hunger

Baidu Deep Speech system 81% accurate in noisy environments compared to 65% for best commercial systems

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Arxiv – DeepSpeech: Scaling up end-to-end speech recognition Baidu researchers present a state-of-the-art speech recognition system developed using end-to-end deep learning. Our architecture is significantly simpler than traditional speech systems, which rely on laboriously engineered processing pipelines; these traditional systems also tend to perform poorly when used in noisy environments. In contrast, our system does …

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Big Hero 6 Inflatable Robot and Google Solve For X Inflatable Robots in fiction and reality

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The Number one box office movie this weekend was Big Hero 6 which stars an animated inflatable robot. Google Solve For X had a proposal for inflatable robots Problem: Actuators in robots are heavy and clunky and limit mobility, dexterity and speed. Solution: Create materials and actuators that are soft – that act more like …

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Launching tiny interstellar spacecraft from Jupiter

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Consider a particle accelerator. On Earth, these systems accelerate charged particles like electrons to relativistic velocities so that physicists can study subatomic phenomena. Now imagine the Sprite as a particle. A Sprite is a thin computer chip that is nearly the complete basis of a spacecraft. It would be electrostatically charged, like a toy balloon …

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Brute force Terraforming of Mars, moons and thousands of asteroids in this century

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Currently humanity can control about 20 terawatts and this is increasing at 3% per year. As an unintended by-product there is slow climate change over the course of many decades to centuries. There have been many proposed plans to terraform Mars, but those are to bombard with objects from the asteroid belt or add bioengineered …

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Lithium-carbon battery could be cost effective, safe and have five to eight times the energy density of lithium ion batteries

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Journal Nature Scientific Reports – Rechargeable Batteries with High Energy Storage Activated by In-situ Induced Fluorination of Carbon Nanotube Cathode The advantages of using carbon are that it is cost-effective and safe to use, and the energy output is five to eight times higher than lithium-ion batteries currently on the market. The new battery technology …

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There is no evidence for poverty or middle income traps and development policy should reflect this reality

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Country income classifications, with their division into low ( less than $1,036), middle ($1,036–$12,625), and high ( over $12,625) are arbitrary. $1.25 and $2 poverty lines are also arbitrary. 1. There is no natural grouping of economies based on GNI per capita. 2. Country income status does not correlate with trend breaks or end points …

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China and Russia plan a nuclear energy future – Six new nuclear reactors per year planned in China and Russia has over 20 nuclear reactors for export construction

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The Chinese government has said many times since the end of 2013 that it will build more nuclear power plants in the coastal areas of eastern China without compromising the region’s safety. On May 16, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and the Ministry of Environment Protection disclosed a program, saying …

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Mice Vampirism is a bloody fountain of youth – Young blood can rejuvenate muscle, brain, heart and blood vessels

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NExtbigfuture covered research last year on the blood protein GDF11 from young mice which seems to rejuvenate older mice. In recent years, researchers studying mice found that giving old animals blood from young ones can reverse some signs of aging, and last year one team identified a growth factor in the blood that they think …

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More Support for Room Temperature Superconductivity with measured reduction in Background Noise

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In 2011 Superconductors.ORG discovered that background thermal noise in a bulk material that contains a low-volume-fraction (VF) superconductor diminishes as it cools below Tc. Now, an examination of the plots of many suspected room temperature superconductors reveals there is a quantifiable drop in noise in them as well. Joe Eck provided sample plots from seven …

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In India Modi Campaigns on a platform of better Infrastructure and better toilets

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India is holding voting for an election which will take 5 weeks to complete. Elections in India are held every 5 years. The ruling United Progressive Alliance, a coalition led by the Congress Party, has run into a series of scandals and economic roadblocks in the last few years. Polls show that most Indians are …

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