text:
AI in China – Recent History, Strengths and Weaknesses of the Ecosystem
Daniel Faggella Last updated on April 5, 2019
Last updated on April 5, 2019, published by Daniel Faggella
At a recent United Nations conference in Shanghai I discussed critical topics on the Chinese AI ecosystem. This article clearly and elaborately outlines perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese AI ecosystem, based on my interviews and discussions with various Chinese NGOs, founders, and investors.
China is now widely considered the second largest AI economy, lagging only behind the U.S., in terms of the number of AI companies and talent pool. Data and reports backing up this perception are shared throughout this article.
Further, this article aims to address the following questions with respect to the Chinese AI ecosystem:
What is the AI ecosystem like in China?
How do the Chinese government, private organizations, and academia alike practically work in tandem to achieve China's AI goals?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of China's AI ecosystem?
What are the major similarities and differences between the U.S. and China's AI ecosystems?
I met and interviewed several important Chinese AI leaders who are changing the AI ecosystems of the U.S. and China alike. This article includes several direct and edited quotes from these leaders throughout the article to give you a more credible and practical version of what constitutes the world's second largest AI ecosystem.
This article is categorically divided into four parts:
Recent History of AI in China – China's recent AI plans, important announcements and policies regarding AI investment and funding, execution of said policies, etc.
Strengths of the Chinese AI Ecosystem – Government's top-down approach to the proliferation of AI, availability and easy access to a huge amount of consumer data, closed-loop ecosystem, and aggressive investment and funding in domestic and foreign AI companies.
Weaknesses of the Chinese AI Ecosystem – Domestic AI talent shortage, relaxed data privacy policies, brutal internal market and foreign competition, and irregular distribution of funds across important sectors.
International AI Competition Between China and the U.S. – Inarguably the world's greatest economic powers, there is tension in talent, tech, and regulation to see who can develop AI to win the rest of the 21st century.
Without further ado, let's take a deep dive into the Chinese AI ecosystem, starting with its recent history in introducing new plans to proliferate AI.
Recent History of AI in China
In 2016, the Chinese government made a commitment in its Three-Year Guidance for Internet Plus Artificial Intelligence Plan (2016-2018) that it would focus on funding and development of AI for improving its economy.
The July 2017 New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan released by The State Council of China details China's strategy to build a $150 billion national AI industry in the near future, on its way to becoming the leading AI superpower by 2030. This focus on AI as a national goal seems to be a continuation of the 13th Five-Year Plan and the "Made in China 2025" industry plan. A more comprehensive version of these plans is depicted in the next section of this article.
The Three-Year Action Plan for Promoting Development of a New Generation Artificial Intelligence Industry (2018–2020) delivered on the promise of its predecessor (focusing on AI as a national priority). It outlines major areas for China to focus on with regards to AI development and proliferation. It mentions specific industries and sub-technologies that fall under AI and plans to implement a conducive infrastructure.
Some of the industries, technologies, and products China wants to focus on are:
Integrated intelligent systems: networked vehicles, service robots, drones, medical image-assisted diagnosis systems, video image identification systems, voice interaction systems, translation systems, and smart home products.
Smart consolidation of software and hardware: sensors, neural network chips, open source platform, etc.
Intelligent manufacturing and industrial support resource pool, standard testing and intellectual property service platform, intelligent network infrastructure, network security and other industrial public support systems to improve the artificial intelligence development environment.
Local governments are active participants in enforcing this national goal. The Shanghai and Beijing governments also announced their implementation plans and a major AI-themed industrial environment in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Many other districts have promised funds for AI research, including Guangzhou, which founded an International Institute of AI.
Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology, promised at a March 2018 press conference that China would publish further detailed guidelines and policies on AI. These policies would provide directives to problems in national security, health, job structure, general security and personal privacy.
A Succinct Look at the Chinese AI Strategy
Jeffrey Ding, the China Lead for the Governance of AI Program at Oxford University, provides a succinct version of the Chinese AI strategy in his 2018 Deciphering China's AI Dream paper:
By 2020, China's core AI industry gross output and AI-related industry gross output would exceed $22.5 billion and $150.8 billion, respectively, putting China in the league of most advanced countries.
By 2025, China plans to reach core AI and AI-related industry gross outputs exceeding $60.3 billion and $754 billion, respectively, making China a global leader in many AI domains.
By 2030, China seeks to become "the world's primary AI innovation center," with a core AI and AI-related gross outputs exceeding $150.8 billion and $1.5 trillion, respectively.
For a further understanding of the Chinese AI strategy, the table below sourced from the same paper outlines each of China's AI plans, its driving factor and value:
"Recent AI Plans" from Jeffrey Ding's "Deciphering China's AI Dream"
Wrapping up on China's careful plans to proliferate the implementation and usage of AI, we move on to sensitive indicators on how this might actually be possible, potential factors that might prevent China from achieving this goal, and its competition with the U.S. AI ecosystem.
Strengths of the AI Ecosystem in China
China is catching up fast with the U.S. in the AI superpower race.
A conducive factor propelling China forward in this direction is the cooperation between the Chinese government, the private sector, investors, and academia. This encourages multiple players to act toward one goal, constituting one seemingly impermeable ecosystem, which many consider to be closed-loop.
They also have the largest consumer database at their disposal, thanks to their population size and increasing numbers of digitally connected users. It also doesn't hurt that this connected user base is amenable to sharing data. China has started to take advantage of these factors to aggressively fund and invest in AI technologies both nationally and globally, especially in the U.S.
In this section, we cover the strengths of the Chinese AI ecosystem in detail:
The Chinese Government's "Top-down Approach" for National AI Goals
Irakli Beridze, Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, United Nations, puts it succinctly in our interview with him from early 2019:
China's biggest strength is that the government, private sector, and academia are working hand-in-hand to achieve this [national AI] goal.
He further expands on this, stating that China is currently the world's second largest economy, and one of the first countries to announce a national AI strategy, which they did in 2016. In 2017, they declared their ambition to "take over the world" with this [AI] technology, according to Beridze.
Beridze believes that the Chinese national AI and investment strategies facilitate execution of this goal. As mentioned earlier in the article, China has a large population of curious, connected users. Therefore, the country can acquire and analyze large volumes of big data to further its AI goals.
Kai-Fu Lee, former President of Google China, offers his perspectives in a Wharton interview on whether China will be the next AI superpower:
The Chinese government is very supportive of AI. Last July [2017], it declared AI to be one of the most important areas to focus on. Provincial and city governments are building out cities the size of Chicago with autonomous vehicles in mind. There are two layers of roads. One layer is for pedestrians and the second is for cars, thereby limiting the possible accidents and casualties to the pedestrians. Highways are adding sensors to enable autonomous vehicles. These high-spend infrastructure projects are just what the AI industry needs because private companies can't possibly afford to build cities and highways.
Yiwen Huang, founder and CEO, R2.ai Inc shares Lee's and Beridze's perspectives. He was schooled in the U.S. and went back to China to found R2.ai, an AutoML company. We explored his perspectives on both the U.S. and Chinese AI ecosystems.
Huang explains that there is indeed heavy government support for AI in China. Different policies are being executed by the local and central governments to attract the right AI talent and projects. They also find AI projects and have tax policies that benefit technology companies developing or adopting AI. There is definitely a top-down AI atmosphere in China, in his opinion.
These policies seem to create an AI-conducive micro-ecosystem with more access to government, funding, and investor support and incentives when it comes to developing innovative AI products.
Ding's "Deciphering China's AI Dream" paper claims that the Chinese government actively picks winners in the AI space. According to this paper, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (MoST) appointed the four largest Chinese AI companies—Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and iFlyTek—to "lead the development of national AI innovation platforms in self-driving cars, smart cities, computer vision for medical diagnosis, and voice intelligence, respectively."
Investment and Funding for AI
Ding observes in his paper that the Chinese government is beginning to play a larger role in funding AI ventures. "Disbursing funds through 'government guidance funds' (GGF) set up by local governments and state-owned companies, the government has invested more than USD 1 billion on domestic startups," he says.
According to this paper, statistics from Sun Hung Kai Financial indicate that these GGFs are projected to eclipse China's private VC funds in size. In 2016, the fundraising target set by the government was $500 billion as opposed to the $330 billion target raised by private funds.
His paper also quotes a 2017 report which states that Chinese AI companies received about 69% of investments, whereas U.S. AI companies could only muster about 51%. Ding also notes that the velocity of AI investment is relatively fast in China. According to the paper, the average time for Chinese companies, from incorporation to receiving angel investment, is 9.73 months, compared to the average time of 14.82 months for US companies.
Beridze gives us more insights on this. In his opinion, the U.S. has more of a talent pool than China and more leading technological institutions. He says:
In China, they are also trying to attract talent from different parts of the world. Their [private sector] companies and institutions alike are issuing scholarships and competitive salary packages for western expertise to come and work on the development of AI. They are working on retention of existing Chinese talent. This will continue.
Mike Long, the CTO of CCI- a Chinese mobile payment company with 50 Million users, conveyed a point of cultural sentiment as a strength to the Chinese AI ecosystem. He suggested competitive Chinese parenting is contributing to early investment in the household as well.
Chinese parents attach great importance to children's education. They consider it the most important thing. Maybe this is also the impact of the sense of competition. Due to the increasing heat of AI, more parents are paying attention to it. The market responds very promptly to this signal and the AI textbooks are even now appear in kindergartens.
More Connected Users. More Data
Lee delivers insights on the data aspect of AI in China:
China has more data than anybody—and AI gets better with data. If you train an AI for, let's say, an advertising engine or an ads-targeting engine, or a bank using AI for determining loans, the more data you have, the more accurate AI becomes. China has more users and more usage per user, because the use of digital services is pervasive. For example, China has almost no credit cards and no cash. Everyone's using mobile pay. That's fuel to make rocket fuel for AI to work better.
His claims are backed up by a January 2018 report released by China Internet Network Information Center, a branch of China's Ministry of Industry and Information. According to this report, about 57.7% of its population are connected users. Over 800 million people in China are active on the internet, out of which 98% are mobile users (788 million).
More connected users means more data.
In Beridze's paraphrased words, more people are using AI, especially in the coastal regions. China has astronomically more number of connected users (people who use mobile phones, internet, etc.) and boasts a fast growth in online adoption period. WeChat alone has 1 billion users. There is a huge scope for big data analysis, owing to the company's powerful computing power.
Huang claims that security and crime prevention sectors are increasingly using big data, which encourages the development of more new AI business models.
Openness to Sharing Data, Domestically
Stephen Ibaraki, serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, also agrees with Huang and Beridze. In his opinion, more open policies are being made available in China for easy use and access to data. They are used in a way that speeds up innovation. He is careful to mention that this is his personal experience and he views this easy availability of data as not as big a concern in China as in other parts of the world.
He also disclaims that he cannot comment on the government's more open data availability policies. He believes that the general Chinese population is more willing to help and more amenable to sharing data for innovation than those of other countries.
Ding, in his "Deciphering China's AI Dream" paper, notes:
Data is another important driver for AI systems because machine learning is notoriously data-hungry. Access to large quantities of data has been cited as one of the advantages for China's AI development." According to his paper, China does have relatively lax privacy protections and "Chinese technology giants collect vast troves of data, and sharing among government agencies and companies is common.
