Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
IBM Envisions Watson as Supercharged Siri for Businesses
August 28th, 2012Via: Bloomberg: International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) researchers spent four years developing Watson, the computer smart enough to beat the champions of the quiz show “Jeopardy!” Now they’re trying to figure out how to get those capabilities into the phone in your pocket.
Skilled Work, Without the Worker
August 20th, 2012Via: New York Times: The next generation of robots for manufacturing will be more flexible and easier to train. Witness the factory of Tesla Motors, which recently began manufacturing the Tesla S, a luxury sedan, in Fremont, Calif., on the edge of Silicon Valley. More than half of the building is shuttered, called “the dark […]
Unblinking Surveillance Stare: Army’s 7-Story Flying Football Field-Sized Blimp
August 15th, 2012Via: Network World: The U.S. Army has a 7-story flying football field-sized blimp with a 21-day unblinking surveillance stare. The LEMV, described as a “Revolutionary ISR Weapon System” completed a successful 90-minute test flight directly over New Jersey where the fiery Hindenburg disaster happened. … The high tech blimp’s “skin” is made from “a blend […]
America’s Secret Drone War in Africa
August 13th, 2012Via: Wired: More secret bases. More and better unmanned warplanes. More frequent and deadly robotic attacks. Some five years after a U.S. Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle flew the type’s first mission over lawless Somalia, the shadowy American-led drone campaign in the Horn of Africa is targeting Islamic militants more ruthlessly than ever. Thanks to media […]
Kamikaze Drones
August 9th, 2012Via: Army Technology: From the earliest days of military bomb-disposal robotics, their very purpose embraced the possibility that they may be damaged or destroyed during their mission, while protecting the lives of humans who would otherwise be doing the job. But the great expense involved in their development and production meant that every precaution possible […]
Chart of the Day, HFT Edition
August 8th, 2012Via: Reuters: This astonishing GIF comes from Nanex, and shows the amount of high-frequency trading in the stock market from January 2007 to January 2012. (Which means that the Knightmare craziness of last week is not included.) More: Nanex
‘And who wouldn’t want to be at the forefront of that?’
August 3rd, 2012Business is booming for terminator drone pilots. Via: Guardian: The electronic cavern is dark, save for the glow of consoles, and Lt Col Mike Weaver surveys his apprentice warriors with satisfaction as they project American might halfway around the world. One crew – two young men in flight suits seated before half a dozen screens […]
Portrait of a Drone Killer: ‘I Have a Duty, and I Execute My Duty’
July 31st, 2012Via: Lew Rockwell Blog: One wonders if drone pilot Col. D. Scott Brenton listens to Louis Armstrong in the suburban Air National Guard Base in Syracuse from which he murders people 7,000 miles away. “I see mothers with children, I see fathers with children, I see fathers with mothers, I see kids playing soccer,” Brenton […]
JCPenney to Eliminate Check-Out Clerks
July 22nd, 2012Via: CBS: But the store is getting a makeover – specialized boutiques within the store like a denim bar – and more. The CEO of JCPenney is the former retail chief of Apple, and he wants to shake things up to restore the company to profitability. But one of his ideas – replacing clerks with […]
IARPA Contracting for Quiet Surveillance Drone
July 19th, 2012Via: Aviation Week: Now small firm D-Star Engineering has received what appears to be the first contract (for $4.8 million) awarded under the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (IARPA) Great Horned Owl (GHO) program to develop a new class of quiet small unmanned aircraft. … Sound is the number one signature that gives away the […]
