionals to enjoy the problem-solving process. Continue to know your business. Be in front of what their desires are, what their goals are, what their dreams are, so that you can actively support that, she said.

Pender says companies are shifting from a reactive approach to a proactive approach, and advised that data thats been defensively disposed of is not a risk to the company. Though implementing AI technology is complex and challenging, managing sensitive, personal data is achievable, and the potential benefits are enormous.

Jenkins encouraged the four Bs. Be aware of the data, be collaborative with your subject matter experts, be willing to learn and ask tough questions of your team, and be open to learning more about the product, whats happening with your business team, and privacy in an ever-changing landscape.

Beckage closed out the webinar by warning organizations not to reinvent the wheel. While its risky to copy another organizations privacy policy word for word, organizations can learn from the people in the privacy space who know what theyre doing well.

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Companies leading the way for artificial intelligence in the power sector – Power Technology

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Siemens AG and Vestas Wind Systems AS are leading the way for artificial intelligence investment among top power companies according to our analysis of a range of GlobalData data.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the key themes in the power sector of late, with companies hiring for increasingly more roles, making more deals, registering more patents and mentioning it more often in company filings.

These themes, of which artificial intelligence is one, are best thought of as any issue that keeps a CEO awake at night, and by tracking and combining them, it becomes possible to ascertain which companies are leading the way on specific issues and which are dragging their heels.

According to GlobalData analysis, Siemens AG is one of the artificial intelligence leaders in a list of high-revenue companies in the power industry, having advertised for 1,397 positions in artificial intelligence, made zero deals related to the field, filed 81 patents and mentioned artificial intelligence one times in company filings between January 2020 and June 2021.

Our analysis classified two companies as Most Valuable Players or MVPs due to their high number of new jobs, deals, patents and company filings mentions in the field of artificial intelligence. An additional seven companies are classified as Market Leaders and one are Average Players. 11 more companies are classified as Late Movers due to their relatively lower levels of jobs, deals, patents and company filings in artificial intelligence.

For the purpose of this analysis, weve ranked top companies in the power sector on each of the four metrics relating to artificial intelligence: jobs, deals, patents and company filings. The best-performing companies the ones ranked at the top across all or most metrics were categorised as MVPs while the worst performers companies ranked at the bottom of most indicators were classified as Late Movers.

Siemens AG is spearheading the artificial intelligence hiring race, advertising for 1,397 new jobs between January 2020 and June 2021. The company reached peak hiring in February 2021, when it listed 134 new job ads related to artificial intelligence.

E.ON SE followed Siemens AG as the second most proactive artificial intelligence employer, advertising for 446 new positions. Schneider Electric SE was third with 178 new job listings.

When it comes to deals, Chubu Electric Power Co Inc leads with one new artificial intelligence deal announced from January 2020 to June 2021.

GlobalData's Financial Deals Database covers hundreds of thousands of M&A contracts, private equity deals, venture finance deals, private placements, IPOs and partnerships, and it serves as an indicator of economic activity within a sector.

One of the most innovative power companies in recent months was Siemens AG, having filed 81 patent applications related to artificial intelligence since the beginning of last year. It was followed by Vestas Wind Systems AS with three patents and Electricite de France SA with one.

GlobalData collects patent filings from 100+ counties and jurisdictions. These patents are then tagged according to the themes they relate to, including artificial intelligence, based on specific keywords and expert input. The patents are also assigned to a company to identify the most innovative players in a particular field.

Finally, artificial intelligence was a commonly mentioned theme in power company filings. Schneider Electric SE mentioned artificial intelligence four times in its corporate reports between January 2020 and June 2021. Centrica Plc filings mentioned it two times and Southern Co mentioned it two times.

Methodology:

GlobalDatas unique Job analytics enables understanding of hiring trends, strategies, and predictive signals across sectors, themes, companies, and geographies. Intelligent web crawlers capture data from publicly available sources. Key parameters include active, posted and closed jobs, posting duration, experience, seniority level, educational qualifications and skills.

