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Amazon’s AWS, the world’s biggest cloud computing outfit, is making a major push to persuade the public sector to join the artificial intelligence revolution, as the generative AI race with Microsoft and Google heats up.

AWS and the other cloud giants say that the technology behind ChatGPT can have a huge impact on improving public services, including in health, security, charity and NGO work.

But getting governments and nonprofits to sign on will be a bigger ask than persuading private companies—and AWS on Wednesday opened a $50 million two-year envelope for potential public customers to test out ideas.

The public sector market is already an important one. AWS serves 7,500 government agencies, 14,000 academic institutions and 85,000 nonprofits in 215 countries, according to company data.

The new fund would give accepted AI projects access to cloud computing credits, training and technical expertise.

“What I see happening is lots of ideas, lots of use cases, lots of proof of concepts, things that I think will really have an impact,” Dave Levy, the AWS vice president in charge of the global public sector business, told AFP.

“Getting that stuff into production is where public sector organizations really need that support and help,” Levy said ahead of an AWS “summit” targeting the public sector in Washington.

The scramble for public sector adoption of generative AI comes as Microsoft’s cloud business as well as Google Cloud are trying to bite into AWS leadership of the market.

Generative AI, which stormed the world with the release of ChatGPT, can generate human quality content by churning through piles of data, something that the public sector has on a massive scale.

AWS’ Bedrock platform provides generative AI to clients by allowing them to access a range of models, such as Anthropic’s Claude model, that are used to power custom-made AI tools and applications.

Levy insisted that the benefits of AI would far outpace the challenges, given how much could be done by the technology with the data available.

In one example of generative AI cited by AWS, Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute built a new research solution using the Anthropic’s Claude model to help doctors interpret lab results.

In Britain, the Swindon Borough Council meanwhile used AWS’s cloud to build a generative AI tool to make complex leasing agreements more understandable.

For now, generative AI, much like video streaming and much of life on the internet, requires cloud computing to function.

The bet across the industry is that generative AI, while still in the early stages, could boost growth and accelerate a transition to the cloud once public agencies see AI can take on a bigger role in their mission.

AWS’ AI initiative is designed to give public actors an easy way to begin tooling around with generative AI and set aside skittishness associated with the technology.

While widely expected to change the face of computing in the coming years, generative AI has also seen its share of gaffes and mishaps, with well reported cases of the technology going off the rails.

This can scare off potential government clients wary of technology that is less predictable than classic computing.

Worries also exist about where the data ends up and the costs in the long term.

AWS says it differentiates itself from rivals by putting an absolute primacy on security and making sure that AI is ready for deployment.

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Amazon cloud giant AWS wants public sector to embrace AI (2024, June 26)
retrieved 26 June 2024
from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-06-amazon-cloud-giant-aws-sector.html

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A new species, plus a name change for the state mammal of Texas

June 26, 2024

Rewriting the armadillo family tree: A new species, plus a name change for the state mammal of Texas — The new armadillo species, the Guianan long-nosed armadillo. Credit: Quentin Martinez (https://quentinmartinez.fr/)

While their scaly armor and long claws look vaguely reptilian, armadillos belong to the same group of mammals as sloths and anteaters. There are nearly two dozen species of armadillos, from six-inch long “pink fairies” to giant armadillos that measure five feet long from snout to tail.

The nine-banded armadillo has long been considered the most widespread, ranging from the central United States to Argentina. However, a new study published in Systematic Biology used DNA and museum collections to reveal that what has been called the nine-banded armadillo is actually four distinct species, including one that’s new to science.

“It was widely accepted that the nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus, ranges from northern Argentina all the way to southern Illinois, but in recent years, some scientists have been putting forth evidence that this is actually a complex of multiple different species,” says Frédéric Delsuc, a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France and the study’s senior author.

“By studying the DNA of armadillos from all along this range, we put together a very detailed genomic analysis that makes us very confident that they are actually four species.”

The finding is particularly noteworthy in the United States, because the armadillo formerly known as nine-banded has made its way from Mexico to many US states in the past two centuries and is the official small mammal of Texas.

