Month: August 2023
Amazon’s Buy With Prime Now Offered in Shopify Stores – CNET
Shopify stores can let customers get Prime benefits like free shipping and easy returns starting now.
Shopify stores can let customers get Prime benefits like free shipping and easy returns starting now.
The NYPD will police Labor Day parties with surveillance drones
A Skydio 2 drone. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
If there’s a drone flying over your backyard party this Labor Day / J’Ouvert / West Indian Day Parade weekend in New York City, it might be the police — because the NYPD have apparently granted themselves the power to surveil the city that way.
“If a caller states there is a large crowd, a large party in the backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up, go check on the party,” said assistant NYPD commissioner Kaz Daughtry, at a live press conference earlier today.
Lest you think we’re taking that out of context, here’s the full quote I just transcribed:
We’re going to be utilizing technology, we’re going to be utilizing drones for this J’ouvert weekend. The drones are going to be responding to non-priority calls and priority calls, for example if we have any 311 calls on our non-emergency line, where if a caller states there is a large crowd, a large party in the backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up, go check on the party, to make sure if the call is founded or not, and we’ll be able to determine how many resources we need to send to that location for this weekend. We will have our drone team out there, starting tonight, all the way into Monday morning.
It makes a bit of sense when you put it that way? But like the Associated Press reports, this is… rather concerning for privacy and possibly also illegal. New York City’s POST Act requires that the NYPD publish any new way it plans to use new surveillance technology 90 days ahead of time, so the public has time to comment. It has not done so.
And while the NYPD did publish a document about how it uses drones back in 2021, it suggested back then that drones would only be used for:
search and rescue operations, documentation of collisions and crimes scenes, evidence searches at large inaccessible scenes, hazardous material incidents, monitoring vehicular traffic and pedestrian congestion at large scale events, visual assistance at hostage/barricaded suspect situations, rooftop security, observations at shooting or large scale events, public safety, emergency, and other situations with the approval of the Chief of Department
“Nosy neighbors annoyed by backyard parties” is not on the list.
Police also promised in 2021 that drones would not be used “in areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy without NYPD personnel first obtaining a search warrant that explicitly authorizes the use.” I am not a lawyer, but a quick search suggests that New York state residents have at least some expectation of privacy in their own backyard.
It’s possible the NYPD is exploiting a loophole in the POST Act, where the agency can decide a new tool is an “enhancement” to an existing tech policy, like we discussed the last time the NYPD stretched the drone rules with “remote-piloted public messaging capabilities.” But it’s supposed to add them to the document when it does so. I’m not seeing that update.
The American Civil Liberties Union recently warned of “an explosion in law enforcement use of drones.” The NYPD began acquiring drones in 2018, and flew them over the New Year’s Eve celebration that year. Illinois recently let cops start flying drones over public events, while also addressing some concerns over drone weaponization and facial recognition.
Police departments are also embracing other forms of robots: this year, the NYPD brought back its Digidog four-legged robot, which it claims will only be used during life-threatening situations. NYPD does describe the Digidog in its POST Act documents.
San Francisco has even been debating whether to allow police robots to kill dangerous suspects. While the option was halted, the SFPD has suggested it would resubmit its proposal.
If you do get a police drone flyover, the NYPD should theoretically delete the recording within 30 days. You can request a recording under the New York State Freedom of Information Law.
A Skydio 2 drone. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
If there’s a drone flying over your backyard party this Labor Day / J’Ouvert / West Indian Day Parade weekend in New York City, it might be the police — because the NYPD have apparently granted themselves the power to surveil the city that way.
“If a caller states there is a large crowd, a large party in the backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up, go check on the party,” said assistant NYPD commissioner Kaz Daughtry, at a live press conference earlier today.
Lest you think we’re taking that out of context, here’s the full quote I just transcribed:
We’re going to be utilizing technology, we’re going to be utilizing drones for this J’ouvert weekend. The drones are going to be responding to non-priority calls and priority calls, for example if we have any 311 calls on our non-emergency line, where if a caller states there is a large crowd, a large party in the backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up, go check on the party, to make sure if the call is founded or not, and we’ll be able to determine how many resources we need to send to that location for this weekend. We will have our drone team out there, starting tonight, all the way into Monday morning.
