Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Coronavirus Health Passports for UK ‘Possible in Months’
May 3rd, 2020Here we go. Via: Guardian: Tech firms are in talks with ministers about creating health passports to help Britons return safely to work using coronavirus testing and facial recognition. Facial biometrics could be used to help provide a digital certificate – sometimes known as an immunity passport – proving which workers have had Covid-19, as […]
U.S. Patent Office: Artificial Intelligence Cannot be a Legal Inventor
May 1st, 2020Via: The Verge: The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has ruled that artificial intelligence systems cannot be credited as an inventor in a patent, the agency announced earlier this week. The decision came in response to two patents — one for a food container and the other for a flashing light — that were […]
Will Covid-19 Speed Up the Use of Robots to Replace Human Workers?
April 24th, 2020Via: BBC: For better or worse the robots are going to replace many humans in their jobs, analysts say, and the coronavirus outbreak is speeding up the process. “People usually say they want a human element to their interactions but Covid-19 has changed that,” says Martin Ford, a futurist who has written about the ways […]
Einride: One Driver, Many Vehicles
April 14th, 2020Via: Cnet: Einride eventually hopes to be able to increase its vehicle-to-driver ratio to the point where a single remote operator can safely manage up to 10 trucks. The video shows the operator switching between two trucks at the push of a button, but we’d guess that it’s still a long way off from that […]
“Surveillance Capitalism” Is Now a Pandemic Necessity
April 1st, 2020Via: Bloomberg: There are no atheists in foxholes, and no tech regulators in a coronavirus lockdown.What was once thunderously described as “surveillance capitalism” is now a pandemic necessity. Twitch is where our children go to school; Twitter where epidemiological models are debated; and WhatsApp where we have drinks with friends.
Amazon Launches Business Selling Automated Checkout to Retailers
March 10th, 2020Amazon calls it: Just Walk Out: Just Walk Out technology enables shoppers to simply enter a store, grab what they want, and just go. Born from years of experience at Amazon Go, Just Walk Out uses a combination of technologies to eliminate checkout lines. We now offer retailers the ability to leverage this technology in […]
U.S. Navy Robot Submarine Would Be Able to Kill Without Human Control
March 9th, 2020Via: New Scientist: The US Navy is quietly developing armed robot submarines controlled by onboard artificial intelligence. The vessels could potentially kill without explicit human control. The Office of Naval Research is carrying out the project, known as CLAWS, which it describes in budget documents as an autonomous undersea weapon system for clandestine use. CLAWS […]
Video Content Producers Increasingly Trying to Work Around YouTube Censorship
February 25th, 2020Here are three videos in a row that I just watched with people trying to dance around YouTube’s censorship and demonetization systems. In the first one, Dana Ashlie goes as far as showing a white board to convey a glossary of terms!
Counter Drone SWAT Team
February 22nd, 2020Via: Breaking Defense: Sometimes, when lives are at stake, even Silicon Valley can’t innovate fast enough. That’s why the director of the Defense Digital Service, Brett Goldstein, has started forming rapid-response “SWAT teams” drawing on the Defense Department’s in-house talent. The first such team that DDS director Brett Goldstein has created – pulling together both […]
Tesla Autopilot Tricked Into Accelerating from 35 to 85 MPH by Speed Limit Sign Modified with Two Inches of Tape
February 21st, 2020Via: MIT Technology Review: Hackers have manipulated multiple Tesla cars into speeding up by 50 miles per hour. The researchers fooled the car’s Mobileye EyeQ3 camera system by subtly altering a speed limit sign on the side of a road in a way that a person driving by would almost never notice. This demonstration from […]