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Companies leading the way for artificial intelligence in the power sector - Power Technology

Military researchers ask for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning able to share experiences – Military & Aerospace Electronics

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ARLINGTON, Va. U.S. military researchers are asking industry to devise a new kind of artificial intelligence (AI) computer programming that enables computers not only to learn from their experiences, but also to share their experiences with other computers.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., issued an artificial intelligence exploration opportunity on Monday (DARPA-PA-20-02-11) for the Shared-Experience Lifelong Learning (ShELL) project.

ShELL seeks to advanced computer sciences in lifelong learning by computers that share experiences with each other. Lifelong learning is a relatively new area of machine learning research, in which computers continually learn as they encounter varying conditions and tasks while deployed in the field.

This differs from the train-then-deploy process for typical machine learning systems, which often results in unpredictable outcomes; catastrophic forgetting of previously learned knowledge; and the inability to execute new tasks effectively, if at all.

Related: IBM blending cloud computing and artificial intelligence to fuse data in decision-making

Current lifelong learning research assumes one independent computer that learns from its own actions and surroundings; it has not considered populations of lifelong learning computers that benefit from each others experiences.

The total award value for the combined phase-one base and phase-two option is limited to $1 million per proposal.

Algorithms used for lifelong learning typically require large amounts of computing resources, including server farms, graphics processing units (GPUs), and other resource-consuming hardware, and typically do not have to address communication resource limitations.

The Shared-Experience Lifelong Learning (ShELL) program extends current lifelong learning approaches to large numbers of originally identical computers. When these computers are deployed, they may encounter different input and environmental conditions, execute variants of a task, and therefore learn different lessons.

Related: Military cyber security: threats and solutions

Other computers could benefit if one computer could share what it has learned with the other computers. Such sharing of experiences could reduce the amount of training required by any individual computer.

ShELL is distinct from approaches that reward a federation of computers for collaborating or competing on a common global task, either by dividing the task into pieces, by assembling alternative approaches to the same task, or by evolving specialized roles.

ShELL rewards computers individually according to their performance on their own tasks using lessons learned from their own actions combined with those acquired from other computers.

Related: Deployable simulation and training

ShELL has three core challenges: what knowledge should be shared and incorporated; when and how should computers share their knowledge; and develop lifelong learning algorithms that account for the size, weight, computing, and communications constraints of the platforms supporting each learning computer.

DARPA researchers say they would like to award a ShELL contract by late September. Companies interested should upload proposals no later than 27 July 2021 to the DARPA BAA portal at https://baa.darpa.mil.

Email questions or concerns to Ted Senator, the ShELL program manager, at ShELL@darpa.mil. More information is online at https://sam.gov/opp/1afbf600f2e04b26941fad352c08d1f1/view.

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The Evolution of the Judiciary in the Age of Technology | Artificial Intelligence and the Delivery of Justice – Lexology

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Judges are human. It is only natural that, like others in society, judges may have and are indeed entitled to their own personal views and beliefs. However, a judge must decide cases objectively and professionally, independent of his own personal views or beliefs, political or otherwise

- The Honourable Chief Justice Andrew Cheung

Introduction

The use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in Courts to render justice has been theorized in science fiction since the dawn of the digital age. In an age where impartiality of judges is often challenged, it is easy to understand why humanity might opt to surrender difficult decisions over to A.I. which are devoid of emotion.

As with any application of technology to a specific task, there are of course advantages and disadvantages.

What is A.I.?

According to John McCarthy, the famed computer and cognitive scientist whom had been credited with coining the term artificial intelligence, A.I. is defined as:

allowing a machine to behave in such a way that it would be called intelligent if a human being behaved in such a way

- John McCarthy

Integral to operation of A.I. is therefore the availability of big data (e.g. collated judgments, etc.) and the ability to process such raw big data into actionable knowledge. In short, A.I. is:

Collection of Big Data Processed into Knowledge-Action through Logic Engine

As we enter into the new decade, access to big data is very much a reality. Quantum computing that will enable actionability of knowledge gleaned from such collected big data is also very much a reality.

Application of A.I., Big Data & Knowledge in Computer-Assisted Courts

It is trite that the administration of justice means the delivery of justice on a case by case basis. Each matter brought before a Judge must be decided on its individual facts and merits. Regardless of the subject matter in question, the work of a presiding justice is to process the information that the parties bring before a Court.

