Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Google today is making it easier for families to find quality educational apps with the addition of a new “Teacher Approved” section to Google Play. All apps found in this section are vetted by a panel of reviewers, including over 200 teachers across the U.S., and meet Google’s existing requirements for its “Designed for Families” program.

That program requires apps to meet government regulations around data collection and ad targeting, and also limits the types of ads that can be displayed to children, if apps are ad-supported.

The apps chosen for the “Teacher Approved” section, however, don’t just meet the program’s minimum requirements — they’re also reviewed and rated highly by teachers. These may be apps teachers use in the classroom or those they suggest for supplemental learning at home.

The launch arrives at a time when most U.S. children are now out of school due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent school closures. To date, at least 55.1 million students are no longer attending their public or private school in-person, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. This change has left parents scrambling to fill their child’s time with educational activities. And even if distance learning available in their school district, it isn’t typically enough to keep the child engaged throughout the day.

Google says it heard from parents that it was difficult to find kid-friendly apps they felt good about letting their children use, which is why it chose to launch the new “Teacher Approved” section on Google Play.

The company worked with academic experts, including lead advisors Joe Blatt (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Dr. Sandra Calvert (Georgetown University) to create the framework for rating apps for kids. But the apps themselves are chosen by a panel with teacher involvement. The panel rates apps on various aspects like age-appropriateness, quality of experience, enrichment, and whether kids enjoy using the app.

To access the new section, you can either visit the “Kids” tab on Google Play or you can look for the “Teacher Approved” badge on any given app to see if it met with teachers’ approval. In addition, Google Play Pass will offer subscribers a selection of “Teacher Approved” content under the “Apps and games for kids” section.

The apps will be grouped by age: 5 & under, ages 6-8, and ages 9-12. Google will also include information in the app’s listing about why it was rated highly.

At launch, Google tells us there will be around 1,000 Teacher Approved apps live in the Play Store and around 60 also included in Google Play Pass. The company says it’s working with its Play Pass partners to increase this number over time.

“I think it’s terrific that Google is taking this unprecedented stand – creating a unique space for apps that teachers have rated high in quality and value for kids and their families,” said Joe Blatt, Senior Lecturer and Faculty Director of the Technology, Innovation, and Education Program, in a statement about the launch. “Over the past three years, together with faculty colleagues and students, I have worked to pinpoint criteria for developmental appropriateness, learning impact, and appeal. Then we helped Google build a rating system that enables teachers to apply these criteria reliably. I’m really impressed with the dedication and professionalism that the Google team has invested in this project,” he added.

The new Kids tab with “Teacher approved” apps will roll out in the U.S. on Google Play over the next few days. Google says it will expand the experience internationally in the months to come.

Google today is making it easier for families to find quality educational apps with the addition of a new “Teacher Approved” section to Google Play. All apps found in this section are vetted by a panel of reviewers, including over 200 teachers across the U.S., and meet Google’s existing requirements for its “Designed for Families” program.

That program requires apps to meet government regulations around data collection and ad targeting, and also limits the types of ads that can be displayed to children, if apps are ad-supported.

The apps chosen for the “Teacher Approved” section, however, don’t just meet the program’s minimum requirements — they’re also reviewed and rated highly by teachers. These may be apps teachers use in the classroom or those they suggest for supplemental learning at home.

The launch arrives at a time when most U.S. children are now out of school due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent school closures. To date, at least 55.1 million students are no longer attending their public or private school in-person, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. This change has left parents scrambling to fill their child’s time with educational activities. And even if distance learning available in their school district, it isn’t typically enough to keep the child engaged throughout the day.

Google says it heard from parents that it was difficult to find kid-friendly apps they felt good about letting their children use, which is why it chose to launch the new “Teacher Approved” section on Google Play.

The company worked with academic experts, including lead advisors Joe Blatt (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Dr. Sandra Calvert (Georgetown University) to create the framework for rating apps for kids. But the apps themselves are chosen by a panel with teacher involvement. The panel rates apps on various aspects like age-appropriateness, quality of experience, enrichment, and whether kids enjoy using the app.

To access the new section, you can either visit the “Kids” tab on Google Play or you can look for the “Teacher Approved” badge on any given app to see if it met with teachers’ approval. In addition, Google Play Pass will offer subscribers a selection of “Teacher Approved” content under the “Apps and games for kids” section.

