At Hiroshima Memorial, Obama Says Nuclear Arms Require ‘Moral Revolution’
HIROSHIMA, Japan — President Obama laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on Friday, telling an audience that included survivors of America’s atomic bombing in 1945 that technology as devastating as nuclear arms demands a “moral revolution.”
Thousands of Japanese lined the route of the presidential motorcade to the memorial in the hopes of glimpsing Mr. Obama, the first sitting American president to visit the most potent symbol of the dawning of the nuclear age. Many watched the ceremony on their cellphones.
“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Mr. Obama said in opening his speech at the memorial.
“Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us,” Mr. Obama said, adding that such technology “requires a moral revolution as well.”
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world ... 05309&_r=0
Related
Turning Words Into a Nuclear-Free Reality
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/opini ... d=45305309
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Tales of African-American History Found in DNA
The history of African-Americans has been shaped in part by two great journeys.
The first brought hundreds of thousands of Africans to the southern United States as slaves. The second, the Great Migration, began around 1910 and sent six million African-Americans from the South to New York, Chicago and other cities across the country.
In a study published on Friday, a team of geneticists sought evidence for this history in the DNA of living African-Americans. The findings, published in PLOS Genetics, provide a map of African-American genetic diversity, shedding light on both their history and their health.
Buried in DNA, the researchers found the marks of slavery’s cruelties, including further evidence that white slave owners routinely fathered children with women held as slaves.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/scien ... d=45305309
TECHNOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT
Dubai says opens world's first functioning 3D-printed office
More and photo at:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/offbeat/d ... li=AAggNb9
Dubai has opened what it said was the world's first functioning 3D-printed office building, part of a drive by the Gulf's main tourism and business hub to develop technology that cuts costs and saves time.
The printers - used industrially and also on a smaller scale to make digitally designed, three-dimensional objects from plastic - have not been used much for building.
This one used a special mixture of cement, a Dubai government statement said, and reliability tests were done in Britain and China.
More and photo at:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/offbeat/d ... li=AAggNb9
Dubai has opened what it said was the world's first functioning 3D-printed office building, part of a drive by the Gulf's main tourism and business hub to develop technology that cuts costs and saves time.
The printers - used industrially and also on a smaller scale to make digitally designed, three-dimensional objects from plastic - have not been used much for building.
This one used a special mixture of cement, a Dubai government statement said, and reliability tests were done in Britain and China.
Gene editing technique could transform future
CRISPR - get to know this acronym. It's good to know the name of something that could change your future.
Pronounced "crisper", it is a biological system for altering DNA. Known as gene editing, this technology has the potential to change the lives of everyone and everything on the planet.
A bold statement but that is the considered view of many of the world's leading geneticists and biochemists I've spoken to in recent months when working on my latest Panorama - Medicine's Big Breakthrough: Editing Your Genes.
CRISPR was co-discovered in 2012 by molecular biologist Professor Jennifer Doudna whose team at Berkeley, University of California was studying how bacteria defend themselves against viral infection.
Prof Doudna and her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier are now among the world's most influential scientists. The natural system they discovered can be used by biologists to make precise changes to any DNA.
She told me: "Since we published our work four years ago laboratories around the world have adopted this technology for applications in animals, plants, humans, fungi, other bacteria: essentially any kind of organism they are studying."
■Human transplant organs grown in pigs
■The promise of gene editing
More....
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36439260
********
Species-wide Gene Editing, Applauded and Feared, Gets a Push
A revolutionary technology known as “gene drive,” which for the first time gives humans the power to alter or perhaps eliminate entire populations of organisms in the wild, has stirred both excitement and fear since scientists proposed a means to construct it two years ago.
Scientists dream of deploying gene drive, for example, to wipe out malaria-carrying mosquitoes that cause the deaths of 300,000 African children each year, or invasive rodents that damage island ecosystems. But some experts have warned that the technique could lead to unforeseen harm to the environment. Some scientists have called on the federal government to regulate it, and some environmental watchdogs have called for a moratorium.
On Wednesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the premier advisory group for the federal government on scientific matters, endorsed continued research on the technology, concluding after nearly a yearlong study that while it poses risks, its possible benefits make it crucial to pursue. The group also set out a path to conducting what it called “carefully controlled field trials,” despite what some scientists say is the substantial risk of inadvertent release into the environment.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/scien ... d=71987722
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Microsoft Finds Cancer Clues in Search Queries
Microsoft scientists have demonstrated that by analyzing large samples of search engine queries they may in some cases be able to identify internet users who are suffering from pancreatic cancer, even before they have received a diagnosis of the disease.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/techn ... 87722&_r=0
******
The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It
Extract:
Today, the World Wide Web has become a system that is often subject to control by governments and corporations. Countries like China can block certain web pages from their citizens, and cloud services like Amazon Web Services hold powerful sway. So what might happen, the computer scientists posited, if they could harness newer technologies — like the software used for digital currencies, or the technology of peer-to-peer music sharing — to create a more decentralized web with more privacy, less government and corporate control, and a level of permanence and reliability?
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/techn ... d=71987722
CRISPR - get to know this acronym. It's good to know the name of something that could change your future.
Pronounced "crisper", it is a biological system for altering DNA. Known as gene editing, this technology has the potential to change the lives of everyone and everything on the planet.
A bold statement but that is the considered view of many of the world's leading geneticists and biochemists I've spoken to in recent months when working on my latest Panorama - Medicine's Big Breakthrough: Editing Your Genes.
CRISPR was co-discovered in 2012 by molecular biologist Professor Jennifer Doudna whose team at Berkeley, University of California was studying how bacteria defend themselves against viral infection.
Prof Doudna and her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier are now among the world's most influential scientists. The natural system they discovered can be used by biologists to make precise changes to any DNA.
She told me: "Since we published our work four years ago laboratories around the world have adopted this technology for applications in animals, plants, humans, fungi, other bacteria: essentially any kind of organism they are studying."
■Human transplant organs grown in pigs
■The promise of gene editing
More....
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36439260
********
Species-wide Gene Editing, Applauded and Feared, Gets a Push
A revolutionary technology known as “gene drive,” which for the first time gives humans the power to alter or perhaps eliminate entire populations of organisms in the wild, has stirred both excitement and fear since scientists proposed a means to construct it two years ago.
Scientists dream of deploying gene drive, for example, to wipe out malaria-carrying mosquitoes that cause the deaths of 300,000 African children each year, or invasive rodents that damage island ecosystems. But some experts have warned that the technique could lead to unforeseen harm to the environment. Some scientists have called on the federal government to regulate it, and some environmental watchdogs have called for a moratorium.
On Wednesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the premier advisory group for the federal government on scientific matters, endorsed continued research on the technology, concluding after nearly a yearlong study that while it poses risks, its possible benefits make it crucial to pursue. The group also set out a path to conducting what it called “carefully controlled field trials,” despite what some scientists say is the substantial risk of inadvertent release into the environment.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/scien ... d=71987722
*******
Microsoft Finds Cancer Clues in Search Queries
Microsoft scientists have demonstrated that by analyzing large samples of search engine queries they may in some cases be able to identify internet users who are suffering from pancreatic cancer, even before they have received a diagnosis of the disease.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/techn ... 87722&_r=0
******
The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It
Extract:
Today, the World Wide Web has become a system that is often subject to control by governments and corporations. Countries like China can block certain web pages from their citizens, and cloud services like Amazon Web Services hold powerful sway. So what might happen, the computer scientists posited, if they could harness newer technologies — like the software used for digital currencies, or the technology of peer-to-peer music sharing — to create a more decentralized web with more privacy, less government and corporate control, and a level of permanence and reliability?
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/techn ... d=71987722
Goodbye, Password. Banks Opt to Scan Fingers and Faces Instead.
The banking password may be about to expire — forever.
Some of the nation’s largest banks, acknowledging that traditional passwords are either too cumbersome or no longer secure, are increasingly using fingerprints, facial scans and other types of biometrics to safeguard accounts.
Millions of customers at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo routinely use fingerprints to log into their bank accounts through their mobile phones. This feature, which some of the largest banks have introduced in the last few months, is enabling a huge share of American banking customers to verify their identities with biometrics. And millions more are expected to opt in as more phones incorporate fingerprint scans.
Other uses of biometrics are also coming online. Wells Fargo lets some customers scan their eyes with their mobile phones to log into corporate accounts and wire millions of dollars. Citigroup can help verify 800,000 of its credit card customers by their voices. USAA, which provides insurance and banking services to members of the military and their families, identifies some of its customers through their facial contours.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/busin ... d=71987722
The banking password may be about to expire — forever.
Some of the nation’s largest banks, acknowledging that traditional passwords are either too cumbersome or no longer secure, are increasingly using fingerprints, facial scans and other types of biometrics to safeguard accounts.
Millions of customers at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo routinely use fingerprints to log into their bank accounts through their mobile phones. This feature, which some of the largest banks have introduced in the last few months, is enabling a huge share of American banking customers to verify their identities with biometrics. And millions more are expected to opt in as more phones incorporate fingerprint scans.
Other uses of biometrics are also coming online. Wells Fargo lets some customers scan their eyes with their mobile phones to log into corporate accounts and wire millions of dollars. Citigroup can help verify 800,000 of its credit card customers by their voices. USAA, which provides insurance and banking services to members of the military and their families, identifies some of its customers through their facial contours.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/busin ... d=71987722
Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem
ACCORDING to some prominent voices in the tech world, artificial intelligence presents a looming existential threat to humanity: Warnings by luminaries like Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom about “the singularity” — when machines become smarter than humans — have attracted millions of dollars and spawned a multitude of conferences.
