2018 – Page 52 – Impact Lab

AI, Amazon.com, App, Automation, Big Problems

Yes, Alexa is recording mundane details of your life, and it’s creepy as hell

May 29, 2018

I’m not kicking our smart speaker out of the house just yet, but the consequences of having it in my family’s life are becoming clear.

Since last year I’ve had a smart speaker in my living room—an Echo Dot. My family uses it mostly to ask Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa, to play music. But after I saw a report that an Alexa-enabled speaker owned by a family in Portland, Oregon, had recorded a conversation and sent it to a contact, I started wondering: what is it picking up on at my house when we’re not talking to it directly?

Continue reading… “Yes, Alexa is recording mundane details of your life, and it’s creepy as hell”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robots

Will AI ever become conscious?

May 30, 2018

When science-fiction worlds introduce robots that look and behave like people, sooner or later those worlds’ inhabitants confront the question of robot self-awareness. If a machine is built to truly mimic a human, its “brain” must be complex enough not only to process information as ours does, but also to achieve certain types of abstract thinking that make us human. This includes recognition of our “selves” and our place in the world, a state known as consciousness.

One example of a sci-fi struggle to define AI consciousness is AMC’s “Humans” (Tues. 10/9c starting June 5). At this point in the series, human-like machines called Synths have become self-aware; as they band together in communities to live independent lives and define who they are, they must also battle for acceptance and survival against the hostile humans who created and used them.

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Bitcoin, Economy, Money Talk

Ryan Van Wagenen discusses how cryptocurrency will play into digital currency going forward

May 30, 2018

Ryan Van Wagenen has been with Global Private Equity for nearly a decade and is no stranger to the cryptocurrency movement. Since being promoted to Director within GPE in 2011, Van Wagenen has been covering the firm’s technology coverage and has seen a lot of growth in the sector. The question one must ask about crypto is what role it will play in digital currency going forward.

The crypto market that trades diverse virtual coins can look scary, exciting, as well as mysterious most especially to the casual observer. Bitcoin is the pioneer in cryptocurrency. It drastically surged in price and steeply gone down recently. Initial Coin Offerings or ICO for short in the meantime is emerging at a remarkable rate.

On one end, there are positive bulls and on the other extreme bears like Harvard Economist Kenneth Rogoff who is calling for the fall of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. Despite the fact that a number of monetary advisers all over the world remain dubious and doubtful, it is hard to take for granted the remarkable amount of money invested in this kind of currency. Two premier futurists, study and forecast technology trends regarding where they see virtual currency headed and why you must be aware of it.

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Automation, Aviation, Drone, Military, military drones

Isreal’s self -flying ‘Cormorant’ whisks wounded soldiers to safety

May 28, 2018

Tactical Robotics’ Cormorant can carry up to 1,000 pounds and offers a range of 20 miles while flying at more than 100 mph.TACTICAL ROBOTS

FIVE MEN IN white overalls lifted the stretcher off the ground, one of them taking care to lay a clear plastic IV bag that’s connected to the patient onto his stomach. They marched him toward what looks like a black inflatable dinghy on small wheels, crossed with a fly. The stretcher was loaded in through a hatch on the side, and then the men stood back.

The patient was actually a medical training mannequin, but that didn’t stop him (it, rather) from taking part in the first “mission representative” demonstration of a new aircraft. That bean-shaped thing is called the Cormorant, and it was built by Israel-based Tactical Robotics to make battlefield evacuations—which today rely on helicopters—quicker and safer, thanks to a new design and the fact that there’s no human pilot involved.

Continue reading… “Isreal’s self -flying ‘Cormorant’ whisks wounded soldiers to safety”

Automation, Electric Automobile, Electric Vehicles, Environment, Transportation

Electric vehicles begin to bite into oil demand

May 28, 2018

Employees work on the assembly line of the electric bus at a BYD’s production base on January 23, 2018 in Xi’an, China. China’s largest electric carmaker BYD sold 113,669 new energy vehicles in 2017, up 13.4 percent year-on-year. (Photo by VCG/Getty Images)

Projections have suggested that the advent of electric vehicles will have a dramatic impact on oil demand and now its starting to show. With China adding the equivalent of London’s bus fleet every 5 weeks, that’s 279,000 barrels of oil a day removed from demand.