It makes a bit of sense when you put it that way? But like the Associated Press reports, this is… rather concerning for privacy and possibly also illegal. New York City’s POST Act requires that the NYPD publish any new way it plans to use new surveillance technology 90 days ahead of time, so the public has time to comment. It has not done so.
And while the NYPD did publish a document about how it uses drones back in 2021, it suggested back then that drones would only be used for:
search and rescue operations, documentation of collisions and crimes scenes, evidence searches at large inaccessible scenes, hazardous material incidents, monitoring vehicular traffic and pedestrian congestion at large scale events, visual assistance at hostage/barricaded suspect situations, rooftop security, observations at shooting or large scale events, public safety, emergency, and other situations with the approval of the Chief of Department
“Nosy neighbors annoyed by backyard parties” is not on the list.
Police also promised in 2021 that drones would not be used “in areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy without NYPD personnel first obtaining a search warrant that explicitly authorizes the use.” I am not a lawyer, but a quick search suggests that New York state residents have at least some expectation of privacy in their own backyard.
It’s possible the NYPD is exploiting a loophole in the POST Act, where the agency can decide a new tool is an “enhancement” to an existing tech policy, like we discussed the last time the NYPD stretched the drone rules with “remote-piloted public messaging capabilities.” But it’s supposed to add them to the document when it does so. I’m not seeing that update.
The American Civil Liberties Union recently warned of “an explosion in law enforcement use of drones.” The NYPD began acquiring drones in 2018, and flew them over the New Year’s Eve celebration that year. Illinois recently let cops start flying drones over public events, while also addressing some concerns over drone weaponization and facial recognition.
Police departments are also embracing other forms of robots: this year, the NYPD brought back its Digidog four-legged robot, which it claims will only be used during life-threatening situations. NYPD does describe the Digidog in its POST Act documents.
San Francisco has even been debating whether to allow police robots to kill dangerous suspects. While the option was halted, the SFPD has suggested it would resubmit its proposal.
If you do get a police drone flyover, the NYPD should theoretically delete the recording within 30 days. You can request a recording under the New York State Freedom of Information Law.
AI Quadcopter ‘Swift’ Beats Top Human Drone Racers
An autonomous, artificial-intelligence-powered drone called Swift has beaten humanity’s best drone racers. “The AI-equipped drone, developed by researchers at the University of Zurich, came out on top in 15 out of 25 races and recorded the single fastest lap time,” reports Gizmodo. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. From the report: Swift beat the humans in the niche but growing sport of first-person view drone racing. Human competitors navigate using a headset connected to a camera on their drones to pilot a quadcopter through complex obstacle courses at extreme speeds, with the goal of finishing the race with the fastest time and avoiding taking too much damage in the process. Drones in these races can top 50 miles per hour when they’re really buzzing. The shows Swift battling it out against the human-controlled drones.
Swift emerged victorious in 15 out of the 25 total head-to-head races against the human pilots and clocked the fastest overall lap time at 17.47 seconds. That brisk lap time was nearly half a second better than the best human. The three human competitors, Alex Vanover, Thomas Bitmatta, and Marvin Schaepper, have each won drone racing championships in the past. In this case, the human competitors had a week to learn the new course and train for the race. During that same time, Swift was training as well but in a digitally simulated environment meant to resemble the course. Swift, according to the paper, used deep reinforcement learning while in the simulation along with additional data collected from the outside world.
During the actual race, Swift would take in video collected by its camera and send that to a neural network capable of identifying the gates it had to fly through. A combination of onboard sensors are then used to aid the drone with positioning, speed, and orientation. All of this happened autonomously, at extreme speeds. The researchers noticed some interesting differences in the ways Swift approached the course as opposed to its human competitors. The autonomous system, they noted, was more consistent across laps and appeared to take tighter turns. Those tight turns can add up and give a drone an edge in a race by repeatedly shaving off fractions of a second from lap times.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An autonomous, artificial-intelligence-powered drone called Swift has beaten humanity’s best drone racers. “The AI-equipped drone, developed by researchers at the University of Zurich, came out on top in 15 out of 25 races and recorded the single fastest lap time,” reports Gizmodo. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. From the report: Swift beat the humans in the niche but growing sport of first-person view drone racing. Human competitors navigate using a headset connected to a camera on their drones to pilot a quadcopter through complex obstacle courses at extreme speeds, with the goal of finishing the race with the fastest time and avoiding taking too much damage in the process. Drones in these races can top 50 miles per hour when they’re really buzzing. The shows Swift battling it out against the human-controlled drones.