But this hand-wringing is a distraction from the very real problems with artificial intelligence today, which may already be exacerbating inequality in the workplace, at home and in our legal and judicial systems. Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many “intelligent” systems that shape how we are categorized and advertised to.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opini ... ef=opinion
ACCORDING to some prominent voices in the tech world, artificial intelligence presents a looming existential threat to humanity: Warnings by luminaries like Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom about “the singularity” — when machines become smarter than humans — have attracted millions of dollars and spawned a multitude of conferences.
But this hand-wringing is a distraction from the very real problems with artificial intelligence today, which may already be exacerbating inequality in the workplace, at home and in our legal and judicial systems. Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many “intelligent” systems that shape how we are categorized and advertised to.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opini ... ef=opinion
Motor Mouth: Is your self-driving car planning to kill you?
The road to autonomous automobiles is about to get even more complicated. I’m not talking about the plethora of “seeing-eye dog” sensors that will allow self-driving automobiles to navigate our highways and byways unaided. Or even the incredible amount of connectivity that vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) will require so that our automobiles don’t play bumper cars with each other.
No, what I am talking about are moral dilemmas, the kind of complicated, life-altering decisions that would tax even great minds like, say, Jeremy Bentham (the author of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation) and John Stuart Mill (author of Utilitarianism and, as far as I have been able to tell, just about the smartest guy there’s ever been). Stuff that will determine if we really are ready to turn over control of our cars to a computer. Decisions, in fact, that will decide whether we will actually buy the self-driving cars we are told are our future or whether they’ll be relegated to some futuristic junkyard like so many computerized Ford Edsels.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/news/mot ... li=AAggNb9
The road to autonomous automobiles is about to get even more complicated. I’m not talking about the plethora of “seeing-eye dog” sensors that will allow self-driving automobiles to navigate our highways and byways unaided. Or even the incredible amount of connectivity that vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) will require so that our automobiles don’t play bumper cars with each other.
No, what I am talking about are moral dilemmas, the kind of complicated, life-altering decisions that would tax even great minds like, say, Jeremy Bentham (the author of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation) and John Stuart Mill (author of Utilitarianism and, as far as I have been able to tell, just about the smartest guy there’s ever been). Stuff that will determine if we really are ready to turn over control of our cars to a computer. Decisions, in fact, that will decide whether we will actually buy the self-driving cars we are told are our future or whether they’ll be relegated to some futuristic junkyard like so many computerized Ford Edsels.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/news/mot ... li=AAggNb9
Why We Need to Pick Up Alvin Toffler’s Torch
More than 40 years ago, Alvin Toffler, a writer who had fashioned himself into one of the first futurists, warned that the accelerating pace of technological change would soon make us all sick. He called the sickness “future shock,” which he described in his totemic book of the same name, published in 1970.
In Mr. Toffler’s coinage, future shock wasn’t simply a metaphor for our difficulties in dealing with new things. It was a real psychological malady, the “dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future.” And “unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it,” he warned, “millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments.”
Mr. Toffler, who collaborated on “Future Shock” and many of his other books with his wife, Heidi, died last week at 87. It is fitting that his death occurred in a period of weeks characterized by one example of madness after another— a geopolitical paroxysm marked by ISIS bombings, “Brexit,” rumors of Mike Tyson taking the stage at a national political convention and a computer-piloted Tesla crashing into an old-fashioned tractor-trailer. It would be facile to attribute any one of these events to future shock.
Yet in rereading Mr. Toffler’s book, as I did last week, it seems clear that his diagnosis has largely panned out, with local and global crises arising daily from our collective inability to deal with ever-faster change.
All around, technology is altering the world: Social media is subsuming journalism, politics and even terrorist organizations. Inequality, driven in part by techno-abetted globalization, has created economic panic across much of the Western world. National governments are in a slow-moving war for dominance with a handful of the most powerful corporations the world has ever seen — all of which happen to be tech companies.
But even though these and bigger changes are just getting started — here come artificial intelligence, gene editing, drones, better virtual reality and a battery-powered transportation system — futurism has fallen out of favor. Even as the pace of technology keeps increasing, we haven’t developed many good ways, as a society, to think about long-term change.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/techn ... torch.html
More than 40 years ago, Alvin Toffler, a writer who had fashioned himself into one of the first futurists, warned that the accelerating pace of technological change would soon make us all sick. He called the sickness “future shock,” which he described in his totemic book of the same name, published in 1970.
In Mr. Toffler’s coinage, future shock wasn’t simply a metaphor for our difficulties in dealing with new things. It was a real psychological malady, the “dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future.” And “unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it,” he warned, “millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments.”
Mr. Toffler, who collaborated on “Future Shock” and many of his other books with his wife, Heidi, died last week at 87. It is fitting that his death occurred in a period of weeks characterized by one example of madness after another— a geopolitical paroxysm marked by ISIS bombings, “Brexit,” rumors of Mike Tyson taking the stage at a national political convention and a computer-piloted Tesla crashing into an old-fashioned tractor-trailer. It would be facile to attribute any one of these events to future shock.
Yet in rereading Mr. Toffler’s book, as I did last week, it seems clear that his diagnosis has largely panned out, with local and global crises arising daily from our collective inability to deal with ever-faster change.
All around, technology is altering the world: Social media is subsuming journalism, politics and even terrorist organizations. Inequality, driven in part by techno-abetted globalization, has created economic panic across much of the Western world. National governments are in a slow-moving war for dominance with a handful of the most powerful corporations the world has ever seen — all of which happen to be tech companies.
But even though these and bigger changes are just getting started — here come artificial intelligence, gene editing, drones, better virtual reality and a battery-powered transportation system — futurism has fallen out of favor. Even as the pace of technology keeps increasing, we haven’t developed many good ways, as a society, to think about long-term change.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/techn ... torch.html
Ray Kurzweil: The world isn’t getting worse — our information is getting better
Ray Kurzweil, the author, inventor, computer scientist, futurist and Google employee, was the featured keynote speaker Thursday afternoon at Postback, the annual conference presented by Seattle mobile marketing company Tune. His topic was the future of mobile technology. In Kurzweil’s world, however, that doesn’t just mean the future of smartphones — it means the future of humanity.
Continue reading for a few highlights from his talk.
On the effect of the modern information era: People think the world’s getting worse, and we see that on the left and the right, and we see that in other countries. People think the world is getting worse. … That’s the perception. What’s actually happening is our information about what’s wrong in the world is getting better. A century ago, there would be a battle that wiped out the next village, you’d never even hear about it. Now there’s an incident halfway around the globe and we not only hear about it, we experience it.
On the potential of human genomics: It’s not just collecting what is basically the object code of life that is expanding exponentially. Our ability to understand it, to reverse-engineer it, to simulate it, and most importantly to reprogram this outdated software is also expanding exponentially. Genes are software programs. It’s not a metaphor. They are sequences of data. But they evolved many years ago, many tens of thousands of years ago, when conditions were different.
How technology will change humanity’s geographic needs: We’re only crowded because we’ve crowded ourselves into cities. Try taking a train trip across the United States, or Europe or Asia or anywhere in the world. Ninety-nine percent of the land is not used. Now, we don’t want to use it because you don’t want to be out in the boondocks if you don’t have people to work and play with. That’s already changing now that we have some level of virtual communication. We can have workgroups that are spread out. … But ultimately, we’ll have full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, augmented reality.
On connecting the brain directly to the cloud: We don’t yet have brain extenders directly from our brain. We do have brain extenders indirectly. I mean this (holds up his smartphone) is a brain extender. … Ultimately we’ll put them directly in our brains. But not just to do search and language translation and other types of things we do now with mobile apps, but to actually extend the very scope of our brain.
Why machines won’t displace humans: We’re going to merge with them, we’re going to make ourselves smarter. We’re already doing that. These mobile devices make us smarter. We’re routinely doing things we couldn’t possibly do without these brain extenders.
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/ray-kurzwe ... ng-better/
Ray Kurzweil, the author, inventor, computer scientist, futurist and Google employee, was the featured keynote speaker Thursday afternoon at Postback, the annual conference presented by Seattle mobile marketing company Tune. His topic was the future of mobile technology. In Kurzweil’s world, however, that doesn’t just mean the future of smartphones — it means the future of humanity.
Continue reading for a few highlights from his talk.
On the effect of the modern information era: People think the world’s getting worse, and we see that on the left and the right, and we see that in other countries. People think the world is getting worse. … That’s the perception. What’s actually happening is our information about what’s wrong in the world is getting better. A century ago, there would be a battle that wiped out the next village, you’d never even hear about it. Now there’s an incident halfway around the globe and we not only hear about it, we experience it.
On the potential of human genomics: It’s not just collecting what is basically the object code of life that is expanding exponentially. Our ability to understand it, to reverse-engineer it, to simulate it, and most importantly to reprogram this outdated software is also expanding exponentially. Genes are software programs. It’s not a metaphor. They are sequences of data. But they evolved many years ago, many tens of thousands of years ago, when conditions were different.
How technology will change humanity’s geographic needs: We’re only crowded because we’ve crowded ourselves into cities. Try taking a train trip across the United States, or Europe or Asia or anywhere in the world. Ninety-nine percent of the land is not used. Now, we don’t want to use it because you don’t want to be out in the boondocks if you don’t have people to work and play with. That’s already changing now that we have some level of virtual communication. We can have workgroups that are spread out. … But ultimately, we’ll have full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, augmented reality.
