#Baidu is developing a semi-autonomous car Baidu wants to keep the individual in control. Would you prefer to ride in a completely autonomous self-driving car, like Google s self-driving car,
or one like Chinese search engine Baidu s semi-autonomous car?##Instead of cars that have#no steering wheels, gas pedals,
or brake pedals for drivers to control, Baidu is thinking about cars with intelligent assistants who help you drive.##
##This is actually an intelligent assistant collecting data from road situations, Baidu s Kai Yu told The next Web.
He s deputy director of the company s#Institute of Deep Learning, a Chinese equivalent to#Google s X Labs. A team to turn the unthinkable to reality,
the Institute s website says. We don t call this a driverless car, he said, adding that a carshould be helping people, not replacing people,
so we call this a highly autonomous car. The first working versions are expected sometime next year.
In an irony that may not be lost on future cultural historians the search engine giant in the land of self-reliant independence is building a car that takes over completely.
And the search giant in the land with a history of huge collectives and mass thinking wants to keep the individual in control.
The Google vision, where there are no human drivers, is already becoming a reference point#either as a vision of a fun campus of the future,
whether Google s or Baidu s vision is more likely, it s hard to see how the next generation of Apple-,Android,
-and Windows-enhanced cars will not start tapping into the next generation of Siri s, Google Now s and Cortana s intelligence.
On the other hand even as hands-free parking has gained popularity, the idea of a completely driverless car is already being welcomed in some quarters.
which Google may already be left in the dust. There are now reports that Baidu, eager to gain the lead on its American competitor,
is developing#unmanned autonomous bicycles. Photo credit: Veooz Via Venture Beat Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat e
#A rescue drone that finds survivors by tracking their mobile phone signals The drone can pick out the location of an individual phone within 30 feet.
A mobile phone can be the device that saves you in an emergency, even if you aren t able to make a call.
The swiss Federal Institute of technology in Lausanne have developed a drone that can pinpoint the location of a mobile phone by picking up its Wi-fi signal.
can pick out the location of an individual phone within 30 feet. It calculates location by picking up the signal from several spots,
This is not the first time phones have been used to pinpoint people. In 2006, an Oregon family was found based on text messages.
The drone could also be used to provide Wi-fi if infrastructure was knocked out by a disaster,
Companies like Facebook and Google are looking into using drones and satellites to provide internet connectivity to remote corners of the world where installing internet cables is especially difficult.
The same types of systems would be useful in disaster situations to get large areas back online quickly.
The EPFL team noted its work underscores confidentiality issues with drones as its aircraft can pull phones Wi-fi network names and MAC addresses.
But it also only works in a search and rescue situation if a phone s Wi-fi connections are unprotected.
#Why the Internet of things just became very interesting The Internet of things (Iot) computing phase is the next industrial revolution, according to experts.
Making S-E-N-s-E of the next mega-trend) with Google Trends data containing the phraseiot,
During the Q4 13 inflection point, Google Trends data traversed from a prolonged period of stagnation to rapid ascension.
we expect a similar ecosystem of software vendors to develop. Despite the limited public pure-play Iot options, firms are exhibiting their bullishness towards publicly available layers.
invest in the publicly available hardware layers, wait for public investable options, or venture into the private markets.
Former IBM engineer and noted futurist#Thomas Frey#addressed a gathering of business leaders, entrepreneurs and community members on an issue he says is increasingly impacting the labor force:
Teacherless classroom Frey says he was approached once by Google to collaborate on a project to deliver educational resources to Africa.
Once you can download a level app on your smartphone, suddenly you no longer have need a for that tool,
When a user downloads an app, a part of a job disappears. It s a tiny piece but it s a piece nonetheless
For example, in the wake of Facebook s purchase of Oculus Rift, the amount of job postings for virtual reality designers skyrocketed,
#Here s why automakers want 4g technology in cars Automakers are counting on the connected car.
Today s cars are trying to replicate the smartphone experience. Touchscreen interfaces are common. Dashboard designers take UI tips from iphones,
and#automakers want to build apps for cars. Large automakers like General motors are taking the next obvious step
and#integrating 4G LTE service into their cars starting this year. Drivers pay a monthly service fee for#in-car 4g#that s separate from their smartphones,
and use it for an array of services from movies for kids in the backseat to sophisticated#GPS-on-steroids solutions.
It s a win-win for automakers the dealers who sell the 4g add-ons, and carriers like AT&T. But is it a win for consumers?##
##Audi, the first major automaker to introduce 4g connectivity, debuted the option in their 2015 A3 car.
GM is adding 4g capability to nearly all of their 2015 Buick models, and 4g is also rolling out to Chevrolet and Dodge within the year.
While some luxury cars have come with built in 3g in the past, there are two major game changers here:
Both GM and Audi are aggressively targeting middle-market consumers, and 4g viewers tend to consume a whole lot of bandwidth-intensive video content which generates expensive data fees.
