Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Psychological Techniques Used to Keep Kids Online
August 8th, 2018Parental controls. Use them. Via: AP: Children’s advocates want the American Psychological Association to condemn the tech industry’s practice of using persuasive psychological techniques to keep kids glued to their screens. The advocates, citing research that links excessive use of social media and video games with depression and academic troubles, say it’s unethical for psychologists […]
Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro Survives Assassination Attempt by Terrorists Using Explosives-Laden Drone
August 4th, 2018Via: Daily Mail: Seven national guards have been injured in Venezuela after what is believed to have been an assassination attempt on socialist President Nicolas Maduro using an explosive-laden drone during a Caracas military parade. Footage broadcast by state television shows Maduro abruptly cutting short his speech before looking to the sky. Thousands of soldiers […]
Ford Starts Up $4B Autonomous Vehicle Unit
July 29th, 2018Via: Oilprice.com: While Ford has been emphasizing trucks and SUVs over passenger cars, that may soon be changing over to a new business model. On Tuesday, the Detroit automaker launched Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC to accelerate the growth of its autonomous vehicle business and to capitalize on market opportunities. The new subsidiary will receive a […]
Google Cars Self-Drive to Walmart Supermarket in Trial
July 25th, 2018Via: BBC: Google’s sister-company Waymo has announced a trial in which its self-driving cars will ferry shoppers to and from a nearby Walmart store to pick up their groceries. For now, the pilot is being restricted to 400-plus members of its early rider programme in Phoenix, Arizona.
Waymo’s Autonomous Vehicles Are Driving 25,000 Miles Every Day
July 20th, 2018Via: TechCrunch: Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, has driven 8 million miles on public roads using its autonomous vehicles. Waymo CEO John Krafcik shared the company’s milestone Friday while onstage with Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval at the National Governors Association conference in Santa Fe, N.M. […]
Digital Ads Are Starting to Feel Psychic
July 17th, 2018Via: The Outline: Earlier this year, my friend Max gave me a knife from Japan as a gift. That evening, as I was lying in bed looking at Instagram, I scrolled passed an ad of what looked like exactly the same knife. I did a double take, got out of bed, retrieved the knife from […]
All Ears: Always-On Listening Devices Could Soon Be Everywhere
July 13th, 2018Via: Wall Street Journal: If every tree falling in every forest might soon be heard by an internet-connected microphone, what hope is there for our privacy? Already when you’re sitting in a room with an iPhone, an Apple Watch and a smart assistant like Amazon Echo or Google Home, you’re surrounded by a dozen microphones. […]
Walmart Patents Surveillance Tool That Can Eavesdrop on Workers and Customers
July 12th, 2018Via: Engadget: The audio surveillance system Walmart designed is composed of several sensors that can collect all kinds of audio data, including beeps and the rustling of paper bags. Any data it gathers can be used to assess an employee’s performance — for instance, the sounds items make when they’re placed inside a bag can […]
AI Startups and the ‘Wizard of Oz Technique’
July 11th, 2018Via: Guardian: It’s hard to build a service powered by artificial intelligence. So hard, in fact, that some startups have worked out it’s cheaper and easier to get humans to behave like robots than it is to get machines to behave like humans. “Using a human to do the job lets you skip over a […]
Self-Driving Cars Are Headed Toward an AI Roadblock
July 4th, 2018Via: The Verge: If you believe the CEOs, a fully autonomous car could be only months away. In 2015, Elon Musk predicted a fully autonomous Tesla by 2018; so did Google. Delphi and MobileEye’s Level 4 system is currently slated for 2019, the same year Nutonomy plans to deploy thousands of driverless taxis on the […]