On connecting the brain directly to the cloud: We don’t yet have brain extenders directly from our brain. We do have brain extenders indirectly. I mean this (holds up his smartphone) is a brain extender. … Ultimately we’ll put them directly in our brains. But not just to do search and language translation and other types of things we do now with mobile apps, but to actually extend the very scope of our brain.
Why machines won’t displace humans: We’re going to merge with them, we’re going to make ourselves smarter. We’re already doing that. These mobile devices make us smarter. We’re routinely doing things we couldn’t possibly do without these brain extenders.
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/ray-kurzwe ... ng-better/
20 jobs where robots are already replacing humans
Rise of the machines
Think your job is super-secure? Don't get too cozy. Experts predict many existing roles will be automated within the next 30 years, and the robots are already taking over. Take a look at some of the jobs automatons are stealing right now and find out if yours could be on the line.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstori ... b9#image=1
Rise of the machines
Think your job is super-secure? Don't get too cozy. Experts predict many existing roles will be automated within the next 30 years, and the robots are already taking over. Take a look at some of the jobs automatons are stealing right now and find out if yours could be on the line.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstori ... b9#image=1
Make Algorithms Accountable
Algorithms are ubiquitous in our lives. They map out the best route to our destination and help us find new music based on what we listen to now. But they are also being employed to inform fundamental decisions about our lives.
Companies use them to sort through stacks of résumés from job seekers. Credit agencies use them to determine our credit scores. And the criminal justice system is increasingly using algorithms to predict a defendant’s future criminality.
Those computer-generated criminal “risk scores” were at the center of a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that set the first significant limits on the use of risk algorithms in sentencing.
The court ruled that while judges could use these risk scores, the scores could not be a “determinative” factor in whether a defendant was jailed or placed on probation. And, most important, the court stipulated that a presentence report submitted to the judge must include a warning about the limits of the algorithm’s accuracy.
This warning requirement is an important milestone in the debate over how our data-driven society should hold decision-making software accountable. But advocates for big data due process argue that much more must be done to assure the appropriateness and accuracy of algorithm results.
An algorithm is a procedure or set of instructions often used by a computer to solve a problem. Many algorithms are secret. In Wisconsin, for instance, the risk-score formula was developed by a private company and has never been publicly disclosed because it is considered proprietary. This secrecy has made it difficult for lawyers to challenge a result.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opini ... 87722&_r=0
Algorithms are ubiquitous in our lives. They map out the best route to our destination and help us find new music based on what we listen to now. But they are also being employed to inform fundamental decisions about our lives.
Companies use them to sort through stacks of résumés from job seekers. Credit agencies use them to determine our credit scores. And the criminal justice system is increasingly using algorithms to predict a defendant’s future criminality.
Those computer-generated criminal “risk scores” were at the center of a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that set the first significant limits on the use of risk algorithms in sentencing.
The court ruled that while judges could use these risk scores, the scores could not be a “determinative” factor in whether a defendant was jailed or placed on probation. And, most important, the court stipulated that a presentence report submitted to the judge must include a warning about the limits of the algorithm’s accuracy.
This warning requirement is an important milestone in the debate over how our data-driven society should hold decision-making software accountable. But advocates for big data due process argue that much more must be done to assure the appropriateness and accuracy of algorithm results.
An algorithm is a procedure or set of instructions often used by a computer to solve a problem. Many algorithms are secret. In Wisconsin, for instance, the risk-score formula was developed by a private company and has never been publicly disclosed because it is considered proprietary. This secrecy has made it difficult for lawyers to challenge a result.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opini ... 87722&_r=0
1,000 robots perform creepy dance routine in China
Bizarre footage of more than 1,000 robots performing a synchronised dance routine in China.
Video:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/viral/10 ... ailsignout
Bizarre footage of more than 1,000 robots performing a synchronised dance routine in China.
Video:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/viral/10 ... ailsignout
N.I.H. May Fund Human-Animal Stem Cell Research
Extract:
If the funding ban is lifted, it could help patients by, for example, encouraging research in which a pig grows a human kidney for a transplant.
But the very idea of a human-animal mix can be chilling, and will not meet with universal acceptance.
In particular, when human cells injected into an animal embryo develop in part of that animal’s brain, difficult questions arise, said Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at the University of California, Davis.
“There’s no clear dividing line because we lack an understanding of at what point humanization of an animal brain could lead to more humanlike thought or consciousness,” he said.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/healt ... d=71987722
Extract:
If the funding ban is lifted, it could help patients by, for example, encouraging research in which a pig grows a human kidney for a transplant.
But the very idea of a human-animal mix can be chilling, and will not meet with universal acceptance.
In particular, when human cells injected into an animal embryo develop in part of that animal’s brain, difficult questions arise, said Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at the University of California, Davis.
“There’s no clear dividing line because we lack an understanding of at what point humanization of an animal brain could lead to more humanlike thought or consciousness,” he said.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/healt ... d=71987722
Self-Service Checkouts Can Turn Customers Into Shoplifters, Study Says
Self-service checkout technology may offer convenience and speed, but it also helps turn law-abiding shoppers into petty thieves by giving them “ready-made excuses” to take merchandise without paying, two criminologists say.
In a study of retailers in the United States, Britain and other European countries, Professor Adrian Beck and Matt Hopkins of the University of Leicester in England said the use of self-service lanes and smartphone apps to make purchases generated a loss rate of nearly 4 percent, more than double the average.
Given that the profit margin among European grocers is 3 percent, the technology is practically a nonprofit venture, according to the study, which was released this month.
The scanning technology, which grew in popularity about 10 years ago, relies largely on the honor system. Instead of having a cashier ring up and bag a purchase, the shopper is solely responsible for completing the transaction. That absence of human intervention, however, reduces the perception of risk and could make shoplifting more common, the report said.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/busin ... d=71987722
Self-service checkout technology may offer convenience and speed, but it also helps turn law-abiding shoppers into petty thieves by giving them “ready-made excuses” to take merchandise without paying, two criminologists say.
In a study of retailers in the United States, Britain and other European countries, Professor Adrian Beck and Matt Hopkins of the University of Leicester in England said the use of self-service lanes and smartphone apps to make purchases generated a loss rate of nearly 4 percent, more than double the average.
Given that the profit margin among European grocers is 3 percent, the technology is practically a nonprofit venture, according to the study, which was released this month.
The scanning technology, which grew in popularity about 10 years ago, relies largely on the honor system. Instead of having a cashier ring up and bag a purchase, the shopper is solely responsible for completing the transaction. That absence of human intervention, however, reduces the perception of risk and could make shoplifting more common, the report said.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/busin ... d=71987722
Uber Aims for an Edge in the Race for a Self-Driving Future
A world in which cars drive themselves may come sooner than once thought.
On Thursday, Uber said that it would begin testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh in a matter of weeks, allowing people in the city to hail modified versions of Volvo sport utility vehicles to get around the city.
Uber also said it had acquired Otto, a 90-person start-up including former Google and Carnegie Mellon engineers that is focused on developing self-driving truck technology to upend the shipping industry.
In a promotional video, Otto, a start-up led by former Google engineers, demonstrates how its autonomous long-haul trucks take to the road.
Those moves are the most recent indications of Uber’s ambitions for autonomous vehicles that can provide services to both consumers and businesses.
And they come after Ford Motor’s announcement this week that it would put fleets of self-driving taxis onto American roads in five years. As part of that effort, Ford said it had acquired an Israeli start-up, Saips, that specializes in computer vision, a crucial technology for self-driving cars. Ford also announced investments in three other companies involved in major technologies for driverless vehicles.
Suddenly, it seems, both Silicon Valley and Detroit are doubling down on their bets for autonomous vehicles. And in what could emerge as a self-driving-car arms race, the players are investing in, or partnering with, or buying outright the specialty companies most focused on the requisite hardware, software and artificial intelligence capabilities.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/techn ... d=71987722
A world in which cars drive themselves may come sooner than once thought.
On Thursday, Uber said that it would begin testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh in a matter of weeks, allowing people in the city to hail modified versions of Volvo sport utility vehicles to get around the city.
Uber also said it had acquired Otto, a 90-person start-up including former Google and Carnegie Mellon engineers that is focused on developing self-driving truck technology to upend the shipping industry.
In a promotional video, Otto, a start-up led by former Google engineers, demonstrates how its autonomous long-haul trucks take to the road.
Those moves are the most recent indications of Uber’s ambitions for autonomous vehicles that can provide services to both consumers and businesses.
And they come after Ford Motor’s announcement this week that it would put fleets of self-driving taxis onto American roads in five years. As part of that effort, Ford said it had acquired an Israeli start-up, Saips, that specializes in computer vision, a crucial technology for self-driving cars. Ford also announced investments in three other companies involved in major technologies for driverless vehicles.
Suddenly, it seems, both Silicon Valley and Detroit are doubling down on their bets for autonomous vehicles. And in what could emerge as a self-driving-car arms race, the players are investing in, or partnering with, or buying outright the specialty companies most focused on the requisite hardware, software and artificial intelligence capabilities.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/techn ... d=71987722
A Tricky Way to Claim Land on the Moon
When you look up at the moon, you might be gob-smacked by its beauty, its wrinkled features, the way its silvery glow reflects off rooftops. You might be annoyed by the way it dominates the night sky. Or, if you’re like me, you might enjoy the moon as a quiet companion to your restless nocturnal mind.
When Naveen Jain looks at the moon, he thinks about money. Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, he says we choose to go to the moon, “not because it is easy, but because it is great business.”