The apps will be grouped by age: 5 & under, ages 6-8, and ages 9-12. Google will also include information in the app’s listing about why it was rated highly.

At launch, Google tells us there will be around 1,000 Teacher Approved apps live in the Play Store and around 60 also included in Google Play Pass. The company says it’s working with its Play Pass partners to increase this number over time.

“I think it’s terrific that Google is taking this unprecedented stand – creating a unique space for apps that teachers have rated high in quality and value for kids and their families,” said Joe Blatt, Senior Lecturer and Faculty Director of the Technology, Innovation, and Education Program, in a statement about the launch. “Over the past three years, together with faculty colleagues and students, I have worked to pinpoint criteria for developmental appropriateness, learning impact, and appeal. Then we helped Google build a rating system that enables teachers to apply these criteria reliably. I’m really impressed with the dedication and professionalism that the Google team has invested in this project,” he added.

The new Kids tab with “Teacher approved” apps will roll out in the U.S. on Google Play over the next few days. Google says it will expand the experience internationally in the months to come.

Researchers have discovered a new Earth-sized planet orbiting a star outside our solar system. The planet, called Kepler-1649c, is only around 1.06 times larger than Earth, making it very similar to our own planet in terms of physical dimensions. It’s also quite close to its star, orbiting at a distance that means it gets around 75% of the light we do from the Sun.

The planet’s star is a red dwarf, which is more prone to the kind of flares that might make it difficult for life to have evolved on its rocky satellite’s surface, unlike here in our own neighborhood. It orbits so closely to its star, too, that one year is just 19.5 of our days – but the star puts out significantly less heat than the sun so that’s actually right in the proper region to allow for the presence of liquid water.

Kepler-1649c was found by scientists digging into existing observations gathered by the Kepler space telescope before its retirement from operational status in 2018. An algorithm that was developed to go through the troves of data collected by the telescope and identify potential planets for further study failed to properly ID this one, but researchers noticed it when reviewing the information.

There’s still a lot that remains to be discovered about the exoplanet, like what its atmosphere is like. There could be any number of other problems with Kepler-1649c relative to its ability to support life, as well, including errors in the data used to determine that it is Earth-like and in the correct habitable zone around its star. But this represents one of the best-ever potential extra-solar planets found in terms of its potential of supporting life, thanks to the combo of its size and the temperate orbital band it occupies.

Identified exoplanets with Earth-like characteristics provide scientists with good candidates for future study, including targeting via Earth-based and in-space observation instruments. It’ll probably be a long time before we can definitively say anything about whether or not they might support actual life, but even finding exoplanets with the potential is an exciting development.

Pokémon GO was built to be played outside, with friends, as you wandered around and explored interesting landmarks around you — or, you know, the exact opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing right now.

Niantic has been working on transitioning the game into something that can still be played from your couch (Pokémon StayTheHellAtHome, if you will), and today it detailed one of the bigger upcoming changes: remote raids.

Raids, first introduced in 2017, allow players to band together to take down massive, super-strong, and often quite rare Pokémon. If the group wins, everyone gets the chance to catch the Pokémon.

Up until this point, raiding meant going to a specific location at a specific time to meet with up to 19 other players. That idea… doesn’t really work anymore. Thus, remote raids!

Here’s how it’ll work:

• Once the change goes live in the coming days, you’ll be able to join any raid you can see on your “nearby” screen. You won’t actually have to go to the location, just be close enough for the game to show it to you (a few blocks away, generally.)
• For achievements/tasks/etc, remote raids will count the same as standard raids.
• Taking part in a remote raid will require a remote raid pass which, of course, will be a premium item. They’ll cost 100 Pokécoins each when bought individually, or about a dollar.
• At first, remote raiders will be just as strong as those actually on-site. It sounds like as the need for remote raids goes away (that is, presumably, once shelter-in-place orders are eventually relaxed), remote raiders will still be welcome but won’t do as much damage as those on location.
• Eventually, Niantic says they’ll allow you to invite friends to raids regardless of where they are. Need an assist from a friend who is miles away? Hop into the raid, then invite them.

