Tesla CEO Elon Musk has doubled down on his vision of car driving of the future.
During a conference call on its latest earnings announcement, Musk said he foresaw individuals sharing their electric, self-driving vehicles.
“The way things are obviously rolling towards is a shared electrical autonomy model,” said Musk.
Continue reading… “Elon Musk talks car sharing for the future”
They call it “the hive,” or “the grid.” Or sometimes just: “the machine.” It’s a huge structure that fills a warehouse on the outskirts of Andover, a small and quiet town in southeast England. It’s impossible to take in at a single glance, but standing on a maintenance walkway near the building’s rafters, you look over what seems to be a huge chessboard, populated entirely by robots. There are more than a thousand of them, each the size and shape of a washing machine, and they wheel about, night and day, moving groceries. Their job is to be cheaper and more efficient than humans, and they are very good at it.
The hive-grid-machine is the creation of Ocado, a British online-only supermarket that’s made a name for itself in recent years designing highly automated warehouses and selling the tech to other grocery chains. When fully up and running, Ocado’s Andover operation will be its most advanced yet, processing 3.5 million items or around 65,000 orders every week. It’s also a perfect example of the wave of automation slowly hitting countries around the world. The tasks being undertaken by Ocado’s bots are so basic they’re best described by simple verbs — “lifting,” “moving,” “sorting” — and that means they exist in various forms in a range of industries. And when the price is right, someone will want a machine to do those jobs, too.
Continue reading… “Welcome to the automated warehouse of the future”
Richard Florida: One of the most persistent myths in America today is that urban areas are innovative and rural areas are not. While it is overwhelmingly clear that innovation and creativity tend to cluster in a small number of cities and metropolitan areas, it’s a big mistake to think that they somehow skip over rural America.
A series of studies from Tim Wojan and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service documents the drivers of rural innovation. Their findings draw on a variety of data sets, including a large-scale survey that compares innovation in urban and rural areas called the Rural Establishment Innovation Survey (REIS). This is based on some 11,000 business establishments with at least five paid employees in tradable industries—that is, sectors that produce goods and services that are or could be traded internationally—in rural (or non-metro) and urban (metro) areas.
Continue reading… “The rise of the rural creative class”
A $25,000 robot barista serves 120 cups of coffee an hour — and it is part of a growing ‘robot revolution’ that could kill millions of jobs .
“I don’t see the robot revolution as a problem,” 24-year-old inventor Henry Hu told CNBC.
More restaurants and coffee shops are investing in automation and replacing jobs with robot labor.
Continue reading… “Robot barista reveals dangerous rise of automation”
Facebook is exploring the creation of its own cryptocurrency, a virtual token that would allow its billions of users around the world to make electronic payments, people familiar with Facebook’s plans told Cheddar.
“They are very serious about it,” said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unannounced plans.
Continue reading… “Facebook plans to create its own cryptocurrency”
SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the biggest names on Wall Street are warming up to Bitcoin, a virtual currency that for nearly a decade has been consigned to the unregulated fringes of the financial world.
The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange has been working on an online trading platform that would allow large investors to buy and hold Bitcoin, according to emails and documents viewed by The New York Times and four people briefed on the effort who asked to remain anonymous because the plans were still confidential.
Continue reading… “Bitcoin sees Wall Street warm to trading virtual currency”
All Alexa skills developers can now monetize their voice apps with in-skill purchases, Amazon announced last week.
The introduction of in-skill purchasing allows skills developers to sell premium digital content — such as subscription services or one-time purchases that augment a skill’s free offerings — within an Alexa skill.
Continue reading… “Amazon rolls out new ways to monetize Alexa’s skills”
Aircraft makers—from multinational giants to garage startups—offer a crazy variety of visions for air taxis that Uber might use.
The early days of flight saw a huge variety of designs—featuring oddities like planes with what we now call the “tail” in the front of the vehicle. After a few decades, the industry settled on the standard forms we recognize today based on cost and efficiency. But today electric technologies have made it possible to widen the space of what’s possible in terms of style, design, and material. “We’re at the same exciting period where we’re like, ‘Well, what is this supposed to look like?’” says Mark Moore, director of engineering, vehicle systems for the Uber Elevate air taxi program. “And no one, including myself, really knows the answer.”
If Uber is to get its “flying taxi” service off the ground, it will need dozens of launchpads and landing sites on rooftops around cities as a supportive infrastructure. At the ride-hailing company’s second annual Elevate conference in Los Angeles, six architecture firms presented their winning designs of what these so-called “Skyports” could look like. And holy cow, these things look straight out of Star Wars.
Continue reading… “These Uber Air ‘Skyport’ concepts look straight out of Star Wars”
Snapchat Spectacles v2 Close Up
Photos, not just video. No yellow ring alerting people to the camera. Underwater-capable. Classier colors with lighter lenses. Prescription options. Faster syncing. And a much slimmer frame and charging case. Snapchat fixed the biggest pain points of its Spectacles camera sunglasses with V2, which launch today for $150. The company only sold 220,000 pairs of V1, with their limited functionality, tricky exports and goofy hues. But V2 is stylish, convenient and useful enough to keep handy. They’re not revolutionary. They’re a wearable camera for everybody.
Continue reading… “Snapchat launches Spectacles V2, camera glasses you’ll actually wear”
Bioprinted materials can be used to repair damaged organs.
Bioprinting, a type of 3D printing, uses cells and other biological materials as “inks” to fabricate 3D biological structures. Bioprinted materials have the potential to repair damaged organs, cells, and tissues in the human body. In the future, bioprinting may be used to build entire organs from scratch, a possibility that could transform the field of bioprinting.
Continue reading… “What Is Bioprinting?”
With headlines predicting jobs being automated out of existence we begin imagining unrealistic consequences for what lies ahead.
Continue reading… “20 common jobs in 2040”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.