Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
‘BMW’s New Sensors Do the Braking for You’
April 7th, 2015Via: Bloomberg: More than 90 percent of auto-related crashes are due to human error: a distraction, a mistake. With its new “Active Assist” technology, BMW is trying to do everything it can to take those errors out of the equation. Using laser sensors, the system effectively keeps a 360-degree vigil and will automatically and gently […]
Car Completes 99% of 3,400-Mile U.S. Road Trip in Autonomous Mode
April 3rd, 2015Via: AP: An autonomous car’s recent 3,400-mile U.S. road trip proves there’s at least one thing computers do better than humans: Follow the speed limit. Auto supplier Delphi Corp. fitted an Audi Q5 with radar, cameras and laser sensors to navigate the 15-state journey from San Francisco to New York, mostly traveling on highways. The […]
AI Interns: Software Already Taking Jobs from Humans
April 1st, 2015Via: New Scientist: Humans used to manually move data between the relevant systems to complete these tasks, copying a phone number from one database to another, for instance. The user still has to call up and speak to a human, but now an AI does the actual work. To train the AI, it watches and […]
Amazon Tests Delivery Drones at Secret Canadian Site After U.S. Frustration
March 31st, 2015Via: Guardian: Amazon is testing its drone delivery service at a secret site in Canada, following repeated warnings by the e-commerce giant that it would go outside the US to bypass what it sees as the US federal government’s lethargic approach to the new technology. The largest internet retailer in the world is keeping the […]
Amazon Now Wanting to Automate Pick and Pack
March 25th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review: Robots will use the latest computer-vision and machine-learning algorithms to try to perform the work done by humans in vast fulfillment centers.
FAA Allows Amazon to Fly Drones Experimentally
March 19th, 2015Via: USA Today: The Federal Aviation Administration approved Amazon Logistics Inc. on Thursday to fly drones experimentally. The approval will allow the company to conduct research, development and crew training for deliveries called Amazon Prime Air. The company is required to fly remote-controlled aircraft lower than 400 feet during daylight hours, and the pilot must […]
Google’s New Facial Recognition System
March 19th, 2015Via: Fortune: New advances in facial recognition are a step forward for an artificial intelligence technique called deep learning. “I never forget a face,” some people like to boast. It’s a claim that looks quainter by the day as artificial intelligence research continues to advance. Some computers, it turns out, never forget 260 million faces. […]
How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over
March 16th, 2015Via: The New York Review of Books: Here is what that future—which is to say now—looks like: banking, logistics, surgery, and medical recordkeeping are just a few of the occupations that have already been given over to machines. Manufacturing, which has long been hospitable to mechanization and automation, is becoming more so as the cost […]
Driverless Car Trials in 30 U.S. Cities by End of 2016
March 9th, 2015Via: Observer: Automated vehicle pilot projects will roll out in the U.K. and in six to 10 U.S. cities this year, with the first unveiling projected to be in Tampa, Fla. as soon as late spring. The following year, trial programs will launch in 12 to 20 more U.S. locations, which means driverless cars will […]
Is Playing ‘Space Invaders’ a Milestone in Artificial Intelligence?
February 26th, 2015Via: Los Angeles Times: Computers have beaten humans at chess and “Jeopardy!,” and now they can master old Atari games such as “Space Invaders” or “Breakout” without knowing anything about their rules or strategies. Playing Atari 2600 games from the 1980s may seem a bit “Back to the Future,” but researchers with Google’s DeepMind project […]
