Network Archives - Page 9 of 18

Jun 23

‘Iron Chef’: Alton Brown on Why He Departed Food Network for Netflix

Just like “Iron Chef,” Alton Brown is synonymous with Food Network. But now, both the beloved show and the celebrity chef have moved to Netflix for a new version of the competition series that will be co-hosted by Brown.

With Netflix’s “Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend,” which premiered this week, Brown has officially departed from his long tenure at Food Network, where he was a staple for 21 years.

Brown first joined Food Network in the late ’90s, and was the host and creator of “Good Eats,” as well as the host of “Iron Chef America,” “Cutthroat Kitchen” and a slew of other series at Food Network and the Cooking Channel.

Though his exit was never formally announced, Brown’s last deal with Food Network took him through 2020, and since, he has quietly left their airwaves. In 2021, new episodes of his shows have aired — “Good Eats: The Return,” which debuted on Discovery+ in early 2021, and a special version of “Chopped” in the summer of that same year — but those were all filmed before he opted to head to Netflix for the new “Iron Chef.”

Brown tells Variety that he caught wind of Netflix rebooting “Iron Chef” a few years ago, and was immediately interested in joining the series.

“That took a little bit of convincing on a lot of different people’s parts. But I knew that the show was going to be happening, and I was sick with jealousy over the idea that I was at the wrong network at the wrong time,” Brown tells Variety. “One day, my agent finally called me up after I had nagged him almost daily, and that was it. It was done. There was never a second thought for me. It meant removing myself from one network, but that was not a hard decision. Timing just worked out that I was able to extricate myself from that.”

Brown, who co-hosts the new “Iron Chef” with Kristen Kish, the TV chef known for winning the 10th season of “Top Chef,” is not the only familiar face who has reurned to Kitchen Stadium. Mark Dacascos is also back as the chairman, who introduces the secret ingredient at the top of each episode. The cast of Iron Chefs includes Curtis Stone, Marcus Samuelsson, Dominique Crenn, Gabriela Camara and Ming Tsai.

The competition series moved to Netflix after it wasn’t renewed at Food Network, where it had aired for 13 seasons. “Iron Chef” debuted on Food Network in 2005, after becoming a major phenomenon on Japanese television where the series originated with Fuji Television.

“Iron Chef” executive producer and director, Eytan Keller, shares how the show landed at Netflix, telling Variety he began his association with the series when it first launched on Food Network, which is when he met Brown, now one of his close friends.

“I actually acquired the international rights to ‘Iron Chef,’ so I was involved beyond just being on Scripps, at that time, and I

Jun 21

Quantum computer programming for dummies

For would-be quantum programmers scratching their heads over how to jump into the game as quantum computers proliferate and become publicly accessible, a new beginner’s guide provides a thorough introduction to quantum algorithms and their implementation on existing hardware.

“Writing quantum algorithms is radically different from writing classical computing programs and requires some understanding of quantum principles and the mathematics behind them,” said Andrey Y. Lokhov, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the recently published guide in ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing. “Our guide helps quantum programmers get started in the field, which is bound to grow as more and more quantum computers with more and more qubits become commonplace.”

In succinct, stand-alone sections, the guide surveys 20 quantum algorithms—including famous, foundational quantum algorithms, such as Grover’s Algorithm for database searching and much more, and Shor’s Algorithm for factoring integers. Making the real-world connection, the guide then walks programmers through implementing the algorithms on IBM’s publicly available 5-qubit IBMQX4 quantum computer and others. In each case, the authors discuss the results of the implementation and explain the differences between the simulator and the actual hardware runs.

“This article was the result of a rapid-response effort by the Information Science and Technology Institute at Los Alamos, where about 20 Lab staff members self-selected to learn about and implement a standard quantum algorithm on the IBM Q quantum system,” said Stephan Eidenbenz, a senior quantum computing scientist at Los Alamos, a coauthor of the article and director of ISTI when work on it began.