It is noteworthy that not all decisions which require the exercise of judicial powers are complex. Default judgments requiring the declaration of the Court (e.g. Order 19 rule 7 applications) and summary judgment and summary judgments are all matters which can be dealt with without the need of an actual hearing. Where the matter is overly complex, such applications will have deemed inappropriate and dismissed in any event (a process which can of course be undertaken by logic engine).

Conversely, A.I.s application in simple criminal cases (e.g. traffic violation, etc.) where fixed penalty are the norm can similarly be handled by A.I. (subject to human review if the situation so warrants).

It cannot be stressed enough that technology have much potential to ease the backlog of cases in our judiciary as well as achieving judicial economy with cases.

Existing Technology

It should be noted that the application of A.I. in judicial practice has already taken shape in various parts of the world. For example, in a recent research done in the European Union, A.I. prediction of verdicts of cases heard at the European Court of Human Rights had been able to achieve an accuracy range of 79%. The technology therefore already exists!

Hong Kongs Lag in Legal Technology Adaptation

As mentioned above, in order for A.I. to work properly, big data is a condition precedent. One of the hurdles that Hong Kong will undoubtedly encounter is the fact that much of our legal professional are still paper based. The digitization of our judicial process is therefore essential if we are to have an environment that will be accommodating to A.I. adaptation.

The Need of a Human Heart

Worlds governed by artificial intelligence often learned a hard lesson: Logic Doesnt care. Yin-Man Wi

- Quote from the Sic-Fi Series Andromeda

Whilst an A.I. assisted judiciary will undoubtedly have much value to assist in the way justice is rendered, it should be noted that the beauty of Common Law lies in the emphasis on equity and conscionability.

Whilst the outsourcing of justice to A.I. may have its attractiveness on hind sight, overly stringent application of the law is also known to have caused injustice. The acquittal of O.J. Simpsons for example have often times been criticized that whilst procedural justice was achieved, the same cannot be so certain in respect to moral justice. The fact remains, the human heart will always remain as the last bulwark for justice. Many judges will often agree:

sentencing is the most difficult part of the job

Further, given the fact that A.I. is still, as of this moment of writing at least, a novel technology which remains to be proven, caution dictates that it is better to have an A.I. assisted judiciary (which we should be encouraged to do everything to strive for) rather than a A.I. presided judiciary.

Conclusion

To take things to the next step, we must therefore be mindful of what A.I. can do for us in the decade of 2021:

Thisarticleisco-authoredbyJoshua ChufromONC Lawyers

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How artificial intelligence is propelling the energy transition forward – Innovation Origins

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. You can use it to find the quickest way to a store. Netflix dishes out new series to you based on your viewing history. And even the word additions that you get when typing an email are created with AI. From healthcare to finance, AI is gaining a foothold in increasingly more areas. Artificial intelligence can also play an important role in the energy transition. But what should this look like? And what is the added value of AI?

To these and many other questions, Remy Gieling attempts to get an answer during Studio Connect: AI en Future Energy Gieling is not only a moderator, but also the founder of the platform AI.nl. This is where he wants to make the impact of AI on jobs and businesses more comprehensible. On July 13 next week, he will talk to various experts from the energy sector to find out what impact smart algorithms are having on the energy transition.

Studio ConnectStudio Connect is an initiative from the AI hub Middle-Netherlands to share the latest developments in the field of AI. In each edition, entrepreneurs, experts and experts talk about their own experiences or the latest developments on a particular topic concerning AI. Click here to watch the last edition about AI and health.

In the AI hub Middle-Netherlands, knowledge institutes, companies and public parties come together to gather and share knowledge around AI. They work together on challenges for the region that focus on e.g. media and culture, healthcare, mobility, energy, construction, fintech and digital services. The hub is set up by ROM Utrecht and is part of the action agenda of the Dutch AI Coalition. Read more about it here or register for Studio Connect.

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It works like this: Through a smart system, energy consumption is suspended when the price of electricity is high and resumes once the price drops back down again. This usually happens when a lot of wind or solar energy becomes available in the grid. Supply and demand are thus better matched and the grid remains more in balance

One of the experts joining us next week is Bouke Siebenga from Friday Energy. This Utrecht-based company offers companies a smart battery system for storing electricity from solar panels. The self-learning software determines for each company the best moment to use green power. Or to even store it for later use. This saves companies energy and connection costs. In addition, all batteries from Friday Energy are connected digitally. Users can share energy with each other via a smart algorithm. All connected companies form a mini power plant this way.