But this is not without the consent of the Chinese population, according to the paper. Chinese consumers, who are the source of much of this data are "early and eager tech adopters, as reflected by smartphone penetration rates across the country."
That said, this data availability is not without a catch, it seems. China selectively shares data only domestically, and not internationally. Jeffrey discusses China's data protectionism in his paper. He claims that China's internet is a closed ecosystem:
The Chinese government censored and blocked Facebook and Google, thereby enabling the rise of domestic platforms like Wechat and Weibo. One can see the advantages of data protectionism for AI development. If data is a scarce resource for AI development, China could establish exclusive control over this resource for its companies and research institutes. On the other hand, if more and more data is shared across platforms and countries, other actors could benefit from global data sharing while China remains closed off.
The Weaknesses of the AI Ecosystem in China
The Chinese AI ecosystem is not without weak links.
Despite its focus on technology and cultural inclination toward education and mainstream sciences, there is a definite AI talent shortage in China. There is also heavy competition among both domestic and international companies to penetrate into or sustain in the Chinese AI ecosystem. With relatively lax data privacy policies, China raises many concerns both nationally and globally. Further, aggressive AI investments and funds don't seem to be distributed across pressing sectors like healthcare.
In this section, we look at each of the above problems in the Chinese AI ecosystem in detail:
Talent Disparity
Talent disparity, especially in the fields of data science and AI, is a global problem. In China, however, this problem seems to be a major concern. For a country which aims to be the world's AI superpower, shortage of AI talent is detrimental.
In his paper, Ding claims that "despite the larger pool of STEM graduates [as compared to the U.S.], China has a talent pool of around 39,000 AI researchers, less than half of the size of the U.S. pool of over 78,000 researchers."
He also notes that a large number of universities in the U.S. are world leaders in AI research, and this, in turn, gives way to more AI experts with "multiple full cycles of projects." He clarifies further that 50% of U.S. AI researches have more than 10 years of experience, whereas only 25% of those in China have the same.
Beridze agrees with Ding, saying that:
The USA has more talent pool, fantastic universities. In China, they are also trying to attract talent from different parts of the world. Their companies [private sectors] and institutions alike are issuing scholarships and competitive salary packages for western expertise to come and work on development of AI. They are [also] working on retention of existing Chinese talent.
Ding admits that China's talent programs have a mixed track record. According to his report, the Thousand Talents program, otherwise known as the Recruitment Program of Global Experts, launched in 2008, "attracted the largest influx of high-quality talent within a limited timeframe (2009-2011) in all of China's history, per data released by the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science."
However, his paper claims that, during this time period, multiple empirical studies and recruiter interviews revealed that the program failed to retain the talent, owing to factors such as expectations of instant research results.
This report also suggests that Chinese investors are fixing this talent disparity and retention problems through talent transfers via commercial means: for example, hiring foreign AI talent to work in China by recruiting them at 70-150% of average U.S. pay, as a "shortcut to accelerate AI development."
Further, the report affirms that the largest Chinese AI players (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) have set up shop in the U.S. to attract foreign talent, which seems to be working based on the following examples: Andrew Ng, former head of Google Brain, worked at Baidu for three years. Qi Lu, former executive vice president of Microsoft, served as Baidu's Chief Operating Officer until 2018 and is currently heading Y Combinator China.
This suggests that the government, investors, and private companies are working as active AI players in harmony together to bridge the talent gap in China.
Local and International Market Competition
Having the largest population base in the world might be a driver in the Chinese AI ecosystem for gathering and analyzing big data. However, it also poses competition problems.
Lee and Beridze are of the opinion that China's population size facilitates the development of more AI use cases. What is more convenient here is that these use cases can be tested and tweaked in short cycles, thanks to varied market expectations and landscapes. Therefore, the time to value is relatively short. However, the other side of this coin is a heavy, aggressive competition among domestic and international companies to make it in this closed ecosystem.
Zhigang Chen, Founder and Director of Healthcare Big Data Lab at Tencent, believes:
Market competition is very brutal in China. In the US, there is domestic competition. Big companies in China (Alibaba and Tencent) are not considered competition in the US in a lot of sectors. The Chinese market is very crowded. They have domestic and international competition.
It is evident (from data, statistics and views shared in this article) that, in a way, China is battling this international competition problem by withholding its big data from the companies outside the nation, while it is increasingly investing in AI technologies in the U.S. aggressively and closing off the nation to global brands like Facebook and Google. This automatically pushes the population to use Baidu and the like.
Lax Data Privacy Regulations
In "Deciphering China's AI Dream" paper, Ding observes that there is a "major debate over data privacy protections" in China. According to the paper:
Companies, different levels of government, and even the general public have been active participants in this debate, which pits those advocating for greater data privacy protections against those pushing for data liberalization to benefit AI technologies.
However, he also amends that:
Recently, in January 2018, advocates for data privacy celebrated when the Chinese government released a new national standard on the protection of personal information, which contains more comprehensive and onerous requirements than even the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, per analysis by CSIS senior fellow Samm Sacks.
There seems to be a consensus among the Chinese AI leaders we interviewed that China's data privacy laws are relatively relaxed. However, these lax regulations appear to be executed only domestically. China is more aggressive when it comes to foreign competition.
Ding further expands on this point:
"Data security concerns have motivated China's efforts to ensure valuable data stays under the control of Chinese tech companies. In this vein, China has pushed for national standards in AI-related industries, such as cloud computing, industrial software, and big data, that differ from international standards, a move that may favor Chinese companies over foreign companies in the domestic market."
Mike Long stressed the importance of shared knowledge going so far as to suggest China could do even more saying,
Just like the development of application depends on the development of technology, the development of technology depends on the development of scientific theory. Most players in the AI ecosystem rely on open source of several AI frameworks. Some players produce their own AI frameworks based on published papers. The open source of AI framework can greatly accelerate the development of AI and produce more and more powerful and useful AI tools and applications. If big players are trying to close their source or to protect their AI technology by patents, the development of the AI ecosystem will be slowed down. Open is very important in the AI ecosystem. Due to political reasons, the US government is trying to be more and more closed. This is not a good trend for human society. The artificial barriers by political reasons can also pose a threat to the AI ecosystem. The speed of the development of the fundamental AI technology also affects the AI ecosystem.
Irregular Distribution of Funds Across Important Sectors
When we asked Chen about forces driving AI innovation in China, he mentions, from the regulatory perspective, government involvement pushes innovation.
However, he admits that:
[Speaking] from experience, I didn't get money from the government. They are talking a lot about AI and how to use AI to bring economy to the next level. But it will take a long time. Also, they have a lot of other sectors to focus on. Healthcare is a vulnerable position. This system is overwhelmed because of China's aging population problem. This system must be made more efficient. The government has to invest more in healthcare. Otherwise, the government will have more problem down the road.
International Competition – China vs. The U.S.
Major themes on the international competition between China and the U.S. arose during our interviews with the AI leaders quoted in this report.
Chinese AI Expansion Is Multilateral in Multiple Domains
To Wharton's question on what the significant difference between the Chinese and American AI ecosystems is, when it comes to their resolve about being global AI superpowers, Lee answers:
A couple of things are unique about China. First, Chinese entrepreneurs are much hungrier, they work much harder, and they are also much more tenacious. They are looking for all kinds of business models in which AI can help. AI in retail. AI in education. They are also working out operational excellence in applying AI to changing the way people eat, disrupting autonomous stores and autonomous fast food restaurants. So it's displacing traditional industries faster.
Given that China has the largest population in the world and increasingly more connected users, this multilateral expansion is logical and opportune. There is a plethora of AI use cases in China, and the national environment conducive to AI development is taking advantage of it to stay true to their AI goals.
Beridze shared his insights on this topic:
China is no different than the other big economies in the world [for choosing to focus on multilateral AI expansion]. Sectors like healthcare, transportation and energy will be benefiting a lot. Security and law enforcement fields enjoy a great amount of AI focus.
He also gives some real-time examples:
The UAE countries, after AI funding, chose only certain strategic directions even though they are some of the wealthiest countries in the world. In countries like China, I do think they have a luxury of having a big economy. At one point, they might even become the largest economy in the world. So, they have the luxury of [branching into] many sectors and see later on which sector would be [more beneficial].
"Heavy" Companies vs. "Lightweight" Companies
In Kai-Fu Lee's experience, "Chinese companies are better at raising large amounts of money because there's a large market that can test ideas and scale them." He also states that the major difference between the Chinese and the U.S. companies is that the former are willing to "go heavy." That is, the Chinese may "build something that is incredibly messy and ugly and complex" but once it is built, "it becomes a moat around [their] business."
Lee also believes that Chinese companies are more open to taking risks and tackling the outcomes by working harder to find viable solutions. In his words:
For example, in the U.S., we have Yelp and Groupon, very lightweight companies. In China, there is Meituan, which has built a 600,000-person delivery engine, riding electric mopeds with batteries that run out pretty quickly and have to be replaced. And yet, they run it to enable every Chinese consumer to order food on their way home and have it delivered to them by the time they reach their homes. The consumers don't have to wait. The delivery time is 30 minutes and it costs about 70 cents. It's the hard work that is shaving away a few cents a month, eventually getting to 70 cents per order. Then, they can break even. It is taking a large leap and a large bet and a large risk, because if they don't succeed at 25 million orders a day, there's a huge loss.
However, it must be noted that the business models of Yelp and Groupon are significantly different than those of Meituan. The minimum wage in China is also much lesser than that in the U.S., rendering it possible to employ a bulk, inexpensive workforce in China. This may not be viable in the U.S. for the said business model, owing to the country's much higher cost and standard of living, compared to China.
More Aggressive AI Investments in China
Lee asserts in his Wharton interview that:
AI is also being used in a lot of white-collar job displacement, which will impact the U.S. and China equally. I think China is moving faster because entrepreneurs are emboldened by the national priority on AI, funded by larger amounts of money. They see this as the hottest area.
Ding's paper seems to back up Lee's claims. The paper notes that, in 2017, Chinese AI startups received 48% of global AI funding, surpassing the 38% funding for U.S. AI startups. Wuzhen Institute statistics referred to in the same report show that the investment situation in China was very different in 2016. From 2012 to 2016, according to Wuzhen Institute, Chinese AI firms received a funding of $2.6 billion, which was less than the $17.2 billion received by their American peers.
Ding observes that the proliferation of AI in China in 2017 has been "astronomical" in that China accounted for only 11.3% of global funding in 2016. He believes that China's AI industry has significantly increased in both absolute and relative terms in the past few years.
The US Is Ahead in Core Technologies. China Excels in AI Implementation and Execution
When asked how China and the U.S measure up against each other in the AI superpower race, Lee opines that the race is an illusion and they are two parallel universes making independent progress.
However, Lee believes that "China is now taking the lead in implementation and creating value by using AI in all kinds of applications and industries."
Huang mirrors Lee's sentiments in his interview with us: "China is better at the AI application development side." He further clarifies that the AI tech stack begins with AI research, data collection, data management and consolidation, and then culminates in AI development. In his opinion, the U.S. is ahead of China in the data part of the AI tech stack, especially big data platforms.