Niantic also mentioned that they’ll be giving each player one daily stay-at-home-centric “Field Research” task, and that Buddy Pokémon will now bring you item-packed gift boxes to send to friends rather than requiring you to visit Pokéstops. Items, meanwhile, will now be stackable in their duration. Know you want incense drawing Pokémon to your location for the next 2 hours, but don’t want to have to remember to fire one off every 30 minutes? Trigger four at once, and they’ll stack.

Niantic hasn’t given a specific timeframe for when remote raids will roll out, saying only that they’re “coming soon”.

Microsoft is embarking on a new sustainability initiative as part of its overall approach to support environmental protection measures, with a project it calls the ‘Planetary Computer.’ This will actually be a computing endeavor that uses aggregated global environmental data collected from a number of sources as its input, and that will seek to employe machine learning and other techniques to better understand the challenges faced in planetary health, and provide answers to both Microsoft clients and scientists about how to plan for sustainability.

If all that sounds pretty esoteric to you, you’re not alone. But in a blog post, Microsoft president Brad Smith detailed some specific examples of what it hopes the Planetary Computer will actually be capable of doing. Those include things like providing searchable satellite imagery, machine learning and user-sources data around actual on-the-ground forest borders for use in industrial construction site surveys or first preservation efforts; providing accurate current measurement sand impact forecast for water use for agricultural planning; providing wildlife biologists with global species habitat information to support preservation efforts; and more.

This is an evolution of Microsoft’s AI for Earth program, which was launched in 2017, and the actual development of the Planetary Computer will involve further investments in infrastructure, as well as participation from the existing AI for Earth grant recipients to built out analyses on the data collected. There’s also a new AI for Earth grant, valued at $1 million, provided to the Group on Earth Ovservations Biodiversity Observation Network to help act as a cornerstone for biodiversity data collection as part of the project.

To help, Microsoft is also partnering with Esri, a geographical mapping and information company that underpins a lot the related technological institute in that sphere. Geospatial data sets will be made available through Azure and Esri later this year for use by clients and institutions, and you can expect even more to come.

As the coronavirus wreaks havoc on economies and populations around the globe, the chaos also presents a unique opportunity for disinformation efforts.

According to a new report from social analytics company Graphika, which tracks online disinformation, Iran’s propaganda operations have turned to promote the country’s causes through the lens of the coronavirus in recent weeks. Since February, a group known as the International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM) has seeded memes, articles and videos promoting Iranian and Chinese interests and accusing the U.S. of creating the virus as a biological weapon. The IUVM efforts also blamed U.S. sanctions for worsening Iran’s situation and praised Iranian leaders for their response to the pandemic.

Image via Graphika

Through mid-February, accounts linked to the IUVM were preoccupied with the U.S. assassination of Qasem Soleimani but they turned their attention to the coronavirus around the time that Iran reported its first COVID-19 deaths. An article in late February with the headline “Is coronavirus an American creation?” accused the U.S. of bioterrorism and claimed that “America is the biggest beneficiary to creating a virus that will paralyze China and pose internal challenges to a power that poses a threat to the White House in the economic sphere.”

A series of editorial cartoons also pushed the message that the U.S. was to blame for the pandemic, depicting President Trump as a the virus itself. As Iran began to recover from its worse wave of coronavirus cases, the message shifted to praising the country’s response to the virus and highlighting the failures of the Trump administration as the virus spread quickly through the U.S.

Image via Graphika

While the IUVM generally focuses its efforts on creating website content, it also promotes pro-Iran propaganda through social platforms. The propaganda group has struggled to keep a foothold on social media as platforms grow more savvy to disinformation threats, but the IUVM renewed its efforts with a handful of new accounts across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter promoting pro-Iran coronavirus content. Those accounts, which had fewer than 5,000 combined followers, were taken down by April.

The IUVM can be expected to continue this kind of operation in the future, but Graphika notes that “its amplification network has been significantly disrupted by a series of takedowns over the years,” particularly on Facebook and Twitter.

“The IUVM operation is significant and manned by a well-resourced and persistent actor, but its effectiveness should not be overstated,” Graphika’s researchers said in the new report.

Amazon has decided to close its six fulfillment centers in France until Monday, according to an internal document seen by Capital and Reuters. The company also said publicly that it’ll probably appeal yesterday’s court decision that restrict orders to essential goods.

