Archive for the 'Economy' Category
FAA Allows Amazon to Fly Drones Experimentally
March 19th, 2015Via: USA Today: The Federal Aviation Administration approved Amazon Logistics Inc. on Thursday to fly drones experimentally. The approval will allow the company to conduct research, development and crew training for deliveries called Amazon Prime Air. The company is required to fly remote-controlled aircraft lower than 400 feet during daylight hours, and the pilot must […]
Google’s New Facial Recognition System
March 19th, 2015Via: Fortune: New advances in facial recognition are a step forward for an artificial intelligence technique called deep learning. “I never forget a face,” some people like to boast. It’s a claim that looks quainter by the day as artificial intelligence research continues to advance. Some computers, it turns out, never forget 260 million faces. […]
Oil Supplies Hit 80-Year High
March 18th, 2015Via: Yahoo: WTI crude (CLJ15.NYM) prices are taking another leg down, hovering at the $42 a barrel level after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that “U.S. crude oil inventories are at the highest level for this time of year in at least the last 80 years.” EIA reported commercial crude inventories increased by 9.6 […]
Women-Led Companies Perform Three Times Better Than the S&P 500
March 17th, 2015Via: Fortune: Boston-based Quantopian looked at how well Fortune 1000 companies led by women performed compared to the S&P 500 over a 12-year period. You’ve heard that companies with women executives at the helm tend to perform better than those led by men— and a new study furthers that claim, finding that women CEOs in […]
Makani: Google’s Energy Harvesting Kites
March 17th, 2015Via: Google: Makani is working to accelerate the shift to clean, renewable energy by developing energy kites, a new type of wind turbine that uses lightweight electronics, advanced materials, and smart software to generate more energy with less materials—all at lower cost.
How About That Erl?
March 17th, 2015Via: MarketWatch: U.S. oil prices were dipping lower in early Tuesday trade after sinking to a six-year low on persistent worries about a supply glut on Monday. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April CLJ5, -1.78% traded at $42.85 a barrel, down $1.04, or 2.4%, from Monday’s settlement […]
How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over
March 16th, 2015Via: The New York Review of Books: Here is what that future—which is to say now—looks like: banking, logistics, surgery, and medical recordkeeping are just a few of the occupations that have already been given over to machines. Manufacturing, which has long been hospitable to mechanization and automation, is becoming more so as the cost […]
Flashback: “Oil Industry Helps Solve Radioactive Waste Problem”
March 16th, 2015Via: Truthstream Media: Truthstream uncovered several published newspaper accounts from the Spring of 1964 concerning a then-newly disclosed plan to dump nuclear waste produced by the atomic energy industry into hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wells using a cement slurry technique developed by Halliburton & Co. The top two fracking companies in the nation at the time […]
IBM LOOKING AT ADOPTING BITCOIN TECHNOLOGY FOR MAJOR CURRENCIES
March 16th, 2015😯 Via: Reuters: International Business Machines Corp is considering adopting the underlying technology behind bitcoin, known as the “blockchain,” to create a digital cash and payment system for major currencies, according to a person familiar with the matter. The objective is to allow people to transfer cash or make payments instantaneously using this technology without […]
Why Hacking a Tesla Battery May Foreshadow an Energy Revolution
March 13th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Guys are recovering the battery packs from wrecked electric cars and using them for off-grid solar systems. In the spirit of Quake 3, I salute you: Via: Bloomberg: Afoot is an unprecedented worldwide effort — equivalent to a kind of a tech-age version of the […]
