Articles by: John

Can Influencers Sway Public Opinion?

Contrary to expectations, the experiment revealed that the respondents held on to their views firmly, regardless of the celebrity inputs or their esteem in the eyes of the respondents. It was also clear that respondents liked to hear an opinion identical to their own even if it came from a disliked celebrity. Conversely, a dissenting opinion by a celebrity or expert reduced the respondent’s empathy for that person.

Read More

New Research Presents First Online FL System

Researchers from EPFL and INRIA have developed the first online FL system called FLeet, which makes it possible to carry out machine learning on mobile devices in real-time without any impact on learning tasks.

Read More

Parental Control or Parent Trap?

The study, which has won the “Prize for the research and Personal Data Protection Emilio Aced” given by the Spanish data protection agency (AEPD), raises a potent question: Does the use of parental control apps justify the dangers arising from the collection and processing of private data?

Read More

Photonic Chips: Breakthrough in Data Processing

An international group of scientists has collaborated to present a photonic hardware accelerator that is capable of operating at speeds of “trillions of multiply-accumulate operations per second,” far beyond the capabilities of existing computer processors.

Read More

EPFL Scientists Point to Perils of Unregulated AI

As the applications of AI increase rapidly, the scientific community, as well as lawmakers, are concerned that unregulated AI can lead to misuse and abuse.
In this context, the European Commission took a clear stance by releasing a white paper in February 2020, which could lead to a regulatory framework for AI.

Read More

Rafael Pinot Receives EcoCloud Postdoctoral Research Award

Distributed computing is already playing a pivotal role in a wide range of applications including web-based communications and intelligent information systems. In keeping with this development, EcoCloud presented a research project award to Rafael Pinot for his ongoing work on controlling the spread of fake news or infectious diseases based on the theory of gossip protocols.

Read More

New Humanitarian Initiative Brings Digital Technology and Engineering Skills to the Table

Managing humanitarian aid is one of the most important problems in the modern world. It is also a very powerful and direct approach to make a lasting global impact. Keeping that in context, experts at ETH Zurich and EPFL–two of Switzerland’s leading federal institutes of technology–have joined hands with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to launch the Engineering Humanitarian Aid initiative.

Read More