“With the new classification, the armadillo that’s found in the United States should now be called the Mexican long-nosed armadillo,” says Anderson Feijó, assistant curator of mammals at the Field Museum in Chicago’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center and a co-author of the study. Moreover, “the new species, the Guianan long-nosed armadillo, is the first armadillo described in the last 30 years.”

Delsuc began working on armadillo genetics in 1998 comparing samples from the invasive US populations with those found in French Guiana. At the time, he was sequencing mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that is only inherited through the mother. His work pointed to splits within the nine-banded species, but at the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to formally separate them into different species, as a more geographically widespread sampling was lacking. Still, that was “the first evidence that there was something really strange going on,” says Delsuc.

The authors of the new study, including Delsuc, Feijó, Mathilde Barthe, a Ph.D. student with Delsuc at the University of Montpellier and the study’s first author, and Maria-Clara Arteaga from the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada in Mexico, worked to create a much larger sample set of nine-banded armadillos. This allowed the team to study how the animals’ physical characteristics, as well as their DNA, changed across their wide range. In addition to sampling blood and tissue from armadillos hit by cars, the scientists were able to supplement their sampling with museum specimens, for a total of 81 armadillos.

“Museums were crucial to the study,” says Feijó. Natural history collections, including those at the Field Museum, contain skeletons and skins that serve as vouchers for scientists studying those species. The researchers were able to clip tiny pieces of dried skin from the armadillo specimens at numerous museums. They then used chemicals to eat away the tissues, leaving DNA behind.

“Most of the specimens were collected before all these DNA molecular techniques were available. So in addition to museum collections being valuable to the research being done at the time a specimen is collected, it can be used in the future for things we can’t even predict,” says Feijó.

The combination of genetic data and morphological, or physical, traits led the scientists to the conclusion that the nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus, is actually four genetically distinct species. Accordingly, several subspecies within this species have been elevated to being species in their own right.

The armadillos found in Mexico and the United States, formerly in the subspecies Dasypus novemcinctus mexicanus, are now just Dasypus mexicanus: the Mexican long-nosed armadillo. The subspecies fenestratus, found in the central part of the range, is now its own species, and the original species name novemcinctus is now restricted to South America.

Meanwhile, the data showed that another branch of the armadillo family tree didn’t belong in any of these three pre-existing groups. A region of northeastern South America, known as the Guiana Shield, is home to the newest armadillo species: Dasypus guianensis, the Guianan long-nosed armadillo.

The new armadillo is a bit bigger than the other three species, has a hairless shell, a robust, dome-shaped skull, and an additional bone in its spine. But overall, all four species look very similar to the untrained eye. “They’re almost impossible to differentiate in the field,” says Delsuc.

Mathide Barthe and Lionel Hautier in the lab of the Pasteur Institute in Cayenne (French Guiana). Credit: Sophie Teullet
The newly described Guianan long-nosed armadillo. Credit: Quentin Martinez (https://quentinmartinez.fr/)
A specimen of the new species, collected in 1961, in the Field Museum’s collections. Credit: Kate Golembiewski, Field Museum

That begs the question: if these armadillos look so similar that it takes DNA analysis to tell them apart, then why bother splitting them into different species? Just because the armadillos look similar to each other, their genes tell a different story. “Now that we know there are four distinct species, we might also expect they have their own ecological requirements that might not be the same,” says Feijó.

These different needs in terms of food and habitat could be important for scientists working to preserve healthy populations of these animals in different areas. “Sometimes, biologists bring individuals from one area to another to repopulate,” Feijó notes.

“Since they’re different species, with potentially different needs, they will not be able to integrate.” And while the nine-banded armadillo has not been considered endangered, “this discovery totally shifts the way we think about conservation for these species and the way we think about how threatened they are,” Feijó adds.

This study was contributed to by scientists from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of Montpellier, Uppsala University, the University of Cyprus, the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada, the Field Museum, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Valdosta State University, and the Institut Pasteur de la Guyane.