According to Siebenga, AI is going to enable the supply and demand of energy to be matched more effectively. This will allow for much smarter use of the existing capacity in the electricity grid. Green power is variable, the amount of energy depends on the number of hours of sunlight or wind power. In the present system, this leads to imbalances and fluctuating energy prices. By using AI, you are able to rebalance the grid. This can even limit the investments needed to expand grid capacity. A concept such as demand response is a good example of this, he explains..

But AI on its own is not going to solve the fluctuations in green power. This also calls for storage systems so that sustainable energy can be used at a later time. According to Siebenga, energy storage combined with artificial intelligence is going to play an important role in the transition. By storing self-generated solar power, companies will be able to scale down their capacity. By using this energy during peak hours, they avoid high tariffs. There are also companies that are located in an area where the grid is congested. They are not allowed to feed energy back into the grid, or only at limited times. With our smart software, we can anticipate this and choose the most favorable time for feeding back energy into the grid.

How does this contribute to the energy transition? Siebenga asserts that this is not so difficult to explain. First of all, with our solution we enable entrepreneurs to use green power from their solar panels as much as possible themselves. They are less dependent on the electricity grid this way. Whats more, all Friday Batteries are digitally connected via the cloud. Users with a surplus of solar energy can share it with someone who has an empty battery. This simply goes through the public grid. We use a smart distribution key In order to allocate the energy. That takes into account all kinds of factors such as weather, grid load, energy prices and information about other Friday Batteries. This helps the grid operator to optimize the grid.

Within 10 years, Friday Energy wants to be able to supply a city like Utrecht with power for 10 minutes with their virtual battery. Siebenga: The grid just cant handle 100 percent sustainable energy. You can compensate for that with batteries. The capacity required to supply Utrecht with power for 10 minutes is, of course, just a drop in the ocean. But it is something we are working towards. After all, if we can connect more smart batteries together, that will lead to greater use of green energy and a better balance in the public grid.

In order to be able to link more different types of systems with each other, it is important that these devices speak the same language. Siebenga is now noticing that this still sometimes causes problems. A battery from one brand sometimes does not work together with solar panels from another brand. We are now working on a kind of standard that works independently of the supplier or type of device. This will allow our smart software to work on all kinds of different systems. And we can, for example, install charging stations in places where the grid connection is still too small.

Ultimately, Siebenga believes that the key to the energy transition lies with smart systems. Such a system must know when the best time is to charge a battery. It must be able to switch quickly with any changes in the weather conditions, for example. Digitalization has taken off. Computers, sensors and other equipment have become faster and more powerful.

Battery technology is also continuing to evolve. I think technology has developed far enough to make the energy transition possible. But where there is still much to be gained is in AI applications. For instance, we can use smart algorithms to predict what energy prices will do next, so that batteries can respond accordingly. Ultimately, its not about which battery technology were going to use. It is much more important that a battery knows that it needs to store extra energy. For example, because the sun is not shining at some point or because the grid is overloaded.

Crossroads 2021Want to look further beyond AI? In the fall, StartupUtrecht and ROM Utrecht Region are organizing Crossroads 2021 together with a host of partners. From the 8th to the 11th of November, Utrecht will be the setting for all kinds of events for start-ups and scale-ups. This years theme is MEET > MATCH > MULTIPLY. How do you grow as a start-up? Where do you get funding from? This will all be discussed during interactive sessions or keynote speeches on topics such as sustainability, health and funding. Find more information here.

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Content management and Artificial Intelligence the future of ContentOps – ITProPortal

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is eating the world, one boring, routine task at a time.

From navigation apps using AI to crunch a bunch of data at a super-fast speed to determine the best and fastest route from A to B, or automatic spam filters and categorizations that make email more manageable, AI is truly ubiquitous.

It was only a matter of time before AI applications in the content management space arose. And when it comes to content ops, the combination of content management and artificial intelligence is a great tool for giving workers back the time they need to perform more complex tasks that still require a human brain.

AI excels at understanding vast pools of data and automating routine tasks. This is typically orientated towards objectives of improving consumer experiences, saving the time and money invested in routine processes, and even exposing patterns that can uncover new revenue opportunities.

