Facebook Is Making a Map of Everyone in the World
And they’re using a brand new A.I. technique and a whole lot of computing power to do it.
Facebook developers taught their neural-net algorithms to recognize what a building looked like from above in this data. Then, they turned the programs loose. The software estimated urban density by the number of buildings it could see, and extrapolated the best-available population data onto the settlements.
.. These photos will be cheaper than ever before, and they’ll be more recent: Thanks to cheaper rockets and advances in small satellite-building, some companies are promising “revisit rates” of six or seven times per week.
.. This new data won’t be valuable unless companies—especially financial companies—get good at deciphering it without human labor. Already, startups like Skybox (owned by Alphabet) and Descartes Labs say they’ve made advances in pulling information out of pictures without a person sitting at the table.
The Islamic State’s Retro Map
If any Western regime is thinking of restoring old Syria and Iraq, it is operating in a world of delusion. The central issue in the Middle East is the unity of the Jazira, and just who will control this critical heartland.
We Mapped the Uninsured. You’ll Notice a Pattern.
.. More than three million people in 19 states remain stuck in a “Medicaid gap,” too poor to qualify for subsidies in the new marketplaces, but unable to get into a government program.