Two decades ago, total government debt was estimated to sit at $20 trillion.
Since then, according to the latest figures by the IMF, the number has ballooned to $69.3 trillion with a debt to GDP ratio of 82% — the highest totals in human history.
Which countries owe the most money, and how do these figures compare?
Continue reading… “$69 trillion of world debt in one infographic”
Quantum supremacy, achieved?
The news recently was agog with the claim that the so-called and highly sought “quantum supremacy” had been achieved via an effort undertaken by Google researchers.
Not everyone agreed though that the Google effort warranted waving the superlative supremacy flag.
That’s not to say that the use of their 54-qubit Sycamore processor wasn’t notable, and in fact, does provide another handy stride toward achieving viable quantum computing, but whether it was the vaunted moment of true supreme magnificence is something that many would argue is premature and supremely debatable.
Continue reading… “Here’s how quantum computer supremacy will impact self-driving cars”
The Dutch company Port-Liner is building two giant all-electric barges dubbed the ‘Tesla ships‘. The company announced that the vessels will be ready by this autumn and will be inaugurated by sailing the Wilhelmina canal in the Netherlands.
The 100 million-euro project supported by a €7m subsidy from the European Union is expected to have a significant impact on local transport between the ports of Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Rotterdam.
Continue reading… “Large ‘Tesla ships’ all-electric container barges are launching this autumn”
Reinforcement learning (RL) is a widely used machine-learning technique that entails training AI agents or robots using a system of reward and punishment. So far, researchers in the field of robotics have primarily applied RL techniques in tasks that are completed over relatively short periods of time, such as moving forward or grasping objects.
A team of researchers at Google and Berkeley AI Research has recently developed a new approach that combines RL with learning by imitation, a process called relay policy learning. This approach, introduced in a paper prepublished on arXiv and presented at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) 2019 in Osaka, can be used to train artificial agents to tackle multi-stage and long-horizon tasks, such as object manipulation tasks that span over longer periods of time.
Continue reading… “Using imitation and reinforcement learning to tackle long-horizon robotic tasks”
Multimaterial multinozzle 3D printheads. Credit: Nature (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1736-8
3-D printers are revolutionizing manufacturing by allowing users to create any physical shape they can imagine on-demand. However, most commercial printers are only able to build objects from a single material at a time and inkjet printers that are capable of multimaterial printing are constrained by the physics of droplet formation. Extrusion-based 3-D printing allows a broad palette of materials to be printed, but the process is extremely slow. For example, it would take roughly 10 days to build a 3-D object roughly one liter in volume at the resolution of a human hair and print speed of 10 cm/s using a single-nozzle, single-material printhead. To build the same object in less than 1 day, one would need to implement a printhead with 16 nozzles printing simultaneously!
Continue reading… “Multimaterial 3-D printing manufactures complex objects, fast”
Davinci surgical system at Magdeburg University Hospital
It’s the classic trope of buddy cop movies: you introduce two characters with little in common aside from the job that they do. Maybe one’s old and the other’s young. Maybe one’s black and the other’s white. Maybe one’s a maverick and the other is a stickler for doing things by the book. At first they don’t get along. Perhaps one is new to the precinct and the other fears that they’re being phased out as a result. But, wouldn’t you know it, they turn out to be a great team. The strengths of one are the weaknesses of the other. The police chief might get pissed at their zany antics, but they’re much better friends than they are enemies. Could the same be true of humans and their relationship with robots?
The typical narrative, as cliché as any Lethal Weapon buddy cop movie ripoff, is that robots are here to steal our jobs. Unless you’re one of the people lucky enough to be building or selling the robots, you should view robots as the flashy new rival in town, hovering in the wings to replace you. But while there are certainly jobs that robots will take from humans (hopefully the dirty, dull, and dangerous jobs humans don’t really want), there are plenty of other jobs in which robots working alongside humans could greatly increase human productivity.
In doing so, they won’t just augment our abilities; they’ll make it possible to scale jobs in a way that was unimaginable in the pre-robot age.
