The Next Web: Scientist trains AI to write messages of love on candy hearts. “Janelle Shane, who in her day job creates computer-controlled holograms for studying the brain, collected genuine messages printed on the heart-shaped sweets to use as training data. She then fed them to a neural network so that it could learn the patterns behind the words.” I think “All Hover” was my favorite.
romance
Heart emoji: The language of love in the 21st century (Phys .org)
Phys .org: Heart emoji: The language of love in the 21st century. “It may not be a Shakespearean sonnet, but the language of love in the 21st century is just as affectionate and meaningful as it ever was, according to University of South Australia linguist, Dr. David Caldwell.”
Washington Post: This Instagram account became wildly popular for its queer personal ads — and now it’s a dating app
Washington Post: This Instagram account became wildly popular for its queer personal ads — and now it’s a dating app . “In August 2018, the ad was posted to the Instagram account Personals, known for posting such ads by and for the queer community. [Sula] Malina, who uses they/them pronouns, had recently gotten out of an open relationship and was seeking monogamy…. After starting in 2017, Personals became a hugely popular place for people like Malina to meet a partner or to make a friend, attracting more than 60,000 followers. Last month, founder Kells Rakowski took the next step of turning it into its own app, Lex, creating a rare queer-centric platform for romance and friendship.”
CNET: Facebook Dating won’t push Tinder off your home screen just yet
CNET: Facebook Dating won’t push Tinder off your home screen just yet. “Shelby Ruth, a 20-year-old Canadian, started online dating because it was a quick way to meet new people. So when Facebook launched its new dating feature in Canada last year, she signed up because the social network made it easy to do. Compared with Tinder, Ruth noticed, users share more profile information on Facebook Dating. But there are also downsides.”
Mashable: How Google Calendar is breaking hearts
Mashable: How Google Calendar is breaking hearts . “My friend’s Google Calendar isn’t the only heartbreaker. When Hannah — who prefers to use her first name only — split up with her boyfriend of 3.5 years, their shared Google Calendar added to her heartbreak. ‘We had so much planned in the shared calendar including lots of family events with his family,’ she said. ‘The worst thing was that he obviously didn’t realise he was still adding ‘events’ to the calendar after we’d broken up.'”
New York Times: Facebook Connected Her to a Tattooed Soldier in Iraq. Or So She Thought.
New York Times: Facebook Connected Her to a Tattooed Soldier in Iraq. Or So She Thought.. “While fraud has proliferated on Facebook for years, those running the military romance scams are taking on not only one of the world’s most influential companies, but also the most powerful military — and succeeding. Many scammers operate from their phones in Nigeria and other African nations, working several victims at the same time. In interviews in Nigeria, six men told The New York Times that the love hoaxes were lucrative and low risk.”
IEEE Spectrum: This AI Watched 100 Films to Learn How to Recognize a Kiss
IEEE Spectrum: This AI Watched 100 Films to Learn How to Recognize a Kiss. “Like someone who has never been kissed, AI began learning the basics by binge-watching romantic film clips to see how Hollywood stars lock lips. By training deep learning algorithms that have already proven adept at recognizing faces and objects to also recognize steamy kissing scenes dramatized by professional actors, a data scientist has shown how AI systems could gain greater insight into the most intimate human activities.”
