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MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2020

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The fastest human computation is 28 sec-onds, and was achieved by Shakuntala Devi bysuccessfully multiplying two randomly select-ed 13-digit numbers at the Imperial CollegeLondon, UK, on June 18, 1980

MADE IN INDIASPACE

Mysterious cloud reappearson Mars

FACTOID

■ The number of children under the age offive across the world, who could suffer fromwasting this year due to the socio-economicimpact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the UNICEFhas warned. According to the UNICEF, inIndia, there are still around 20 million chil-dren, under five years of age, who are suffer-ing from wasting. According to the GlobalHunger Index 2019, wasting among childrenin India rose from 16.5 per cent in 2008-2012to 20.8 per cent in 2014-2018

6.7 MN

➤ Scientists say it seems to appeararound Mars's southern summer solstice– when the southern hemisphere is hitwith a large amount of daylight

➤However, experts are not clear why ithas formed, how long it will stay, orwhen it will disappear from the Martianatmosphere ➤According to Daily Mail,the summer solstice on Mars is similarto the event that occurs on December 21on the Earth – when the sun is in thesouthernmost position in the sky➤Researchers have observed that themysterious Mars cloud expands for threehours in the early morning, and disap-pears a few hours later

Scientists have claimed that a mys-terious giant cloud hanging overthe surface of Mars, which was

first spotted in 2018, has recently reap-peared on the Red Planet. Made of wa-ter ice, the elongated cloud sits 19.956km above the volcano Arsia Mons, andstretches some 1786.372 km in length.

GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS AWARDSCERTIFICATE TO SHAKUNTALA DEVIFOR 'FASTEST HUMAN COMPUTATION'

T he GuinnessWorld Recordshas honoured

math genius Shakunta-la Devi with the longoverdue record title forthe 'fastest human com-putation', four decadesafter she achieved thefeat. The certificationwas received by Anu-pama Banerji, thedaughter of the latemathematician. The honour came a day before‘Shakuntala Devi’, a biopic on Banerji's mother,started streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Thefilm was released on July 31. Directed by AnuMenon, the film stars Vidya Balan in the title role.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO TO DEVELOP UTOPIAN SERIES 'ISLAND'

A ctor LeonardoDiCaprio's pro-duction house,

Appian Way and InGood Company Films

are all set todevelop autopian se-

ries, 'Island', whichis based on AldousHuxley's novel ofthe same name.

I RECOMMEND

MAKING MATHS EASY

Aimed at improving the kids' mathfluency and speed in addition andmultiplication, the Sushi Monster haslevels (seven for addition, five formultiplication), which includes 14problems. Students can dedicate 10minutes a day to improve their mathfluency. Numbers appear on sushiplates, and are fed to a “sushi mon-ster.” Players are given a series ofproducts and sums.

Q

Tesla CEO Elon Musk hasclaimed that Artificial Intelli-gence (AI) will be ' smarter' thanany human, and would overtake

us by 2025. "We are headed towards a sit-uation, where AI will be smarter thanhumans, he said, adding that the timeframe is less than five years from now.However, it doesn't mean that everythinggoes to hell in five years. It just means thatthings get unstable, the Space X CEO said.

➤ He described AI as an 'existentialthreat' to humanity. "I think weshould be very careful about AI. If Iwere to guess like what our biggestexistential threat is, it's probablythat,'' he said.

➤ In 2016, Musk had said thathumans risk being treated likehouse pets by AI, unless a technolo-gy is developed that can connect

brains to computers

➥AI scientists at the Oxford, the UC Berkeley, luminaries, like StephenHawking, and many other researchers, agree with Musk that AI couldbe very dangerous. They are concerned that we’re eagerly work-ing towards deploying powerful AI systems, which we might do sounder conditions that are ripe for dangerous mistakes

➥Nick Bostrom, in his book, 'Superintelligence' has saidthat a badly-designed AI system will be impossible tocorrect, once deployed.“Once unfriendly superintelli-gence exists, it would prevent us from replacing itor changing its preferences. Our fate will besealed,” he warns

➥AI systems could rapidly develop unexpectedcapabilities — for example, an AI system that is asgood as a human at inventing new machine-learn-

ing algorithms, or automating the processof machine-learning work could quickly

become much better than a human, he adds

WHY MUSK FEARS AI

MUSK IS NOT ALONE IN SOUNDING THE ALARM

LET'S DEBATE

AI will beSMARTER THANHUMANS within5 years: MUSK

VIEWPOINT

toinie175@gmail.com/timesnie175@gmail.com

IS AI AN 'EXISTENTIAL THREAT' TO HUMANITY? Share your views at

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images

NEP a major step toenhance access to qualityeducation: Vice President

Vice President MVenkaiah Nai-du has ex-pressed happi-

ness over the New Edu-cation Policy (NEP) 2020,and called it a major stepforward to enhance ac-

cess to quality educa-tion for children andthe youth. Welcoming

the emphasis on a ho-listic, learner-centric,

flexible system thatseeks to transform Indiainto a vibrant knowledgesociety, the VP said, it bal-ances the rootedness andpride in India as well asacceptance of the bestideas and practices in theworld of learning fromacross the globe.

