Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Google Buys Drone Maker Titan Aerospace
April 14th, 2014Via: CNN: Get ready for Google drones. The technology company announced Monday that it has acquired Titan Aerospace, a start-up founded in 2012 that makes high-altitude, solar-powered drones. The purchase is part of the new push in Silicon Valley to find ways of delivering Internet service to underserved areas, particularly in the developing world. “Titan […]
Advanced Tactics Black Knight Transformer Successfully Completes First Flights
April 12th, 2014Via: Advanced Tactics: Advanced Tactics Inc. announced that it has successfully completed the first flight test of the Black Knight Transformer, a modular and roadable vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. … The patented AT Transformer technology combines the capabilities of a helicopter, such as the ability to take off and land anywhere, with the […]
U.S. Navy $100 Million Program to Develop New Autonomous Aircraft
April 6th, 2014Via: Wall Street Journal: Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder has positioned himself to become the Jeff Bezos of the Pentagon. Much as the Amazon.com Inc. founder envisions mini-drones that deliver small packages across America, Adm. Klunder, the Navy’s research chief, wants to create innovative unmanned helicopters able to perform tasks now carried out by humans: resupplying […]
DARPA: Biological Technologies Office
April 3rd, 2014I saw this trailer for The Machine a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t resist including it with this news from DARPA. Via: DARPA: Technology, like biology, constantly evolves. It is DARPA’s mission to stay ahead of the shifting technology curve by making critical, early investments in areas that cut across fields of research […]
The Shift From Low-Wage Worker to Robot Worker
March 27th, 2014Via: FiveThirtyEight: The minimum-wage occupations that Frey and Osborne think are most vulnerable include, not surprisingly, telemarketers, sales clerks and cashiers. But also included are occupations that employ a large share of the low-wage workforce, such as waiters and waitresses, food-preparation workers and cooks. If the computerization of these low-wage jobs becomes feasible, and if […]
Facebook’s New ‘DeepFace’ Program Is Just As Creepy As It Sounds
March 19th, 2014Via: Huffington Post: Facebook owns the world’s largest photo library, and it now has the technology to match almost all the faces within it. Yes, even the ones you don’t tag. Facebook announced last week that it has developed a program called “DeepFace,” which researchers say can determine whether two photographed faces are of the […]
Los Angeles Times Software Automatically Published Earthquake Story
March 18th, 2014Via: BBC: The Los Angeles Times was the first newspaper to publish a story about an earthquake on Monday – thanks to a robot writer. Journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke created an algorithm that automatically generates a short article when an earthquake occurs. Mr Schwencke told Slate magazine that it took around three minutes for […]
Bill Gates on Automation Eliminating Jobs: “Labor Demand for Lots of Skill Sets Will be Substantially Lower”
March 15th, 2014Via: Business Insider: Big changes are coming to the labour market that people and governments aren’t prepared for, Bill Gates believes. Speaking at Washington, D.C., economic think tank The American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, Gates said than within 20 years, a lot of jobs will go away, replaced by software automation (“bots” in tech slang, […]
Drones Will Cause an Upheaval of Society Like we Haven’t Seen in 700 Years
March 13th, 2014Via: Quartz: The human race is on the brink of momentous and dire change. It is a change that potentially smashes our institutions and warps our society beyond recognition. It is also a change to which almost no one is paying attention. I’m talking about the coming obsolescence of the gun-wielding human infantryman as a […]
Fleet of Drones to Patrol Australia’s Borders
March 12th, 2014Via: New Zealand Herald: Australia has announced plans for a fleet of giant high-tech unmanned drones to help patrol the nation’s borders, monitoring energy infrastructure and attempts to enter the country illegally. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Triton Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, which can remain airborne for 33 hours, would be based in the southern […]