More information:
Mathilde Barthe et al, Exon capture museomics deciphers the nine-banded armadillo species complex and identifies a new species endemic to the Guiana Shield, Systematic Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/syae027

Citation:
Rewriting the armadillo family tree: A new species, plus a name change for the state mammal of Texas (2024, June 26)
retrieved 26 June 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-06-rewriting-armadillo-family-tree-species.html

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New S2S Drone 8K HD Dual Camera Brushless Motor Obstacle Avoidance Dron RC Helicopter Foldable Quadcopter Toy For Xiaomi

June 26, 2024

Price: ~~109.98~~ - 33.05

New S2S Drone WIFI 5G Wide-angle 4K Camera Height Holding RC Foldable Quadcopter Professional Aircraft Dron Gift Toys

Features:

Frequency:2.4G

Channel:4CH

Quadcopter battery: 3.7V 2000mAh LiPo (included)

Single battery life:20-25minutes

Charging time: 120minutes

Colour: White

Camera options: 2.4G WiFi 4K HD/2.4G WIFI 6K/2.4G WIFI 8K

Size:

Product Fold size (CM): 14*7*11cm

Product Unfold size (CM):27*22*7cm

Description:

-With foldable arms, compact and easy to carry.

-With 2.4G wifi function, can connect to APP, APK system to take photos/videos and transmit images in real time through mobile phone camera

-2.4G WiFi fpv distance can reach 100M.

-2.4G WiFi 4K HD / 2.4G WiFi 6K HD /2.4G WiFi 8K HD camera can provide various HD images and videos.

-With altitude hold mode function to provide stable flight.

-Orbital movement will allow the aircraft to fly in circles, providing cooler camera angles.

-Waypoint flight mode, simply draw a route on screen with the helicopter as the given path.

-Flight time of up to 20-25minutes.

-No need to adjust the position of the aircraft before flight.

-One-touch return function, you can easily find your way home.

-One-touch take-off/landing. One button auto take-off or landing, the drone will automatically take off or return to the take-off position.

-With low power protection over current protection.

-Interference immunity using 2.4GHz technology.

-4channels, can fly up, down, forward, backward, left and right.

-Six-axis gyroscope for more stable flight and easier control.

-It has 3 flight speed switch levels to make flying more fun.

-The quad-rotor fuselage is made of strong, high-strength engineering plastic, lightweight and durable.

Up/down, forward/backward, left/right, lateral flight, 3 flight speed levels, LED lights, follow, surround flight, waypoint flight, altitude hold mode, headless mode , one button return, one button take off/landing, WiFi FPV, camera/video.

Accessories:

1 x S2S RC Quadcopter

1 x Remote Controller

1 x 3.7V 2000mAh Lipo Battery

8 x Spare Propellers

1 x USB Charging Cable

1 x Screwdriver

2 x User Manu

Sdafecca563cf437aaa0e018d194b364ej S03ca126a9b1d4d77ace1fc0a39fb2bb7F Scc18fb2ecc2c4dafb4f5a229be312ccfz Se3d79a3bc4874072829f259453276c962 S9c03184740654c67b796f81bf308f351W S6aab96f52c6e4c73bc847293d1bb6fc1Q S61c48d27ce7c429b8c55e219fa0ee94el S13332be2b7a04fc89937ffb1f263c3a9d S1e825e20868f4e9fbd46e8137944be2c2 S66323f9e06cb422f950794039fe1ccd22 S2ebe5d001f504121b80b201ef9b6cf220 S6249084426a94554bdca1d6b642e9f83h Sdd67a7bce1d544c9adbca75f11162dc6d S3c57a686c8c548189755f907961af65aN S4d621360ed5b4c578fbc5227fdd78e5dJ

Underwater mountains and their impact on ocean circulation

June 26, 2024

Colossal undersea mountains, towering up to thousands of meters high, stir up deep sea currents: impacting how our ocean stores heat and carbon.

An international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used numerical modeling to quantify how underwater turbulence around these mountains, called seamounts, influences ocean circulation; finding it is an important mechanism in ocean mixing and one that is missing from climate models used in policymaking.

“The intense turbulence around seamounts makes them a major contributor to ocean mixing at a global scale, but we don’t have that process represented in climate models,” said Dr. Ali Mashayek from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Science, who led the study. The findings, which were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could be used to improve model forecasts of how the ocean will respond to global warming.

