Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category

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New York: FedEx Receives Cease-and-Desist Order Over Robot Delivery Marketing Stunt

November 27th, 2019

Via: Fast Company: The tech industry’s perennial fantasy of replacing delivery workers with cutesy robots hasn’t quite panned out yet, but that didn’t stop FedEx from coming out with its own autonomous delivery machine and plopping one on a busy Manhattan sidewalk last week. The robot’s New York City debut was just a marketing stunt, […]

Audi to Cut 10% of Workers to Fund Shift to Electric Vehicles

November 26th, 2019

Via: Reuters: Volkswagen’s luxury car unit Audi on Tuesday said it would cut one in ten jobs, freeing up billions of euros to fund its shift toward electric vehicle production.

Massachusetts State Police Tested Out Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog

November 26th, 2019

Via: WBUR: Cops have long had dogs, and robots, to help them do their jobs. And now, they have a robot dog. Massachusetts State Police is the first law enforcement agency in the country to use Boston Dynamics’ dog-like robot, called Spot. While the use of robotic technology is not new for state police, the […]

Amazon Is Planning to Open Cashierless Supermarkets Next Year

November 23rd, 2019

Via: Bloomberg: Amazon.com Inc. is preparing to open Amazon Go supermarkets and pop-up stores, an expansion of the company’s cashierless ambitions that includes the possibility of licensing the technology to other retailers. The new store formats and licensing initiative could launch as soon as the first quarter of 2020, according to a person familiar with […]

Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Automation Could Replace 800 Million Jobs by 2035

November 15th, 2019

Via: Yahoo Finance: Some half of all jobs worldwide — or up to 800 million total jobs — could be at risk of becoming obsolete by 2035 due to the rise of automation. That’s the assessment from a new report written by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC) analysts highlighting 10 themes to watch for […]

Now Daimler Is Dialing Back Expectations for Self-Driving Taxis

November 15th, 2019

Via: Ars Technica: Daimler is planning to “rightsize” its spending on self-driving taxis, Chairman Ola Källenius said on Thursday. Getting self-driving cars to operate safely in complex urban environments has proved more challenging than people expected a few years ago, he admitted. “There has been a reality check setting in here,” Källenius said, according to […]

Amazon Challenges Pentagon’s $10-billion Cloud Award to Microsoft

November 15th, 2019

Via: Reuters: Amazon.com Inc on Thursday said it is contesting the Pentagon’s award of an up to $10 billion cloud computing deal to Microsoft Corp, expressing concern that politics got in the way of a fair contracting process. The company filed notice last Friday that it will formally protest the decision on the Joint Enterprise […]

How Chilean Protesters Took Down a Drone With Standard Laser Pointers

November 14th, 2019

Via: Nextgov: Video of Chilean protesters using beams of green light to ground a police drone made the rounds on social media Wednesday. But those aren’t tractor beams or Green Lantern rings—the protesters appear to be using run-of-the-mill laser pointers to take down law enforcement-grade technology. How does that work? Chilean protesters took to the […]

Two-Legged Robot Mimics Human Balance While Running and Jumping

November 13th, 2019

It’s always for first responders, fire rescue, etc. “High-impact tasks in challenging environments.” I’m sure the Pentagon wouldn’t have any use for this… *wink* Via: MIT News: Rescuing victims from a burning building, a chemical spill, or any disaster that is inaccessible to human responders could one day be a mission for resilient, adaptable robots. […]

AI Clones Your Voice After Listening for 5 Seconds

November 13th, 2019

Must listen examples at the link. Via: Google: We describe a neural network-based system for text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis that is able to generate speech audio in the voice of many different speakers, including those unseen during training. Our system consists of three independently trained components: (1) a speaker encoder network, trained on a speaker verification […]

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