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Another sweeping search for aliens comes up short
https://gizmodo.com/another-sweeping-sea...1844983788

EXCERPTS: A groundbreaking survey of over 10 million star systems has failed to detect signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. [...] according to new research published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. The authors of the new study, Chenoa Tremblay from CSIRO and Steven Tingay from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), were hunting for low radio frequencies similar to those produced by our own civilization.

[...] The new search, which included over 10 million stars, was “orders of magnitude” higher than previous MWA surveys, as the authors wrote. From the 30 hours of observation, 17 were “free from imaging artifacts likely caused due to the instrument being actively worked on during the day, while the observations were taken at night.”

The null result is not entirely surprising, as the volume of space surveyed by the astronomers is still exceptionally small. In the press release, Tingay said it “was the equivalent of trying to find something in the Earth’s oceans but only searching a volume of water equivalent to a large backyard swimming pool.”

In a SETI project completed last year, astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project also failed to detect signs of alien intelligence, in a survey that included 1,372 nearby stars. These results are discouraging, but, to be fair, the search for aliens has only just begun. [...] Finding aliens in this gigantic galactic haystack is a truly daunting proposition, but we have to keep looking. The good news is that our tools are getting better... (MORE - details)



OTT: Technology, Censorship And The Future
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechc...he-future/

EXCERPTS: . . . With so much content being produced and added to streaming platforms every day, there has been a growing issue about content censorship across the world in many countries outside the U.S. Platforms like Netflix and Amazon, among others, are receiving content removal notices from various governments and authorities. Content censorship is generally based on defamation, hate speech, national security, cultural insensitivity, political compulsion, and so on. This is somewhat similar to the problem faced by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and various social networks on moderating the user content.

Recently, the debate about regulation and censorship is heating up in India and there has been lots of discussion around it among netizens. Some believe Over The Top (OTT) media service content has gone too far and needs to be regulated and censored. There is the other side of the argument where others believe there should not be any censorship on the internet.

[...] Being absolutely close to this field both personally and professionally, I have seen that many OTT platforms have taken their sweet time to completely disrupt this space, not just in India or the United States but across the globe.

The factors fueling this growth are not only the innovation in technology but also innovation in the storyline, which is currently free from any regulation or censorship before it hits your favorite device. Censorship kills creativity, and I believe this can be easily seen by how good the content of new streaming shows is versus content released in theaters, especially in the Indian market where censorship is rampant.

Streaming content, in my opinion, should follow the food industry model, meaning content should have full disclosures about its contents and allow the consumer to decide if they want to purchase or watch it. Currently, all major streaming players are following their own standards, but in the future, I expect we will need a regulatory body that standardizes these disclosures and uses technology to audit for compliance, without censoring any content.

Here again, artificial intelligence and machine learning could play a big role in automatically classifying the content and generating full disclosures about the content about to be consumed... (MORE - details)