Yesterday, a French court ruled that Amazon hasn’t been doing enough to protect warehouse workers from the coronavirus. The company had already been “prioritizing” essential items over non-essential ones. But union representatives and labour inspection complained that it has been hard to respect social distancing for instance.

While a union (Sud Solidaires) referred to a court to shut down warehouses altogether, the court has ruled that Amazon can still process orders of groceries, hygiene and health-related products. Of course, Amazon can go back to operating as usual if it can prove that it has overhauled its operations to protect its employees against COVID-19-related risks.

But it seems like restricting orders to essential items doesn’t make sense for Amazon’s bottom line as it is shutting down its warehouses for five days. The company will evaluate risks and make some changes to ensure the safety of its employees.

Amazon’s public statement is quite different. “We are puzzled by yesterday’s court ruling in Nanterre as we have given hard evidence on security measures that we’ve taken to protect our employees,” the company wrote on Twitter. It doesn’t really make sense to say that if Amazon is shutting down warehouses at the same time.

The company also writes that it “thinks” it’ll appeal the ruling. At least one Amazon employee has been diagnosed with coronavirus in France.

Using a combination of machine learning and computer vision, Yes Health claims it can cut costs and improve adherence for behavioral-based treatments targeting diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions.

Those claims, and the company’s technology based approach has netted the company a new $6 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures .

The company’s technology automates patient’s reporting requirements by allowing them to take a picture of their meals rather than entering their daily food intake into a system. The company’s software recognizes meals from the images and converts that information into data that physicians and patients can use to monitor their progress.

If the ease of use for patients is one selling point, then the company’s automated messaging service is another. Using computer generated prompts instead of human consultations reduces the cost of the service and ultimately the price that folks have to pay.

 Founded by Alexander Petrov, a former PayPal executive who is, himself, pre-diabetic, Yes Health takes the therapies that have been pioneered by companies like Virta Health and Omada and makes them easier for patients to manage. 

“The biggest difference is that we have a level of personalization that then translates into engagement that is very unique,” says Petrov. “We are doing it through what we call an image-based in-the-moment approach… We capture analyze and share data not just through text but through images.”

The company, which launched six years ago, is working with Blue Shield of California and other healthcare partners. Yes Health has tens of thousands of paying members, according to Petrov, and the vision is to reach millions of people. 

Yes Health sells through both healthcare plans and direct to consumers — and the market the company hopes to address is huge. Roughly 34 million Americans had diabetes in 2018, according to data from the CDC and another 88 million are considered pre-diabetic. The cost of caring for these conditions in the US is an astonishing $327 billion each year. Healthcare costs for these patients can also reach more than 230% of the average American’s healthcare expenditures.

These issues take on new significance given the COVID-19 epidemic. Conditions like diabetes or obesity are linked to increasing chances of fatality from COVID-19 infection, according to reports.

“Americans are more conscious than ever about their health, and digital health has become one of the most important markets for innovation,” said Samir Kaul, founding partner and managing director of Khosla Ventures, in a statement. “Yes Health is proven to tackle difficult and costly chronic conditions through an AI-augmented and all-mobile solution, aligning it with our firm’s thesis in healthcare.”

If you find voice assistants frustratingly dumb you’re hardly alone. The much hyped promise of AI-driven vocal convenience very quickly falls through the cracks of robotic pedantry.

A smart AI that has to come back again (and sometimes again) to ask for extra input to execute your request can see especially dumb — when, for example, it doesn’t get that the most likely repair shop you’re asking about is not any one of them but the one you’re parked outside of right now.

Researchers at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, working with Gierad Laput a machine learning engineer at Apple, have devised a demo software add-on for voice assistants that lets smartphone users boost the savvy of an on-device AI by giving it a helping hand — or rather a helping head.

The prototype system makes simultaneous use of a smartphone’s front and rear cameras to be able to locate the user’s head in physical space, and more specifically within the immediate surroundings — which are parsed to identify objects in the vicinity using computer vision technology.

The user is then able to use their head as a pointer to direct their gaze at whatever they’re talking about — i.e. ‘that garage’ — wordlessly filling in contextual gaps in the AI’s understanding in a way the researchers contend is more natural.