The ocean is in perpetual motion, as if a massive giant conveyor belt: warm water from the tropics slowly moves toward the poles, where it cools and sinks thousands of meters into the ocean’s abyss, taking with it stored carbon, heat and nutrients.

This cold, heavy water must resurface, otherwise the ocean would fill with frigid water. But identifying where the power for this return flow comes from has been a major scientific challenge. The new study helps resolve this longstanding mystery, showing how seamounts aid ocean circulation.

Tens of thousands of undersea mountains, or seamounts, lie at the bottom of the ocean, but that figure is likely to be much larger because only a quarter of the seabed has been mapped.

Seamounts are obstacles for deep sea currents. Water roars over their steep slopes—creating spiraling wake vortices that carry water toward the surface. “The deep waters around a seamount are chaotic and turbulent,” said Mashayek, “the turbulence churns up the ocean just like stirring milk into your coffee.” That stirring helps pull deep and heavy water to the surface; completing a circuit that the keeps the ocean flowing.

Deep-sea turbulence has been measured around seamounts before, but scientists weren’t previously sure how important this process was in ocean circulation once extrapolated to the entire ocean. According to Mashayek and the team, the stirring around seamounts contributes to about a third of ocean mixing globally. The contribution was greater, at around 40%, in the Pacific Ocean, where there are more seamounts.

The Pacific is the largest store of heat and carbon. It’s generally thought that deep water in the Pacific Ocean takes several thousand years to resurface, “but if seamounts are enhancing mixing, particularly in large carbon stores like the Pacific, then the timescale of storage could be shorter and if carbon is released sooner that could speed climate change,” said co-author Dr. Laura Cimoli from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.

Mashayek and his colleagues aren’t the first to suggest that seamounts could be critical to ocean circulation. Back in the 1960s the famed oceanographer Walter Munk theorized that seamounts might be “the stirring rods of the ocean.” Since then, oceanographers have probed waters around seamounts and measured this turbulent flow directly.

“But what was missing from the picture was a measure of how much this mattered at a global scale,” said co-author Professor Alberto Naveira Garabato, from the University of Southampton. “The only reason we’ve been able to put this to the test now is that we only recently had enough of the seafloor mapped. The number of seamounts is likely to be even larger, so our estimates of their importance in mixing are still conservative.”

The team now plan to incorporate the physics of seamount-induced turbulence into climate models, helping improve forecasts of how climate change could impact the ocean’s carbon and heat storage. “The bottom line is, to know how the ocean is adjusting to climate change, we need to have a realistic representation of deep ocean circulation. We’re now a step closer toward that,” said Mashayek.

More information:
Ali Mashayek et al, On the role of seamounts in upwelling deep-ocean waters through turbulent mixing, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2322163121

Provided by
University of Cambridge

Citation:
Underwater mountains and their impact on ocean circulation (2024, June 26)
retrieved 26 June 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-06-underwater-mountains-impact-ocean-circulation.html

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The sure bet? Sports gambling will become an even bigger player, researcher says

June 26, 2024

Not long ago—1992, in fact—Congress passed a bill that essentially blocked sports betting nationwide, save for a few states. The law was ruled unconstitutional in 2018, and the scene changed quickly: Last year, Americans legally wagered nearly $120 billion on sporting events.

Brendan Dwyer, Ph.D., is director of research and distance learning at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Sport Leadership, whose acclaimed master’s program propels graduates in the global sports industry. With the dramatic rise in sports gambling—a topic Dwyer has researched—we asked him for a fresh pulse of the evolving landscape.

Sports gambling feels like the Wild West, in terms of platforms, regulations and more. How accurate is that perception?

I always look at things from a sports fan perspective, and certainly, given the amount of commercials and media coverage, it can be overwhelming. There are so many providers and ways to bet. I don’t know if I’ve used the term “the Wild West,” but if you’re not educated about sports betting—but you’re a fan of basketball or football—it can be intriguing but also overwhelming.

You’re seeing a few providers stand out, such as DraftKings and FanDuel, but ESPN, a major media provider, suddenly entered the marketplace with ESPN Bet. It’s probably still more confusing for fans than it is clear. But like anything, once you start trying it, you start to feel it out and get used to it.

