This Week I Learned - Week #16 2024

This Week I Learned - 

* Meta Llama 3 is out. Built on Meta Llama 3 is Meta AI, an intelligent assistant that is capable of complex reasoning, following instructions, visualizing ideas, and solving nuanced problems.

* How IBM trained Granite LLMs (PDF, last updated April 4th, 2024, 19 pages)

* The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants (PDF, April 2024, 274 pages) - General-purpose foundation models are paving the way for increasingly advanced AI assistants. Capable of planning and performing a wide range of actions in line with a person’s aims, they could add immense value to people’s lives and to society, serving as creative partners, research analysts, educational tutors, life planners and more.

* watsonx.ai supports Bring Your Own Model capability.

* There's An AI For That is an AI aggregator site (TAAFT) is the leading AI aggregator, with over 2 million monthly active users and the largest database of AI tools.

* Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis – A Case-Based Approach - an introduction to statistics and data analysis using R and RStudio.

* OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has appointed Pragya Misra, a former WhatsApp and Truecaller executive, as its first employee in India. 

* Since it first arrived in the United States in 2018 (after merging with another app), Tiktok's 15-second gulps of entertainment have become a fixture in the lives of tens of millions of Americans — including those who’ve never opened the app. The engine that powers this juggernaut is TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, which figures out what users like and populates a customized feed of addictive videos. It’s called the For You Page, or FYP. It was not built to connect people with friends, the way Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were. It was built to entertain. - NYT

* Online Image Metadata Extractor Tool

* iOS is more popular than Android in North America & Oceania >50% market share.

* Oceania includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. 

Source: Wikipedia

* Over a billion people today have presbyopia. This condition happens naturally as people age. A youthful eyeball can shift its focus from something far away to something up close by adjusting the shape of its lens. But, around the age of 40, the eye gradually loses this ability – and the ability to see up close. Glasses can fix this. 

Fitting someone with distance glasses is like tailoring a custom-made suit, with careful measurements and adjustments. 

In the U.S., the U.K. and many other European countries, reading glasses are readily available over-the-counter at most drugstores. That's not the case elsewhere. Reading glasses are akin to buying off the rack, with just a few strengths to choose between. Reading glasses are easier and cheaper to produce. Dr. Nathan Congdon says, "I wouldn't be recommending that we just hand out distance glasses, but I do think that for near [vision] glasses that's a reasonable thing to do." - NPR

* The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world that started in April 1924. It was the first in which women competed. It requires most runners to submit a qualifying time to apply for entry. In the first year of the Boston Marathon, the distance was 26.2 miles rather than the original 24.8 miles. Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia won this year's men’s race with a time of 2:06:17. In the women’s race, Hellen Obiri of Kenya won for the second year straight, finishing in 2:22:37.