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Roundup As much of the Western world winds down for the Christmas period, here's a summary of this week's news from those machine-learning boffins who havent broken into the eggnog too early.

Finland, Finland, Finland: The Nordic country everyone thinks is part of Scandinavia but isnt has long punched above its weight on the technology front as the home of Nokia, the Linux kernel, and so on. Now the Suomi state is making a crash course in artificial intelligence free to all.

The Elements of AI series was originally meant to be just for Finns to get up to speed on the basics of AI theory and practice. Many Finns have already done so, but as a Christmas present, the Finnish government is now making it available for everyone to try.

The course takes about six weeks to complete, with six individual modules and is available in English, Swedish, Estonian, Finnish, and German. If you complete 90 per cent of the course and get 50 per cent of the answers right then the course managers will send you a nice certificate.

Meanwhile, don't forget there are many cool and useful free online courses on neural networks and the like, such as Fast.ai's excellent series and Stanford's top-tier lectures and notes.

Yep, AL still racist and sexist: A major study by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, better known as NIST, has revealed major failings in today's facial-recognition systems.

The study examined 189 software algorithms from 99 developers, although interestingly Amazons Rekognition engine didnt take part, and the results arent pretty. When it came to recognizing Asian and African American faces, the algorithms were wildly inaccurate compared to matching Caucasian faces, especially with systems from US developers.

While it is usually incorrect to make statements across algorithms, we found empirical evidence for the existence of demographic differentials in the majority of the face recognition algorithms we studied, said Patrick Grother, a NIST computer scientist and the reports primary author.

While we do not explore what might cause these differentials, this data will be valuable to policymakers, developers and end users in thinking about the limitations and appropriate use of these algorithms.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn: As Hemmingway put it, the death of a child is one of the greatest tragedies that can occur, and Microsoft wants to do something about that using machine learning.

Redmond boffins worked with Tatiana Anderson and Jan-Marino Ramirez at Seattle Childrens Research Institute, in America, and Edwin Mitchell at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, to analyse Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) cases. Using a decades worth of data from the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), covering over 41 million births and 37,000 SUID deaths, the team sought to use specially prepared logistic-regression models to turn up some insights.

The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, were surprising: there was a clear difference between deaths that occurred in the first week after birth, dubbed SUEND, which stands for Sudden Unexpected Early Neonatal Death, and those that occurred between the first week and the end of a childs first year.

In the case of SUID, they found that rates were higher for unmarried, young mothers (between 15 and 24 years old), while this was not the case for SUEND cases. Instead, maternal smoking was highlighted as a major causative factor in SUEND situations, as were the length of pregnancy and birth weight.

The team are now using the model to look down other causative factors, be they genetic, environmental or something else. Hopefully such research will save many more lives in the future.

AI cracking calculus: Calculus, the bane of many schoolchildrens lives, appears to be right up AIs street.

A team of Facebook eggheads built a natural-language processing engine to understand and solve calculus problems, and compared the output with Wolfram Mathematica's output. The results were pretty stark: for basic equations, the AI solved them with 98 per cent accuracy, compared to 85 per cent for Mathematica.

With more complex calculations, however, the AIs accuracy drops off. It scored 81 per cent for a harder differential equation and just 40 per cent for more complex calculations.

These results are surprising given the difficulty of neural models to perform simpler tasks like integer addition or multiplication, the team said in a paper [PDF] on Arxiv. These results suggest that in the future, standard mathematical frameworks may benefit from integrating neural components in their solvers.

Deep-fake crackdown: Speaking of Facebook: today, the antisocial network put out an announcement that it had shut down two sets of fake accounts pushing propaganda. One campaign, originating in the country of Georgia, had 39 Facebook accounts, 344 Pages, 13 Groups, and 22 Instagram accounts, now all shut down. The network was linked to the nation's Panda advertising agency, and was pushing pro-Georgian-government material.