China Has a Significantly Higher Number of "Active AI Players" Than the U.S.
A 2018 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study reports that "China is currently well ahead of the rest of the industrialized world in AI implementation, with up to 85% of companies identifiable as 'active players' in AI:"
"Share of Active Players in AI by Country," from BCG's "Mind the AI Gap"
According to the above statistics derived from the BCG study, the U.S. has only 51% of overall "Active Players" in AI as compared to the 85% in China. The study, however, mentions that within the Silicon Valley and digital start-up industries, this "Active AI Player" number is as much as 76%.
China's "Technology Transfer"
In 2018, Michael Brown and Pavneet Singh of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a United States Department of Defense (DoD) organization that offers non-dilutive capital to organizations in exchange for commercial products that solve national defense problems, released a report called China's Technology Transfer Strategy.
This report claims that the Chinese are heavily investing in U.S. AI companies, thereby constituting a "technology transfer" from the U.S to China.
According to this report, Chinese participation in venture-backed startups constitutes 10-16% of all venture deals from 2015 to 2017.
The report further expands on the above claim to include more data. China's rapidly growing global FDI is now ~$250 billion, with $213 billion announced acquisitions in 2016. In the same year, China also invested $45.6 billion in the U.S, where its cumulative FDI since 2000 exceeds a hundred billion USD. Particularly, electronics, information and communications technology, biotechnology, and energy sectors in the U.S. have seen $35 billion investment from China from 2006 to 2010.
The images below, sourced from this report shows the Chinese investment in the U.S. venture capital market and the distribution of said investment across various series fundings:
"Chinese Participation in U.S. Venture Capital Market, January 2010 – October 2017," from Defense Innovation Unit Experimental's "China's Technology Transfer Strategy;" graph courtesy of CB Insights
"Dispersion of Chinese Investment in U.S. Venture Capital Market, 2010 – 2016," from Defense Innovation Unit Experimental's "China's Technology Transfer Strategy"
Data from the report on the Chinese investors particularly active across artificial intelligence, augmented reality/virtual reality, robotics is provided below:
"Chinese Investment in U.S. Artificial Intelligence Companies, 2010 – 2017 $1.3 Billion in Deal Value; 81 deals," from Defense Innovation Unit Experimental's "China's Technology Transfer Strategy;" graph courtesy of CB Insights
Between 2010-2017, China participated in 81 AI-related funding and investment activities, contributing to a total of $1.3 billion in financing.
China has invested nearly $237 million in Robotics startups between 2010- 2017.
Chinese Investment in U.S. AR/VR Companies, 2010 – 2017 $237 Million in Deal Value; 34 deals," from Defense Innovation Unit Experimental's "China's Technology Transfer Strategy;" graph courtesy of CB Insights
In the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality space, China invested in $2.1 billion worth of deals from 2010-2017.
Chinese Investment in U.S. AR/VR Companies, 2010 – 2017 $2.1 Billion in Deal Value; 40 deals," from Defense Innovation Unit Experimental's "China's Technology Transfer Strategy;" graph courtesy of CB Insights
The report heavily warns that the U.S. needs stringent measures against the foreign transfer of domestic technical knowledge, for security and defense purposes.
Shared below is a video of Michael Brown's interview on this topic. In this panel interview [24:30] he insists that China is catching up quickly to the U.S. in terms of economic rise with a razor focus on technology. He asserts matter-of-factly that economic security is closely tied to national security and the fact that China is aggressively focusing on technology and foreign investment funding in the U.S. is an actual threat "unlike any other we [Americans] have seen in our lifetime."
He also notes that for the first time, another country is actually capable of being an economic competitor to the U.S. He admits that the last technology race that the U.S. had was with the Soviets. However, he is persistent that "China is potentially a much more dangerous threat" to the U.S. in the current AI race. He advises CEOs of Silicon Valley and CEOs, in general, to be more focused on this issue. He also requests for more funding for federal technology research in fields like AI, and STEM research.
Ding also mentions this technology transfer concept in his paper:
In the domain of tech transfer, Chinese firms in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare industries reached a record amount of $3.9 billion in overseas acquisitions in 2016.
Further data from Ding's paper may also indicate why the DoD is not enthusiastic about China's technology transfer. According to the paper, a 2017 U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report on the semiconductor industry said that China has been increasingly active in the acquisition space, while placing conditions on the access to its market for incentivizing technology transfer.
Ding's paper also reads that, in September 2017, the White House prevented a state-backed Chinese investor from acquiring a U.S. semiconductor company, making this "only the fourth time in [the U.S.] history" for an American president to block company acquisition on national security grounds. The paper also draws parallels in Europe. When the European Union Commission introduced new frameworks screening FDI into critical technologies like "artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, technologies with potential dual-use applications, cybersecurity, space or nuclear technology," without explicitly calling out China, analysts construed implicit references to China's economic activities.
China's "Copycat" Problem
While China's Technology Transfer Strategy report clearly states its misgivings on China's "copycat" problem backed up by data, it concedes that "there are clear examples of Chinese indigenous innovation showing that China is doing more than copying technology."
According to the report, China leads ahead of the U.S in patent applications, academic research paper publication, and the number of STEM degree graduates. China has over 1 million patent applications, whereas the U.S. has close to 589,410. Further, in 2014, China awarded 1,288,999 STEM degrees, which is more than double the degrees awarded in the U.S.
Lee offers his opinion on why China copied U.S. technology and why it is not an IP violation:
In the beginning, a lot of American companies didn't go to China either due to regulations that they didn't want to accept or because they felt it was too tough a market. So the Chinese entrepreneurs started copying the American ideas. This was not IP violation, but just copying the general idea of a search engine, a portal, an e-commerce site, and so on.
He also believes that because of their growing consumer base and their entrepreneurship, the Chinese started to innovate. In the last three to five years, Lee claims that he has encountered many Chinese innovations that aren't seen in the U.S. In his opinion, the social media for the young people in China is dominated by a video-oriented system that operates differently to Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook. In addition, China has gradually replaced cash with credit cards and online payment systems.
Lee admits that most Silicon Valley views China as a copycat. However, he thinks it is a terrible mistake:
Every Chinese entrepreneur is learning from China and from the U.S. They religiously read all the tech media — Wired, TechCrunch, and everything. If American entrepreneurs only learn from the U.S. but not China, they're missing out on half of the opportunities, lessons and case studies.
Finally, a comparison of the U.S. and Chinese AI ecosystems from Jeffrey Ding's paper suggests that China is only ahead of the U.S. in the number of connected users and, by extension, data, and total global equity funding to AI startups.
However, this might be subject to change soon, given that the investment scenario in China changed in just one year, boosting China to the top in global AI funding.
China knows about its weaknesses in its AI ecosystem and is actively trying to remedy them with fast execution of national policies, like data and talent protection against foreign market invasion, and so on. In addition to implementing such protective measures, the country is aggressively funding foreign investments, especially in the U.S., scouting for talent and technology transfer.
The Chinese government, private companies, investors, and academia alike are working together to realize the country's AI goals. Backed up by friendly government policies, domestic companies are enthusiastically participating in quick and short innovation cycles. Data is on the country's side, and it seems like the country would sooner operate in a closed-off ecosystem than part with the data monopoly. This could prove powerful in as many as just a few years, as AI is still very dependent on data.
As does any large economy, China also seems to function in silos. Chen shares his experience in the Chinese healthcare sector: there is a mismatch of priorities in that the investors' priorities are different from those of the companies in terms of objectives. He also states there is a definite gap in the expectations of people and technology limitations. There is another problem with the digitization in the healthcare sector and other sectors, which traditionally use paper-based reporting and documentation.
Despite these misgivings, he remains hopeful that China will catch up faster and more wisely as it did with its payment systems. He says:
China didn't have electronic payment system five years ago. Credit card is the foundation for convenient payment system. When I was in China, I had to bring cash. In the last 5 years, it has changed. I haven't used cash in a long time. I use mobile payment. In China, mobile payment hasn't scaled as much as the US. To replace the existing infrastructure, the threshold is very high. Healthcare IT infra is not as good as in the US. So, for Chinese healthcare system to do better, it is probably easier for them to embrace new technology [than fix the old one]. New technological implementations could take off easier [in China as compared to] than the developed countries.
The table below, sourced from Jeffrey Ding's "Deciphering China's AI Dream" paper, layout perceptions vs. the reality of China's AI policies.
"Demystifying China's AI Dream" from Jeffrey Ding's "Deciphering China's AI Dream"
The below table is useful in understanding the new developments in China's AI strategy as compared to the old ones:
"Key features of China's AI Strategy" from Jeffrey Ding's "Deciphering China's AI Dream"
In the above table, with respect to China's adoption of data protectionism against foreign involvement, we hear varied opinions. Michael Brown at the DoD claims that the U.S. needs to adopt more stringent measures against China for protection of domestic technology and innovations. His views might seem extremist to some; however, there is a level of truth in the U.S. needing to invest more in AI technologies than China in order to stay ahead of the competition.
A big thank you to Radhika Madhavan for her writing and research help on this article, and extrapolating the most important points from my interviews, and from the reports and resources from Oxford, etc.
Artificial Intelligence in Austin – The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Ecosystem
Back at the beginning of the year, I set out to get a feel for a city in the longitudinal center of the country, between two coastal tech hubs in San Francisco and NYC: Austin. I wanted to find out what made Austin an attractive AI and tech hub the way I had in Boston, Atlanta, Montreal, and Bangalore before it. It turns out the AI startup community in Austin is measurably different than those on the east and west coast, and it stood out to me in the way it was able to offer a quality of life that's rare for fresh-out-of-college talent on the coasts.
AI Founders and Executives Predict 5-Year Trends on Consumer Tech
It's been over a month since our last major artificial intelligence consensus (which covered 33 AI researcher perspectives on the 20-year risks of AI), and we decided that this time around, we'd speak with AI executives directly about the future of artificial intelligence and machine learning in consumer tech.
The media is awash with buzz-stories about autonomous vehicles, speech recognition, robotics, and more, but it seems difficult to glean a perspective on which consumer AI tech trends are likely to make the biggest impact in the coming 5 years.
While there's certainly no crystal ball, our preference as a market research firm is to combine research and news analysis with a strong consensus from dozens of experts in the field. When it comes to AI for consumer tech, we decided to ask executives and founders of artificial intelligence companies what they believe to be the most important AI consumer tech trends in the next half decade.
You can see a full list of the answers to our "AI Consumer Tech Trends" below in our large infographic.
Artificial Intelligence in Atlanta – Strengths, Weaknesses, and Trends in the Atlanta AI Ecosystem
Last September I had the chance to do a series of AI-related speaking engagements in Atlanta (one of those presentations became one of our most popular articles on "enterprise AI adoption"), but unlike most trips, I spent very little time in the hotel.
Risks of AI – What Researchers Think is Worth Worrying About
The year 2015 might be seen as the year that "artificial intelligence risk" or "artificial intelligence danger" went mainstream (or close to it). With the founding of Elon Musk's Open AI and The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence; the increased attention on the Future of Life Institute and Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute; and a flurry of attention around celebrity comments around AI dangers (including the now well-known statements of Bill Gates and Elon Musk), it's safe to say that the risks of AI has embedded itself as a topic of pop-culture discourse — even if it's not a very serious one amongst the populace at present.
How Investors Feel About Artificial Intelligence – from 29 AI Founders and Executives
AI investments have become more and more prevalent over the last 5 years, and articles in the Financial Times, TechCrunch, WIRED, and elsewhere tout an era of heightened interest in machine learning and artificial intelligence-oriented companies.


