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Technology 23 April 2018

The Week in Internet News: AI Could Reshape the Music Industry, in a Good Way

Grant Gross
By Grant GrossGuest AuthorTechnology Reporter

AI Hits the Right Notes: Artificial intelligence-generated music is reshaping the industry, but that’s not such a bad thing, notes Billboard.com. AI won’t replace the artists we love or end creativity, but it could empower creators with new songwriting and other tools, the story suggests.

Drilling for AI: Oil producers are also turning to AI to help them with several tasks, according to an interview with oil executive Philippe Herve of SparkCongnition, published in Houston’s Chron.com. AI can assist oil producers with predictive maintenance of their expensive field equipment and help them make sense of all the data they collect, he said.

Collateral damage for app ban: Russia has attempted to shut down messaging app Telegram, after the service refused to provide authorities encryption keys to its software. It’s not going so well, however. Russian’s attempts to block the app have inadvertently knocked out a bunch of small business websites in the country, reports the New York Times. Telegram attempted to get around the ban by shifting its service to U.S. Web hosts Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, while repeatedly changing its IP address. In response, Russia shut down huge blocks of subnets instead of trying to find individual IP addresses. Meanwhile, Telegram reported no major drop in use of the app, thanks to third-party cloud services based outside of Russia, according to Forbes.

DNS runs up against the GDPR: The Internet’s Domain Name System may have some problems as the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect next month, reports ZDNet.  The major problem is that the DNS WHOIS database of domain name owners requires names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers, while GDPR requires companies to get affirmative consent for any personal information they collect.

Blockchain in the final frontier: U.S. space agency NASA has funded the development of an autonomous spacecraft with Blockchain on board, Cointelegraph reports. A research project will figure out whether Ethereum-based Blockchain technology can be used to help secure a computing system used in deep space.

Want to learn more about AI? Read the Internet Society’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning policy paper and explore how it might impact the Internet’s future.

Disclaimer: Viewpoints expressed in this post are those of the author and may or may not reflect official Internet Society positions.

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