New Androids, Big Brains

SXSW has barely ended and Austin’s about to host another world class event, this time for golf fans.

The World Golf Championship-Dell Technologies match play tournament commences with its first round today at Austin Country Club. PGA golfers from around the world, welcome to Austin, and good luck!

In the meantime, things in the tech world certainly aren’t slowing down.

The Verge reports that for the second year in a row, Google is making a developer preview for the next version of Android available in March. There are said to be improvements to battery life and some changes in notifications, and Google is “aiming to improve sound quality with wireless headphones with ‘high-quality Bluetooth audio codes.’”

LInkedIn is also introducing some changes today, writes Recode:

On Wednesday, the professional network is rolling out a “Trending” topics feed, a new section of the app where users can find a collection of recent news stories and accompanying user posts that are personalized based on their interests and profession. LinkedIn LinkedIn will use a combination of human editors and computer algorithms to detect important storylines, then collect articles and posts related to those storylines and put them into individual feeds. The product looks very similar to what Facebook does with its own trending topics section, and is somewhat similar to Twitter’s Moments feature.
– via Recode

It’s LinkedIn, only, like Facebook. Got that?

And hiring human editors with big brains? I thought the machine overlords were taking over those mundane tasks so we humans could sit on the beach and sip from rummy yummy drinks with cute little umbrellas???

Speaking of big brains, Chinese search giant Baidu lost a big one yesterday when the company’s AI chief, Andrew Ng, announced he would be resigning.

Wrote Ng in his announcement blog post:

 

Just as electricity transformed many industries roughly 100 years ago, AI will also now change nearly every major industry — healthcare, transportation, entertainment, manufacturing — enriching the lives of countless people. I am more excited than ever about where AI can take us.
– via Medium

Clearly, just not at Baidu.