Approximate Location of Earthquake: Lightly felt in Sandspit, Queen Charlotte, Skidegate, Tlell, Port Clements and Massett. There are no reports of damage, and none would be expected. Aftershock of the M7.7 earthquake in October.


Maruchan Instant Lunch Chicken Flavored Noodle Bowls 24 Pack are delicious noodle cups are great for on the go snacks. Just add hot water to have a great chicken flavor noodles. This is a ramen noodles with vegetables and is perfect for college dorm rooms, camping, trips, etc.
Perfect for college dorm rooms, camping, trips, etc.


text:
The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons
Born To …
Fight?
Ike Rupert Hollingsberry is haunted by the past because complete strangers won't let him forget that his famous father died on the set of The Fighting Dragons, a cult favorite that still has people talking. But when he's attacked by a large locust, like the one that killed his dad, Ike is helped by the geekiest nerd of all, Elmira Hand. Killing the giant locust is only the beginning of the surprises in store for Ike as he is whisked away from New York City to an isolated Florida compound to assume his role as the next in line to lead the Royal Order of Fighting Dragons—that are NOT supposed to exist—and learns his dad's death was a cover-up for a far greater purpose…
Amazon Print B & N Print BAM! - Books-A-Million Book Depository Kindle iBooks Nook Book Kobo
Praise for The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons
Dan Elish's new book is destined to be a kid-pleasing classic. Readers will be captivated as Ike Hollingsberry is drawn into the mysterious and dangerous world that killed his father. Giant insects! Dragons! TV shows that become … real! I dare any fan of Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, Wonder Woman, Superman—any rollicking adventure story—to pick up The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons and not get hooked.
~ Deborah Heiligman, award-winning author of Vincent and Theo
Wow! Dan Elish really knows how to tell a story, and here he's got a terrific one, full of action, myth, suspense, heart, and, of course, this being a Dan Elish book, humor. Plus (spoiler alert) fire-breathing dragons. Seriously, reader, what more do you want?
~ Bruce Handy, author of Wild Things and The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult
A wild tale of dragons, King Arthur, and giant bugs, starring a wry and charming New York kid. Fresh, fast-paced, and funny–Dan Elish works magic!
~ Natalie Standiford, author of How to Say Goodbye in Robot and many other books for young readers
Dan Elish's new middle grade novel, The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons, delivers nonstop action, humor, adventure, and suspense, sure, but it also packs plenty of thought-provoking moral quandaries layered with deeper themes of family and friendship.
Ike Hollingsberry, sixth grader, is in for a shock when he discovers his dad wasn't the lighthearted TV performer Ike remembers — and didn't die exactly as Ike has been led to believe. The mysteries unfold within mysteries, layering in everything from dragons, giant bugs, evil power-hungry New York City real estate developers (!), and Arthurian legends brought into the present day… to that weird kid from school who turns out to be kind of cool.
This is surely a book that will have eager and reluctant readers alike getting in trouble for staying up late with flashlights under covers past bedtime, eager to discover what happens in the next hilarious, suspenseful twist.
Dan Elish gets kids – their insecurities and their humor, their rivalries, their courage, and their passion. All that empathy combined with a super fun adventure yarn makes The Royal Order of Fighting Dragons a sure-fire hit.
~ Rachel Vail, author of over 30 books for kids and teens, including most recently the Justin Case books and Well, That Was Awkward.
Elish has done it again. His laugh-out-loud satire features hilarious kid heroes who practically pop off the page as they whisk us from New York to Florida and back on a seat-of-your-pants quest to save the world. Buckle up your dragon and get ready to rumble!
~ Maria Padian, author of Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress
© 2018 Vesuvian Media Group

