AI Could Match Human Intelligence in Next 30 Years

As you’re probably already fully-aware, we’re big fans of all things digital but in the next 30 years we could be relying on technology a lot more than we do today.

According to Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robots at Imperial College London, there is a “good chance that we can see AI matching human intelligence within the next thirty years”.

Murray is working on deep learning in Artificial Intelligence and had also suggested that the chances of us seeing human-level intelligence within AI within our lifetimes are better than 50/50.

This comes as no surprise really, when the likes of Google Now and Siri are becoming more and more intelligent every day. Google recently snapped up the British artificial intelligence company ‘DeepMind’ for £400 million, which has kept Shanahan on his toes and ensuring he keeps a close eye on what they are doing.

Google aren’t alone though, as Facebook and Yahoo are also two companies that have been working closely with AI experts. In fact, Facebook’s ‘DeepFace’ software has the ability to match faces almost as well as humans can.

Shanahan said that there has been a rapid growth and improvement in voice recognition which shows real movement in the progression of AI.

Although, he did mention that as far as learning to be adaptive like humans and animals, AI has a long way to come to be able to work on a human-level. The Imperial College London professor said that there are some missing pieces to this puzzle and that we are yet to come across what they are but once we find out what they are, the growth of AI will happen very quickly.

So Will Smith’s nightmare in the film iRobot of artificial intelligence may have finally subsided, which means there is a very strong chance that he will be able to come face to face with the real thing during his lifetime.

We already rely massively on technology, with many of us checking our phones hourly and using tablets, laptops and computers during working hours, but soon we could be using AI for everyday chores.

As Murray Shanahan suggests though, it is highly unlike to happen any time soon, but he feels a 30 years’ time-frame is a lot more achievable.

Facebook Tries To Conquer Snapchat

Facebook has showed its intention to conquer the social world again by launching a photo-messaging app.

Just one week after accidentally releasing the app on Apple’s App Store, it has now been officially launched in hope of becoming the next big thing in photo-sharing.

The app, known as Slingshot, differs from what is already out there slightly in that the only way you can ‘unlock’ the photo your friend has sent you, is by sending them one back, or ‘sling-it’ back.

Similar to Snapchat though, once the image has been viewed, it gets deleted. Another similarity is that you can also scribble or type all over the photos, something you can also do on Snapchat.

The creators of the app said this on their social media page: “Slingshot was built so that everybody is a creator and nobody feels like just a spectator.”

In 2012, Facebook purchased the photo-sharing network Instagram for a figure said to be around the £589 million mark, and today they are using their knowledge from this to create an app that they think will gain more users than its nearest competitor Snapchat.

Facebook had tried to create a similar app before called Poke, but this was abandoned recently and had been labelled by many as a ‘copy-cat app’. Facebook created Poke after being snubbed by Snapchat when they offered them $3 billion to buy the company. Slingshot has been given a number of different features that other apps don’t have to avoid being given the ‘copycat’ label again.

For Facebook users, it is simple to download the app and login using your normal logins but for those that do not have a Facebook account, you can sign up without having to create a new account.  All the new users will need is their mobile number so that they can connect with friends in their contact list, something that is also very similar to Snapchat.

It will be interesting to see how well Slingshot will do, given its similarities to Snapchat, and whether it will claim the crown of being the best instant photo-sharing app of today.

Your Smartphone Could Get Even Smarter

At the moment, your phone knows where you are and the direction you’re facing, but it could soon know about context.

This means that not only will your smartphone know where you are, but it will also know what you’re doing, who you are with and what you are likely to do next. There’s a name for this too; contextual computing.

Contextual computing will mean that our smartphones and other mobile devices will become great personal assistants, even better than they are now.

This clever piece of technology will be able to anticipate our every need, so if we needed to find a hotel, for example, our next smartphones will already know what hotel to look for based on our previous picks. So, if we have been to 3 hotels in the past and each of them had a swimming pool, our mobile device will search for hotels that also have a swimming pool; that’s the context.

Kevin Curran, senior member at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) said, “Contextual computing is the ability for a device to be aware of its user’s surroundings as well as their views, interests and behaviours.”

Although contextual computing seems like something completely new to us, there are already a number of apps around that try to use different sensors in order to calculate some context but these are nowhere near as advanced. CallWho is an app that gathers information from your call history so when you get your phone out of your pocket, your daily phone conversations will appear top.

SickWeather is an app that monitors Facebook statuses about people’s illnesses and their GPS location so you know when you’re near someone with an illness who is likely to pass it on. Strange, but wise!

These apps give us an indication of what sort of technology we can expect to be in our next smartphones. We are told to forget our current devices though and focus more on the future devices as these will be the ones that will feature contextual computing.

So, we will have to wait just that little bit longer!

Facebook turns 10!

