MIT's Nightmare Machine Churns Out AI-Generated Horror

In honor of Halloween, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab launched the Nightmare Machine website, which allows visitors to vote on AI-generated horror images created via an open source deep neural network algorithm developed last year. Scientists from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization collaborated on the project. The Nightmare Machine features some 200,000 images of normal human faces the researchers fed into the neural network.

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Apple vs. Microsoft: Remixing the Magic

It's strange that most people can look at two companies, see the difference in their performance, and not learn the fundamental lesson. Microsoft and Apple are cases in point, because Apple was very successful under the initial founders, then was unsuccessful after the founders left, was successful again when Jobs came back, and now is struggling without him. Microsoft was very successful under Gates, struggled when Gates left, and is successful again now that it is run by someone very much like Gates.

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Russian gamers race to prevent nuclear 'war'

"Attention! Attention!" blares the Russian voice from a loudspeaker. "The nuclear bombs will be launched in one hour."

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Bot Armies Boost Candidates' Popularity on Twitter

Internet bots have many useful online purposes, but they have a dark side, too, as three researchers demonstrated in their analysis of Twitter traffic during the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Bots are used to automate functions on the Net. For example, if you belong to several social networks, you could use a bot to post a photo to all of them at once, saving the time of logging onto each network. What the researchers found was that bots also can be used to amplify support on Twitter.

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Microsoft Open Sources AI Toolkit

Microsoft this week released an updated version of its Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit as an open source Beta. The deep learning system is used to speed advances in areas such as speech and image recognition and search relevance on CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. It also works with Microsoft's Azure GPU offering. The Microsoft computer scientists who developed the toolkit initially were looking for a tool to speed up and improve their own research. It morphed into an offering capable of taking on a wide variety of deep learning tasks.

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Apple Brings a Surprising Touch to MacBook Event

Apple on Thursday unveiled two new MacBook Pro laptops, adding a touch more power to the line. Both the new 13-inch and 15-inch models will be offered in silver and space gray. They have a Touch Bar that replaces the row of function keys found on laptops, as well as a Touch ID fingerprint scanner incorporated into the power button. They sport a Force Touch trackpad that's twice the size of the trackpad in previous models. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is 17 percent thinner than its predecessor. It's also smaller, and it weighs half a pound less than the previous version.

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Conspiracy Theories in the Information Age, Part 1

One of the most volatile conspiracy theories in recent times ended with a whimper last month, when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made the terse statement, "President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period." Though birthers may be with us always, it seems that many have turned their attention to other potentially scandalous topics -- and they need look no further than the place most conspiracy theories are born these days, the Internet.

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Vine's dead. Is Twitter next?

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In memoriam: 10 of the best Vines

Thursday afternoon, Vine shared some news that shook the entire online universe.

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Apple unveils first MacBook Pro in 4 years

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Flying cars are a possibility, Uber says

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Xiaomi Debuts Magical Mi Mix

Xiaomi on Tuesday fired another shot in the shrinking bezel wars, as it announced a smartphone with a front that's more than 90 percent display. The Mi Mix is a 6.4-inch phone that's stylishly crafted by French designer Philippe Starck. It sports a feature set that indicates Xiaomi wants to compete at the high end of the smartphone market. "For many years, Xiaomi has had a reputation of copying designs and branding from Apple and Samsung," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research. "This phone breaks with those designs."

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The truth about patient zero and HIV's origin

A new HIV study clears the name of Gaëtan Dugas as patient zero, and provides new insight into how the virus spread to the United States.

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Microsoft's New Tech Targets Human Creativity

Microsoft made a slew of announcements at its New York City event Tuesday, focusing on the idea of user as creator. Among its new offerings: the Surface Studio, an all-in-one desktop computer with a touchscreen that's 12.5mm thick; the Surface Dial, a new input device that provides haptic feedback; the Surface Book i7; VR headsets for Windows 10; a revamped Paint app with 3D capability; and Creator's Update, an upcoming Windows 10 refresh providing 3D creation tools, live streaming, and custom Xbox app tournaments.

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The real -- and growing -- effects of fake pills

Most of us think of a placebo as a simple psychological trick -- a fake pill might give us hope, but it produces no real effects.

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