Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Amazon Is Planning to Open Cashierless Supermarkets Next Year
November 23rd, 2019Via: Bloomberg: Amazon.com Inc. is preparing to open Amazon Go supermarkets and pop-up stores, an expansion of the company’s cashierless ambitions that includes the possibility of licensing the technology to other retailers. The new store formats and licensing initiative could launch as soon as the first quarter of 2020, according to a person familiar with […]
Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Automation Could Replace 800 Million Jobs by 2035
November 15th, 2019Via: Yahoo Finance: Some half of all jobs worldwide — or up to 800 million total jobs — could be at risk of becoming obsolete by 2035 due to the rise of automation. That’s the assessment from a new report written by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC) analysts highlighting 10 themes to watch for […]
Now Daimler Is Dialing Back Expectations for Self-Driving Taxis
November 15th, 2019Via: Ars Technica: Daimler is planning to “rightsize” its spending on self-driving taxis, Chairman Ola Källenius said on Thursday. Getting self-driving cars to operate safely in complex urban environments has proved more challenging than people expected a few years ago, he admitted. “There has been a reality check setting in here,” Källenius said, according to […]
Amazon Challenges Pentagon’s $10-billion Cloud Award to Microsoft
November 15th, 2019Via: Reuters: Amazon.com Inc on Thursday said it is contesting the Pentagon’s award of an up to $10 billion cloud computing deal to Microsoft Corp, expressing concern that politics got in the way of a fair contracting process. The company filed notice last Friday that it will formally protest the decision on the Joint Enterprise […]
How Chilean Protesters Took Down a Drone With Standard Laser Pointers
November 14th, 2019Via: Nextgov: Video of Chilean protesters using beams of green light to ground a police drone made the rounds on social media Wednesday. But those aren’t tractor beams or Green Lantern rings—the protesters appear to be using run-of-the-mill laser pointers to take down law enforcement-grade technology. How does that work? Chilean protesters took to the […]
Two-Legged Robot Mimics Human Balance While Running and Jumping
November 13th, 2019It’s always for first responders, fire rescue, etc. “High-impact tasks in challenging environments.” I’m sure the Pentagon wouldn’t have any use for this… *wink* Via: MIT News: Rescuing victims from a burning building, a chemical spill, or any disaster that is inaccessible to human responders could one day be a mission for resilient, adaptable robots. […]
AI Clones Your Voice After Listening for 5 Seconds
November 13th, 2019Must listen examples at the link. Via: Google: We describe a neural network-based system for text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis that is able to generate speech audio in the voice of many different speakers, including those unseen during training. Our system consists of three independently trained components: (1) a speaker encoder network, trained on a speaker verification […]
Amazon Launching New Grocery Store Brand as Alternative to Whole Foods
November 11th, 2019Via: Cnet: Amazon on Monday said it plans to open its first new brand of grocery store in California next year, as it amps up its ambitious push to become a bigger name in food. “Amazon is opening a grocery store in Woodland Hills in 2020,” an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to CNET on Monday morning, […]
Google Collecting Complete Health Histories on Millions of Americans
November 11th, 2019Unbelievable. Via: Wall Street Journal: Google is engaged with one of the U.S.’s largest health-care systems on a project to collect and crunch the detailed personal-health information of millions of people across 21 states. The initiative, code-named “Project Nightingale,” appears to be the biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold […]
Inside Amazon’s Plan for Alexa to Run Your Entire Life
November 11th, 2019Comedy Gold on Cryptogon this morning. Via: MIT Technology Review: The creator of the famous voice assistant dreams of a world where Alexa is everywhere, anticipating your every need. … The crux of the plan is for the voice assistant to move from passive to proactive interactions. Rather than wait for and respond to requests, […]
