Items tagged with algorithm
Could YouTube partly be responsible for the increase in “flat earthers”? Researchers have discovered that many flat earthers were persuaded by YouTube videos. Many of these videos had been recommended or promoted by YouTube’s algorithm. A “flat earther” is a person who believes that the earth is a flat plane or disc instead of a sphere. Many ancient civilizations including the Greeks, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians held this belief and incorporated the theory into their cosmology. Although modern scientists have concluded that the earth is a sphere, the flat earth theory never truly disappeared. The theory has recently gained popularity thanks to social media. Dr....
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While Pokémon GO and Netflix are fun apps, they can also be huge data drains when not on WiFi. Google Play is investing in improvements to reduce the data that needs to be transferred for app installs and updates, while making data costs more transparent to users. Google recently rolled out a new delta algorithm “bsdiff” that reduces patches by 50% or more. In the past when one updated an app, they would essentially have to redownload the app and the large amount of data that accompanied it. Since 2012, only changes or deltas to APK files have been downloaded and merged with the existing files. Google has since been doing version checks of apps, and then sends out a patch that merges the changes...
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A group of French and American scientists publishing in the science journal Nature are reporting success in their attempt to develop software that allows damaged robots to quickly overcome many sustained injuries and continue with their tasks. A major problem in robotics has long been the inability of the machines to deal with unexpected circumstances, and in the case of damage suffered in the performing of their duties, they will usually just ignore the problem and thus make the it all the worse. Now, though, with inspiration drawn from nature itself, the scientists — Antoine Cully, Jean-Baptiste Mouret, and Danesh Tarapore of the Marie Curie University in...
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On Tuesday Google will change an algorithm in its search function that will give preference to websites that are deemed "mobile friendly" for searches run via cellular devices (searches run via browsers on computers and tablets will be unaffected). This change by the search behemoth is widely expected to have a more substantial search results impact than its two previous algorithm updates, Panda (12% affected) and Penguin (3% affected). Considering that mobile searches now make up nearly 50% of all Google search traffic* the algorithm update is sure to cause what marketing firm Somo is calling a "mobilegeddon", adversely affecting the search rankings of a significant number of websites....
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In celebration of its 15th birthday, Google announced that it has overhauled its search algorithm. The new tool is called Hummingbird, and its chief feature is conversational search; in other words, when you make a search query, instead of merely looking at keywords and popping out results that seem to match them the best, Hummingbird is designed to employ a higher level of understanding. For instance, if you say or type “What’s the best place to buy a TV near my house?”, the new algorithm might understand that by “place” you mean a physical store location, recognize that a “TV” is most typically sold in an electronics store, and try and pull up a store...
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Facebook is tricky. The site layout changes all the time, with menus, settings, and the like moving around, disappearing, reappearing, and being reworked with a slightly different name. Despite that, deleting a post from your Timeline seems mercifully easy: You just click the little icon in the upper right corner of a given post and then click Delete. Boom, done. Except apparently, that post isn’t actually deleted. Laura of “The Well-Prepared Mind” wrote a blog post detailing how she deleted everything on her Timeline, only to log back in some time later and find that everything had been restored. She says she did this twice, and sure enough, all those items are back. This doesn't...
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