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3D Printer, Driverless vehicles, Electric Vehicles

3D-printed, driverless boats developed

May 28, 2018

The autonomous boats offer high maneuverability and precise control. They can be built using low-cost printer, making mass manufacturing more feasible.

MIT scientists have designed a fleet of 3D-printed, driverless boats that could ferry goods and people, helping clear up road congestion in waterway-rich cities such as Amsterdam, Bangkok and Venice – where canals run alongside and under bustling streets and bridges.

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Botnet, Hot Issues, Intelligence, Internet, Legal Issues, Science & Technology News

Are bots entitled to free speech?

May 27, 2018

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BOTS. How will the courts address free-expression rights for artificially intelligent communicators? This conversation is coming, and it may push the Supreme Court to do something it has avoided: define who is and is not a journalist.

For nearly half a century, the US legal system has lived a double life. On the one hand, the Supreme Court has held that journalists do not have greater or lesser rights than other citizens (see Branzburg v. Hayes). On the other, the lower courts have generally ignored or let stand numerous laws or privileges that provide journalists special protections. These include the qualified First Amendment–based reporter’s privilege in some federal jurisdictions and fee waivers in FOI statutes.

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Architecture, China, City Planning, Science & Technology News, Tiny House

Pipe dreams: can ‘nano apartments’ solve Hong Kong’s housing crisis?

May 27, 2018

The city with the world’s tiniest and costliest living spaces may soon convert drainpipes into homes. The aim is to get young people on the property ladder – but how small is too small?

“Both indoors and out, life in Hong Kong can feel pretty suffocating at times,” says 39-year-old finance worker Wai Li, who rents a 200 sq ft (19 sq m) “nano flat” by herself in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan neighbourhood. Li’s living area is little more than the size of two standard Hong Kong parking spaces.

Continue reading… “Pipe dreams: can ‘nano apartments’ solve Hong Kong’s housing crisis?”

Automation, Big Problems, Business, City Planning, Employment, Science & Technology News

The coming jobs apocalypse

May 27, 2018

Congress and the Trump administration have yet to create a coherent policy response to a widely forecast social and economic tsunami resulting from automation, including the potential for decades of flat wages and joblessness. But cities and regions are starting to act on their own.

What’s happening: In Indianapolis, about 338,000 people are at high risk of automation taking their jobs, according to a new report. In Phoenix, the number is 650,000. In both cases, that’s 35% of the workforce. In northeastern Ohio, about 40,000 workers are at high risk.

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DaVinci Institute, Futurist, Tom Frey

Interview with Thomas Frey – Futurist Speaker and Executive Director at the DaVinci Institute

May 28, 2018

Over the past decade, Thomas Frey has built an enormous following around the world based on his ability to develop accurate visions of the future and describe the opportunities ahead.

His keynote talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, First Data, Boeing, Capital One, Bell Canada, Visa, Ford Motor Company, Times of India, and many more.

In his interview with ‘The IoT Magazine’, he touches upon how he is contributing to the world as a futurist, whether machine intelligence will exceed human intelligence in coming times, future trends in IoT and how IoT will change our lives and also talks about his book ‘Epiphany Z’.

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Analysis, Human Behavior, Latest Trend

The historically low birthrate, explained in 3 charts

May 26, 2018

US women are having fewer and fewer babies. In some ways, it’s a sign of progress.

The number of births in the US dropped by 2 percent between 2016 and 2017, to 60.2 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, continuing a general downturn that started with the great recession of 2008. Getty Images/Ikon Images

American women are having so few babies these days that the fertility rate has hit a historic low, according to stunning provisional data just published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Continue reading… “The historically low birthrate, explained in 3 charts”

Amazon.com, Business, Food, Shopping

How Amazon is using Whole Foods in a bid for total retail domination

May 26, 2018

The Seattle giant believes selling you groceries is the key to selling you everything else.

At 9 a.m. on June 16, 2017, Whole Foods employees packed into the main level of the company’s Austin headquarters. Only an hour earlier Amazon had announced that it was acquiring the high-end natural grocer, and the corporate staffers were as shocked as the rest of the public. Amazon had been militant about leaks during the seven weeks that the two companies had been in negotiations, and the vast majority of those working inside the building had been unaware that the deal was afoot.

Continue reading… “How Amazon is using Whole Foods in a bid for total retail domination”