Impact Lab – Page 584 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

AI, Automation, Employment, Science & Technology News

4 sobering predictions about the future of jobs in an automated world

April 6, 2019

Artificial intelligence and automation will create more jobs than they replace, according to a new report entitled “The Future of Jobs” from the World Economic Forum (WEF). But the transition will likely be tough for some workers, the group warns.

“Our analysis finds that increased demand for new roles will offset the decreasing demand for others,” according to the report. “However, these net gains are not a foregone conclusion. They entail difficult transitions for millions of workers and the need for proactive investment in developing a new surge of agile learners and skilled talent globally.”

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cutting edge, Entertainment, Science & Technology News, sports

This esports franchise is getting a $50 million arena alongside Philadelphia’s NBA, NFL, and MLB teams

April 7, 2019

Philadelphia Fusion Arena

Comcast Spector and The Cordish Companies plan to build a $50 million arena for the Philadelphia Fusion, an esports team in the Overwatch League.

The Fusion Arena will be located in the center of the Philadelphia Sports Complex, adjacent to the city’s NBA, NFL, and MLB venues.

The venue will span 60,000 square feet and seat 3,500 guests in the main arena; the Philadelphia Fusion training facility, broadcast studio and team offices will be housed in the arena as well.

An esports team will soon have their very own $50 million arena in the heart of the Philadelphia Sports Complex, based on a proposal announced today by Comcast Spectacor and The Cordish Companies. Comcast wants to build the arena to house the Philadelphia Fusion, the team they built to compete in the Overwatch League.

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Bitcoin, Blockchain, DaVinci Institute, Money Talk, Science & Technology News, Tom Frey

Chicago Mayor believes Crypto adoption is “inevitable”

April 7, 2019

Cryptocurrency received an endorsement from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he stated that wide-scale crypto adoption is “inevitable” at a FinTech meeting in his city earlier this week.

The chief of staff for former US President Barack Obama said that while he is no expert in crypto technology, he believes digital assets could help financially unstable countries with their economic recovery.

The politician thinks that “an alternative way of currency dealing with the debt markets is going to happen” at some point in the future.

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Analysis, City Planning, Science & Technology News, Transportation

The Next Player in the ‘Smart City’ Game: WeWork – CityLab

April 5, 2019

We believe in data: WeWork’s algorithmically optimized site locations and décor reflect the company’s trust in numbers.

WeWork Wants to Build the ‘Future of Cities.’ What Does That Mean?

The co-working startup is hatching plans to deploy data to reimagine urban problems. In the past, it has profiled neighborhoods based on class indicators.

The We Company, the all-encompassing life-services platform formerly known as WeWork, is entering the booming business commonly known as “smart cities.” Di-Ann Eisnor, the former Google executive who helped grow Waze into a traffic-data juggernaut with 90 million monthly users, will lead the recently rebranded We Company’s efforts to build data-driven products and partnerships with cities and community groups, aimed at tackling barriers to jobs, housing, education, and other problems related to urbanization.

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Education, Higher Education, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

A movement to prepare students for the future of work

April 5, 2019

Details: Breaking with traditional schooling, these new models emphasize capabilities over knowledge — with extra weight on interpersonal skills that appear likely to become ever more valuable.

In high schools across the U.S., a quiet movement is underway to better prepare students for a hazy new future of work in which graduates will vie for fast-changing jobs being transformed by increasingly capable machines.

The big picture: No one really knows what future jobs will look like or the skills that will be necessary to carry them out. But researchers and companies alike widely believe that, as a start, interpersonal and management skills will differentiate humans from machines.

High schoolers are often being taught skills that will soon be handed over to machines, and they’re missing out on more valuable ones.

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Amazon.com, Employment, Science & Technology News

Amazon is hiring 3,000 work-from-home employees with full benefits

April 5, 2019

The online retailer is looking for remote employees for customer service positions.

The company is looking for remote workers around the country.

Amazon continues to be a source of both great deals and work-from-home jobs in 2019. The online retailer is currently hiring 3,000 new remote employees across 18 states for customer service positions.

The customer service associate job pays $15 an hour and is a part-time role with an expected 20-to-29-hour workweek. However, overtime pay is available and employees will be eligible for healthcare benefits after 90 days of employment. To qualify, you can’t live within 50 miles of an Amazon customer service location and you must live in one of the following states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin or Wyoming.

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Science & Technology News, top 10, Tourism, Transportation, Travel

This airport has just been named Best in the World for the seventh year in a row

April 4, 2019

Courtesy Singapore Changi Airport

And it’s set to open the world’s largest indoor waterfall in just a few weeks.