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Finding a type description in Freebase? I've been trying to get the types in domain person with the following query:
[{
  "/type/object/id": "/people",
  "/type/object/name": null,
  "/type/domain/types": [{
    "/type/object/id": null,
    "/type/object/name": null
  }]
}]

but I also want to have a short textual description of the type. Anyone knows what's the property I'm looking for? I've tried looking for it but to no avail. I need a textual description similar to what is shown here: http://www.freebase.com/schema/american_football.
Thanks!

A: Its the same property (/common/topic/article) that you use for topic descriptions. So your query would look like this:
[{
  "/type/object/id": "/people",
  "/type/object/name": null,
  "/type/domain/types": [{
    "/type/object/id": null,
    "/type/object/name": null,
    "/common/topic/article": [{
      "text": {
        "maxlength": 16384,
        "chars":     null
      }
    }]
  }]
}]

Try it out
Remember that /common/topic/article is a MQL extension so you'll need to turn on that feature if you're using the API.
Note: MQL extensions are an experimental feature of the Freebase API and they are not supported in the new version of the API. The new API provides text through directly from the
Text Service.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Rosalie Rivett is Chief Executive Officer of the Women in Diplomatic Service Association and a diplomatic consultant and academic with a comprehensive knowledge of politics and international affairs. She taught at The Academy of Diplomacy and International Governance, Loughborough University, London, and was visiting lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy of London, University of Westminster. She is a private academic tutor to multinational candidates including senior members of royal families, top military and government officials, politicians and diplomats. She has extensive experience in the voluntary sector with international charities and organisations focussing on conflict prevention and conflict resolution.


Conrad Marca Relli : the early years, 1955-1962 : [exhibition] February 3-27, 1979, Marlborough Gallery, New York.
New York : Marlborough Gallery, 1979.
Add tags for "Conrad Marca Relli : the early years, 1955-1962 : [exhibition] February 3-27, 1979, Marlborough Gallery, New York.". Be the first.
<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6059559> # Conrad Marca Relli : the early years, 1955-1962 : [exhibition] February 3-27, 1979, Marlborough Gallery, New York.
schema:contributor <http://viaf.org/viaf/157105724> ; # Marlborough Gallery.
schema:isSimilarTo <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6059559> ; # Conrad Marca Relli : the early years, 1955-1962 : [exhibition] February 3-27, 1979, Marlborough Gallery, New York.
schema:about <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6059559> ; # Conrad Marca Relli : the early years, 1955-1962 : [exhibition] February 3-27, 1979, Marlborough Gallery, New York.