The goal was to prepare the Los Alamos workforce for the quantum era by guiding those staff members with little or no quantum computing experience all the way through the implementation of a quantum algorithm on a real-life quantum computer, Eidenbenz said.

These staff members, in addition to a few students and well-established quantum experts, make up the long author list of this “crowd-sourced” overview article that has already been heavily cited, Eidenbenz said.

The first section of the guide covers the basics of quantum computer programming, explaining qubits and qubit systems, fundamental quantum concepts of superposition and entanglement and quantum measurements before tackling the deeper material of unitary transformations and gates, quantum circuits and quantum algorithms.

The section on the IBM quantum computer covers the set of gates available for algorithms, the actual physical gates implemented, how the qubits are connected and the sources of noise, or errors.

Another section looks at the various types of quantum algorithms. From there, the guide dives into the 20 selected algorithms, with a problem definition, description and steps for implementing each one on the IBM or, in a few cases, other computers.

Extensive references at the end of the guide will help interested readers go deeper in their explorations of quantum algorithms.

Developing the

Jun 20

Snowflake is going big on one of the world’s most popular programming languages

Snowflake has announced plans to bring Python “to the forefront” of its Data Cloud platform with upgrades that extend support for the programming language.

At its annual user conference, Snowflake Summit, the database company announced an expansion of its Snowpark developer framework that will give users easy access to a bounty of open source Python packages and libraries.

Now moving from private beta to public preview, Snowpark for Python promises to “improve programmability for data scientists, data engineers and app developers”, Snowflake says.

Snowpark for Python

Snowflake first introduced Snowpark in preview back in January 2021, before pushing the service to general availability earlier this year. Broadly, the objective was to give developers a simple and efficient way to program data in their language of choice.

“Our goal was to eliminate inefficient data pipelines and optimize processes and tasks that companies may be using just to get everyone on the same (data) page,” said the firm, at the time of the launch.

“Ultimately, Snowpark enables teams with different skill sets to collaborate and work on the same data, process data faster and more easily, and make data security and governance a top priority.”

When it first went live, the Snowpark sandbox offered support for Java and Scala only, but the latest update now brings another of the world’s most popular programming languages into the fray.

To supplement the rollout of Snowpark for Python, Snowflake also lifted the lid on a series of related upgrades that are currently under development. These include a native integration with Streamlit and other facilities designed to support the development and deployment of machine learning products written in Python.

Separately, the firm announced a private preview for a new service that will allow customers to access data stored in on-premise servers from within the Snowflake ecosystem, affording organizations the benefits of the cloud-based platform without the hassle of data migration.

“We are investing in Python to make it easier for data scientists, data engineers and application developers to build even more in the Data Cloud, without governance trade-offs,” said Christian Kleinerman, SVP Product at Snowflake.

“Our latest innovations extend the value of our customers’ data-driven ecosystems, enabling them with more access to data and new watts to develop with it in Snowflake. [These capabilities] are changing the way teams experiment, iterate and collaborate with data to drive value.”

Disclaimer: Our flights and accommodation for Snowflake Summit 2022 were funded by Snowflake, but the organization had no editorial control over the content of this article.

Jun 20

Network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified | Syria

A network of more than two dozen conspiracy theorists, frequently backed by a coordinated Russian campaign, sent thousands of disinformation tweets to distort the reality of the Syrian conflict and deter intervention by the international community, new analysis reveals.

Data gathered by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) identified a network of social media accounts, individuals, outlets and organizations who disseminated disinformation about the conflict, with 1.8 million people following their every word. The three principal false narratives promoted by the network of conspiracy theorists involved misrepresenting the White Helmets, the volunteer organization working to evacuate people in Syria. They also focused on the denial or distortion of facts about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons and on attacking the findings of the world’s foremost chemical weapons watchdog.

The White Helmets became a target of Russian ire after documenting incidents such as the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun in 2017, which killed 92 people, a third of them children. A UN unit later concluded there were “reasonable grounds to believe that Syrian forces dropped a bomb dispersing sarin” on the town in Idlib province.

