Archive for March, 2015
Google’s New Facial Recognition System
March 19th, 2015Via: Fortune: New advances in facial recognition are a step forward for an artificial intelligence technique called deep learning. “I never forget a face,” some people like to boast. It’s a claim that looks quainter by the day as artificial intelligence research continues to advance. Some computers, it turns out, never forget 260 million faces. […]
Bill Gates Warns on Future Disease Epidemic
March 19th, 2015Flashback 2011: Via: BBC: The world needs to prepare for the next major health crisis, Bill Gates has told delegates at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference. While Ebola seems to be being kept under control currently, next time “we may not be so lucky” the Microsoft co-founder warned. He said that there were […]
Some Northern California Farmers Not Planting This Year, Will Make More Money Selling Water to Los Angeles
March 19th, 2015Via: CBS: The rice industry in the Sacramento Valley is taking a hard hit with the drought. Some farmers are skipping out on their fields this year, because they are cashing in on their water rights.
Oil Supplies Hit 80-Year High
March 18th, 2015Via: Yahoo: WTI crude (CLJ15.NYM) prices are taking another leg down, hovering at the $42 a barrel level after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that “U.S. crude oil inventories are at the highest level for this time of year in at least the last 80 years.” EIA reported commercial crude inventories increased by 9.6 […]
Change We Can Believe In: U.S. Sets New Record for Denying Federal Files Under Freedom of Information Act
March 18th, 2015Via: Guardian: The US has set a new record for denying and censoring federal files under the Freedom of Information Act, analysis by the Associated Press reveals. For the second consecutive year, the Obama administration more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them under the open-government legislation. The government took […]
Women-Led Companies Perform Three Times Better Than the S&P 500
March 17th, 2015Via: Fortune: Boston-based Quantopian looked at how well Fortune 1000 companies led by women performed compared to the S&P 500 over a 12-year period. You’ve heard that companies with women executives at the helm tend to perform better than those led by men— and a new study furthers that claim, finding that women CEOs in […]
Makani: Google’s Energy Harvesting Kites
March 17th, 2015Via: Google: Makani is working to accelerate the shift to clean, renewable energy by developing energy kites, a new type of wind turbine that uses lightweight electronics, advanced materials, and smart software to generate more energy with less materials—all at lower cost.
How About That Erl?
March 17th, 2015Via: MarketWatch: U.S. oil prices were dipping lower in early Tuesday trade after sinking to a six-year low on persistent worries about a supply glut on Monday. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April CLJ5, -1.78% traded at $42.85 a barrel, down $1.04, or 2.4%, from Monday’s settlement […]
How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over
March 16th, 2015Via: The New York Review of Books: Here is what that future—which is to say now—looks like: banking, logistics, surgery, and medical recordkeeping are just a few of the occupations that have already been given over to machines. Manufacturing, which has long been hospitable to mechanization and automation, is becoming more so as the cost […]
Hertz Puts Cameras In Its Rental Cars, Says It Has No Plans To Use Them
March 16th, 2015Via: Fusion: Hertz has offered the NeverLost navigational device for years, but it only added the built-in camera feature (which includes audio and video) to its latest version of the device — NeverLost 6 — in mid-2014. “Approximately a quarter of our vehicles across the country have a NeverLost unit and slightly more than half […]
