communication – Page 5

communication, drones, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

USPS eyeing drones for mail, package delivery

October 28, 2019

The United States Postal Service is considering drones as a new way to deliver mail.

This was disclosed in a request for information (RFI) from September, describing why it is examining this concept and how it might potentially work to help people and companies with their mail-related needs, according to Nextgov.

“The Postal Service recognizes that the ability of [unmanned aircraft systems] to supplement mail delivery and information collection can substantially benefit the country and further the development of other autonomous systems,” said Postal Service officials.

If the USPS mail-by-drones idea becomes a reality, it would be a pioneering plan of action. But, the agency is still reportedly very much in the research and analysis stages of looking at this concept. Nextgov revealed that the USPS has not yet hired any contractors for drone production and that it might engage multiple companies in an effort to “identify candidates for future solicitation”.

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communication, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News, women

Gen Z women are less likely than millennial women to want to be reachable at all times, and it might be a sign of ‘tech fatigue’

October 25, 2019

Only one-third of women in Gen Z report feeling optimistic about the effects of technology on society. Olivia Harris/Getty

A new study from GfK Consumer Life asked over 37,000 people in 31 different markets and 25 countries about their feelings on technology.

More than 60% of Gen Z women reported that they have difficulty taking even a short break from technology.

But Gen Z women are less likely than millennial women to want to be reachable all the time.

Gen Z women and girls are both more tied to technology, and more skeptical about its possible benefits than their millennial counterparts, and women as a whole, according to a new study from GfK Consumer Life.

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Aviation, communication, Entertainment, Science & Technology News, Travel

In-flight seatback screens may be going extinct

October 21, 2019

U.S. carriers are split on whether single-aisle fleets need seatback screens. Consumer tastes are changing as in-flight Wi-Fi quality improves.

In the quest to command higher fares and traveler loyalty, airlines are constantly scrambling to market their onboard services as better than Brand X. These days, one highly visible battleground is directly in front of you: the seatback screen.

While such displays are firmly entrenched aboard long-haul fleets, helping pass the hours during ocean crossings, there’s a deep difference of opinion among U.S. carriers when it comes to domestic single-aisle jets. The advent of onboard Wi-Fi has given airlines the option of using your phone or tablet as a portal for films, television shows, and video games, avoiding the expense of costly hardware at every seat.

Three of the largest U.S. airlines — American Airlines Group Inc., United Airlines Holdings Inc., and Alaska Air Group Inc. — are removing screens from their domestic workhorses, the family of medium-range 737 and A320 aircraft sold by Boeing Co. and Airbus SE, respectively. Southwest Airlines Co. has never equipped its Boeing 737s with screens and said it has no plans to change course.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, communication, Future, Science & Technology News

Voice AI systems will be ‘everywhere’ and ‘phones will disappear in 10 years’

October 15, 2019

Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk claims the AI system will connect us to the internet from anywhere and will enable humans to down their phones and merely speak to access any information or make any purchases

WCIT 2019: Voice driven devices will grow claims Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk claims that voice driven AI devices will continue to grow in popularity in the next decade. Speaking at WCIT 2019 the businessman says ‘we will have devices in our homes, offices and cars. It will surprise people quite a bit.’

Voice AI systems will be everywhere around us within the next decade, meaning we only have to speak to get what we want, an AI expert has claimed.

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brain-computer interfaces, communication, Science & Technology News

The tech helping dogs learn to ‘talk’ with humans

October 12, 2019

Using nose-activated vests and touchscreens, our canine pals are being trained to summon help for their handlers—and much more.

Imagine you’re enjoying a pleasant stroll through the park when you hear someone say, “My owner needs your attention! Please follow me!” You look around and see no one; then you look down and see a dog staring up at you. You think someone’s pulling a fast one. But then the dog reaches around and his mouth tugs something on the yellow vest he’s wearing, and you hear it again.

“My owner needs your attention! Please follow me!” the dog seems to say again, looking at you plaintively and now beckoning with body language for you to follow him. You do, and he leads you to someone who’s having a severe allergic reaction, a seizure, or some other medical emergency.

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Big Problems, communication, Computer Security, Corporate Manipulation, Science & Technology News

Political operatives are faking voter outrage with millions of made-up comments to benefit the rich and powerful

October 10, 2019

A fierce battle over the regulation of the internet was riddled with millions of fake comments in the most prolific known instance of political impersonation in US history.

Sarah Reeves sat on her couch in Eugene, Oregon, staring at her laptop screen in furious disbelief. She was reading the website of a government agency, where her mother appeared to have posted a comment weighing in on a bitter policy battle for control of the internet. Something was very wrong.

For a start, Annie Reeves, who loved to lead children’s sing-alongs at the Alaska Zoo, had never followed wonky policy debates. She barely knew her way around the web, let alone held strident views on how it should be regulated — and, according to her daughter, she definitely didn’t post angry comments on government websites.

