Google’s AI lab establishes first international office in Canada

DeepMind

Even after Google acquired artificial intelligence firm DeepMind three years ago, the British company has kept its offices in London. This time, though, they’re finally making their way to this side of the world and putting up shop right in Edmonton. It’s fitting for DeepMind to put its roots here as the company works closely with the AI research community at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. DeepMind says nearly a dozen of Alberta grads work for them and they sponsored the university’s machine learning lab for a number of years.

DeepMind’s new office will be led by Richard Sutton, a professor of computing science at Alberta who also served as DeepMind’s first outside advisor. He’ll be working with his colleagues Michael Bowling and Patrick Pilarski. There will be seven other researchers who’ll join them. The Verge points out though that while DeepMind calls the Edmonton office its “first international research office,” there are a team of researchers from the company that are based in Google’s Mountain View headquarters to “bridge the gap between Google and [the] team in London.” And these 20 researchers focus on the “applied” side of DeepMind, which looks at the practical applications of AI in real-life situations.

Google Calendar finally gets an iOS widget

Google certainly took its time to introduce this new feature to Google Calendar users on iOS. The app finally gets a Today widget on the iPhone and iPad. It’ll show you your upcoming events at a glance in the Today section of the lock screen and notification shade. It’ll first show you your next two events and you can expand that to show another four. The app also gets 3D Touch support. So when you press down with 3D Touch on your iPhone 6s and 7, you can see the preview there, too.

Source: 9to5Mac + The Verge

Kanye West wants to terminate deal with Tidal

Jason Persse/Flickr

It looks like the rift between Kanye West and JAY-Z is growing wider. A source close to Kanye West confirmed that their party has terminated Tidal’s exclusivity rights to his music based on the streaming service’s alleged failure to honor its financial obligations. According to a report that appeared on TMZ, Tidal owes him “more than $3 million” after his album The Life of Pablo allegedly “resulted in 1.5 million new subscribers to Tidal, for which he was supposed to get a bonus but the company hasn’t paid.” He was supposedly not compensated for his music videos either.

For Tidal’s part, they say West hasn’t delivered the videos that were required by his contract and that he is still beholden to his agreement. There don’t seem to be any lawsuits yet but we won’t be surprised if we hear something soon. It isn’t a secret that Tidal is having struggles with attracting and retaining paid subscribers, especially compared against the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. Losing exclusivity rights to a big star like West will hurt. Let’s see how this all plays out. If you want to read more about the strain in West and JAY-Z’s relationship, this Engadget piece calling out the entire thing as a break about “ego and not money.”

Source: Billboard

Tesla wins bid to build world’s largest lithium-ion battery in South Australia

An artist’s impression of the Tesla Powerpack, which will be built in Australia | Tesla

Tesla has just won a big deal in South Australia that comes with big stakes. The Australian state just awarded the electric car firm the bid to install the world’s largest lithium-ion battery that will be used to store wind energy from French company Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm, which is located outside of Jamestown, South Australia. Tesla CEO Elon Musk proclaimed that they will build the 100-megawatt battery within 100 days or else they’ll do it for free. Musk acknowledges the risk that comes with the project, though. He says, “There is certainly some risk, because this will be the largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin. The next biggest battery in the world is 30 megawatts.”

South Australia has been dealing with blackouts since September last year and this project hopes to bring in additional power that the state can use during emergencies. The battery, together with the wind farm, will be working around the clock to make sure this happens. Tesla expects to finish the project by December this year. If they won’t be able to meet its deadlines, Tesla might be on the hook for US$50 million or more in installation costs.

Source: BBC + The Verge