Archive for the 'Economy' Category
The Machines Are Coming
April 19th, 2015Via: New York Times: THE machine hums along, quietly scanning the slides, generating Pap smear diagnostics, just the way a college-educated, well-compensated lab technician might. A robot with emotion-detection software interviews visitors to the United States at the border. In field tests, this eerily named “embodied avatar kiosk” does much better than humans in catching […]
Feds Say Cannabis Is Not Medicine While Holding The Patent on Cannabis as Medicine
April 19th, 2015U.S. Patent 6630507: Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants Via: Ben Swann:
What Microsoft Was for PCs, This Company Hopes to Be for Drones
April 16th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review: Microsoft’s Windows operating system had a vital role in turning the personal computer into a ubiquitous technology. Jonathan Downey hopes his company Airware will play a similar part in the development of commercial drones. The startup today launched a control system for drone makers to bundle with their small aircraft. It […]
Newcastle: Inside Britain’s Busiest Food Bank
April 16th, 2015Via: Vice: Since the coalition came to power in 2010, food poverty in Britain has risen dramatically. For those struggling to exist because of low pay, zero-hour contacts or delayed benefit payments, food banks aren’t just helpful – they’re a lifeline. They’ve also been one of the key points of contention in the build up […]
61-Year-Old Mailman Lands Gyrocopter on Capital Lawn to Bring Attention to Political Corruption
April 15th, 2015This incident is only hours old and media are already starting the character assassination routine on Doug Hughes. I haven’t looked into the message yet in detail, but here’s the Civilist Papers website in case you want to look at it without the media spin treatment: thecivilistpapers.org Via: Tampa Bay Times: Doug Hughes, a 61-year-old […]
Customer Service Robot at Japanese Bank
April 14th, 2015Via: Japan Times: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ took a first step toward employing nonhuman staff on Monday, with the introduction of a customer service humanoid robot at its flagship Tokyo outlet. Standing 58 cm tall and weighing 5.4 kg, the Nao robot will work at reception until April 23 before potentially being rolled out full […]
Plonk Reactor: Age Liquor 20 Years in 6 Days?
April 13th, 2015Via: Wired: The whiskey renaissance has the world clamoring for well-aged hooch, but the so-called brown spirits—whiskey, brandy, rum—have one widely-publicized problem. It takes time, and lots of it, to make them. Or at least to make them taste good. The booze industry has been looking for shortcuts to the aging process virtually since its […]
Peak Oil? Peak Oil Demand
April 13th, 2015
Via: Bloomberg: Naimi and other Saudi leaders have worried for years that climate change and high crude prices will boost energy efficiency, encourage renewables, and accelerate a switch to alternative fuels such as natural gas, especially in the emerging markets that they count on for growth. They see how demand for the commodity that’s created […]
The Economics of Grid Defection
April 13th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — I am Jack’s smirking revenge. Via: Rocky Mountain Institute: Distributed electricity generation, especially solar PV, is rapidly spreading and getting much cheaper. Distributed electricity storage is doing the same, thanks largely to mass production of batteries for electric vehicles. Solar power is already starting to […]
Google Gets Into Battery Arms Race
April 12th, 2015Via: Wall Street Journal: Google Inc. has joined the search for better batteries to power its expansion into consumer electronics and other hardware. In late 2012, a team led by former Apple Inc. battery expert Dr. Ramesh Bhardwaj began testing batteries developed by others for use in Google devices. About a year later, the group […]