It’s not very often that travelers actually look forward to arriving early to an airport for its amenities, but Singapore’s Changi Airport—with its rooftop swimming pool, 24-hour movie theater, and butterfly garden—has become that place.

So it’s no surprise that for a record-breaking seventh time in a row the global aviation hub has been crowned the world’s best airport in Skytrax’s annual 2019 World’s Best Airport Awards, revealed at the Passenger Terminal Expo 2019 in London on Wednesday.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare, Science & Technology News

AI can predict when someone will die with unsettling accuracy

April 3, 2019

Do AI systems have a role to play in healthcare?Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images

This isn’t the first time experts have harnessed AI’s predictive power for healthcare.

Medical researchers have unlocked an unsettling ability in artificial intelligence (AI): predicting a person’s early death.

Scientists recently trained an AI system to evaluate a decade of general health data submitted by more than half a million people in the United Kingdom. Then, they tasked the AI with predicting if individuals were at risk of dying prematurely — in other words, sooner than the average life expectancy — from chronic disease, they reported in a new study.

The predictions of early death that were made by AI algorithms were “significantly more accurate” than predictions delivered by a model that did not use machine learning, lead study author Dr. Stephen Weng, an assistant professor of epidemiology and data science at the University of Nottingham (UN) in the U.K., said in a statement. [Can Machines Be Creative? Meet 9 AI ‘Artists’]

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Employment, NASA, Science & Technology News, Space Flight

NASA will pay you $19,000 to stay in bed — and be spun in a centrifuge

April 5, 2019

Some study participants will be spun in a short-arm human centrifuge that generates artificial gravity.

Like to lounge in bed? We might have your dream job.

NASA wants Earth-bound volunteers to test how artificial gravity might help keep astronauts healthy in space.

NASA and the European Space Agency will pay you $19,000 to lie in bed for two months. Two months! That’s a lot of Netflix.

The prolonged bed rest is part of a study that launched this week into the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Phase 2 will be conducted by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) from September through December in Cologne, Germany.

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Aviation, cutting edge, Drone, drones, Science & Technology News

ADIFO: The hyper-agile, omnidirectional, supersonic flying saucer

April 3, 2019

ADIFO could resurrect the idea of flying saucers, promising extreme speed, efficiency and aerial agility

At low speed, it operates like a quadcopter, at high speed, it’s a jet-propelled, highly efficient supersonic aircraft whose entire body acts as a low-drag wing. Those are the claims of the Romanian creators of this flying saucer that’s designed to offer unprecedented aerial agility across a broad range of speeds.

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Farming, Farms, Internet of Things, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

How IoT is being used for Australian agriculture in 2019

April 3, 2019

CSIRO’s Vertebrate Pest Detect-and-Deter (VPDaD) device

The development of IoT for agriculture is still in its early stages, but it looks promising as more farmers are putting these technologies to work.

Australian agriculture has historically been defined by long droughts and irregular rainfall. For farmers, these harsh conditions leave small margins for error, meaning that gruelling work on the paddock does not necessarily translate to healthy stock or strong crop harvests.

One way that farmers have adapted to these conditions is the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors. But in comparison to other sectors, farmers have been slow to adopt these technologies due to concerns surrounding the cost of implementation and ongoing service—particularly when there is no immediate value received for certain IoT technologies, which can sometimes take several years of accumulating data before it shows its value.

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drones, Military, military drones, Science & Technology News

Disposable delivery drones pass test with US Marines

April 3, 2019

The one-time use drones can carry more than 1,000 pounds of supplies.

The US military is testing delivery drones that can transport supplies over long distances and be thrown away after each use. Made of cheap plywood, the bigger version of the two gliders being tested can carry over 700 kilograms, or roughly 1800 pounds. As reported in IEE Spectrum, the scientists at Logistic Gliders, Inc. revealed that their gliders just successfully completed a series of tests with US Marines. If cleared for mass production, the LG-1K and its bigger counterpart, the LG-2K, could cost as little as a few hundred dollars each.

Using unmanned aircraft for delivery is an idea both the military and private sector have explored for years. Traditional aircraft guzzle fuel, cost money to purchase and maintain and require a human pilot. An unmanned aerial device doesn’t require any of these things. Companies like Amazon flirted with the idea of using drones to speed up package delivery, but couldn’t overcome logistical hurdles. While far away from being suitable for civilian use, these latest delivery gliders may be a step in the right direction.

Continue reading… “Disposable delivery drones pass test with US Marines”