What's the AI angle? Here it is: the other campaign was based in Vietnam, and was devoted to influencing US voters using Western-looking avatars generated by deep-fake software a la thispersondoesnotexist.com.

Some 610 accounts, 89 Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were shut down. The effort was traced to a group calling itself Beauty of Life (BL), which Facebook linked to the Epoch Media Group, a stateside biz that's very fond of President Trump and spent $9.5m in Facebook advertising to push its messages.

"The BL-focused network repeatedly violated a number of our policies, including our policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, spam and misrepresentation, to name just a few," said Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook.

"The BL is now banned from Facebook. We are continuing to investigate all linked networks, and will take action as appropriate if we determine they are engaged in deceptive behavior."

Facebook acknowledged that it took the action as a result of its own investigation and "benefited from open source reporting." This almost certainly refers to bullshit-busting website Snopes, which uncovered the BL network last month.

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Another free web course to gain machine-learning skills (thanks, Finland), NIST probes 'racist' face-recog and more - The Register

Movie fans eager for an early peek at the new Star Wars installment are putting themselves at risk of malware infection.

This according to the crew from Kaspersky Lab, who warn that criminals are disguising malware as free streams of The Rise of Skywalker in hopes of scoring a few easy infections on unsuspecting users.

The tactics themselves are nothing new. Malware operators have long used popular movie and film franchises as a way to convince users to open the trojans and exploit files that download malware. Such is the case here, where torrent and file-sharing sites are offering malware that presents itself as a copy of the new film.

In this case, however, the attacks are proving particularly effective - possibly due to the hype around the film. Despite criminals targeting 25 per cent fewer users and offering up 30 per cent fewer unique files than last year, Kaspersky says its detected malware attacks have risen 10 per cent, an indication that hackers are having more success.

What's more, the team also found that phishing sites are also taking advantage of the movie hype by pretending to be streaming services that show bootlegged copies of the film.

"Kaspersky researchers found over 30 fraudulent websites and social media profiles disguised as official movie accounts (the actual number of these sites may be much higher) that supposedly distribute free copies of the latest film in the franchise," the security shop said of its findings. "These websites collect unwary users credit card data, under the pretense of necessary registration on the portal."

Fortunately, avoiding these attacks is easy enough if users follow some basic best practices. Avoiding unknown sites and suspicious links, maintaining up-to-date security software and system patches, and not downloading any untrusted or suspicious files should be enough to avoid these attacks.

Or, you could always just buy a ticket to watch the movie in a theater...

Given the number of people who will be on holiday, travelling, and meeting with family this time of year, however, there will be plenty of unwary victims for the attackers. For this reason it is also worth keeping an eye on the devices of less-savvy friends and family and making sure they know to avoid shady streaming sites.

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Want to live long and prosper? Avoid pirated, malware-laden Star Wars free vid streams and pay to watch instead - The Register

It is quite possible that you accidentally format a wrong external storage drive connected to your Mac with the latest macOS Catalina 10.15 installed.

Imagine a situation in which you connect a USB flash drive and an external hard drive on to your MacBook Pro. You require to transfer few important videos from the external hard drive to the USB flash drive for sharing them to your friend. But, due to lack of storage space on the flash drive, you wish to format it. Hence, you launch Disk Utility and wrongly select the external drive then click Erase. Horrors! You accidentally format the external hard drive containing videos instead of the USB flash drive. And, when you dont have a backup, you lose all your videos forever.

Accidental formatting of an external storage drive is a common human error. For that reason, you need to know how to deal with such a state of affair.

In case youve formatted your external storage drive containing valuable videos on macOS Catalina, you should know how to recover them by yourself.

Whatever be the reason, you must carry out the drive formatting task carefully. Copy all your important video files stored on the external storage drive to yet another storage medium. This backing up of your videos ensure you dont lose them permanently due to storage drive erasure.