Last week, his company, Moon Express, became the first private entity to win federal permission to leave Earth orbit and shoot for the moon, something he hopes to do as early as next year.
“There are a tremendous amount of resources available on the moon, and beyond the moon, in space,” he says. “We fight over land, we fight over water, we fight over energy. And we never look up and say, ‘Holy cow, with the abundance of land, energy, water up there, what are we fighting about?’”
More....
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/economy/ ... li=AAggNb9
When you look up at the moon, you might be gob-smacked by its beauty, its wrinkled features, the way its silvery glow reflects off rooftops. You might be annoyed by the way it dominates the night sky. Or, if you’re like me, you might enjoy the moon as a quiet companion to your restless nocturnal mind.
When Naveen Jain looks at the moon, he thinks about money. Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, he says we choose to go to the moon, “not because it is easy, but because it is great business.”
Last week, his company, Moon Express, became the first private entity to win federal permission to leave Earth orbit and shoot for the moon, something he hopes to do as early as next year.
“There are a tremendous amount of resources available on the moon, and beyond the moon, in space,” he says. “We fight over land, we fight over water, we fight over energy. And we never look up and say, ‘Holy cow, with the abundance of land, energy, water up there, what are we fighting about?’”
More....
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/economy/ ... li=AAggNb9
10 things that will soon disappear forever
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... 9#image=10
How Driverless Cars May Interact With People
SAN FRANCISCO — There are plenty of unanswered questions about how self-driving cars would function in the real world, like understanding local driving customs and handing controls back to a human in an emergency.
Now a start-up called Drive.ai, based in Mountain View, Calif., is trying to address how an autonomous car would communicate with other drivers and pedestrians. The company is emphasizing what is known in the artificial intelligence field as “human-machine interaction” as a key to confusing road situations.
How does a robot, for example, tell everyone what it plans to do in intersections when human drivers and people in crosswalks go through an informal ballet to decide who will go first and who will yield?
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/techn ... 87722&_r=0
*****
Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/opini ... atter.html
Extract:
Indeed, the desire to write faster has driven innovations throughout history: Ballpoint pens replaced quill pens; typewriters improved on pens; and computers go faster than typewriters. Why go back?
Some experts argue that handwriting offers children neurological benefits. Professor Virginia Berninger of the University of Washington says that “handwriting — forming letters — engages the mind, and that can help children pay attention to written language.” A 2012 study of 15 children found that forming letters by hand may facilitate learning to read. But there seems to be no difference in benefits between printing and cursive. A 2014 study found that college students who took handwritten notes in lectures remembered the information better than those who typed notes, but that may indicate only that the slower speed of handwriting causes students to be more selective about what they write down. Perhaps, instead of proving that handwriting is superior to typing, it proves we need better note-taking pedagogy.
The goal of early writing education should be for children to achieve “cognitive automaticity” in it — the ability to make letters without conscious effort — as soon as possible, so they can think about what they want to say instead of how to write the words they need to say it. Many students now achieve typing automaticity — the ability to type without looking at the keys — at younger and younger ages, often by the fourth grade. This allows them to focus on higher-order concerns, such as rhetorical structure and word choice.
Some also argue that learning cursive teaches fine motor skills. And yet so did many other subjects that are arguably more useful, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry, and few are demanding the reintroduction of those classes.
These arguments are largely a side show to the real issues, which are cultural. In April, when the Louisiana State Senate voted to put cursive back into the public school curriculum, senators yelled “America!” in celebration, as though learning cursive were a patriotic act.
Responses to the above article
Why Handwriting Is Still Important
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/opini ... ef=opinion
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... 9#image=10
How Driverless Cars May Interact With People
SAN FRANCISCO — There are plenty of unanswered questions about how self-driving cars would function in the real world, like understanding local driving customs and handing controls back to a human in an emergency.
Now a start-up called Drive.ai, based in Mountain View, Calif., is trying to address how an autonomous car would communicate with other drivers and pedestrians. The company is emphasizing what is known in the artificial intelligence field as “human-machine interaction” as a key to confusing road situations.
How does a robot, for example, tell everyone what it plans to do in intersections when human drivers and people in crosswalks go through an informal ballet to decide who will go first and who will yield?
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/techn ... 87722&_r=0
*****
Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/opini ... atter.html
Extract:
Indeed, the desire to write faster has driven innovations throughout history: Ballpoint pens replaced quill pens; typewriters improved on pens; and computers go faster than typewriters. Why go back?
Some experts argue that handwriting offers children neurological benefits. Professor Virginia Berninger of the University of Washington says that “handwriting — forming letters — engages the mind, and that can help children pay attention to written language.” A 2012 study of 15 children found that forming letters by hand may facilitate learning to read. But there seems to be no difference in benefits between printing and cursive. A 2014 study found that college students who took handwritten notes in lectures remembered the information better than those who typed notes, but that may indicate only that the slower speed of handwriting causes students to be more selective about what they write down. Perhaps, instead of proving that handwriting is superior to typing, it proves we need better note-taking pedagogy.
The goal of early writing education should be for children to achieve “cognitive automaticity” in it — the ability to make letters without conscious effort — as soon as possible, so they can think about what they want to say instead of how to write the words they need to say it. Many students now achieve typing automaticity — the ability to type without looking at the keys — at younger and younger ages, often by the fourth grade. This allows them to focus on higher-order concerns, such as rhetorical structure and word choice.
Some also argue that learning cursive teaches fine motor skills. And yet so did many other subjects that are arguably more useful, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry, and few are demanding the reintroduction of those classes.
These arguments are largely a side show to the real issues, which are cultural. In April, when the Louisiana State Senate voted to put cursive back into the public school curriculum, senators yelled “America!” in celebration, as though learning cursive were a patriotic act.
Responses to the above article
Why Handwriting Is Still Important
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/opini ... ef=opinion
How Tech Giants Are Devising Real Ethics for Artificial Intelligence
SAN FRANCISCO — For years, science-fiction moviemakers have been making us fear the bad things that artificially intelligent machines might do to their human creators. But for the next decade or two, our biggest concern is more likely to be that robots will take away our jobs or bump into us on the highway.
Now five of the world’s largest tech companies are trying to create a standard of ethics around the creation of artificial intelligence. While science fiction has focused on the existential threat of A.I. to humans, researchers at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and those from Amazon, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft have been meeting to discuss more tangible issues, such as the impact of A.I. on jobs, transportation and even warfare.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/techn ... 87722&_r=0
SAN FRANCISCO — For years, science-fiction moviemakers have been making us fear the bad things that artificially intelligent machines might do to their human creators. But for the next decade or two, our biggest concern is more likely to be that robots will take away our jobs or bump into us on the highway.
Now five of the world’s largest tech companies are trying to create a standard of ethics around the creation of artificial intelligence. While science fiction has focused on the existential threat of A.I. to humans, researchers at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and those from Amazon, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft have been meeting to discuss more tangible issues, such as the impact of A.I. on jobs, transportation and even warfare.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/techn ... 87722&_r=0
Your Car’s New Software Is Ready. Update Now?
TIRED of your vehicle and its aging, limited features? Don’t trade it in just yet. Download new software instead.
In some cases, that is already possible. And over the next few years, as the already extensive software on modern cars becomes even more feature-rich and upgradeable, manufacturers mean to step up the effort. They plan to offer many types of improvements or repairs through downloads that are beamed directly to the car via satellite, Wi-Fi or cellular signal, without the vehicle’s having to be brought into the shop.
Eventually, your car will be serviceable like a giant smartphone, with new features added periodically while you sleep.
A leading proponent of the approach is Tesla, the maker of electric luxury cars, which has been sending updates to its cars’ operating systems since 2012. The company is expected to announce an updated operating system next week. The chief executive, Elon Musk, has said via Twitter that the update will include improvements to the company’s Autopilot automated driving system.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/autom ... 87722&_r=0
*******
Passing My Disability On to My Children
Extract:
Occasionally, I come across the term “designer baby,” and I am reminded that some parents now have the option to screen or modify the genes of their unborn children to ensure or avoid certain traits. It always gives me a feeling of unease. Obviously, I did not take this route — partly because, at least with my son, I never had to actually make the decision. My third child, Eliza, was a late midlife accident. I chose to have her despite the possibility she would have XLH, but would I have made the same decision in a planned pregnancy or if given a choice much earlier in the process? I can’t help suspecting that because of advances in genetic mapping, genetic testing, the sheer range of prenatal choices, chances are that in a generation or two, there will be no one in the world who has XLH, no one who looks like me or my children — at least not in the so-called developed world — and I don’t know how to feel about that.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/opini ... d=71987722
TIRED of your vehicle and its aging, limited features? Don’t trade it in just yet. Download new software instead.
In some cases, that is already possible. And over the next few years, as the already extensive software on modern cars becomes even more feature-rich and upgradeable, manufacturers mean to step up the effort. They plan to offer many types of improvements or repairs through downloads that are beamed directly to the car via satellite, Wi-Fi or cellular signal, without the vehicle’s having to be brought into the shop.
Eventually, your car will be serviceable like a giant smartphone, with new features added periodically while you sleep.
