What is an artificial neural network? They power many technologies such as Apple’s A12 Bionic chip, but what are they? Forbes breaks it down.

Artificial neural networks use different layers of mathematical processing to make sense of the information it’s fed. Typically, an artificial neural network has anywhere from dozens to millions of artificial neurons—called units—arranged in a series of layers. The input layer receives various forms of information from the outside world. This is the data that the network aims to process or learn about.

What I find especially fascinating is how much of a black box an ANN is. This means that while it can figure out a mathematical function, studying its structure won’t tell you what function it’s trying to figure out.

Former Google chief Eric Scmidt predicts that by 2028 the internet will split into two separate webs: A Chinese version and an American version.

If you think of China as like ‘Oh yeah, they’re good with the Internet,’ you’re missing the point. Globalization means that they get to play too. I think you’re going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. There’s a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.

There’s basically already a separate Chinese internet behind the Great Firewall of China. But the prediction here is that through the country’s Belt and Road Initiative, other countries might follow China’s example. And Google is helping.

News over the weekend report that Apple rejects violence, sex, and politics in the company’s video platform.

The result is an approach out of step with the triumphs of the video-streaming era. Other platforms, such as HBO and Amazon.com Inc., have made their mark in original content with edgier programming that often wins critical acclaim.

And other platforms are free to do so. I personally don’t see a problem with this, and it should come as no surprise since Apple has always positioned itself as family-friendly. It may not explicitly call itself such, but it is. And that’s fine. If I want sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, I can find it on Netflix.

An email thread obtained by the Wall Street Journal shows Google engineers talking about political search tweaks related to President Trump’s 2017 travel ban. They specifically discussed using Google search to highlight pro-immigration organizations.

“To the extent of my knowledge, we’d be breaching precedent if we only gave Highlights access to organizations that support a certain view of the world in a time of political conflict,” one email said, according to WSJ.

Google said they were just brainstorming. This seems likely to me. Google might favor its own products in search results, but going so far as to interfere with political issues? I’m not so sure. But it made me wonder how easily a roque engineer could secretly alter the search algorithms.

Lance Ulanoff has a great piece on Medium where he writes about the iPhone XS camera technology. He talked with photographer Pete Souza about the new iPhones, as well as Phil Schiller, Graham TownsendApple’s senior director of camera hardware, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Apple’s vice president of software.

One of the really big things we aim for is the first phone, the 1 millionth phone, and the 10 millionth phone we want that experience to be as close as we can humanly manage, and we put a lot of effort, and it’s not something we talk a lot about… but it’s really important to us that there’s no big variation in performance between any phone anywhere the world,” Townsend said.