text:
Completed a series of films about the unknown Holocaust
HBO unearth Holocaust rescue documentary – cinema
Boris Maftsir:; I did everything I could
Israeli film director Boris Maftsir has completed work on a series of documentaries about the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. The cycle consists of 9 films.
Eight of them, with a total duration of 11 and a half hours, document about one hundred actions of mass extermination of Jews in vast areas from the Baltic to the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. According to historians, the victims of these actions were about 2 million 700 thousand people, i.e. about half of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis and their accomplices.
Boris Maftsir adheres to certain rules that characterize his creative method as a documentary filmmaker. All facts are voiced on camera by direct witnesses of the events from a specific place where they took place. Filming took place around the same dates as the events themselves.
The first film in the series "Keepers of Memory" deals with the period from autumn 1941 to winter 1942, when the mass extermination of Jews took place in Belarus. The shooting of Jews in 1941 in the city of Pushkin, not far from Leningrad, where the famous Catherine Palace is located, is described in the film "Holocaust: The Second Front". It further deals with actions to exterminate Jews in Lyubavichi (Smolensk region), in Rostov-on-Don, in the region of Kislovodsk and Nalchik in the North Caucasus. "The Road to Babi Yar" tells about the first hundred days of the occupation of Ukraine by the Nazis, when, with the active participation of accomplices from the local population, there were massacres of Jews, including women, children, old people.
; Road to Babi Yar. Courtesy photo
In other films of the series, Boris Maftsir documents the atrocities of the Nazis and their accomplices in Latvia, Belarus, Odessa, Transnistria, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. The film "Gotenland" talks about the extermination of Jews in Crimea.
The ninth film in the cycle, The Riddle of the Black Book, stands somewhat apart. Stalin banned the publication of the Black Book – the chronicle of the Holocaust on the territory of the USSR, which signaled a radical change in his attitude towards Jews. After the war, many Soviet Jews began to feel the growth of anti-Semitism, which was secretly encouraged by the authorities and peaked when Solomon Mikhoels was viciously killed and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was destroyed..
Boris Maftsir was born in Riga. In 1970 he was arrested by the KGB and sentenced to one year in prison for "Zionist activities." Emigrated to Israel in 1971. Graduated from Tel Aviv University in the first graduation of the Faculty of Film and Television. He worked as a producer of the Israel Film Service, and from 1994 to 1999 – its director. He held senior positions in the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Absorption, headed the delegation of the Jewish Agency (Sokhnut) in Russia, Belarus and the Baltic countries. In 2009 he founded and until 2014 headed the Department of Documentary Films at the WIZO College of Art in Haifa. From 2006 to 2012, he was the director of the Yad Vashem Museum's project to restore the names of Holocaust victims killed in the Soviet Union. Producer of over 200 documentaries and TV programs. In recent years, he has focused on the film project "The Holocaust in the Territory of the Soviet Union".
Almost three years ago, Boris Maftsir took part in the Film Festival of the Russian-speaking Jewish Diaspora in New York, where his film "The Holocaust: Eastern Front" was shown.
The correspondent of the Russian service "Voice of America" spoke on Skype with Boris Maftsir, who is in the Israeli city of Nes Ziona.
Oleg Sulkin: Boris, in our conversation in 2017, you called the Holocaust in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories "hidden, stolen, unknown", comparing the situation with Poland and other European countries, where almost everything is documented in detail. You have done a truly gigantic job. How did you get information and find eyewitnesses to those already very distant events?
Boris Maftsir: My actions were subject to strict logic. It was important to have time to remove witnesses who are already very many years old. The starting point is the event. I go there and find eyewitnesses, at least one. The problem is that there are no archival film materials about the Holocaust in the territories of the Soviet Union occupied by the Nazis. There are several minutes of archival chronicle, hackneyed, used many times. There are several equally frequently reproduced and well-known photographs. And that's all. Any Holocaust denier will say: you claim that 2 million 700 thousand Jews were killed, but you show the same footage from Latvia, from Balti, from Gomel and from Babi Yar.
Now, looking at what I have done, I can say: I did everything that I could.
O.S.: What was the most difficult?
B.M .: Each event must be documented. We need witnesses. If I go to Dubossary, then the shooting in Dubossary must be documented and a person who can be trusted should tell about it. I could not film the story of the execution in Slonim, Belarus, because I did not find any witnesses. For the same reason, I did not shoot a story about the shootings in Mogilev and Gomel, and the Holocaust in Belarus is represented by a village called Sukhari. My family is from Daugavpils. But even my local patriotism did not help. Daugavpils is not in the films, although there was a ghetto, the inhabitants of which were shot. I didn't find a storyteller there. That is, he found it, but he lived in Israel, was very ill and could not come to Latvia.
O.S.: Why was it important for you to shoot day after day with an event?
B.M .: For authenticity. I went to the filming locations at the same time of the year, in the same month, and preferably on the same day when the shooting took place. I could not afford the luxury of doing study trips and then returning for filming. Everything had to be filmed in one short visit. That is, a lot depended on my counterparties, local keepers of memory, ethnographers, historians. In eight films, I shot about a hundred places, and on the real map of the Holocaust, in addition to death camps, concentration camps and ghettos in Central and Western Europe, more than a thousand Soviet cities and villages where Jews were killed. If there was more money and time, I would of course take something else..
O.S.: The film about the extermination of the Jewish population of Crimea by the Nazis leaves a strong impression. Maybe because I knew practically nothing about this episode of the Holocaust. Why is the film called "Gotenland"?
B.M .: In October-November 1941, the Germans captured most of the Crimea. The Nazis considered the peninsula an integral part of the "Third Reich", which they called "the country of the Goths" – Gotenland. They planned to equip there a recreation area for the Aryans, a kind of Germanic Riviera. And the German settlers-farmers were to receive large plots of land. The local residents were going to be partially expelled, partially made slaves. The plans of the occupiers did not come true – with the exception of the clause on the extermination of the Jews. Residents of Jewish collective farms, including representatives of the Krymchak people, were shot.
; Gotenland. Courtesy photo
O.S.: Who are they, Krymchaks?
B.M .: Jews, immigrants from Italy and other countries. Living in Crimea, they adopted the Tatar language and Tatar customs, but retained the Jewish faith. Local historian Boris Kazachenko shows in the film a table of the surname extermination of the Krymchaks and cannot hide his emotions. In fact, all of these people were destroyed during the Holocaust. Today there are several hundred Krymchaks left.
O.S.: Did the Nazis act according to plan? Were there any local features of these operations?
B.M .: As the writer Arkady Shulman from Vitebsk said, the end was the same for all Jews, but the road to it was different. It should be borne in mind that when the war began on the eastern front, the Germans did not yet have a plan for the total extermination of the Jews. But there was a general instruction, according to which the inhabitants of the occupied territories should have understood that there was a struggle against the Judeo-Bolshevik regime. The detailed program "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was adopted by the Nazis in January 1942. And by the end of 1941, in the territory of the former Soviet Union, about a million Jews had been shot. Without the active cooperation of the local population with the invaders, the Holocaust on the territory of the USSR would hardly have been possible. On average, there were up to seven collaborators per German. Among them were inveterate anti-Semites, were intimidated by harsh punishments for harboring Jews, there were simply envious people who coveted their neighbors' property and housing. The historian and professor at Yale University Timothy Snyder speaks about this on camera, who noticed that many Jews did not see the Germans in their eyes, but remembered their neighbors well..
O.S.: Why did you decide to supplement the cycle with the film "The Riddle of the Black Book"?
B.M .: I am looking for answers to important questions. Why was information about the Holocaust on the territory of the Soviet Union hidden by Stalin? Why was there an outbreak of state anti-Semitism after the war? It can be assumed that the Holocaust pushed Stalin to an anti-Jewish purge of the party, state apparatus, scientific and industrial circles, to the destruction of Jewish culture and its most prominent carriers, starting with Solomon Mikhoels. This period, from 1948 to 1953, can be called the Stalinist anti-Jewish five-year plan..
O.S.: You are interested in this cycle?
B.M .: I do not want to entertain myself with illusions. Very few people are interested in the topic of the Holocaust. I did this project until the memory was completely erased. It is important for me that these documents remain so that historians can work with them in the future. Our project is supported by donations and grants. It is absolutely non-commercial, we put all materials on the Internet, for open access on the Holocaust in USSR website.
On the set. Courtesy photo
O.S.: Are there any new ideas?
B.M .: Yes, there is, the conventional name of the film project is "The Fifth Point". When the "Riddle of the Black Book" was shown in Israel and Moscow, the audience came up to me and asked me to explain the reasons for state anti-Semitism in the USSR after the end of the war. After all, then, in the late 40s – early 50s, Jews, active participants in revolutionary events, who were part of the government and the highest governing bodies, lost everything because of the evil "fifth point". And after Stalin's death, anti-Semitism continued to be fueled by the authorities, which is well described in the works of the historian Gennady Kostyrchenko. The "fifth point", as a filter, determined where you can study and where you cannot, where you can work and where you cannot. I decided to figure out why this was happening. These will be three films, their action takes place in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. In these three largest cities of the USSR, Jews were methodically cleaned out; they, of course, remained in some positions, but not in the same proportion as before. The new project is still under development. Obviously, it will require a lot of manpower and resources..
January 27 – Holocaust Remembrance Day
Russian TV channel is preparing its own series about Chernobyl
Press secretary of Alexei Navalny: politician in intensive care after poisoning
Trump promises to deliver big trade statement