A leading proponent of the approach is Tesla, the maker of electric luxury cars, which has been sending updates to its cars’ operating systems since 2012. The company is expected to announce an updated operating system next week. The chief executive, Elon Musk, has said via Twitter that the update will include improvements to the company’s Autopilot automated driving system.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/autom ... 87722&_r=0
*******
Passing My Disability On to My Children
Extract:
Occasionally, I come across the term “designer baby,” and I am reminded that some parents now have the option to screen or modify the genes of their unborn children to ensure or avoid certain traits. It always gives me a feeling of unease. Obviously, I did not take this route — partly because, at least with my son, I never had to actually make the decision. My third child, Eliza, was a late midlife accident. I chose to have her despite the possibility she would have XLH, but would I have made the same decision in a planned pregnancy or if given a choice much earlier in the process? I can’t help suspecting that because of advances in genetic mapping, genetic testing, the sheer range of prenatal choices, chances are that in a generation or two, there will be no one in the world who has XLH, no one who looks like me or my children — at least not in the so-called developed world — and I don’t know how to feel about that.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/opini ... d=71987722
No Driver? Bring It On. How Pittsburgh Became Uber’s Testing Ground
PITTSBURGH — Any day now, Uber will introduce a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, making this former steel town the world’s first city to let passengers hail autonomous vehicles.
So with the world watching, what has the city of 306,000 done to prepare for Uber’s unprecedented test? The answer is not much.
There have been no public service announcements or demonstrations of the technology. Except for the mayor and one police official, no other top city leader has seen a self-driving Uber vehicle operate up close. Fire and emergency services don’t know where the Uber cars will travel.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/techn ... d=71987722
******
A Robot May Be Training to Do Your Job. Don’t Panic.
Extract:
The widespread adoption of social robotics in the workplace faces a host of potential problems, including a lack of infrastructure and power requirements, deficient awareness of surroundings, and public resistance. Eventually, though, the moment will come when machines possess empathy, the ability to innovate and other traits we perceive as uniquely human. What then? How will we sustain our own career relevance?
I think the only way forward is to look at artificial intelligence developments as an opportunity rather than a threat. We need the mind-set that success is no longer about our level of knowledge but about our level of creative intelligence. If we accept the process of lifelong learning, in which we adapt to new ways of working as technology improves, we’ll always find roles that take advantage of our best qualities.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/jobs/ ... d=71987722
PITTSBURGH — Any day now, Uber will introduce a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, making this former steel town the world’s first city to let passengers hail autonomous vehicles.
So with the world watching, what has the city of 306,000 done to prepare for Uber’s unprecedented test? The answer is not much.
There have been no public service announcements or demonstrations of the technology. Except for the mayor and one police official, no other top city leader has seen a self-driving Uber vehicle operate up close. Fire and emergency services don’t know where the Uber cars will travel.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/techn ... d=71987722
******
A Robot May Be Training to Do Your Job. Don’t Panic.
Extract:
The widespread adoption of social robotics in the workplace faces a host of potential problems, including a lack of infrastructure and power requirements, deficient awareness of surroundings, and public resistance. Eventually, though, the moment will come when machines possess empathy, the ability to innovate and other traits we perceive as uniquely human. What then? How will we sustain our own career relevance?
I think the only way forward is to look at artificial intelligence developments as an opportunity rather than a threat. We need the mind-set that success is no longer about our level of knowledge but about our level of creative intelligence. If we accept the process of lifelong learning, in which we adapt to new ways of working as technology improves, we’ll always find roles that take advantage of our best qualities.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/jobs/ ... d=71987722
Get Ready for Embryos From Two Men or Two Women | TIME
Genetic research is advancing to the day when gay couples could fulfill their dreams of having children related to them both.
I’ve helped many same-sex couples over the years have children of their own through assisted reproductive procedures. Egg donation and surrogacy allow two gay men to have children genetically related to one partner and the egg donor, but not to both. It’s the same dynamic for lesbians and sperm donors. I’ve been asked many times by countless same-sex couples over the years: “can we make a baby that’s a combination of both of us?”
It’s a question that I’ve considered from a scientific and medical perspective for a long time. Advances in genetic research keep getting us closer to the day when the answer to that question is “yes.”
Throughout history, a child has come from a man and a woman. It’s been one of the tenets of anti-gay activists for decades: “Two men can’t have a biological child, and two women can’t have one either.”
For some anti-gay people, that seems to make these relationships somehow wrong, as though any relationship that can’t result in a child should somehow be forbidden. They deem it unnatural in the eyes of God.
However, science is advancing and may ultimately change all of that.
More...
http://time.com/3748019/same-sex-couple ... -children/
********
What It Feels Like to Ride in a Self-Driving Uber
Extract:
I experienced those self-driving ambitions firsthand this week, riding in Boron 6 for about an hour in light downtown traffic. On Wednesday, Uber rolled out a pilot program of its driverless cars to its most loyal customers in Pittsburgh, giving them the chance to hail an autonomous Uber for the first time. With the trial, a handful of test vehicles — Ford Fusions at first — will roam the streets, each car coming with a human safety engineer who has undergone training to reassure riders that the process is safe.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/techn ... 87722&_r=0
******
How Did G.M. Create Tesla’s Dream Car First?
Extract:
This year, Mr. Musk’s white whale — a car that will get 238 miles per charge, and will sell for about $30,000 after a federal rebate — will finally make it to the roads. Mr. Musk’s master plan has gone exactly as he promised, except for one tiny hitch.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/techn ... d=71987722
******
Your Next Pair of Shoes Could Come From a 3-D Printer
The assembly line at Feetz has 100 humming 3-D printers. Their sole purpose is to make shoes.
Each printer is named after a cartoon character: Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo. Though whimsical, the printers, which cost $5,000 each, are out to upend mass retailing by making every shoe to order, cheaply.
“We’re the technologists coming in to help,” said Lucy Beard, chief executive of the two-year-old Feetz, in San Diego. “I saw 3-D printers in a magazine, and I thought ‘mass customization.’”
Photo and more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/busin ... d=71987722
Genetic research is advancing to the day when gay couples could fulfill their dreams of having children related to them both.
I’ve helped many same-sex couples over the years have children of their own through assisted reproductive procedures. Egg donation and surrogacy allow two gay men to have children genetically related to one partner and the egg donor, but not to both. It’s the same dynamic for lesbians and sperm donors. I’ve been asked many times by countless same-sex couples over the years: “can we make a baby that’s a combination of both of us?”
It’s a question that I’ve considered from a scientific and medical perspective for a long time. Advances in genetic research keep getting us closer to the day when the answer to that question is “yes.”
Throughout history, a child has come from a man and a woman. It’s been one of the tenets of anti-gay activists for decades: “Two men can’t have a biological child, and two women can’t have one either.”
For some anti-gay people, that seems to make these relationships somehow wrong, as though any relationship that can’t result in a child should somehow be forbidden. They deem it unnatural in the eyes of God.
However, science is advancing and may ultimately change all of that.
More...
http://time.com/3748019/same-sex-couple ... -children/
********
What It Feels Like to Ride in a Self-Driving Uber
Extract:
I experienced those self-driving ambitions firsthand this week, riding in Boron 6 for about an hour in light downtown traffic. On Wednesday, Uber rolled out a pilot program of its driverless cars to its most loyal customers in Pittsburgh, giving them the chance to hail an autonomous Uber for the first time. With the trial, a handful of test vehicles — Ford Fusions at first — will roam the streets, each car coming with a human safety engineer who has undergone training to reassure riders that the process is safe.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/techn ... 87722&_r=0
******
How Did G.M. Create Tesla’s Dream Car First?
Extract:
This year, Mr. Musk’s white whale — a car that will get 238 miles per charge, and will sell for about $30,000 after a federal rebate — will finally make it to the roads. Mr. Musk’s master plan has gone exactly as he promised, except for one tiny hitch.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/techn ... d=71987722
******
Your Next Pair of Shoes Could Come From a 3-D Printer
The assembly line at Feetz has 100 humming 3-D printers. Their sole purpose is to make shoes.
Each printer is named after a cartoon character: Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo. Though whimsical, the printers, which cost $5,000 each, are out to upend mass retailing by making every shoe to order, cheaply.
“We’re the technologists coming in to help,” said Lucy Beard, chief executive of the two-year-old Feetz, in San Diego. “I saw 3-D printers in a magazine, and I thought ‘mass customization.’”
Photo and more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/busin ... d=71987722
Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll
Nearly half a century ago, archaeologists found a charred ancient scroll in the ark of a synagogue on the western shore of the Dead Sea.
The lump of carbonized parchment could not be opened or read. Its curators did nothing but conserve it, hoping that new technology might one day emerge to make the scroll legible.
Just such a technology has now been perfected by computer scientists at the University of Kentucky. Working with biblical scholars in Jerusalem, they have used a computer to unfurl a digital image of the scroll.
It turns out to hold a fragment identical to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible and, at nearly 2,000 years old, is the earliest instance of the text.
The writing retrieved by the computer from the digital image of the unopened scroll is amazingly clear and legible, in contrast to the scroll’s blackened and beaten-up exterior. “Never in our wildest dreams did we think anything would come of it,” said Pnina Shor, the head of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Scholars say this remarkable new technique may make it possible to read other scrolls too brittle to be unrolled.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/scien ... 87722&_r=0
*********
Quantum Teleportation Moves Closer To Reality
In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in demonstrating the feasibility of quantum teleportation, two independent teams of scientists have succeeded in transferring quantum information over several miles of commercial optical fiber networks. The experiments, carried out in the cities of Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, are separately described in twostudies published in the journal Nature Photonics.
First proposed by scientists nearly two decades ago, quantum teleportation relies on "entanglement" — a weird and counter-intuitive phenomenon once famously derided as “spooky action at a distance” by Albert Einstein. When two subatomic particles are entangled, changing the quantum state of one immediately changes the quantum state of the other, no matter how far apart they are.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/techandsc ... li=AAggFp5
*****
A Lesson of Tesla Crashes? Computer Vision Can’t Do It All Yet
Jitendra Malik, a researcher in computer vision for three decades, doesn’t own a Tesla, but he has advice for people who do.
