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Category: media & arts – Page 86

Researchers have developed a new strategy that uses optical coherence tomography (OCT) to acquire both the surface and underlying details of impressionist style oil paintings. This information can be used to create detailed 3D reconstructions to enhance the viewing experience and offer a way for the visually impaired to experience paintings.

“Visitors to art museums can’t closely examine paintings and see the artists’ techniques because of security and conservation concerns,” said research team leader Yi Yang from Penn State Abington. “Our new technology can create 3D reconstructions that can be rotated and magnified to view details such as brushstrokes. This would be especially useful for online classes.”

Yang and colleagues from Penn State University Park and New Jersey Institute of Technology report the new technique in the Optical Society journal Applied Optics. The research team brought together specialists in art history and conservation with electrical and optical engineers.

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As impossible as it seems, it won’t be long before artificial intelligence is writing and creating films. As a lead up to this eventuality, here is a list of just some of the creative endeavors that AI has already accomplished:

• It is now a simple matter for AI to create new paintings after being shown a number of examples in a particular genre. For example, one AI computer was given hundreds of samples of 17th-century “Old Master” style paintings and was asked to create its own paintings. One of the paintings it came up with is titled “Portrait of Edmond De Belamy” and sold for a whopping $432,500 at a Christie’s auction.

• Another AI computer was fed hundreds of modern pop songs and came up with its own song named “Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears” complete with lyrics.

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Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador, interviews Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

IdeaXme does not advocate for or support any religion in favour of another.

Ira Pastor Comments:

Vatican City is an independent city-state, enclaved within Rome, Italy, established with the Lateran Treaty (in 1929), and with an area of only about 121 acres, and a population of about 825, it is the smallest sovereign state in the world by both area and population.

Continue reading “The Vatican: Human Progress and High Tech Healthcare Innovation” | >

A marimba-playing robot with four arms and eight sticks is writing and playing its own compositions in a lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The pieces are generated using artificial intelligence and deep learning.

Researchers fed the robot nearly 5,000 complete songs — from Beethoven to the Beatles to Lady Gaga to Miles Davis — and more than 2 million motifs, riffs and licks of music. Aside from giving the machine a seed, or the first four measures to use as a starting point, no humans are involved in either the composition or the performance of the music.

The first two compositions are roughly 30 seconds in length. The robot, named Shimon, can be seen and heard playing them here and here.

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Anecdotal evidence suggests that the combination of zinc and hydroxychloroquine may be beneficial for the treatment of Covid-19:

We have been asked again and again — “What else can I do, apart from social distancing, hand hygiene, and so on, to protect myself from COVID-19?” There are additional actions that can be taken.

In this video we examine some details about the virus in Korea and how they are handling things differently. We take a look at the biology of the virus. We examine what happens when our cells are infected with SARS-CoV-2. And finally, we review a study that suggests the possible use of zinc and chloroquine in the fight against SARS-CoV-2.

Continue reading “COVID-19 Update 8: Zinc and chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19?” | >

Defining our “New Normal” in the Age of Coronavirus — Amanda Christensen, ideaXme (http://radioideaxme.com/) guest interviewer, interviews Ben Hammersley, one of the world’s leading futurists to answer questions about how we are going to work, live, thrive, and innovate in the coming years — #Ideaxme #BenHammersley #Innovation #Futurist #Futurism #Covid19 #Coronavirus #Science #Longevity #Health #Medicine #Environment #Space #Oceans #Literature #Music #Food #Future #Entertainment #Sports #Fashion Awesome Foundation European University Institute United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) UNAOC Fellowship Program Goldsmiths, University of London WIRED UK The Brookings Institution European Commission.

Amanda Christensen, ideaXme guest interviewer, interviews Ben Hammersley, one of the world’s leading futurists and founder of international Strategic Foresight agency Hammersley Futures.

Amanda Christensen Comments:

Continue reading “Ben Hammersley Futurist, Defines our New Normal in the Age of Coronavirus” | >