YouTube to livestream match between 'Go' world champion and AlphaGo AI

We've seen artificial intelligence systems take on different champions of various fields. This time, the AlphaGo AI system wants to take on the highest ranked player of the ancient Chinese board game Go to a match. The system will be challenging Lee Sedol for a US$1 million prize. And you'll get to see this play out on a YouTube livestream. The matches will take place on March 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15.

The game has millions of possible combinations for its pieces, which make developing a system to get to play this well particularly challenging. Previous robots built to play Go couldn't leave past the amateur level. AlphaGo has already defeated the European champion Fan Hui five times in a row. This AI has been trained to use 30 million moves off of games played by experts and it has even learned its own moves. 

Source: The Next Web

Apple overtakes Alphabet again as world's biggest company

Google's parent company Alphabet didn't last long as the world's biggest company. Apple has managed to take the throne back as the company's shares have risen since Monday. They are now trading up US$0.55 at $96.38, while Alphabet's share have slid down. This puts Apple's market capitalization (or the value of all its shares together) at $534 billion compared to Alphabet's $508 billion.

Richard Windsor, an independent analyst at Radio Free Mobile, told Independent that Apple is at a better position as Google has an increasing dependence on Apple for revenue while Apple is taking steps away from Google. They're developing Apple Maps to combat reliance on Google Maps and have allowed ad-blockers on its browsers to keep Google from making money on ads. If Apple will become successful in "booting" Google out, Google could lose $13 billion in annual revenue as well as a "collapse in its valuation."

Source: Independent

Google takes down adblocking app for Samsung devices

We reported a few days ago that Samsung's allowing its users to block ads through its mobile browser. Google's dashed those plans though as they pulled adblocking app AdBlock Fast from the Google Play Store. According to the app's developer, Rocket Labs, they got an email from Google Play saying the app breached section 4.4 of an agreement Android developers need to sign. The section says Google doesn't allow any activity that "interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator."

By blocking ads, it's understood that this interferes with third-party services. It's worth noting that Google earns most of its revenue through advertising. And a lot of the web pages accessed through Samsung's browser run ads that make money for Google and other companies or organizations.

Source: The Guardian

Google Chrome hopes to save you from fake, malware-infested download buttons

It's probably happened to you before. A fake ad or login page for your bank or a certain service you use shows up and you unwittingly click on it without realizing you've actually installed malware into your computer. Google Chrome, through its Safe Browsing feature, wants to help you avoid falling prey to these social engineering ads with a new feature for Chrome. The browser now flags these sites with fake download buttons and fraudulent updates and ads meant to mimic actual branding of certain sites.

This move is part of Google's new social engineering policy introduced back in November. If your Chrome browser detects types of social engineering on a site, such as a fake log-in screen, you'll be redirected to a Chrome warning page (we know you've seen these before) to tell you to proceed with caution. If Google accidentally flags your site, you can head over to a help page to remedy this.

Source: Google Online Security Blog | Via: The Next Web