“Knowing what I know about computer vision, I wouldn’t take my hands off the steering wheel,” he said.
Dr. Malik, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was referring to a fatal crash in May of a Tesla electric car that was equipped with its Autopilot driver-assistance system. An Ohio man was killed when his Model S car, driving in the Autopilot mode, crashed into a tractor-trailer.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/scien ... dline&te=1
Nearly half a century ago, archaeologists found a charred ancient scroll in the ark of a synagogue on the western shore of the Dead Sea.
The lump of carbonized parchment could not be opened or read. Its curators did nothing but conserve it, hoping that new technology might one day emerge to make the scroll legible.
Just such a technology has now been perfected by computer scientists at the University of Kentucky. Working with biblical scholars in Jerusalem, they have used a computer to unfurl a digital image of the scroll.
It turns out to hold a fragment identical to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible and, at nearly 2,000 years old, is the earliest instance of the text.
The writing retrieved by the computer from the digital image of the unopened scroll is amazingly clear and legible, in contrast to the scroll’s blackened and beaten-up exterior. “Never in our wildest dreams did we think anything would come of it,” said Pnina Shor, the head of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Scholars say this remarkable new technique may make it possible to read other scrolls too brittle to be unrolled.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/scien ... 87722&_r=0
*********
Quantum Teleportation Moves Closer To Reality
In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in demonstrating the feasibility of quantum teleportation, two independent teams of scientists have succeeded in transferring quantum information over several miles of commercial optical fiber networks. The experiments, carried out in the cities of Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, are separately described in twostudies published in the journal Nature Photonics.
First proposed by scientists nearly two decades ago, quantum teleportation relies on "entanglement" — a weird and counter-intuitive phenomenon once famously derided as “spooky action at a distance” by Albert Einstein. When two subatomic particles are entangled, changing the quantum state of one immediately changes the quantum state of the other, no matter how far apart they are.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/techandsc ... li=AAggFp5
*****
A Lesson of Tesla Crashes? Computer Vision Can’t Do It All Yet
Jitendra Malik, a researcher in computer vision for three decades, doesn’t own a Tesla, but he has advice for people who do.
“Knowing what I know about computer vision, I wouldn’t take my hands off the steering wheel,” he said.
Dr. Malik, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was referring to a fatal crash in May of a Tesla electric car that was equipped with its Autopilot driver-assistance system. An Ohio man was killed when his Model S car, driving in the Autopilot mode, crashed into a tractor-trailer.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/scien ... dline&te=1
8 iconic billionaires who plan to conquer outer space
Lots of kids grow up dreaming of someday making it to outer space, only to find as they get older that their chances of making it into NASA 's astronaut program are incredibly slim. For most people, that's the end of the dream, but some leaders of industry didn't give up quite so easily. The rise of private spaceflight companies has reinvigorated their fascination — and these visionary founders are willing to put their cash on the line to explore it further. Several high-profile business leaders, entrepreneurs and successful dreamers have made significant investments in space programs. Here's a look at some of the biggest names.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... ailsignout
Lots of kids grow up dreaming of someday making it to outer space, only to find as they get older that their chances of making it into NASA 's astronaut program are incredibly slim. For most people, that's the end of the dream, but some leaders of industry didn't give up quite so easily. The rise of private spaceflight companies has reinvigorated their fascination — and these visionary founders are willing to put their cash on the line to explore it further. Several high-profile business leaders, entrepreneurs and successful dreamers have made significant investments in space programs. Here's a look at some of the biggest names.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... ailsignout
Stephen Hawking Predicts, "This Pill Will Change Humanity"
Extract:
Over a decade ago ago Harvard assembled a team of neuroscientists to work on coming up with a natural brain supplement that could effortlessly boost IQ.
Today, those scientists made the breakthrough they were seeking and made the discovery of a lifetime.They came up with a brain boosting smart drug that surpasses all limits of known science.
The Supplement they created is now THE best treatment available to improve memory, sharpen attention, increase focus and boost overall IQ.
After numerous rounds of testing results were astonishing. One test subject was quoted as saying:
"As soon as I took it started working within minutes of taking it. All of a sudden, it felt like a dark cloud had been lifted up from in front of me. I was more alert, more focused, had long lasting energy, and experienced a mental clarity that I’d never felt before" – Ben Lishger Harvard Sophomore."
More....
http://forbes-daily-news.com/brain/int/ ... X19zaWQuLg
********
Protecting Humans and Jobs From Robots Is 5 Tech Giants’ Goal
Five major technology companies said Wednesday that they had created an organization to set the ground rules for protecting humans — and their jobs — in the face of rapid advances in artificial intelligence.
The Partnership on AI, unites Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft in an effort to ease public fears of machines that are learning to think for themselves and perhaps ease corporate anxiety over the prospect of government regulation of this new technology.
The organization has been created at a time of significant public debate about artificial intelligence technologies that are built into a variety of robots and other intelligent systems, including self-driving cars and workplace automation.
The industry group introduced a set of basic ethical standards for engineering development and scientific research that its five members have agreed upon.
In a conference call on Wednesday, five artificial intelligence researchers representing the companies said they thought the technology would be a major force in the world for social and economic benefits, but they acknowledged the potential for misuse in a wide variety of ways.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/techn ... 87722&_r=0
*******
You will never lose your keys again with this device
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... ailsignout
Extract:
Over a decade ago ago Harvard assembled a team of neuroscientists to work on coming up with a natural brain supplement that could effortlessly boost IQ.
Today, those scientists made the breakthrough they were seeking and made the discovery of a lifetime.They came up with a brain boosting smart drug that surpasses all limits of known science.
The Supplement they created is now THE best treatment available to improve memory, sharpen attention, increase focus and boost overall IQ.
After numerous rounds of testing results were astonishing. One test subject was quoted as saying:
"As soon as I took it started working within minutes of taking it. All of a sudden, it felt like a dark cloud had been lifted up from in front of me. I was more alert, more focused, had long lasting energy, and experienced a mental clarity that I’d never felt before" – Ben Lishger Harvard Sophomore."
More....
http://forbes-daily-news.com/brain/int/ ... X19zaWQuLg
********
Protecting Humans and Jobs From Robots Is 5 Tech Giants’ Goal
Five major technology companies said Wednesday that they had created an organization to set the ground rules for protecting humans — and their jobs — in the face of rapid advances in artificial intelligence.
The Partnership on AI, unites Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft in an effort to ease public fears of machines that are learning to think for themselves and perhaps ease corporate anxiety over the prospect of government regulation of this new technology.
The organization has been created at a time of significant public debate about artificial intelligence technologies that are built into a variety of robots and other intelligent systems, including self-driving cars and workplace automation.
The industry group introduced a set of basic ethical standards for engineering development and scientific research that its five members have agreed upon.
In a conference call on Wednesday, five artificial intelligence researchers representing the companies said they thought the technology would be a major force in the world for social and economic benefits, but they acknowledged the potential for misuse in a wide variety of ways.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/techn ... 87722&_r=0
*******
You will never lose your keys again with this device
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... ailsignout
Robot baby unveiled in Japan as birthrates plummet
An antidote to Japan’s rapidly falling birthrate may soon come in the unlikely form of a miniature robot.
The Kirobo Mini was unveiled Monday by Toyota as part of the automaker’s Heart Project, which aims to provide a “cuddlesome” robot baby companion for humans.
The unveiling of the robot comes as Japanese adults increasingly find themselves childless, as the country’s population continues to shrink. Between 2010 and 2015, the world’s population grew by almost half a billion while Japan’s population fell by almost one million. This is unprecedented for a country not affected by war, famine or plague.
“Toyota Heart is a unique project that explores the development of meaningful communication between humans and robots,” a spokesperson for Toyota tells Newsweek. “The program has been created with the assumption of having a conversation with young children.”
“In other words, the Kirobo Mini has been created with the image of a young child in mind, and since it sometimes remembers what it and the user talked about—like preferences and hobbies—it can actually ‘grow.’”
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/offbeat/r ... ailsignout
******
Birth of Baby With Three Parents’ DNA Marks Success for Banned Technique
A few months ago, after a fertility procedure at a Mexican clinic, a healthy baby boy was born in New York to a couple from Jordan. It was the first live birth of a child who has been called — to the dismay of scientists who say the term is grossly misleading — a three-parent baby.
“This is huge,” said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, after the birth was reported on Tuesday.
The method used to help the couple is one that reproductive scientists have been itching to try, but it is enormously controversial because it uses genetic material from a donor in addition to that of the couple trying to conceive. The purpose is to overcome flaws in a parent’s mitochondria that can cause grave illnesses in babies.
Mitochondria, the cell’s energy factories, are separate from the DNA that determines a child’s inherited traits. But mutations in these little organelles can be devastating, resulting in fatal diseases involving the nerves, muscles, brain, heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney and the endocrine and respiratory systems that often kill babies in the first few years of life.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/healt ... dline&te=1
An antidote to Japan’s rapidly falling birthrate may soon come in the unlikely form of a miniature robot.
The Kirobo Mini was unveiled Monday by Toyota as part of the automaker’s Heart Project, which aims to provide a “cuddlesome” robot baby companion for humans.
The unveiling of the robot comes as Japanese adults increasingly find themselves childless, as the country’s population continues to shrink. Between 2010 and 2015, the world’s population grew by almost half a billion while Japan’s population fell by almost one million. This is unprecedented for a country not affected by war, famine or plague.
