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Would you like some water?
No, I am not thirsty.
It was brain activity that made those words materialize—the brain of a man who has not spoken for more than 15 years, ever since a stroke damaged the connection between his brain and the rest of his body, leaving him mostly paralyzed. He has used many other technologies to communicate; most recently, he used a pointer attached to his baseball cap to tap out words on a touchscreen, a method that was effective but slow. He volunteered for my research group’s clinical trial at the University of California, San Francisco in hopes of pioneering a faster method. So far, he has used the brain-to-text system only during research sessions, but he wants to help develop the technology into something that people like himself could use in their everyday lives.
In our pilot study, we draped a thin, flexible electrode array over the surface of the volunteer’s brain. The electrodes recorded neural signals and sent them to a speech decoder, which translated the signals into the words the man intended to say. It was the first time a paralyzed person who couldn’t speak had used neurotechnology to broadcast whole words—not just letters—from the brain.
Elon Musk has become the new lord of the manor over at Twitter. He has what amounts to ultimate power to hire, fire, and change the social media platform.
It's not normal for a board of directors to be cleared this way, but it is a common part of the process in private takeovers of public companies.
This is not some unprecedented move in a private takeover of a public company, just a part of the process. The board of directors represented the former shareholders and now those shares are owned by someone else. It’s not rare for a board to be cleared this way, and new ones installed as a decision-making and advisory body adjacent to company leadership. That said, because examples of private takeovers at this scale are so few, let alone examples with comparable context, it’s difficult to say with any confidence what would be “normal.”
The result, at all events, is that right now Twitter has what amounts to a dictator—and we're not talking about Donald Trump!—and that dictator is reportedly using that power to enact sweeping changes like company-wide cuts and charging for verification. Read more...
One of Europe’s most exciting blockchain conferences — the World Crypto Conference 2023 — will be held from Jan. 13 to 15 in Switzerland, the global center of traditional finance and one of the world’s most crypto-friendly countries.
Fittingly, the WCC2023 takes place just before the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. Delegates to both events will be debating the economic and social impact of technology, and especially the transition to Web3.
The specific goal of the WCC2023 is to bridge the gap between the traditional world of finance and business (TradFi) and the crypto world. It also aims to facilitate mass adoption of crypto assets and the creation of sustainable, fast and secure financial systems. It will encourage collaboration and networking between TradFi and DeFi companies, and connect traditional IT companies with Web3.
The timing of the event could not be better, coinciding with the move of several TradFi institutions toward blockchain solutions (e.g., JPMorgan Chase). Crypto’s top players and pioneers, blockchain evangelists and business leaders will meet in Zurich to discuss the future of digital assets, DeFi, CeFi, TradFi, GameFi, NFTs, the Metaverse and Web3.
Some of the biggest traditional banks and their digital asset departments have accepted the invitation to get to know the people in the crypto space. They will get in touch with blockchain builders, developers and general enthusiasts while increasing their trust in the possibilities of Web3. Read more...
The study undertaken by Bruno Mazorra, Victor Adan, and Vanesa Daza suggests that the simplicity of Uniswap and its lack of regulation makes it easy for scammers to list non-valuable tokens on the platform.
The study examined 27,588 tokens, of which 631 were deemed non-malicious, and 26,957 were deemed malicious. A total of 24,870 of the malicious are fast rug pulls, while 2,087 are not LP Burns.
The researchers find this dataset enough to label all of 26,957 tokens malicious, meaning 97.7% of the tokens under study are malicious.
The research that was recently shared by crypto influencer drnick on Twitter received wide criticism, as many questioned the rationale behind the study. Some Twitter users claimed that the study lacks a substantial ground to make such a submission. Read more...
Third-party cookies are on the way out. Apple already blocked many of them via Intelligent Tracking Prevention and Chrome plans to ban them in 2024. This will disrupt the process many marketers traditionally use to track campaign performance and optimize audience delivery.
Don’t worry, marketers—AI is here to save you.
Adobe announced new tools for marketers at the Adobe MAX Conference in Los Angeles. The company’s digital experience president Anil Chakravarthy said that AI can help solve the challenges marketers face in this trying time, specifically around personalization.
"Customers need to be influenced or spoken to in a certain way," he said. "And if you don't do that, you're just background noise."
One of these new tools is Adobe’s new Marketing Mix Modeling service, announced early October. The company uses AI to speed up the time it takes to analyze return on investment (ROI) metrics from months to weeks.
The modeling service works together with Attribution AI, an algorithmic formula for touchpoint attribution. Together, Adobe promises marketers a unified view of what channels and campaigns deliver the best ROI, based on their owned first-party data. Read more...
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