So, instead of needing to talk like a robot in order to tap the utility of a voice AI, you can sound a bit more, well, human. Asking stuff like ‘Siri, when does that Starbucks close?’ Or — in a retail setting — ‘are there other color options for that sofa?’ or asking for an instant a price comparison between ‘this chair and that one’. Or for a lamp to be added to your wish-list.

In a home/office scenario, the system could also let the user remotely control a variety of devices within their field of vision — without needing to be hyper specific about it. Instead they could just look towards the smart TV or thermostat and speak the required volume/temperature adjustment.

The team has put together a demo video (below) showing the prototype — which they’ve called WorldGaze — in action. “We use the iPhone’s front-facing camera to track the head in 3D, including its direction vector. Because the geometry of the front and back cameras are known, we can raycast the head vector into the world as seen by the rear-facing camera,” they explain in the video.

“This allows the user to intuitively define an object or region of interest using the head gaze. Voice assistants can then use this contextual information to make enquiries that are more precise and natural.”

In a research paper presenting the prototype they also suggest it could be used to “help to socialize mobile AR experiences, currently typified by people walking down the street looking down at their devices”.

Asked to expand on this, CMU researcher Chris Harrison told TechCrunch: “People are always walking and looking down at their phones, which isn’t very social. They aren’t engaging with other people, or even looking at the beautiful world around them. With something like WorldGaze, people can look out into the world, but still ask questions to their smartphone. If I’m walking down the street, I can inquire and listen about restaurant reviews or add things to my shopping list without having to look down at my phone. But the phone still has all the smarts. I don’t have to buy something extra or special.”

In the paper they note there is a long body of research related to tracking users’ gaze for interactive purposes — but a key aim of their work here was to develop “a functional, real-time prototype, constraining ourselves to hardware found on commodity smartphones”. (Although the rear camera’s field of view is one potential limitation they discuss, including suggesting a partial workaround for any hardware that falls short.)

Of course there’s still something a bit awkward about a human holding a screen up in front of their face and talking to it — but Harrison confirms the software could work just as easily hands-free on a pair of smart spectacles.

“Both are possible,” he told us. “We choose to focus on smartphones simply because everyone has one (and WorldGaze could literally be a software update), while almost no one has AR glasses (yet).  But the premise of using where you are looking to supercharge voice assistants applies to both.”

“Increasingly, AR glasses include sensors to track gaze location (e.g., Magic Leap, which uses it for focusing reasons), so in that case, one only needs outwards facing cameras,” he added.”

Taking a further leap it’s possible to imagine such a system being combined with facial recognition technology — to allow a smart spec-wearer to quietly tip their head and ask ‘who’s that?’ — assuming the necessary facial data was legally available in the AI’s memory banks.

Features such as “add to contacts” or “when did we last meet” could then be unlocked, to augment a networking or socializing experience. Although, at this point, the privacy implications of unleashing such a system into the real world look rather more challenging than stitching together the engineering. (See, for example, Apple banning Clearview AI’s app for violating its rules.)

“There would have to be a level of security and permissions to go along with this, and it’s not something we are contemplating right now, but it’s an interesting (and potentially scary idea),” agrees Harrison when we ask about such a possibility.

The team was due to present the research at ACM CHI — but the conference was canceled due to the coronavirus.

Lyft today announced the launch of Essential Deliveries, a program aimed at servicing the needs of health care and government organizations and non-profits during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Launching today, the service will use drivers to deliver a variety of essential products, from groceries and meals to cleaning and medical supplies. The ride-hailing service notes the program will be opt-in and derivers will be informed about the nature of the deliveries, which are entirely contact-free.

Lyft previously announced a program to provide funds to drivers who were diagnosed with the virus or otherwise put under quarantine.

The program will be available in a wide range of different markets, including Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Orlando, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, San Antonio and Seattle. New York City, the region with the largest number of coronavirus cases and deaths is not on the initial list. Further markets include North Carolina and Atlanta.

The company is teaming up with local organizations, along with some bigger corporate names like Dole, which is will provide prepackaged foods. The program follows the launch of the LyftUp Driver Community Task Force, an opt-in service asking drivers how they want to pitch in during the crisis. Some 120,000 have signed up.