➥The VP expressed happiness over theimportance given to the mother tongue at theprimary level in the policy

➥"Diversity and respect for the local contextas well as a recognition of the importance ofIndia's classical languages will undoubtedlygive learners a holistic world view. The focusof NEP-2020 on ethics and human andConstitutional values would go a long way inthe creation of an enlightened citizenshipessential for deepening our democraticroots," Naidu said

➥Calling the NEP-2020's vision as "trulyglobal and essentially Indian", Naidu said thatit exemplifies India's timeless quest for wel-coming noble thoughts from all over the world

WASTING IS A LIFE-THREATENING FORM OFMALNUTRITION, WHICH MAKES CHILDRENTOO THIN AND WEAK, AND PUTS THEM ATGREATER RISK OF DYING, POOR GROWTH,DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING

FACEBOOK IS SET TO FINALLYGET THE RIGHTS TO SHOWMUSIC VIDEOS

AT 18-FOOT, 8-INCH, AUSTRALIAZOO'S 'FOREST' IS THE WORLD'STALLEST GIRAFFE

F acebook Inc has completed a seriesof deals for the right to show mu-sic videos, according to sources,

vaulting the social network into a medi-um dominated byYouTube. Partnershipswith the three largestmusic companies — Universal MusicGroup, Sony Music Entertainment andWarner Music Group— are expected to beannounced soon, revealed the sources.

TECH BUZZ

➤Facebook has been looking for ways to increase the video con-sumption on its service, tapping intoa promising market.

➤Video advertising is often morelucrative than other types of ads, andvideo-based rival TikTok, owned byChina’s ByteDance Ltd., has been gain-ing users at a rapid clip. At the sametime, music video consumption hassoared on YouTube during the coron-avirus pandemic

Last month, Microsoft Corp hadannounced that it would shutter Mixer,its streaming service for gamers, andmoved existing partners on to theFacebook’s service, instead

IN THE RECORD BOOK

➤According to Variety, the writer's final book,published in 1962, revolves around the story ofa cynical journalist, shipwrecked on a fictionalutopian island, Pala, in the Indian Ocean

➤Originally tasked with exploiting Pala's natu-ral resources, he uncovers an independently-developed society, and embraces the people,their culture and traditions. His experience andadventures alter the course of his mission

According to the Guinness World Records,the process of measuring Forest's preciseheight was not straightforward. Theirwebsite mentions that the staff at the zoohad to create a 'specially-marked measur-ing pole', and rig it close to a hay dis-

penser close to thegiraffe's house

A 12-year-old gi-raffe at the Aus-tralian Zoo in

Queensland has set aGuinness World Recordas the world’s tallest,standing at 18-foot, 8-inches. Named, ‘Forest',the giraffe was born atthe Auckland Zoo in NewZealand in 2007, and wasmoved to his new home, just two years later. For-est is so tall that he stands head and shouldersover two other giraffes at the Australian Zoo.He is the only male in the herd.

ENTERTAINMENT

COULD BETHE SECRET

TO EATINGLESS

Listening to slow andsteady music whileeating, slows downthe food intake, a new

study suggests. According toresearchers, the presence of adownbeat tempo influenceshow much people scoff theirfood, because humans have atendency to subconsciously eatto the beat of the music. Whenthe music played is slow andlegato(smooth,flowing), thisamplifies the effect, and fur-ther reduces the food con-sumption. Scientists say thefindings could be used bythe schools or the restau-rants as a way to control theamount people consume.

For the study, the foodscientists recruited morethan 200 volunteers, and se-cretly recorded them eatingchocolate. They timed howlong it took for the partici-pants to get through five

pieces of chocolate. Wheneating in silence, the averageamount of time it took was 24seconds.

When upbeat music of 180beats per minute was played,the people took 10 secondslonger to eat all the snacks.However, when played slow

music, at just 45bpm, the eatingspeed wentdown again,this time tak-ing a furtherfour seconds todevour all thechocolates.

➤'The results from these experiments confirm that mmuussiiccccoouulldd bbee eemmppllooyyeedd aass aa ccoonntteexxttuuaall ccuuee ttoo mmoodduullaattee eeaattiinnggssppeeeedd,, ccoonnttrriibbuuttiinngg ttoo hheeaalltthhiieerr eeaattiinngg bbeehhaavviioouurrss, such aseating more slowly, and consuming less food'

➤'A longer eating duration could be due to an entertainmenteffect, where subjects (either consciously or not) align theirown chewing rhythm to the beat of the music, thusresulting in chewing slower, when listening to slowermusic and vice-versa

SUSHI MONSTER FREE

ANDROID

ANDROID

For kids aged 9 and up, this gami-fied, adaptive math app, lets kidsearn points, have battles, go onquests, and learn maths. Two bigselling points are that you can workat your level, and play with friends!

PRODIGY KIDS: MATHGAMES FREE +MEMBERSHIP UPGRADES

The Splash Math apps always pro-vide great games for each mathconcept. If you get somethingwrong, they tell you the correctanswer. That way you’re not doing itincorrectly over and over again.

SPLASH MATH 3RDGRADE FREE

Starting with addition and continu-ing through multiplication anddivision, this gives kids missionsand games, so that they can buildan island or a star base, filled with(cute) monsters and robots

Become a ninja and work your waythrough the times tables, fightingand learning from mistakes.

MATH NINJA TIMESTABLE FREE

ANDROID

Customise this fun math app tolearn anything— from grade onemath to grade five, including multi-plication and division.

MONSTER MATH FREE

MATHTANGO FREE

THE TEMPO OF MUSIC HAS LONG BEEN LINKED TO THE LEVELS OF EXCITEMENT — A

QUICKER BEAT RAISES THE HEART RATE, WHILE A SLOWER RHYTHM INDUCES RELAXATION

Photo: Getty images