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Twitter bans 'Impostor Buster' bot that ID'd Nazi trolls
It's been a rocky road to Twitter's newfound pledge to kick members of hate groups off its platform. For those on the end of racist abuse, reporting trolls to Twitter has been a frustrating process. But, earlier this year, one journalist decided to take matters into his own hands. After suffering a record amount of harassment, reporter Yair Rozenberg teamed up with dev Neal Chandra to build a bot that unmasked impersonator accounts manned by bigots. It got off to a great start, explains Rozenberg in a New York Times op-ed, before Twitter shut it down at the behest of Nazis.
Recommended Reading: President Obama on science and innovation
Barack Obama: Now Is the Greatest Time to Be Alive President Barack Obama, Wired The White House Frontiers Conference took place this week to "explore the future of innovation here and around the world." President Obama is also guest editor for the November issue of Wired where he discusses science and other advancements in both essay and interview form. Above is the president's writing on technology and more. There's also a joint interview with MIT's Joi Ito where the two discuss AI, self-driving cars and and other futuristic topics with Wired's Scott Dadich.
Twitter-bot plasters creepy smiles on celebrities' faces
Not all Twitter bots are racist -- some are genuinely creepy, (but in the best possible way). Take @smilevector, an algorithm created by New Zealand neural network researcher Tom White. If you submit a photo of your favorite celebrity in a glum or neutral pose, it'll turn it into a bizarre, "I just ate a child" kind of grin. The bot "uses a generative neural network to add or remove smiles from images it finds in the wild" or submitted to its follow list, according to its creator.
Talay Robot will document your tweet, give it a soundtrack, Twitvid the results (video)
Tweet a message @talayrobot and something magical happens. An ST Robotics arm whirs to life inside Sony Music's London HQ and starts transcribing your words of wisdom unto a glamorously lit whiteboard -- in the finest handwriting font its designers could find! Best part is that the whole thing gets filmed and the video is sent back to you within a matter of minutes, equipped with an audio clip from Sony's Talay Riley. Yes, it's a promotional stunt, but it's also undeniably one of the coolest intersections of robotics and social networking we've yet seen. Skip past the break for some video examples or get tweeting and create your own.