“Toyota Heart is a unique project that explores the development of meaningful communication between humans and robots,” a spokesperson for Toyota tells Newsweek. “The program has been created with the assumption of having a conversation with young children.”
“In other words, the Kirobo Mini has been created with the image of a young child in mind, and since it sometimes remembers what it and the user talked about—like preferences and hobbies—it can actually ‘grow.’”
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/offbeat/r ... ailsignout
******
Birth of Baby With Three Parents’ DNA Marks Success for Banned Technique
A few months ago, after a fertility procedure at a Mexican clinic, a healthy baby boy was born in New York to a couple from Jordan. It was the first live birth of a child who has been called — to the dismay of scientists who say the term is grossly misleading — a three-parent baby.
“This is huge,” said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, after the birth was reported on Tuesday.
The method used to help the couple is one that reproductive scientists have been itching to try, but it is enormously controversial because it uses genetic material from a donor in addition to that of the couple trying to conceive. The purpose is to overcome flaws in a parent’s mitochondria that can cause grave illnesses in babies.
Mitochondria, the cell’s energy factories, are separate from the DNA that determines a child’s inherited traits. But mutations in these little organelles can be devastating, resulting in fatal diseases involving the nerves, muscles, brain, heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney and the endocrine and respiratory systems that often kill babies in the first few years of life.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/healt ... dline&te=1
Stepping Up Security for an Internet-of-Things World
The vision of the so-called internet of things — giving all sorts of physical things a digital makeover — has been years ahead of reality. But that gap is closing fast.
Today, the range of things being computerized and connected to networks is stunning, from watches, appliances and clothing to cars, jet engines and factory equipment. Even roadways and farm fields are being upgraded with digital sensors. In the last two years, the number of internet-of-things devices in the world has surged nearly 70 percent to 6.4 billion, according to Gartner, a research firm. By 2020, the firm forecasts, the internet-of-things population will reach 20.8 billion.
The optimistic outlook is that the internet of things will be an enabling technology that will help make the people and physical systems of the world — health care, food production, transportation, energy consumption — smarter and more efficient.
The pessimistic outlook? Hackers will have something else to hack. And consumers accustomed to adding security tools to their computers and phones should expect to adopt similar precautions with internet-connected home appliances.
“If we want to put networked technologies into more and more things, we also have to find a way to make them safer,” said Michael Walker, a program manager and computer security expert at the Pentagon’s advanced research arm. “It’s a challenge for civilization."
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/techn ... d=71987722
The vision of the so-called internet of things — giving all sorts of physical things a digital makeover — has been years ahead of reality. But that gap is closing fast.
Today, the range of things being computerized and connected to networks is stunning, from watches, appliances and clothing to cars, jet engines and factory equipment. Even roadways and farm fields are being upgraded with digital sensors. In the last two years, the number of internet-of-things devices in the world has surged nearly 70 percent to 6.4 billion, according to Gartner, a research firm. By 2020, the firm forecasts, the internet-of-things population will reach 20.8 billion.
The optimistic outlook is that the internet of things will be an enabling technology that will help make the people and physical systems of the world — health care, food production, transportation, energy consumption — smarter and more efficient.
The pessimistic outlook? Hackers will have something else to hack. And consumers accustomed to adding security tools to their computers and phones should expect to adopt similar precautions with internet-connected home appliances.
“If we want to put networked technologies into more and more things, we also have to find a way to make them safer,” said Michael Walker, a program manager and computer security expert at the Pentagon’s advanced research arm. “It’s a challenge for civilization."
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/techn ... d=71987722
The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own
The United States has put artificial intelligence at the center of its defense
strategy, with weapons that can identify targets and make decisions.
Extract:
The Terminator Conundrum
The debate within the military is no longer about whether to build autonomous weapons but how much independence to give them. Gen. Paul J. Selva of the Air Force, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently that the United States was about a decade away from having the technology to build a fully independent robot that could decide on its own whom and when to kill, though it had no intention of building one.
Other countries were not far behind, and it was very likely that someone would eventually try to unleash “something like a Terminator,” General Selva said, invoking what seems to be a common reference in any discussion on autonomous weapons.
Yet American officials are only just beginning to contend with the implications of weapons that could someday operate independently, beyond the control of their developers. Inside the Pentagon, the quandary is known as the Terminator conundrum, and there is no consensus about whether the United States should seek international treaties to try to ban the creation of those weapons, or build its own to match those its enemies might create.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/pe ... 05309&_r=0
********
As Artificial Intelligence Evolves, So Does Its Criminal Potential
Imagine receiving a phone call from your aging mother seeking your help because she has forgotten her banking password.
Except it’s not your mother. The voice on the other end of the phone call just sounds deceptively like her.
It is actually a computer-synthesized voice, a tour-de-force of artificial intelligence technology that has been crafted to make it possible for someone to masquerade via the telephone.
Such a situation is still science fiction — but just barely. It is also the future of crime.
The software components necessary to make such masking technology widely accessible are advancing rapidly.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/techn ... d=71987722
*******
Artifically intelligent ‘judge’ developed which can predict court verdicts with 79 per cent accuracy
A computer ‘judge’ has been developed which can correctly predict verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights with 79 per cent accuracy.
Computer scientists at University College London and the University of Sheffield developed an algorithm which can not only weigh up legal evidence, but also moral considerations.
As early as the 1960s experts predicted that computers would one day be able to predict the outcomes of judicial decisions.
But the new method is the first to predict the outcomes of court cases by automatically analysing case text using a machine learning algorithm.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/offbeat/a ... ailsignout
The United States has put artificial intelligence at the center of its defense
strategy, with weapons that can identify targets and make decisions.
Extract:
The Terminator Conundrum
The debate within the military is no longer about whether to build autonomous weapons but how much independence to give them. Gen. Paul J. Selva of the Air Force, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently that the United States was about a decade away from having the technology to build a fully independent robot that could decide on its own whom and when to kill, though it had no intention of building one.
Other countries were not far behind, and it was very likely that someone would eventually try to unleash “something like a Terminator,” General Selva said, invoking what seems to be a common reference in any discussion on autonomous weapons.
Yet American officials are only just beginning to contend with the implications of weapons that could someday operate independently, beyond the control of their developers. Inside the Pentagon, the quandary is known as the Terminator conundrum, and there is no consensus about whether the United States should seek international treaties to try to ban the creation of those weapons, or build its own to match those its enemies might create.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/pe ... 05309&_r=0
********
As Artificial Intelligence Evolves, So Does Its Criminal Potential
Imagine receiving a phone call from your aging mother seeking your help because she has forgotten her banking password.
Except it’s not your mother. The voice on the other end of the phone call just sounds deceptively like her.
It is actually a computer-synthesized voice, a tour-de-force of artificial intelligence technology that has been crafted to make it possible for someone to masquerade via the telephone.
Such a situation is still science fiction — but just barely. It is also the future of crime.
The software components necessary to make such masking technology widely accessible are advancing rapidly.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/techn ... d=71987722
*******
Artifically intelligent ‘judge’ developed which can predict court verdicts with 79 per cent accuracy
A computer ‘judge’ has been developed which can correctly predict verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights with 79 per cent accuracy.
Computer scientists at University College London and the University of Sheffield developed an algorithm which can not only weigh up legal evidence, but also moral considerations.
As early as the 1960s experts predicted that computers would one day be able to predict the outcomes of judicial decisions.
But the new method is the first to predict the outcomes of court cases by automatically analysing case text using a machine learning algorithm.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/offbeat/a ... ailsignout
Uber Aims To Fly People To Work Within A Decade
Commuters could be flying to work in electric vehicles within a decade if business and government work together to make it happen, ride-hailing company Uber says.
In a 99-page report released last week, the company that has already revolutionized urban transportation made it clear it has much larger ambitions in mind: A service called "Uber Elevate" that uses a fleet of electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles that put an end to slow commutes on gridlocked roads.
The research paper says more than a dozen companies around the world are working on the technology.
More..
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstori ... ailsignout
******
Male Birth Control Shots are 96% Effective, Study Finds
Yep, hormonal birth control for men is a thing—and it works almost as well as condoms.
Male birth control just got one step closer to becoming a reality (finally!). A new study shows that giving contraceptive injections to men can effectively prevent pregnancy in their partners. The caveat: the shots won't be available any time soon. Their formulation must be tweaked to reduce side effects, and larger studies are needed before they can be brought to market.
Hormonal birth control has never been an option for men, who currently have few choices when it comes to managing their fertility, including condoms, vasectomies, and the not-always-effective withdrawal method.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/medical ... ailsignout
Commuters could be flying to work in electric vehicles within a decade if business and government work together to make it happen, ride-hailing company Uber says.
In a 99-page report released last week, the company that has already revolutionized urban transportation made it clear it has much larger ambitions in mind: A service called "Uber Elevate" that uses a fleet of electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles that put an end to slow commutes on gridlocked roads.
The research paper says more than a dozen companies around the world are working on the technology.
More..
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstori ... ailsignout
******
Male Birth Control Shots are 96% Effective, Study Finds
Yep, hormonal birth control for men is a thing—and it works almost as well as condoms.
Male birth control just got one step closer to becoming a reality (finally!). A new study shows that giving contraceptive injections to men can effectively prevent pregnancy in their partners. The caveat: the shots won't be available any time soon. Their formulation must be tweaked to reduce side effects, and larger studies are needed before they can be brought to market.