text:
Family says they were kicked out of Las Vegas restaurant for bringing service dog
Updated: Thu 1:05 AM, Jun 13, 2019
LAS VEGAS (KTNV/CNN) - Burger chain Smashburger says it's conducting an internal investigation after a family claims they were kicked out of a location in Las Vegas because they had a service dog with them.
Megan Moon's 9-year-old son is diabetic and has a specially-trained service dog named Medic, who alerts when the boy's blood sugar is out of whack. (Source: Megan Moon/KTNV/CNN)
What was supposed to be a quick bite to eat turned into a much bigger ordeal for Megan Moon and her family.
Moon's 9-year-old son is diabetic and has a specially-trained service dog named Medic, who alerts when the boy's blood sugar is out of whack. The family, dog included, went to a Las Vegas Smashburger location.
"All of a sudden, we are about done with our order, the manager walks up, and she says, 'I see you have a dog. He's not allowed to be in our store; we don't allow pets. You're going to have to eat outside,'" Moon said.
Moon says she tried to explain Medic is a medical alert service dog.
"ADA law states that we can be here; he's protected under the law. She said, 'I'm not allowing this to happen. Let's not make a big deal about it,' and I said, 'I am going to make a big deal about it,'" Moon said.
Moon says the manager ended up deleting their order from the register and tossed the family out of the restaurant.
"We were embarrassed. There were other people in the restaurant looking at us like we were causing a scene. They were looking at us like we had done something wrong," Moon said.
The U.S. Department of Justice has explained some guidelines when it comes to service animals and the Americans with Disabilities Act:
A service animal is defined as a dog trained to do work or perform tasks for someone with a disability. The dog does not have to professionally trained or certified. It also does not have to wear a vest or patch identifying it as a service animal.
In rare cases, a business or entity can refuse entry to a service animal, such as if the dog is out of control, barking repeatedly or causing a serious disruption.
Otherwise, a business can only legally ask if the animal is a service animal and what task it performs.
Moon says the manager at Smashburger did not ask either of those questions, and Medic was well-behaved, even sleeping during the encounter.
Smashburger released a statement saying it launched an internal investigation into the incident and "will use this opportunity to reinforce our policies around service animals."
Copyright 2019 KTNV, Megan Moon via CNN. All rights reserved.
U.S. House OKs minimum wage hike, but Senate chances are dim
Waste Management meets biggest little fan in 3-year-old girl


text:
Joellyn Toler Duesberry (June 30, 1944 – August 5, 2016) was a landscape artist who worked in oils.

She said that her paintings echo the work of John Marin and Milton Avery. Of her art, Duesberry said, "I am not interested in a realist painting, I am not interested in an abstract painting. I am interested in the tension."

Early life and education
Joellyn Toler Duesberry was born on June 30, 1944 in Richmond, Virginia. Growing up in rural Virginia instilled in her a love for the land. She said, "All my life I think I've unconsciously tried to re-create the place where bliss or terror first came to me. Both emotions seemed so strong that I had to locate them outside of myself, in the land. This goes back to a childhood habit--of living in rural Virginia and seeking woods and creeks and lakes for solitary refuge; places where I could sketch and paint." She decided to start painting at age ten after being given a pair of red tennis shoes and walking on the beach, inspired by the colorful juxtaposition of sand, shadow, and shoe. Soon thereafter she decided that "Women artists existed and she needed to be among them."

She received a BA with Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa, in art history and painting, from Smith College in 1966. In that year she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. While at Smith, she "honed her skills by making countless copies of masterworks."  She took her master's degree at New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Despite her degrees, she is considered to be a self-taught artist.

Work
Joellyn Duesberry was a plein air painter, who began "her canvases outdoors on an easel and finish[ed] them in the studio, frequently making monotypes in between."

She moved to Denver in 1985, and embraced the Colorado landscape in her art. In that year she received an Individual Painting Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to work with Richard Diebenkorn.

In 1997, Duesberry won the Benjamin Altman Landscape Prize from the National Academy of Design. While she had a World Views residency with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) from 1998-1999, Duesberry painted city studies in studio space in some vacant offices of the World Trade Center's North Tower. She says that, because of her connection to the World Trade Center, the tone of her painting saddened after 9/11.

In 2005, a PBS documentary was made of Joellyn Duesberry's life, work, and creative process titled Joellyn Duesberry: Dialogue with the Artist.

Her works are held by institutions such as Metropolitan Museum of Art and Smith College Museum of Art.

Publications
 1998: A Covenant of Seasons: Monotypes by Joellyn T. Duesberry, Poetry by Pattiann Rogers,
 2011: Elevated Perspective: The Paintings of Joellyn Duesberry,

Personal life and death
In 1984, Duesberry met Dr. Ira Kowal, a Denver cardiologist, while at a dinner party in Vail. They married in 1986 and lived in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Duesberry died from pancreatic cancer, aged 72, on August 5, 2016. She was  survived by her husband; a sister, Pat Washko; stepdaughters Rebekah Kowal and Jessica Kowal, and extended family.

References

External links
 Official website
 Joellyn Duesberry: Dialogue with the Artist

1944 births
2016 deaths
American landscape painters
American women painters
New York University Institute of Fine Arts alumni
Artists from Richmond, Virginia
Smith College alumni
20th-century American women artists
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
Deaths from cancer in Colorado
21st-century American women

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


AOL has presented itself ahead in the market compared to its competitors while presenting something new and easy to use service. The AOL has successfully established its name in the software technologies and it has also made its background in email services, instant messaging, web portal and later on in web browser in the past. AOL is now an established and successful web portal and online service provider.
Currently, the AOL provides services of AOL Desktop Gold an easy to use, an all-in-one desktop which includes mail, browsing, search, content.
It's always wise to clear all the stored cache, cookies, history, and footprints before switching to other solutions of AOL mail login error.
It is because these stored pieces of files can cause AOL sign-in problems if they are not cleared periodically. Although these files helped you to access the information faster after clearing all the unwanted files from your system, the system will lose the data that had helped you in reaching directly to the websites and customised pages.
● For deleting the history, first, open the browser you currently use for AOL mail account.
● Press CTRL+H keys on the keyboard and open the history page.
● On the next screen which comes up, select on the 'Clear browsing history' option and then select all boxes like download history, browsing history, cookies, and other site data, cache, passwords, and more.
● After selecting the browsing histories click on 'Clear data' button to confirm the action.
● Now click on 'Advanced 'tab and clear all the unwanted junk stored on the system's browser.
Note that all the above steps can be followed for all the browsers except a few exceptions.
● For resolving the issue of AOL Mail Sign in Error, try changing the browser's security settings.
● Choose the relevant browser from the list (below) that you're using for AOL mail account.
● Ensure first that you're using the advanced version of Internet Explorer.
● Then open the Internet Explorer and tap on Tools icon at the top-right window corner.
● Select the Internet options and click on the Security tab in the newly opened window.
● Click on the Enable Protection mode checkbox. Click on the 'OK' button to return on the previous window.
● After this add AOL to your trusted sites.
● Then, Restart Internet Explorer to apply the saved changes.
● Click on the Help button on the menu bar and select the 'Restart with Add-ons Disabled' option.
● Press and hold the SHIFT keys, while you start the Firefox.
● You will see two options in the opened dialogue box.
● Then click on "Start in Safe mode" option to disable all the themes and extensions.
● If the problem still persists then try rectifying the Browser's Bookmark, this may help in resolving the issue.
A Blerk Error 4 prompts on system's screen while loading AOL mail. To solve this AOL Sign in or login problems online, you need to modify the browser's privacy and system's firewall settings.
● First, open the concerned browser that you're using for AOL mail.
● Click on Tools next, at the top-right corner or x you can use shortcut key- Alt+X.
● Then select Internet Options to open a window.
● Then go to the Privacy tab and select the desired setting by scrolling the slider up or down.
● Then set it as default and click on 'OK' button.
You can use these steps to change Privacy settings of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
You need to modify Firewall settings since Firewall software is similar to a filter that blocks certain unknown websites.
● Type "Windows Firewall" in the search box of the window.
● Next, check that HTTP:// *.aol.com is allowed expressly by clicking on "Allowed Programs" option.
● Unchecked the box which is in front of web filtering options.
● Restart the browser and to try AOL mail sign-in.
● Open the concerned browser you are using for AOL mail and go to Internet options.
● Then, select the 'Internet' icon under the Security tab.
● Tap on a custom level and then search scripting section.
● Then, go to Active Scripting and Scripting of Java Applets section. Enable them by clicking in the checkbox to and then tap on 'OK' button to close the window.
● Under Privacy tab, you click on the advanced option to select Override Automatic cookies handling.
● Under the first and third cookies please check the Accept dialogue-box.
● Lastly, click on 'OK' button and restart the browser to fix problems signing in to AOL Mail.
● Then tap on Internet Options from the sub menu.
● Select Advanced Tab and then click on the 'Reset' button to open a dialogue-box named Reset Internet Explorer Settings.
● Confirm for reset to close the window.
● After the successful reset web settings, go to your AOL mail login page.
● Click on Chrome menu situated at the top-right corner of the browser window.
● Then tap on settings and select the Show Advanced Options.
● Under the Reset Settings option, click on the Reset button for successful web settings completion.
Similarly, you can follow these steps for a Firefox and Safari browsers.
Firewall is the main hurdle for making the URLs more unfriendly, so you need to first-disable this pop-up blocking software.
● Type "Windows Firewall" in the search box.
● Click on the "Allowed Programs" option and check that if HTTP:// *.aol.com is allowed expressly.
● Deselect the web filtering box and then restart the browser.
● Then type URL of AOL mail web page on browser's window and check if this AOL mail problem persists.
● Click on the Start Button and tap on the Programs option from the list.
● Then select Default Programs to open a new window.
● Choose the Set your Default programs option from the given list.
● From the menu bar, select the browser you are using for AOL mail login.
● Then click on 'Set this program as default' option and tap on 'OK' button to confirm the changes.
AOL users must update the saved password if they recently have changed AOL password, ensure to update it.
● Navigate to the Saved password pages.
● Select the AOL mail from the list and click on the right side to further access and tap on details option.
● Update the password and click on the 'Done' button to confirm the action.
● First, open the Control Panel on your PC and then search for 'System and Security' option.
● Then select Windows Update to navigate to the next page.
● Check if an update is available by clicking on 'Check update' button and refreshing the screen.
● Then search for the AOL email update file and press update button to confirm the action.
● In the end, restart your browser to apply the changes.
● After you encounter this error message check the firewall or the browsers privacy settings.
● A similar problem faced by the users is ZOIDS Error 8, which mainly occurs due to a web browser or the latest software AOL version.
While using the username and password that isn't supported by the AOL system this problem may occur. Also if you reinstall AOL desktop gold in your system then you must login with same account type.
If the problem of blank screen persists, then it clearly indicates the problem with the web settings on the browser, non-friendly URLs, or disabled Java scripting and cookies.
The problems such as Cookies, cache, footprints, and history stored on the computer can lead to AOL missing screen. The AOL sign-in problems may also arise due to the installation of multiple browsers on the system which results in a change of the web settings.
If you facing AOL login Issues then click the link and follow the steps by step process .AOL has presented itself ahead in the market compared to its competitors while presenting something new and easy to use service.