But Sarah Reeves had a more conclusive reason to feel sure her mother’s name had been taken in vain: Annie Reeves was dead. She died more than a year before the comment was posted.

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communication, Employment, Internet, new technology, Science & Technology News

How 5G will reinvent “working from home”

September 24, 2019

It’s 10:00 am. Do you know where your employee is? No doubt they are working—somewhere.

Thanks to greatly improved internet connectivity and workforce applications, employees in an increasing number of professions can work just about anywhere they want—in their home, at a coffee shop, on a plane. And chances are they’re more productive and more engaged than they would be if they were in the office. They may even be planning to stay in their job longer because of their flexible work location. In 2017, Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom, in a TED Talk, went so far as to call work-from-home potentially as innovative as the driverless car.

Now, work-from-home is itself about to be disrupted, by the coming of 5G and its ability to enable virtual reality (VR) anywhere through what’s known as XR, the combination of extended, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies. Fifth-generation (5G) communications networks, with their exponentially faster connection speeds, capacity, and communication response times (known as latency), will make possible an astonishing range of innovative new products and services.

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communication, Computer Security, Internet, Science & Technology News

You won’t see quantum internet coming

August 30, 2019

The quantum internet is coming sooner than you think—even sooner than quantum computing itself. When things change over, you might not even notice. But when they do, new rules will protect your data against attacks from computers that don’t even exist yet.

Despite the fancy name, the “quantum internet” won’t be some futuristic new way to navigate online. It won’t produce any mind-blowing new content, at least not for decades. The quantum internet will look more or less the same as the internet you’re using now, but scientists and cryptographers hope it could provide protection against not only theoretical threats but also those we haven’t dreamed up yet.

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Brain, brain hacking, communication, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Neuroscientists decode brain speech signals into written text

August 15, 2019

Study funded by Facebook aims to improve communication with paralysed patients

The study recording brain signals sent to trigger organ movement is considered a breakthrough.

When Stephen Hawking wanted to speak, he chose letters and words from a synthesiser screen controlled by twitches of a muscle in his cheek.

But the painstaking process the cosmologist used might soon be bound for the dustbin. With a radical new approach, doctors have found a way to extract a person’s speech directly from their brain.

The breakthrough is the first to demonstrate how a person’s intention to say specific words can be gleaned from brain signals and turned into text fast enough to keep pace with natural conversation.

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communication, Machine Learning, Microsoft, Science & Technology News, Video

Microsoft’s tech can make your hologram speak another language

August 12, 2019

This exec doesn’t speak Japanese — but it sure looks like she does.

You no longer need to speak another language to look like you’re fluent in it — to anyone, anywhere.

On Wednesday, Microsoft executive Julia White took the stage at the company’s Inspire partner conference to demonstrate how it’s now possible to not only create an incredibly life-like hologram of a person, but to then make the hologram speak another language in the person’s own voice.

This demo was possible thanks to a combination of two existing technologies — mixed reality and neural text-to-speech — and it foreshadows a future in which tech greatly diminishes existing barriers in human communication.

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communication, Computer Security, Science & Technology News, security

How a trivial cell phone hack is ruining lives

July 11, 2019

On a Tuesday night in May, Sean Coonce was reading the news in bed when his phone dropped service. He chalked it up to tech being tech and went to sleep. When he woke up, his Gmail account had been stolen and by Wednesday evening he was out $100,000.

“This is still very raw (I haven’t even told my family yet),” Coonce wrote in an anguished Medium post. “I can’t stop thinking about the small, easy things I could have done to protect myself along the way.”

On a Monday night in June, Matthew Miller’s daughter woke him up to say that his Twitter account had been hacked. He had no cell phone service; within a few days Miller lost his Gmail and Twitter account and $25,000 from his family bank account.

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communication, facebook, Internet, Science & Technology News

The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

June 5, 2019

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest

In his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem, author Liu Cixin presents the dark forest theory of the universe.

When we look out into space, the theory goes, we’re struck by its silence. It seems like we’re the only ones here. After all, if other forms of life existed, wouldn’t they show themselves? Since they haven’t, we assume there’s no one else out there.

Liu invites us to think about this a different way.

Imagine a dark forest at night. It’s deathly quiet. Nothing moves. Nothing stirs. This could lead one to assume that the forest is devoid of life. But of course, it’s not. The dark forest is full of life. It’s quiet because night is when the predators come out. To survive, the animals stay silent.

Is our universe an empty forest or a dark one? If it’s a dark forest, then only Earth is foolish enough to ping the heavens and announce its presence. The rest of the universe already knows the real reason why the forest stays dark. It’s only a matter of time before the Earth learns as well.

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest.

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