Page 23 - Aruba Today
P. 23
TECHNOLOGY A23
Tuesday 23 February 2016
Zuckerberg to press on with Internet access despite setback
BRANDON BAILEY Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg waves to the audience as he arrives for a conference at the country, in offerings and
JOSEPH WILSON Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Feb. 22, 2016. effectiveness.
Associated Press In South Africa, for in-
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Associated Press stance, Facebook part-
Facebook CEO Mark Zuck- nered with the third-largest
erberg vowed Monday to world. He has argued that are about to test flying In- people use streamlined wireless carrier, Cell C. But
press on with his 3-year-old online connections can ternet drone solar planes versions of Facebook and Johannesburg resident
effort to bring the develop- improve lives and fuel eco- that can fly three months a certain other online ser- Priscilla de Klerk said she
ing world online, even after nomic development. year.” vices, without paying data couldn’t get Free Basics to
Indian regulators banned To achieve that goal, While the drones may charges. work on her phone.
one of the pillars of the Zuckerberg has high-flying someday connect peo- A low-income resident of “Cell C is much cheaper
campaign. dreams for someday pro- ple in areas too remote urban Manila, for example, as far as everything else is
He said the banned ser- viding Internet connec- for cables or cell towers, can use Free Basics to view concerned, but their free
vice, Free Basics, was only tions through a network of Free Basics is intended for the Philippines’ GMA News Facebook is not a reality,”
one program in his Inter- drones, satellites and lasers. people who live in areas site. “He can be informed. she said.
net.org campaign, so he Zuckerberg said Monday with Internet service but still He can research. He can Last fall, Facebook an-
could proceed with other that Internet.org would can’t afford it. Facebook read the news,” Ederic nounced a major expan-
initiatives. Indian regula- launch its first satellite over works with wireless carri- Eder of GMA News said. sion in Africa, where anoth-
tors banned Free Basics Africa this year and “we ers in poorer nations to let The program varies by er regional carrier, Bharti
this month because it pro- Airtel, said it will offer Free
vided access only to cer- Basics in 17 countries.
tain pre-approved services “They’re getting a lot of
— including Facebook — traction in Africa,” said
rather than the full Internet. Danson Njue, a Kenya-
“Facebook isn’t a com- based telecom analyst
pany that hits a roadblock with the Ovum research
and gives up,” Zuckerberg firm. Tech rivals Google
said at the Mobile World and Microsoft also have
Congress wireless show programs to expand Inter-
in Barcelona, Spain. “We net access, he noted, but
take the hits and try to get their approaches are con-
better.” tent neutral and involve
Though Zuckerberg termed extending networks to un-
the regulatory defeat “dis- derserved areas.
appointing for the mission Facebook doesn’t pay
and a major setback,” he wireless companies for the
said every country was cost of Free Basics. Carriers
different, and “the model make money if new users
that has worked in one eventually move to a paid
country may not work in data plan. Facebook also
another.” says it makes no money, as
This was his third appear- it doesn’t show ads, though
ance at the Barcelona Zuckerberg has conceded
show to promote Internet it benefits from gaining us-
access to everyone in the ers in the long run.q
Human champion certain he’ll
beat AI at ancient Chinese game
YOUKYUNG LEE ture last month, marked a cause of its intuitive nature South Korean Lee Sedol, the world champion of the ancient
AP Technology Writer significant advance in the and complexity. Chinese board game Go, left, poses with an image of Demis
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — development of artificial Before AlphaGo, the Go Hassabis, CEO at Google DeepMind that developed AlphaGo,
The world champion of the intelligence. Lee, 32, said community thought it on a screen though a video conference from London, during a
ancient board game Go, AlphaGo’s October match would take a few gen- press conference in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 22, 2016.
South Korean Lee Sedol, showed the program’s abil- erations for computers to
expects to prevail in a ity was still slightly lower than match human players. So Associated Press
match with Google’s com- his. It has not had enough the October shut out of
puter program AlphaGo time to improve its skills. the European champion gram will enable smart- scientists solve some of the
next month, but he’s not so “But if artificial intelligence was “truly shocking,” said phones to provide smarter toughest real-world prob-
sure he will be able to do so continues to advance, in a Park Chi-moon, vice presi- help for people in the near lems, such as disease anal-
a year later. year or two years, it will be dent of the Korean Baduk future. Eventually, it will en- ysis and climate modeling,
For now, Lee is predicting a really hard to guess the re- Association. The winner of able computers to help he said.q
5-0 or 4-1 victory in his favor. sults,” Lee said. the five-game match start-
AlphaGo defeated a pro- Computers have long sur- ing March 9 in Seoul will
fessional Go player for passed humans in other receive a $1 million prize. If
the first time in October, games, including chess. AlphaGo wins, the prize will
something that experts But Go, known as weiqi in be donated to charities, in-
had predicted would take China and baduk in Ko- cluding UNICEF.
a decade. The match, rea, is considered the most Demis Hassabis, CEO of Al-
described in a paper re- challenging for artificial phaGo developer Google
leased in the journal Na- intelligence to master be- DeepMind, said the pro-