Swift emerged victorious in 15 out of the 25 total head-to-head races against the human pilots and clocked the fastest overall lap time at 17.47 seconds. That brisk lap time was nearly half a second better than the best human. The three human competitors, Alex Vanover, Thomas Bitmatta, and Marvin Schaepper, have each won drone racing championships in the past. In this case, the human competitors had a week to learn the new course and train for the race. During that same time, Swift was training as well but in a digitally simulated environment meant to resemble the course. Swift, according to the paper, used deep reinforcement learning while in the simulation along with additional data collected from the outside world.
During the actual race, Swift would take in video collected by its camera and send that to a neural network capable of identifying the gates it had to fly through. A combination of onboard sensors are then used to aid the drone with positioning, speed, and orientation. All of this happened autonomously, at extreme speeds. The researchers noticed some interesting differences in the ways Swift approached the course as opposed to its human competitors. The autonomous system, they noted, was more consistent across laps and appeared to take tighter turns. Those tight turns can add up and give a drone an edge in a race by repeatedly shaving off fractions of a second from lap times.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Quordle today – hints and answers for Friday, September 1 (game #585)
Looking for Quordle clues? We can help. Plus get the answers to Quordle today and past solutions.
It’s time for your daily dose of Quordle hints, plus the answers for both the main game and the Daily Sequence spin off.
Quordle is the only one of the many Wordle clones that I’m still playing now, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it’s good fun, but also difficult.
What’s more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also keeping it fresh in the form of a new variant called the Daily Sequence, which sees you complete four puzzles consecutively, rather than concurrently.
But Quordle is tough, so if you already find yourself searching for Wordle hints, you’ll probably need some for this game too.
I’m a Quordle and Wordle fanatic who’s been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Quordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Quordle hints to game #585 and the answers to the main game and Daily Sequence.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #1 – Vowels
How many different vowels are in Quordle today?
• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #2 – total vowels
What is the total number of vowels in Quordle today?
• The total number of vowels across today’s Quordle answers is 7.
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #3 – repeated letters
Do any of today’s Quordle answers contain repeated letters?
• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 0.
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #4 – total letters
How many different letters are used in Quordle today?
• The total number of different letters used in Quordle today is 13.
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #5 – uncommon letters
Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?
• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today’s Quordle answers.
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #6 – starting letters (1)
Do any of today’s Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?
• The number of today’s Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.
If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you’re not ready yet then here’s one more clue to make things a lot easier:
Quordle today (game #585) – hint #7 – starting letters (2)
What letters do today’s Quordle answers start with?
• B
• S
• V
• I
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
Quordle today (game #585) – the answers
(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)
The answers to today’s Quordle, game #585, are…
BLOCKSULKYVOCALIDEAL
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Daily Sequence today (game #585) – the answers
(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)
The answers to today’s Quordle Daily Sequence, game #585, are…
TOWERCHAFEARBORNEWER
Quordle answers: The past 20
Quordle #584, Thursday 31 August: FINAL, VOICE, HATCH, TWANGQuordle #583, Wednesday 30 August: MOUNT, SLEET, SCAMP, SAVOYQuordle #582, Tuesday 29 August: BRASS, PASTE, WIDER, PIXIEQuordle #581, Monday 28 August: PAINT, ALLOY, FORTY, FIBERQuordle #580, Sunday 27 August: VOWEL, BLUNT, STOKE, SHADYQuordle #579, Saturday 26 August: LEASH, SMEAR, BASAL, BRIEFQuordle #578, Friday 25 August: CHAMP, CLACK, PIVOT, BOOTHQuordle #577, Thursday 24 August: TAWNY, JETTY, PESTO, PRUNEQuordle #576, Wednesday 23 August: DITTY, BARGE, CANON, GOLLYQuordle #575, Tuesday 22 August: COAST, AWOKE, CLOTH, ANNEXQuordle #574, Monday 21 August: FILTH, TRACE, STONY, FOLIOQuordle #573, Sunday 20 August: WIMPY, PLUNK, FORAY, SHAKEQuordle #572, Saturday 19 August: STIFF, QUOTH, MUCKY, WEDGEQuordle #571, Friday 18 August: EXPEL, ROGUE, PATCH, MINTYQuordle #570, Thursday 17 August: OLDEN, HASTY, ADULT, OLIVEQuordle #569, Wednesday 16 August: BOOST, QUARK, ADULT, ANGSTQuordle #568, Tuesday 15 August: IONIC, DAUNT, BRIBE, NORTHQuordle #567, Monday 14 August: CARGO, PATTY, BARGE, MELONQuordle #566, Sunday 13 August: SAUCE, DEIGN, HARDY, FLUNGQuordle #565, Saturday 12 August: APRON, STALE, GUILT, PARTY
Quordle FAQs: Everything you need to know
What is Quordle?
