Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Google Demonstrates New AI Having Phone Conversations with Humans
May 9th, 2018Via: Guardian: Google’s virtual assistant can now make phone calls on your behalf to schedule appointments, make reservations in restaurants and get holiday hours. The robotic assistant uses a very natural speech pattern that includes hesitations and affirmations such as “er” and “mmm-hmm” so that it is extremely difficult to distinguish from an actual human […]
How Silicon Valley Elite Store Billions of Dollars Worth of Bitcoin
May 9th, 2018Via: Bloomberg: Behind the guards, the blast doors and down corridors of reinforced concrete, sit the encrypted computer servers — connected to nothing — that hold keys to a vast digital fortune. Argentine entrepreneur Wences Casares has spent the past several years persuading Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires that Bitcoin is the global currency of […]
South Wales Police Facial Recognition System Generated 92% False Positives at Soccer Match
May 7th, 2018Via: Engadget: Ask critics of police face recognition why they’re so skeptical and they’ll likely cite unreliability as one factor. What if the technology flags an innocent person? Unfortunately, that caution appears to have been warranted to some degree. South Wales Police are facing a backlash after they released data showing that their face recognition […]
New Zealand: Final Splice of Hawaiki Cable Complete; End-to-End Connectivity Confirmed
May 4th, 2018Via: Hawaiki Cable Press Release: Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced that the final splice of the Hawaiki Submarine Cable has been made and the system is on schedule to be in service in June 2018. With the final […]
Volkswagen Doubles EV Battery Order To $48 Billion
May 4th, 2018Via: Fortune: A few hours after Elon Musk berated analysts for what he perceived as unimaginative questions, Volkswagen AG said it was writing a check for batteries that almost match Tesla’s entire market value. VW has awarded battery-purchasing contracts worth 40 billion euros ($48 billion), double from just a few weeks ago. The deals take […]
Mercedes Gives Up on Home Energy Storage, Can’t Compete with Tesla
May 3rd, 2018Man oh man. Nobody said it was going to be easy. Via: GTM: Mercedes-Benz will stop manufacturing residential batteries and dissolve its U.S. energy subsidiary, ending a short-lived challenge to Tesla’s energy storage empire.
Chinese Firms Use ‘Mind-Reading’ Devices to Monitor Workers’ Emotions
April 30th, 2018As I’ve always said (recent example) re: EEG data and these sorts of claims: I doubt it works at all, but the fact that they’re trying is disturbing enough. Via: Sydney Morning Herald: Workers in China are being hooked up with brain-reading devices that feed information about their moods to their employers, raising fears about […]
Radio Frequency Vehicle Stopper
April 29th, 2018Via: Defense One: The Defense Department’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, or JNLWD, is pushing ahead with a new direct energy weapon that uses high-powered microwaves to stop cars in their tracks without damaging the vehicle, its driver, or anyone else. The jammer works by targeting the car’s engine control unit causing it to reboot over […]
Britain: Students Can’t Read Analog Clocks, Traditional Clocks, “Could Be a Cause of Unnecessary Stress”
April 29th, 2018Prediction: Students won’t be able to write, so they will need screens to take the exams. Via: Telegraph: Schools are removing analogue clocks from examination halls because teenagers are unable to tell the time, a head teachers’ union has said. Teachers are now installing digital devices after pupils sitting their GCSE and A-level exams complained […]
Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry
April 24th, 2018Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Where’s the electricity coming from to charge up those buses? A lot of it is still coming from coal, but China’s coal use has peaked: The real game changer is clean energy. The price of solar photovoltaic is at an all-time low, enough to compete […]