This Friday, August 26th is our first monthly scheduled Parent Lunch Day/Dress Down Day/Professional Development Half Day. Parents of PS and K5-6 grade students can eat lunch as usual with their child in the cafeteria, outside picnic area or in the SCC. After your lunch you may then take your child home for the remainder of the day or leave them in class and aftercare. Jr. High and Senior High students will have an early release at 12:00 PM. Chick-fil-A, originally scheduled to sell lunch at 12:00 PM will not be on campus as I originally stated last Friday, but will be on campus all other half day schedules. The release times for Friday are: K5-1st /11:30 AM, 2nd -3rd/11:40 AM, 4th-6th/11:55 AM and 7th -12th/12:00 PM. Teachers will carry sign-out sheets with them in the cafeteria, should you take your child home after lunch.
This Sunday is the BCS Back to School Recognition and Prayer at both the 9:30 AM and 11:15 AM services at Grace Fellowship. You are cordially invited to stand and be counted as a valuable member of the @BCSbulldogWPB family. If you don't have a home church, I cordially invite you to attend.
Storm Update: Please know that the administration of BCS is keeping a watchful eye on the unnamed storm presently called Invest 99-L as it travels northwesterly through the tropics projected for landfall along the Florida coast sometime between Saturday and Sunday. If it strengthens and the opening of school is questioned over the weekend, let me remind you that BCS follows the call of the Palm Beach County School District regarding the closing of school. The PBCSD website can be found at palmbeachschools.org. Also look for communications from BCS to keep you updated on the storm's landfall projection and possible school closure.
JH/HS Retreat Update: By now you've likely heard that next week's JH/HS Retreat at the Lake Placid Conference Center has been postponed. The tentative rescheduled dates are Tuesday through Thursday, September 6th, 7th, & 8th. New permission slips will be sent out next week.
This year's coupon book is a great value of local savings and a great way to support BCS. As of this week, the class competition group leaders are: PS2-4/Mrs. Vogt, K5-2nd/Mrs. Stothers, 3rd-6th/Mrs. Leuthen, 7th-9th/Mrs. Forester and 10th-12th/Miss Sullivan. The class winner of each grade level grouping will be the recipient of a class party sponsored by the administration and Mrs. Lewis. The class competition ends on October 31, 2016.
Royal Palm Baptist Church is hosting a Visionary Family Conference this weekend, August 26th and 27th. If you are interested in attending the conference, please view the following link http://www.fbcrpb.com/ministries/childrens-ministry/visionary-family-conference---2016.html.
The conference will assist families in the areas of marriage, parenting and finances. The main speaker is Dr. Rob Rienow, the founder of Visionary Family Ministries (www.visionaryfam.com), a pastor, international conference speaker, and the author of several books including Visionary Parenting and Visionary Marriage. Dr. Rienow is passionate about encouraging healthy marriages and equipping parents to make disciples of their children. Don't miss this important conference.
Need Mommy Time? Grace Fellowship and the Women of Grace Ministry have kicked off a great program called Mom2Mom that meets each Tuesday morning to assist moms in the school and church. The program provides a time of encouragement, equipping, and educating from God's Word on the value and impact being a mom can have, not only on your family, but the world! Mom2Mom is for moms by moms and meets Tuesday mornings at 9:30 am in the GF Worship Center Chapel. Join us for a light breakfast, and childcare is provided. Contact Luisel Lawler at 561.253.5622 for more information.
Thank you for your patience, cooperation and consideration. Have a great day.


text:
Aston Villa: Gerrard should axe Trezeguet in January
3 minute read	 4/1/2022 | 09:20am
Now that the 2022 January transfer window has opened, this will allow a wide variety of clubs to make some transfer deals to help them strengthen their squads.
One deal that Aston Villa and Steven Gerrard should be looking to complete would be to move Trezeguet out and potentially bring in a new winger to replace him.
Since joining the Midlands club back in the 2019 summer transfer window from Turkish club Kasimpasa, the winger has made a total of 64 appearances for Villa across all competitions but has only managed to score nine goals and provide five assists along the way.
His latest appearance for the Villans came during their recent 2-1 defeat against Brentford where he came off the substitutes bench to replace Bertrand Traore in the final ten minutes of the match to try and grab a positive result for the travelling side.
Instead of that, the only notable thing Trezeguet did during his short spell on the pitch was an eye-catching attempt to win a penalty for his side which did not go down well on social media, as he threw himself to the floor after no contact.
Prior to the serious knee injury that has kept him out of action for a considerable amount of time from April to October last year, Trezeguet, who is currently picking up a weekly wage of £47k-per-week according to Salary Sport, was on the end of some criticism from former Villa attacker Gabby Agbonlahor who had previously described him as a "frustrating" player to watch.
Should Villa get rid of Trezeguet in January?
In addition to this, there have been reports in recent weeks and months that the Egyptian could be one of a number of Villa players that Gerrard could look to move on in January, as well as there being a number of different attacking players linked with a move to Villa Park in January.
Taking all of this into account, it could be worth Villa getting Trezeguet off their wage bill this month if Gerrard thinks he isn't capable of delivering the sort of performances he wants to see from his players and isn't likely to be playing regularly, especially if they're able to bring a new player into replace him.
After all, after his horrendous bit of play-acting last weekend, it would be a surprise if we saw him in the claret and blue again.
In other news: Lange could solve Gerrard's big AVFC issue with swoop for "complete" £24.3m-rated gem – opinion
Article title: Aston Villa: Gerrard should axe Trezeguet in January