It is now possible to hard drive recover videos from a formatted external on macOS Catalina 10.15. Only a handful of Mac undelete software available online is fully capable of performing formatted drive recovery on macOS Catalina. And, Stellar Data Recovery Premium for Mac is the worlds first undelete software that can also fix photos and videos. To try out, download and install *trial version of the premium application on your MacBook Pro.

Steps to recover deleted videos from external storage drive on mac by using the software:

Select: Launch the software to interact with the first screen that shows different data types. Select Video data type, then click Next to proceed. Select the formatted external storage drive in the next screen.

Scan: Toggle on Deep Scan from the bottom left corner of the interface to scan the drive by using file signature. Click Scan to initiate scanning. The software scans the drive and updates scan progress. Click OK when the scan finishes. Save scan information so that you dont need to scan the storage drive again. Use the load scan feature to proceed.

Recover: Click a tab from the left pane then click nodes to expand. This video recovery Mac software allows you to preview files before recovery. Preview any recoverable videos and select all the necessary ones. Click Recover. Specify yet another external drive to save data. Navigate to the save location to check the integrity of the recovered videos.

*Trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Premium for Mac is for free scanning and preview. This demo functionality helps you to judge the tools recovery capability and user experience. Once you are satisfied, activate the software to save recoverable data.

Valuable Tips:

Now you know that it is possible to recover your lost videos from a formatted external storage drive on macOS Catalina 10.15 by using a compatible data recovery software. All you need to do is to stop using the formatted external drive immediately until you recover its stored content.

Download a free trial of Stellar Dara Recovery Premium which is compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15 now. Install the software and launch it to perform the recovery task in three easy stepsselect the external drive, scan it, recover lost videos to another storage medium with sufficient space.

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Recover videos lost by external drive formatting on macOS Catalina - Business MattersBusiness Matters

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software - Market Analysis, Trends, and Forecasts" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software market worldwide is projected to grow by US$47.8 Billion, driven by a compounded growth of 11.4%.

SMEs, one of the segments analyzed and sized in this study, display the potential to grow at over 12.4%. The shifting dynamics supporting this growth makes it critical for businesses in this space to keep abreast of the changing pulse of the market. Poised to reach over US$68.3 Billion by the year 2025, SMEs will bring in healthy gains adding significant momentum to global growth.

Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 11.1% growth momentum. Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$2.2 Billion to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$2.3 Billion worth of projected demand in the region will come from Rest of Europe markets. In Japan, SMEs will reach a market size of US$2.6 Billion by the close of the analysis period.

As the world's second largest economy and the new game changer in global markets, China exhibits the potential to grow at 16.2% over the next couple of years and add approximately US$4.8 Billion in terms of addressable opportunity for the picking by aspiring businesses and their astute leaders.

Presented in visually rich graphics are these and many more need-to-know quantitative data important in ensuring quality of strategy decisions, be it entry into new markets or allocation of resources within a portfolio.

Several macroeconomic factors and internal market forces will shape growth and development of demand patterns in emerging countries in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East. All research viewpoints presented are based on validated engagements from influencers in the market, whose opinions supersede all other research methodologies.

Competitors identified in this market include among others:

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/37syh3

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software Market Analysis, Trends, and Forecasts, 2025 - Worldwide Market is Projected to Grow by $47.8 Billion...

Across the free world, the rise of populism and the decline of open debate has stressed our traditional democratic and societal institutions. New parties and movements are emerging to represent constituencies that have little connection to the political ideologies of the past. In an ongoing series, the National Post asks: What does conservatism mean in Canada today? Is there a set of principles that self-identified conservatives could agree on, and that political parties running on right-of-centre platforms would embrace? Would the countrys historical conservative thinkers recognize the movement as it stands today? To contribute, please send pitches to submissions@nationalpost.com. In todays instalment, Bruce Pardy writes how Canada really needs liberals, not progressives.

