Archive for the 'Economy' Category
China’s Passion for Foreign Property
September 29th, 2016Via: Guardian: “I think it is just beginning,” says Li, of the amount of money pouring into property around the world from mainland China. “You do the figures: China has a population of 1.4 billion. If you target only 1% of China’s population, that’s 14 million people – so it’s already almost two Londons.”
AI Legion of Doom: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Form AI Partnership
September 28th, 2016Via: Tech Crunch: The world’s largest technology companies hold the keys to some of the largest databases on our planet. Much like goods and coins before it, data is becoming an important currency for the modern world. The data’s value is rooted in its applications to artificial intelligence. Whichever company owns the data, effectively owns […]
Self-Driving Trucks Threaten One of America’s Top Blue-Collar Jobs
September 25th, 2016Via: Los Angeles Times: Carmaking giants and ride-sharing upstarts racing to put autonomous vehicles on the road are dead set on replacing drivers, and that includes truckers. Trucks without human hands at the wheel could be on American roads within a decade, say analysts and industry executives. At risk is one of the most common […]
Monkeys to Operate Robots
September 24th, 2016Via: IEEE: As if quantum computing wasn’t mind-bending enough, one of D-Wave Systems’ founders is now pursuing another futuristic idea: using artificial intelligence and high-tech exoskeleton suits to allow humans—and, at least according to one description of the technology, monkeys, too—to control and train an army of intelligent robots. Geordie Rose is a co-founder and […]
Real Headline: “Get Ready for Freeways That Ban Human Drivers”
September 22nd, 2016Sure, they lead with the safety argument, but what you’re going to wind up with is something like this: Didn’t pay taxes? “Driving disabled. Would you like to pay overdue taxes, penalties, fees and interest now?” Didn’t pay parking fine? “Driving disabled. Would you like to pay your fine now?” Children not vaccinated? “Limited destinations. […]
Interoceptive Ability Predicts Survival on a London Trading Floor
September 20th, 2016Via: Nature: Interoception is the sensing of physiological signals originating inside the body, such as hunger, pain and heart rate. People with greater sensitivity to interoceptive signals, as measured by, for example, tests of heart beat detection, perform better in laboratory studies of risky decision-making. However, there has been little field work to determine if […]
Abu Dhabi: Solar Power at 2.42 Cents a Kilowatt-Hour
September 20th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. Via: Bloomberg: Two companies offered to build the cheapest solar power plant on record in Abu Dhabi, reflecting declining costs for photovoltaic cells and cheaper financing for clean-energy projects. Government-owned Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority received a record-low bid of 2.42 cents a kilowatt-hour for […]
“Disruptive Tidal Wave”: Robots Will Eliminate 6% of All U.S. Jobs by 2021
September 19th, 2016Via: Guardian: By 2021, robots will have eliminated 6% of all jobs in the US, starting with customer service representatives and eventually truck and taxi drivers. That’s just one cheery takeaway from a report released by market research company Forrester this week. These robots, or intelligent agents, represent a set of AI-powered systems that can […]
6 States Facing Possible Gas Shortages After Colonial Pipeline Spill
September 19th, 2016The number of eggs in one basket with this thing is insane. Via: ABC: Six states — Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and North Carolina — are facing possible gas shortages after a pipeline spill, officials said. The states have all declared states of emergency, citing concerns about “fuel supply disruptions” and “disruptions of […]
‘The Going Rate for Self-Driving Talent Is $10 Million Per Person’
September 17th, 2016The business of eliminating millions of jobs is today’s version of the moonshot or the Manhattan Project. Via: Recode: “Uber has just bought a half-a-year-old company [Otto] with 70 employees for almost $700 million,” Thrun said. “If you look at GM, they spent $1 billion on its acquisition of Cruise. These are mostly talent acquisitions. […]
