To quote Google CEO Sundar Pichai: AI is “more profound than fire or electricity.”

To back up this claim with incontrovertible evidence: here’s an AI tool made by Google researchers that turns doodles into weird monsters. What could be more profound?

It’s certainly fun, anyway. The tool is called Chimera Painter and uses machine learning to generate imagery based on users’ rough sketches. This sort of dynamic is becoming a relatively common one in machine learning. Nvidia has done it with landscapes before; MIT and IBM did it with buildings, and now Google is ... doing it with monsters.

The team behind Chimera Painter explained their methods and motivations in a blog post, saying the idea was to create a “paintbrush that acted less like a tool and more like an assistant.” Chimera Painter is just a prototype, but if software like this becomes common it could “reduce the amount of time necessary to create high-quality art,” claim the team.
The researchers gave themselves the challenge of creating artwork for a fictional fantasy card game, in which players combine features from different monsters and battle them like mutating Pokémon. They trained a machine learning model on a database of more than 10,000 sample monsters, which were themselves in part procedurally generated using 3D models rendered in Unreal Engine. Each image is paired with a “segmentation map” — an overlay that divides the monsters into anatomical parts like claws, snouts, legs, and so on.

Once the model has been trained on this data, users can then paint their own segmentation map which is then rendered using photorealistic textures. If you load up Chimera Painter you can see some of the preset monsters and they’re impressively cohesive. However, painting one yourself takes more time and effort than you might think. Our attempt below, for example, looks like a knock-off Gruffalo depicted using mud. It’s monstrous, but not necessarily a monster.

Source: theverge

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Google has released Chrome 83 as the latest version of its Web browser. The new Chrome version brings updated privacy controls as well as interface-level changes for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS users. Specifically for desktop users, Google has redesigned privacy and security settings with simplified language and visuals. The new update also includes the features that were originally planned for Chrome 82, which Google cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For desktop users, Chrome 83 brings the redesigned privacy and security settings that offer you the options to block third-party cookies in regular or Incognito mode. There is also an option to block all cookies on some or all websites. Additionally, Google has reorganised the controls available under the “Site settings” title into two distinct sections. One of those sections will help you to find the permissions to access your location, camera, or microphone, and notifications. There is also a dedicated section to highlight the most recent permissions activity.

Google has also transformed the existing “People” section into “You and Google” that provides sync controls. The “Clear browsing data” control has also been moved to the top of the “Privacy and security” section to help delete browsing history with fewer clicks.

Desktops users have also received a new Safety check feature in the settings that will notify you if any of the passwords you've asked Chrome to remember has been compromised. The new feature also alerts users if Safe Browsing technology is turned off. You can also use this to check whether your Chrome browser is updated with the latest security features. The Safety Check feature also tells you how and where to remove any malicious extensions that you've installed.

For enhanced security, Google has updated Incognito mode to block third-party cookies by default within each private session. The updated Incognito mode will gradually roll out for all Chrome users, with initial arrival on desktop operating systems and on Android.

Chrome users on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS can check the fresh update by going to the Help > About Google Chrome option. However, Android and iOS users need to visit their respective app stores to download the new version. It is also important to note that Google hasn't provided any list of features available to Android and iOS users.

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Google's John Mueller said on Friday's webmaster hangout that while the current URL parameter tool has been missing data for a while, it is not a sign that Google will deprecate it. In fact, he said when the tool does migrate to the new Search Console, it "will have some really cool stuff coming out."

John would not say more outside of "it'll be pretty cool" and he does not want to pre-announce anything.

He said this at the 11:04 mark when Mihai asked him about what is going on with the missing data in the URL parameter tool. John said the data should be fixed "fairly soon."

Here is the transcript on the data issue part:

The data there has been missing for a really long time but that's not because we want to deprecate it it's just because things are weirdly stuck on our side with kind of the various teams that are involved with creating that data. Internally we use the kind of similar data already, it's not that we don't follow that input at all. It's just the data that we display in Search Console is kind of stuck just before it reaches Search Console.
And my understanding is that that should get resolved fairly soon but I've been hoping that that's fairly soon for a while now. So I've been nudging a little bit more. Hopefully, that'll get better.

Then he hinted at what is to come, without saying more than it would be very cool and useful for very large sites:

With regards to moving to the new Search Console, My understanding is that they do want to kind of keep that functionality and move that to the new tool as well. I expect especially for larger websites we will have some really cool stuff coming out as well over time that. Yeah, it'll be pretty cool. I don't want to pre-announce anything so I'm not going to go into more any details there. But it definitely is something that makes sense to focus on as you mentioned for e-commerce sites with a lot of parameters. You can clean up some things there and make it a little bit easier to crawl and index your site.

We know Google still uses the data from this tool, a lot. And Google did say the URL parameter may change, which is why we have not seen it migrate yet from the old Search Console to the new Search Console.

Source: seroundtable

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Two years after agreeing to a self-regulatory code of practice to tackle disinformation, Facebook (FB.O), Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O), Twitter (TWTR.N) and other tech rivals must try harder to be more effective, the European Commission said on Thursday.

Fake news related to COVID-19 has accelerated calls for social media to be more proactive in combating the issue.

The companies, including Mozilla and trade bodies for the advertising industry, signed up to the code in 2018 in a bid to stave off more heavy-handed regulation. Microsoft (MSFT.O) and TikTok subsequently joined the group.

There are, however, several shortcomings in the code following an assessment of its first year in operation, the commission said, according to a report seen by Reuters.

“These can be grouped in four broad categories: inconsistent and incomplete application of the code across platforms and member states, lack of uniform definitions, the existence of several gaps in the coverage of the code commitments, and limitations intrinsic to the self-regulatory nature of the code,” the report said.

The commission vice president for values and transparency, Vera Jourova, called for more action to counter new risks.

“As we also witness new threats and actors the time is ripe to go further and propose new measures. The platforms need to become more accountable and transparent. They need to open up and provide better access to data, among others,” Jourova said.

Jourova is currently working on a European Democracy Action Plan to make democracy more resilient to digital threats.

The commission is also set to propose new rules called the Digital Services Act by the end of the year which will increase social media’s responsibilities and liability for content on their platforms.

Source: Reuters

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