Hormonal birth control has never been an option for men, who currently have few choices when it comes to managing their fertility, including condoms, vasectomies, and the not-always-effective withdrawal method.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/medical ... ailsignout
Can Networked Knowledge Help Communities Thrive on a Turbulent Planet?
Science has long been focused mainly on knowledge frontiers, with universities often seeming to track “impact factors” of published papers more than a researcher’s impact in the real world.
But there’s been a welcome effort, of late, particularly in fields relevant to sustainable development, to shift priorities toward helping communities address challenges as humanity’s “great acceleration” plays out in the next few decades. An early iteration of this call came in a 1997 essay on “the virtues of mundane science” by Daniel Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley, and Michael R. Dove of Yale. (I discussed the essay in a lecture last year.)
It seems such efforts are gaining steam. For example, consider the growth of the Thriving Earth Exchange, an effort by the American Geophysical Union to help connect its global network of scientists with communities seeking science-based solutions to a variety of vexing problems:
When the initiative launched in 2013, the director Raj Pandya, wrote an article for Eos, the American Geophysical Union magazine, explaining the goal is “to enable communities to partner with Earth and space scientists and access the expertise needed to address problems arising from hazards, disasters, resource limitations, and climate change.”
More...
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/ ... dline&te=1
*******
New Research Center to Explore Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Carnegie Mellon University plans to announce on Wednesday that it will create a research center that focuses on the ethics of artificial intelligence.
The ethics center, called the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies, is being established at a time of growing international concern about the impact of A.I. technologies. That has already led to an array of academic, governmental and private efforts to explore a technology that until recently was largely the stuff of science fiction.
In the last decade, faster computer chips, cheap sensors and large collections of data have helped researchers improve on computerized tasks like machine vision and speech recognition, as well as robotics.
Earlier this year, the White House held a series of workshops around the country to discuss the impact of A.I., and in October the Obama administration released a report on its possible consequences. And in September, five large technology firms — Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft — created a partnership to help establish ethical guidelines for the design and deployment of A.I. systems.
Subra Suresh, Carnegie Mellon’s president, said injecting ethical discussions into A.I. was necessary as the technology advanced. While the idea of “Terminator” robots still seems far-fetched, the United States military is studying autonomous weapons that could make killing decisions on their own — a development that war planners think would be unwise.
“We are at a unique point in time where the technology is far ahead of society’s ability to restrain it,” Mr. Suresh noted.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/techn ... d=71987722
Science has long been focused mainly on knowledge frontiers, with universities often seeming to track “impact factors” of published papers more than a researcher’s impact in the real world.
But there’s been a welcome effort, of late, particularly in fields relevant to sustainable development, to shift priorities toward helping communities address challenges as humanity’s “great acceleration” plays out in the next few decades. An early iteration of this call came in a 1997 essay on “the virtues of mundane science” by Daniel Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley, and Michael R. Dove of Yale. (I discussed the essay in a lecture last year.)
It seems such efforts are gaining steam. For example, consider the growth of the Thriving Earth Exchange, an effort by the American Geophysical Union to help connect its global network of scientists with communities seeking science-based solutions to a variety of vexing problems:
When the initiative launched in 2013, the director Raj Pandya, wrote an article for Eos, the American Geophysical Union magazine, explaining the goal is “to enable communities to partner with Earth and space scientists and access the expertise needed to address problems arising from hazards, disasters, resource limitations, and climate change.”
More...
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/ ... dline&te=1
*******
New Research Center to Explore Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Carnegie Mellon University plans to announce on Wednesday that it will create a research center that focuses on the ethics of artificial intelligence.
The ethics center, called the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies, is being established at a time of growing international concern about the impact of A.I. technologies. That has already led to an array of academic, governmental and private efforts to explore a technology that until recently was largely the stuff of science fiction.
In the last decade, faster computer chips, cheap sensors and large collections of data have helped researchers improve on computerized tasks like machine vision and speech recognition, as well as robotics.
Earlier this year, the White House held a series of workshops around the country to discuss the impact of A.I., and in October the Obama administration released a report on its possible consequences. And in September, five large technology firms — Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft — created a partnership to help establish ethical guidelines for the design and deployment of A.I. systems.
Subra Suresh, Carnegie Mellon’s president, said injecting ethical discussions into A.I. was necessary as the technology advanced. While the idea of “Terminator” robots still seems far-fetched, the United States military is studying autonomous weapons that could make killing decisions on their own — a development that war planners think would be unwise.
“We are at a unique point in time where the technology is far ahead of society’s ability to restrain it,” Mr. Suresh noted.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/techn ... d=71987722
Watch a lightning-fast robot build a house in just two days!!
VIDEO
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/watch- ... ailsignout
If the three little pigs had this machine to build their house, the big bad wolf would probably still be starving.
Australian company Fastbrick Robotics released a time-lapse video of its commercial brick-laying robotic arm building the shell for a house in a staggering two days -- without ever needing to stop for coffee breaks -- and it's something to behold.
The Hadrian X is a 98-foot 3D robotic crane located atop a truck. The machine works fast, really fast, cutting, routing and placing bricks following a 3D computer-aided design model. The navigation system is so precise it allows for accuracy within less than half a millimeter, according to the company.
The robot can work with bricks of almost any size, without needing human interaction. Fastbrick Robotics aims to reduce construction time, waste and cost for consumers. You might want to start thinking about the mansion of your dreams.
This article originally appeared on CNET.
*****
This innovative backpack will keep your suit wrinkle-free when you travel
VIDEO
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/topvideo ... ailsignout
VIDEO
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/watch- ... ailsignout
If the three little pigs had this machine to build their house, the big bad wolf would probably still be starving.
Australian company Fastbrick Robotics released a time-lapse video of its commercial brick-laying robotic arm building the shell for a house in a staggering two days -- without ever needing to stop for coffee breaks -- and it's something to behold.
The Hadrian X is a 98-foot 3D robotic crane located atop a truck. The machine works fast, really fast, cutting, routing and placing bricks following a 3D computer-aided design model. The navigation system is so precise it allows for accuracy within less than half a millimeter, according to the company.
The robot can work with bricks of almost any size, without needing human interaction. Fastbrick Robotics aims to reduce construction time, waste and cost for consumers. You might want to start thinking about the mansion of your dreams.
This article originally appeared on CNET.
*****
This innovative backpack will keep your suit wrinkle-free when you travel
VIDEO
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/topvideo ... ailsignout
How a self-driving car sees the road
What do I do with my hands?
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/video/te ... vi-AAkFTPv
This robot can whack weeds for you
And it won't kill any of your plants by mistake!
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/news/thi ... ailsignout
*****
Technology firms may struggle to disrupt the food business
Zume tries to reinvent America’s $34bn pizza business, one robot at a time
THE office parks of Silicon Valley boast many firms that are trying to change the world. But there are plenty with more modest goals. Zume Pizza, a tiny startup that is located a few miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google, wants to redesign the way pizzas are made. Zume has programmed robots to make pizzas that are then put into a van and baked as they hurtle towards customers. Ovens are timed to finish cooking in sync with the vehicles’ arrival at their destination, so the pies are always piping hot.
In recent weeks spies from rival pizza companies and from food-delivery firms have been driving by in unmarked cars taking photographs of the office and the vans, says Julia Collins, one of Zume’s co-founders. To protect its business, the startup has patented the whole process of cooking food in ovens while a vehicle is moving (the patent probably gives Zume defensible intellectual property, says one patent lawyer). The company only operates in Mountain View, but has expansion plans. Since its founding last year it has reportedly raised $6m from investors, among them Jerry Yang, a co-founder and former boss of Yahoo, an early giant of the internet.
Tech entrepreneurs have not spared the food industry, but their principal focus has been on delivery services. Actually making the food represents a fresher opportunity. Restaurant chains have been slow to invest in technology themselves because the cost of labour is usually fairly cheap, says John Glass, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, a bank. They have spent money on mobile payments and on online ordering, but there is scope for more innovation.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/business- ... lydispatch
What do I do with my hands?
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/video/te ... vi-AAkFTPv
This robot can whack weeds for you
And it won't kill any of your plants by mistake!
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/news/thi ... ailsignout
*****
Technology firms may struggle to disrupt the food business
Zume tries to reinvent America’s $34bn pizza business, one robot at a time
THE office parks of Silicon Valley boast many firms that are trying to change the world. But there are plenty with more modest goals. Zume Pizza, a tiny startup that is located a few miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google, wants to redesign the way pizzas are made. Zume has programmed robots to make pizzas that are then put into a van and baked as they hurtle towards customers. Ovens are timed to finish cooking in sync with the vehicles’ arrival at their destination, so the pies are always piping hot.
In recent weeks spies from rival pizza companies and from food-delivery firms have been driving by in unmarked cars taking photographs of the office and the vans, says Julia Collins, one of Zume’s co-founders. To protect its business, the startup has patented the whole process of cooking food in ovens while a vehicle is moving (the patent probably gives Zume defensible intellectual property, says one patent lawyer). The company only operates in Mountain View, but has expansion plans. Since its founding last year it has reportedly raised $6m from investors, among them Jerry Yang, a co-founder and former boss of Yahoo, an early giant of the internet.
Tech entrepreneurs have not spared the food industry, but their principal focus has been on delivery services. Actually making the food represents a fresher opportunity. Restaurant chains have been slow to invest in technology themselves because the cost of labour is usually fairly cheap, says John Glass, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, a bank. They have spent money on mobile payments and on online ordering, but there is scope for more innovation.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/business- ... lydispatch