Continue reading… “Robot overlords? More like co-verlords. The future is human-robot collaboration”
The days of going to a bank are coming to an end.
In the past 10 years, 15,000 bank branches have shut their doors for good. And foot traffic to banks has fallen by 50%. Bank branches are shutting down left and right for a simple reason… They’re useless!
These days, you can deposit a check by taking a photo with your phone. You can open a bank account or order a new credit card in five minutes over the internet. You can even take out a mortgage without ever seeing a human banker, thanks to disruptive services like Quicken Loans.
And it’s not just banks. Digital disruption is eating away at every “old” business model in finance. Everyone from stockbrokers to financial planners is under assault.
Continue reading… “The invisible company powers almost the entire finance industry”
Google is the latest big tech company to make a move into banking and personal financial services: The company is gearing up to offer checking accounts to consumers, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal, starting as early as next year. Google is calling the project “Cache,” and it’ll partner with banks and credit unions to offer the checking accounts, with the banks handling all financial and compliance activities related to the accounts.
Google’s Caesar Sengupta spoke to the WSJ about the new initiative, and Sengupta made clear that Google will be seeking to put its financial institution partners much more front-and-center for its customers than other tech companies have perhaps done with their financial products. Apple works with Goldman Sachs on its Apple Card credit product, for instance, but the credit card is definitely presented primarily as an Apple product.
Continue reading… “Google to offer checking accounts in partnership with banks starting next year”
Obtaining an undergraduate degree is almost always worth it — bachelor’s degree holders earn 84% more than those with just a high school diploma.
However, not all majors are the same, ZipRecruiter found.
As tuition costs soar, more students and their families are asking themselves if college is still worth it.
Some experts say the value of a bachelor’s degree is fading. Starting salaries for new college graduates have grown less than 1% over the past two years, remaining at around $50,000.
Worse yet: A decade after leaving school, more than 1 in 5 graduates are working in a job that doesn’t even require a degree.
Continue reading… “The 5 college majors American students most regret picking”
The CEO of SpaceX took to Twitter to share the news of how dangerous and arduous the task continues to be.
Elon Musk shared more details about what will be needed to reach Mars and to build a sustainable city there.
The SpaceX CEO and his company have been working hard at their long term vision of setting up an actual city on the Red Planet, which could sustain life.
The timeline Musk shared via Twitter could be interpreted as an ambitious goal or an impressive one.
Sydney (CNN) — Until someone invents a device to teleport humans from one side of the Earth to the other, this is the next best thing.
An experimental research flight operated by Australian airline Qantas touched down in Sydney on Friday, after flying nonstop from London — a journey that pushes the frontier of modern aircraft capabilities — smashing two aviation records and witnessing a rare double sunrise along the way.
Flight QF7879 became the world’s longest passenger flight by a commercial airline both for distance, at 17,800 kilometers (about 11,060 miles), and for duration in the air, at 19 hours and 19 minutes.
The achievement could help usher in a new generation of so-called ultra long haul flights that will directly connect far-flung Sydney with destinations across Europe and the United States.
The 50 or so people onboard departed London’s Heathrow on Thursday in the pitch dark of pre-dawn, having sucked down their last lungfuls of rain-drenched November air.
Two sunrises later, they emerged blinking into a bright, warm Friday afternoon on the east coast of Australia. At least three whole hours sooner than if they’d had to change aircraft en route.
Continue reading… “London to Sydney flight breaks world record”
KEY POINTS
Five Canadian companies made CNBC’s 2019 Upstart 100 list unveiled on Tuesday: Attabotics, Calgary; Cmd, Vancouver; Deep Genomics and Nobul, Toronto; and RenoRun, Montreal.
Collectively, these promising start-ups raised more than $77 million in venture capital.
The entrepreneurial ecosystem is booming in major cities in Canada, thanks to government incentives, a growing tech talent pool and access to venture capital.
Continue reading… “Why Canada is becoming a start-up mecca rivaling Silicon Valley”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.