Archive for the 'Economy' Category
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 […]
Tesla Will Build Gigafactory in Shanghai to Serve Chinese Market
July 10th, 2018Via: Electrek: Tesla has now confirmed the reports that came out of China this morning about a deal to allow the start of Gigafactory 3 construction in Shanghai. The automaker confirmed the deal and said that it plans to start construction “in the near future” for the first cars to roll off the line in […]
San Francisco: Where a Six-Figure Salary Is ‘Low Income’
July 9th, 2018Via: BBC: A family getting by on $117,400 (£87,970) in San Francisco can now be considered ‘low income’, according to US government figures. How can that be the case? That workers with six-figure salaries could be considered “poor” is something that might surprise many people. Yet a recent report from the US Department of Housing […]
U.S.-China Trade War Underway
July 6th, 2018Via: Guardian: A long-threatened trade war between the US and China has got under way after the world’s two largest economies imposed tariffs on each other. The US implemented tariffs on $34bn in Chinese goods, to which Beijing responded with levies on a similar quantity of US imports. Minutes after the US tariffs went into […]
China: 3 Year Old High End Villas
July 2nd, 2018Winston and C-Milk are great. I’ve been watching both of them for about a year. They have both lived in China for over a decade, have Chinese wives and speak the language. Their individual channels are: serpentza laowhy86 Their partnership “Adventure” channel is: advchina Very interesting viewing! Via: Advchina:
California: The Poverty Capital of the U.S.
July 1st, 2018Via: City Journal: California—not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia—has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure—which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income—nearly one out of four Californians is poor. Given […]
There Are Now Barely Two Workers Per Senior in Most Developed Economies
June 30th, 2018Via: The Sounding Line: For every American 65 years of age or older, there are now barely three people working and paying into the country’s safety-net, Social Security, and Medicare programs. In France there are barely two workers per senior. In Japan there are slightly less than two. In Italy and Greece there are barely […]
DARPA Backing Development of ‘Silicon Compiler’
June 29th, 2018Via: EETimes: The U.S. will pour $100 million into two research programs over the next four years to create the equivalent of a silicon compiler aimed at significantly lowering the barriers to design chips. The programs, involving 15 companies and more than 200 researchers, were described for the first time in a talk at the […]
Pentagon Intelligence Chief: Russia And China Will Have Weapons in Space ‘In the Near Future’
June 28th, 2018Just wait. You haven’t seen anything yet. Via: DefenseOne: The Defense Intelligence Agency’s director says the U.S. lead in space is diminishing and tomorrow’s skies will be filled with enemy robot satellites. Russia and China are developing new space-based weapons and they’ll be ready “in the near future,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, the head of […]
