Science and Technology links (September 14th 2019)

  1. Streaming music makes up 80% of the revenue of the music industry. Revenue is up 18% for the first six months of 2019. This follows a record year in 2018 when the music industry reached its highest revenues in 10 years. Though it should be good news for musicians, it is also the case that record labels often take the lion share of the revenues.
  2. We have seen massive progress in the last five years in artificial intelligence. Yet we do not see obvious signs of economic gains from this progress.
  3. A widely cited study contradicting the existence of free will was fatally flawed.
  4. A common diabetes drug might spur neurogenesis and brain repair in the brain of (female) mice.
  5. Facebook is working on creating real-time models of your face for use in virtual reality.
  6. A simple and inexpensive eye test might be sufficient to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.

Published by

Daniel Lemire

A computer science professor at the University of Quebec (TELUQ).

One thought on “Science and Technology links (September 14th 2019)”

  1. On the subject of the free will test – there is an interesting side effect of the work: activities that are “voluntary” are still perhaps under the control of the ebb and flow of brain patterns which themselves are not voluntary.

    Perhaps this explains why even trained photographers or hunters sometimes fail to take the best shot when it is presented to them?

    Reply

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