These are typically seen in a content operations workflow in four areas:

1. Smart Content Analysis

AI can analyze a piece of content to identify its sentiment and overall tone, very quickly. This is important for helping content managers determine whether a piece of content is right for their audience or if it needs tweaking before it will truly engage the intended consumer. IBM Watson, for example, uses AI to automate content categorization, text labeling, sentiment analysis, keyword extraction, and more.

2. Automatic Image Tagging

A picture still tells a thousand words. Images enhance content increase engagement. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing less engaging for workers than manually tagging image after image for search and SEO purposes. But it is still a supremely important task. And that is what makes it a great job for AI.

AI-powered automated image recognition is now smart enough to tag images in a matter of secondsletting content workers get back to deeper work instead of routine classification.

3. Scalable Personalisation and Predictions

AI also brings scalability to another important but nearly impossible task for human staff: tracking and making use of individual user behavior.

AI can automate the process of watching what each user on a website or app is doing simultaneously. Then, it can compile this data to look for patterns that will help it predict, based on past behavior, what each user might want next.

This information can dramatically improve personalization efforts, from serving dynamic content to making product recommendations and more. And improving personalization has never been more important. In the words of the management consulting firm McKinsey, Personalization will be the prime driver of marketing success within five years. In fact, they found that leaders in personalization were already able to increase revenue by 5 to 15 percent and improve efficiency on marketing spend by 10 to 30 percent. Achieving that kind of improvement automatically is a massive competitive advantage.

4. Time-Saving Content Creation Assistance

Controversially, AI can also be a big help when it comes to creating content.

Whilst artificial intelligence still is not great at coming up with original ideas or creating nuanced pieces of content, it is catching up fast. A well-trained AI tool should be able to contribute to straightforward writing projects such as news articles, factual reports, translations, transcriptions, and editing for accuracy.

At present, in the content creation workflow, AI is basically a tool for improving the ROI on content marketing, which can often be resource-intensive. Simply put, AI can do the legwork when it comes to research and data while human writers can take this material and do the deep work required to create high-value, relevant content for each target customer.

Based on these areas in which content management and artificial intelligence are already coming together to improve content operations, AI may improve marketing even more in the future.

Interactions Between AI Tools

AI interactions already abound in the consumer space. A voice-activated smart speaker to controlling house lights or audio is an everyday example. Similar interactions are in store for the future of AI-powered tools in the content operations space. It is only a matter of time before AI-enabled content management systems (CMSs) and other content platforms and tools will be able to interact with each other in smart, automatic ways to provide faster functionality and better experiences for consumers and marketers alike.

On-the-Spot SEO Improvements

Taking the idea of sentiment analysis one step further, soon AI-enabled CMSs may be able to identify opportunities for SEO improvements in real-time. This capability would empower marketing professionals to create more effective content in less time, which will outperform competitors and rank better in search engines.

Content Gap Identification

Whilst AI may not create great content on its own, it can spot a lack of it especially if it has access to huge pools of data on customer behavior preferences. This can then alert a business to where its content may be lacking (or where competitors content may be lacking).

Both situations are a huge opportunity to fill those gaps and capture more traffic. AI is becoming smart enough to flag gaps and make recommendations so businesses can create fresh content that adds value and generates new leads.

Customer Service Automations

Customer service is another expensive yet necessary element of business. Chatbots have already come to the for as a way of reducing both the time and money needed to deliver customer service excellence.

While many of todays chatbots can address very simple questions with answers pulled from a knowledge base, the future will see a large percentage of queries if not the majority - that do not have to be routed back to human agents. After all, it is the instantaneous and round-the-clock support that consumers are truly looking for when interacting with brand chatbots.

At the heart of this evolution from where AI and content management is today to where it could be tomorrow, is the need to integrate content management systems with an array of new technologies driven by AI.

In practical terms that means developing headless architectures that will enable content operations teams to explore and exploit everything from automated content analysis to smart content creation. Adopting this strategy will leave a business ready to capitalize on the next wave of AI-based innovation with minimal disruption, driving return on investment.

Varia Makagonova, director of marketing, Contentstack

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Content management and Artificial Intelligence the future of ContentOps - ITProPortal