In terms of state regulation, it is also difficult because you cross a state line and you can gamble on your phone—and then you cross another state line and you can’t. Even a Virginian who goes to Nevada may just assume, “Well, I can gamble on my phone because I gamble on my phone in Virginia.” But you can’t gamble on your phone in Nevada. You have to go to a casino. So every state has their own rules and regulations. For consumers, that can be confusing.

You mention the aggressive marketing. Is a cautionary tale developing?

There is more to be said and done about how easy and accessible it is to get media messages to youth. I already have my 10-year-old asking, “What is this? What is that?” They’re watching sports, and these commercials and these conversations are happening. Most countries we would consider counterparts, whether it’s the U.K. or Australia, that have had sports betting for years have strict regulations about advertisements and sponsorships, and a lot of that is for the protection of youth.

This is where “the Wild West” might come in right now. We’re pretty unregulated as it relates to advertisements. We show primarily a young, successful male enjoying a sporting event even more by betting. We don’t see the downside of it in any commercials. The messages to individuals under age 18 is going to be something important in the American context.

Where does Virginia stand in the market?

Virginia is an interesting case because we went online right away in 2021. We could bet everywhere on our phones. There’s been a lot of revenue that has flowed through Virginia in term of handle, which is the total money spent by consumers. We’re right in the middle if you compare us with other states of the same size that came on board at the same time. But we’ve raised more state tax revenue compared with them, and I think a lot of that has to do with online access. In Arizona, you can only bet at casinos and a few other retail locations. So as much as they’ve had similar revenue numbers, the state hasn’t received the same in tax revenue.

Has sports gambling affected sports consumption—or even how we think of “fandom?”

Oh, yeah, 100%. There’s a strong positive relationship between sports betting and viewership. Think about it from a simple bet, which is the point spread—how a game finishes. Some games can be completely out of hand, right? It can be the fourth quarter of an NFL game, and the only people watching a blowout are bettors, which means more money for advertisers and sponsors.

As sports bettors consume more live sporting events, they consume more live analysis shows on ESPN and elsewhere because they believe that the more you know, the better you’ll bet. And there’s a strong relationship between consumption and fandom because people like to have action on a game. Now that there’s live betting within a game, too, it’s become a social topic between friends and within families to talk about. “Did you win this bet? Did you lose this bet?” It’s just becoming a different part of our social landscape.

Are there distinct categories of gamblers?

I’ve done a few studies on this, primarily on involvement—individuals who bet a lot compared with those who are more casual or sporadic. Serious bettors do not just bet on the traditional American sports—they’ll bet on pretty much everything, and they have a strong emotional attachment to the activity. It’s not just a hobby. Casual and more sporadic bettors focus on more of the mainstream sports and bet from time to time. And they’re doing it more parallel to their traditional viewership.

Another group that is getting, and needs, more research is 18- to 24-year-olds. Men primarily. And that is because this group struggles to moderate any behavior. They can easily lose a lot of money, or they can be problem-gambling if it’s not regulated. So between them and college student-athletes, they’re the two segments or populations that probably need the most protection. You’re starting to see more research focused on those two groups.

In the spirit of gambling … give us a prediction or two for the next few years.

I work in education, so I think that as consumers become more educated, sports betting will continue to grow. We still have states that have yet to regulate sports betting, as well as large states that haven’t legalized it. We also have room to grow among sports fans. Many have been reluctant to join the marketplace, but as media providers educate more, I think people will bet even more. It will continue to grow in popularity. I think it’ll be less of a talking point because it will just become mainstream to how we watch sports.

Provided by
Virginia Commonwealth University

Citation:
The sure bet? Sports gambling will become an even bigger player, researcher says (2024, June 26)
retrieved 26 June 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-06-sports-gambling-bigger-player.html

Source link

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Sports gambling feels like the Wild West, in terms of platforms, regulations and more. How accurate is that perception?

You mention the aggressive marketing. Is a cautionary tale developing?

Where does Virginia stand in the market?

Has sports gambling affected sports consumption—or even how we think of “fandom?”

Are there distinct categories of gamblers?

In the spirit of gambling … give us a prediction or two for the next few years.

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