The social network super-giant turned ten years old on Tuesday and celebrated the occasion by celebrating its user members.

Facebook introduce the Look Back feature which allows users to share a video, with friends, of their life during their time on the social network. This video compiles about 15 of your most popular images through the years as well as the statuses that gathered the most likes and important life events, to create a montage from the date you joined.

The small team behind this Look Back feature spent months crafting the videos for the ten year anniversary. This cool feature is just one of many things Facebook has bought its members over its ten year period and we will have a look at some of those features.

Here’s a list of some of the things Facebook has accomplished during its ten-year rein:

• Started as a semi-private network for Harvard students only and has grown into a publicly-traded company.
• It changed names from ‘The Facebook’ to just Facebook.
• Allowed it’s users to share photos with friends and family.
• Introduced ‘The Wall’ – a place for people to post updates and images to their own profile.
• Added the ‘Like’ button which meant people could put a ‘thumbs-up’ symbol to things they enjoyed.
• Made poking someone seem acceptable by adding a ‘poke’ function.
• Bought Instagram.
• Added the Look Back feature to celebrate its tenth birthday.

There is no denying Facebook has had an impressive life story and it seems quite apt that they decided to give its members a gift to celebrate the occasion. Facebook may have been going strong for ten years but it hasn’t been without its controversy.  Questions about just who exactly invented the social network have been expressed publicly and was even turned into a film.

A lot can happen over ten years and Facebook has arguably become the most popular social network available on the internet with over 800 million users signed up to its ranks. Although it is celebrating its tenth year anniversary this week, we can’t help but think it will be around for a lot longer.

Happy Birthday Facebook!

The Fastest Growing App This Year

For every smart phone owner, apps have become a part of our everyday lives from an alarm clock waking us up before work through to an Angry Bird’s game that keeps us entertained on the train during the journey home.

There are millions of Apps available in Apple’s App Store and this is always on the increase, but with so many apps available, which one has been the fastest growing in 2013 so far?

Before we reveal all, we will go through a couple of the other top growers among users this year. For some people these will come as no surprise whatsoever but for others it could be quite surprising.

We will start with the app that sits in third position in terms of fastest growth this year and that is Instagram.  Instagram is an online photo-sharing, social network that also allows you to share videos, add filters to images and share your experiences with other social networks. It has been at the top of many peoples’ download lists since its launch in 2010 and this year it has seen massive growth.

In the silver medal position is image hosting and video hosting website, Flickr (pronounced flicker). In March of this year, it was reported that Flickr had around 87 million registered users and 3.5 million images are being uploaded daily, that ought to do it then! With such a huge user base, it’s no surprise that Flickr makes it into the second spot for the fastest growing app this year.

The quite aptly named winner is Vine, who likes its name suggests it has climbed to the top. Vine has been a massive hit since its launch in January this year. Unlike the other apps we have mentioned, Vine has grown a massive user base over a quick space of time. Vine is a mobile app owned by Twitter and it is the perfect place to create and post short video clips all under 10 seconds. Our winner has seen a 403% growth this year already, making it the fastest growing app of 2013.

As you can see, the top three fastest growing apps are all video and image sharing apps but the top ten include the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Skype and Foursquare, but they all missed out on the accolade this year. Who do you think will take the crown next year?

Instagram Introduces Video

Vine has already established itself as the top dog of video-sharing with friends, but with Instagram introducing video it seems Vine may have to rethink its strategy.

Instagram is hoping for a share of the spoils and has added a 15 second video share feature to its already impressive photography-sharing social network.  Compare this to Vine’s 6 second snippets, and Instagram might just be one step ahead.

They may have this in common, but there are a number of features they aren’t so similar on. Instagram has a more mass market type appeal, whereas Vine is very much channelled towards a niche, creative-focused market.

Instagram was acquired last year for a deal worth $1 billion and it was none other than Facebook who managed the scoop.  Originally starting as purely photo-sharing, this app has now advanced into video, which could see it becoming the next big thing in the social networking realm.

This newly provoked competition should get plenty of people excited though, as it does mean we could have a lot to look forward to.  With the two fighting against one another, we can expect a lot more to happen over the coming months and many more features to be announced.

The competition could be even deeper than just Vine and Instagram though as this move for Instagram could well mean an even fiercer fight between Facebook and Twitter.  What is for sure though, the introduction of video on Instagram will slow the growth of Vine to a certain extent, as many people considering joining it, will reconsider staying with Instagram for the same feature.

It is very unlikely that people will have an account with every single social network especially when they can get the same features all in one app.  It is common for people to become fond of just one social network and to devote most of their time to that app, instead of using four or more.

Another certainty is that time will tell.  We will see a conclusion over the coming months as to which app will be at the top of the chain.  Although, until that time comes, there is plenty of video’s, both on Vine and Instagram, to wade through in order to make up our own mind.