Since the federal election, Conservatives have been wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth. They lost to a weak, economically incompetent, scandal-plagued party of virtue-signallers led by a man-child. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Western world, conservative parties are riding high. So what gives? In Canada, Conservatives dont know who they are or what they stand for. During the campaign they pretended to be both conservative and progressive: to simultaneously believe in traditional values but also in victimhood and identity politics. That made the Conservatives, not the Liberals, the party of hypocrisy no small feat in an election in which the virtue-signaller-in-chief was caught wearing blackface.

In Canada, Conservatives dont know who they are or what they stand for

The answer to the Conservatives troubles is not to choose between conservatism and progressivism but to ditch both. In Canada, social conservatives are political dinosaurs. Andrew Scheer discovered that any whiff of sentiment against gay marriage, for example, was toxic, even when accompanied by an undertaking not to pursue those sentiments in a legislative agenda. Progressivism, on the other hand, is almost universal. All parties who won seats in the House of Commons are progressive and the CPC will never win that contest. But that is the key. Liberals are not liberal but progressive, which is quite a different thing. In fact, Liberals have no idea what a liberal really is. The sweet spot for Conservatives is the space that the Liberals have long vacated. To win, Conservatives must be liberals.

So what is a liberal, really? Libertas is Latin for liberty and Liberal shares the same root (liber). In the political realm, liberalism originally (or classically) denoted holding a philosophy based upon the concept of individual freedom. Hence classical liberalism is a set of beliefs that has at its root a conviction that the purpose of civilized society is to provide for the liberty of the individual. Dont tell me what to do is the liberal mantra. Real liberals believe that people should largely control their own lives that they should be free to say what they think, to have sex with and marry whom they please, to worship as they wish, to buy and sell what they want, to be responsible for themselves and to leave other people alone.

The modern version of liberalism means essentially the opposite. It embraces an expansive welfare state, extensive regulation of individual behaviour and speech, redistribution of wealth, unequal application of the law in pursuit of equality of outcome and myriad other managerial policies. Those who now call themselves Liberals in the political realm are now illiberal in their sensibilities and aspirations. Governments supervise, subsidize and control virtually every aspect of modern life: markets and financial systems, public schools and universities, health care, media, food production, energy production, telecom services, the professions and even speech. Our courts do not believe in equal application of the law. We are eroding the presumption of innocence and other aspects of due process. We have abandoned even the expectation that laws will be written, clear and understandable to all. Instead citizens are subject to the arbitrary discretion of government agencies that pursue their own agendas. Identity politics reign and the surveillance state steadily expands.

Conservatives have shown no serious objection to any of it and indeed have pitched in to make Canada not a liberal country. The CPC has muzzled politically incorrect speech, defended supply management, promoted ideological training for judges, tried to bribe voters with their own money, pushed climate change hysteria (while rejecting the most conservative instrument, the Liberal carbon tax, in favour of statist regulation) and expressed no concern for the erosion of fundamental freedoms. The Conservative election platform was merely a pale version of full-on Liberal illiberalism with an occasional hint of Bible-thumping intolerance. Were they trying to win over imaginary voters who oppose gay marriage but support the coerced use of non-gendered pronouns?

The Conservative election platform was merely a pale version of full-on Liberal illiberalism

Disenfranchised Canadians are fed up with identity politics, authoritarian victimhood and scolding from righteous elites telling them what to think and how to behave. They are liberals in the true sense of the word steady, reasonable, fair-minded, hard-working people who believe in freedom of speech and in the idea that the same rules should apply to everyone. As Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, wrote in the National Post, if Canadian conservatism upheld Western and enlightenment values loudly, unapologetically, and with conviction, then millions of us disillusioned with the Liberal party would proudly mark a big X next to the Conservative representative at the ballot box. Large swaths of Canadians have no political home and are wondering where their country went. Conservatives should help them get it back. Perhaps liberals, not Liberals, are the natural governing party of Canada.

Bruce Pardy is professor of law at Queens University.

Email: pardyb@queensu.ca | Twitter:

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Right Now: The Liberals aren't liberals anymore but the Conservatives can and must be - National Post