The new analysis, contained in a report by The Syria Campaign, also found that official Russian government accounts played a key role in creating and spreading false content, with the Russian embassy to the UK and Syria playing a prominent role..

Of the 47,000 disinformation tweets sent by the core of 28 conspiracy theorists over seven years from 2015 to 2021, 19,000 were original posts, which were retweeted more than 671,000 times.

Among those named in the report as an influential spreader of disinformation are Vanessa Beeley, a self-described independent journalist whose conspiracy theories have been cited as evidence by Russia at the UN security council.

In September 2015 Beeley accused White Helmets of being in league with al-Qaida and other terrorist organisations, claiming that the footage they gather as they rescue civilians from bombed-out buildings is staged.

Girl leans against wall with young child in her arms. Woman and baby in foreground but out of focus — A Syrian girl holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a makeshift hospital after a reported gas attack on the rebel-held town of Douma, Syria, on 22 January 2018. Photograph: Hasan Mohamed/AFP/Getty Images

Farouq Habib, White Helmets deputy manager, said: “At first we really thought this could just be someone who didn’t have enough correct info, and we should contact her to explain.

But then with some research, we realized it’s deliberate and systematic.”

There is also a group of British academics accused of spreading pro-Syrian regime disinformation and conspiracy theories promoted by Russia. Since 2020, journalist Aaron Mate at the Grayzone is said by the report to have overtaken Beeley as the most prolific spreader of disinformation among the 28 conspiracy theorists identified.

Lina Sergie Attar, founder and chief executive of the Karam Foundation, said: “It’s insulting that a group of western conspiracy theorists think they hold a higher moral standard but just spread their lies.”

Others include Canadian independent journalist Eva Bartlett who appeared on a Syrian government panel at the

Jun 20

The Pros and Cons of Synching Your Devices

Over the past decade as people have become increasing dependent on multiple devices that require a constant connection to the internet, which has made syncing devices more common. Whether it’s your smartphone or your console, using multiple devices with the same user settings makes juggling between devices easier.

However, syncing your devices has pros and cons, just like everything else. If you aren’t aware of how synching affects you and your devices, here’re the most common pros and cons you need to be aware of.

Pros of Synchronizing Devices

Easy Access

The biggest advantage synching devices give you is easy access to your files across multiple platforms. For example, by syncing your smartphone and desktop, you can access files on your PC through your smartphone. This ease of access means you longer have to worry about saving or transferring files and folders across multiple devices for accessibility.

Collaboration

A big advantage of synching devices in a work or study space is that it allows multiple people to collaborate on the same project. For example, a writer and an editor can collaborate on the same document, even if they aren’t on the same device. This alone has revolutionized many industries and workspaces as tasks no longer have to be queued one after another.

Over the last two years, many workers have benefitted from successfully collaborating from home, which in no small way can be attributed to device syncing.

Backup

Synching your devices also allows you to create backups of your files and folders across multiple devices without having to transfer them manually. This easily allows you to recover lost data from other devices if your currently used device is damaged or lost.

In case you lose data because your device isn’t synced to a network and had a hard drive failure, it’s still possible to recover the lost data. But you will need dependable computer repair services to do so as advanced data recovery procedures will have to be performed on the faulty hard drive.

Easy Setup

Most modern devices will ask for your permission to sync with other devices when setting it up, provided the device has sync options. New devices can simply be synched to your pre-established settings for your other devices, helping you avoid long and tedious set-up times. This is especially useful in an office with multiple machines.

The benefit of having an easy set up for synching devices has allowed educational institutions and industries worldwide to function properly over the last two years of the pandemic. In particular, the software and SAAS industry has significantly benefited from this technological functionality.

Cons of Synchronizing Devices

Data Privacy

The first con of synching devices is that it makes all the devices in the network it belongs to highly vulnerable. Any devices synced to a network can come under cyberattack or malware infection at any given moment. If that happens, then the hacker can also gain access to other devices in the network. In case of malware infections, other