Where Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day, Quordle presents you with four puzzles to solve. And rather than complete them in turn, you do so simultaneously. You get nine guesses, rather than the six for Wordle, but the rules are otherwise very similar.
It’s played online via the Quordle website and you can also get to it via the Merriam-Webster site, after the dictionary purchased Quordle last year.
As with Wordle, the answers are the same for every player each day, meaning that you’re competing against the rest of the world. And also as with Wordle, the puzzle resets at midnight so you have a fresh challenge each day.
The website also includes a practice mode – which I definitely recommend using before attempting the game proper! – and there are daily stats including a streak count. You also get Quordle Achievements – specific badges for winning a game in a certain number of turns, playing lots of times, or guessing particularly hard words.
Oh, and it’s difficult. Really difficult.
What are the Quordle rules?
The rules of Quordle are almost identical to those of Wordle.
1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.
2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.
3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray…
4. …BUT the word you guess appears in all quadrants of the puzzle at the same time, so an A could turn green in one square, yellow in another and gray in the final two.
5. Answers are never plural.
6. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.
7. Each guess must be a valid word in Quordle’s dictionary. You can’t guess ABCDE, for instance.
8. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses and there is no equivalent of Wordle’s Hard mode.
9. You have nine guesses to find the Quordle answers.
10. You must complete the daily Quordle before midnight in your timezone.
What is a good Quordle strategy?
Quordle needs to be approached in a different way to Wordle. With four puzzles to solve in nine guesses, you can’t blindly throw letters at it and expect to win – you’ll stand a far better chance if you think strategically.
That’s the case in Wordle too, of course, but it’s even more important in Quordle.
There are two key things to remember.
1. Use several starting words
Firstly, you won’t want just a single starting word, but almost certainly two or three starting words.
The first of these should probably be one of the best Wordle starting words, because the same things that make them work well will apply here too. But after that, you should select another word or possibly two that use up lots more of the most common consonants and that include any remaining vowels.
For instance, I currently use STARE > DOILY > PUNCH. Between them, these three words use 15 of the 26 letters in the alphabet including all five vowels, Y, and nine of the most common consonants (S, T, R, D, L, P, N, C and H). There are plenty of other options – you might want to get an M, B, F or G in there instead of the H, maybe – but something like that should do the trick.
If all goes well, that will give you a good lead on what one or sometimes two of the answers might be. If not, well good luck!
2. Narrow things down
Secondly, if you’re faced with a word where the answer might easily be one of several options – for instance -ATCH, where it could be MATCH, BATCH, LATCH, CATCH, WATCH, HATCH or PATCH – you’ll definitely want to guess a word that would narrow down those options.
In Wordle, you can instead try several of those in succession and hope one is right, assuming you have enough guesses left. It’s risky, but will sometimes work. Plus, it’s the only option in Hard mode. But in Quordle, this will almost certainly result in a failure – you simply don’t have enough guesses.
In the scenario above, CLAMP would be a great guess, as it could point the way to four of the seven words in one go.
The firms hoping to cut down on wasted cosmetics
By tailoring cosmetics to the individual some firms are hoping to cut waste in the cosmetics industry.
By tailoring cosmetics to the individual some firms are hoping to cut waste in the cosmetics industry.
‘Reservation Dogs’ Is a Vision of Hollywood’s New Normal
In its final season, the FX on Hulu comedy leaves a promising blueprint for TV’s future.
In its final season, the FX on Hulu comedy leaves a promising blueprint for TV’s future.