Phil Abram, GM s chief infotainment officer (a job title which does actually exist) is the man responsible for rolling out interactive content and delivery systems for Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac,
and other brands. When Co. Labs held a video chat with Abram earlier this month,
he said that the 2015 Buick Lesabre, the first GM model with 4g, debuted in June
and the company will add 4g to 30 more models by the end of the year.
New#car buyers#would be given a 3 gigabyte trial and data plans would be set up by AT&T The cheapest $5 plan offers 250 megabytes usable in a 24-hour period;
monthly plans range from $5 for 200 megabytes to $50 for 5 gigabytes a month.
These fees piggyback on top of existing Onstar telematics packages, which start at $20 a month. We looked closely at other device pricing plans, Abram added.
The use case of cars is different than phones. In promotional materials, Audi and GM both emphasize 4G LTE service as a mechanism for users to get in-car entertainment, rather than for navigation or safety monitoring.
Buick boasts they cankeep everyone happy with streamed movies, music, and games, while Audi emphasizesfaster downloads and high-definition video streaming for up to eight devices used by passengers over the in-vehicle#Wi-fi#hotspot.
Smartphone and#car convergence#has been happening for quite some time and in-car 4g allows automakers to solve the vexing customer issue of answering demand to integrate smartphones without sacrificing safety or usability,
while simultaneously pushing a#lucrative car option#to market. Audi is offering drivers their a new and data-intensive navigation system,
which feeds the dashboard with information on#nearby gas stations, restaurants, and all sorts of Google earth overlays.
GM, meanwhile, is revamping their previously 2g Onstar system to take advantage of the new data possibilities.
And then, naturally, there are the auto dealerships.##In-car 4g hotspots#are potentially lucrative businessespecially
when there s a $50 monthly fee attached. It s a safe bet to assume dealers will give the hard sell to families with young children in the backseat
or businesspeople who constantly travel by car. Beyond the obvious use cases of Netflix and#data-heavy navigation systems, 4G LTE service also means drivers can send#SMS#text messages by voice dictation,
can have their seatmates shop on Amazon while they drive, and take advantage of a whole set of use cases.
While drivers and passengers might not necessarily need#high-speed Internet#in their cars it s arrived on the market
##and it s a safe bet to say we ll see it in most new cars sooner rather than later.
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#Home depot starts selling Makerbot 3d printers 3d printed nuts and bolts from a Makerbot. Home depot, the world s largest home improvement chain, announced the start of a pilot program#to sell Makerbots.
Video)# The Makerbot printers, which range from a compact $1, 375 model to a high-end $2,
Home depot s online merchant for tools, told Huffpost by phone. It s really about bringing about new innovation to customers. 3-D printers can whip up everything from#vagina selfies#to#handguns,
but Home depot envisions its customers using the Makerbots for decidedly more practical applications. Imagine a world where you can 3-D print replacement parts
said Pettis of the current fleet of Makerbot printers, You can t use it as a hammer.
Downey said customers typically use the printers for personalization projects, like a Chicago father who Downey said purchased a Makerbot to print custom furniture for his daughter s dollhouse.
The current generation of 3-D printers are still relatively slow#printing an item the size of a Lego brick can take roughly half an hour
Ten years from now, it will be quite common for people to have 3-D printers in their homes
In addition to Home depot, companies like#Amazon, Staples and Dell have joined the ranks of 3-D printer retailers.
an Indian startup, is going to start selling its Bluetooth enabled Lechal shoes for more than $100 a pair in September.
The smartshoes sync up with a smartphone#app#that uses Google maps and vibrate to tell users
when and where to turn to reach their destination.####Just tell your phone where you want to go
and then you can leave it in your pocket because the buzzing in your left
and not have to stop to check their phones as they move because the buzzing in their shoes will let them know when to turn.
but it has been held back by the difficulties in printing materials that are strong, flexible and can encourage the regrowth of healthy bone in the same way as current methods,
Now, researchers in the U s. have developed a new way of printing in calcium phosphate that can be done at relatively low temperatures which results in a scaffold that is mechanically strong
Inkjet printing of collagen solutions with high resolution has not been utilized previously in 3d printing of calcium phosphates
Ellie is an early iteration computer simulated psychologist, a bit of complicated software designed to identify signals of depression
and other mental health problems through an assortment of real-time sensors (she was developed to help treat PTSD in soldiers
a Microsoft Kinect movement sensor to track gestures and jerks, and a microphone to capture inflection and tone.
"And we know that the body displays things that sometimes people try to keep contained.
"The mere belief that participants were interacting with only a computer made them more open and honest, researchers found,
when they thought only pixels were present. The reason for this success is pretty straightforward.
no great stretch because all we re really talking about is access to a huge database of psychological data combined with ultra-accurate pattern recognition, two already possible developments.
The Department of labor released new data that suggests that raising the minimum wage in some states might have spurred job growth,
The data run counter to a Congressional Budget Office report in February#that said raising the minimum wage to $10. 10 an hour,
The state-by-state hiring data, released Friday by the Labor department, provides ammunition to the camp in favor of raising the minimum wage.
The job data isn t definitive he added, but is probably a reasonable first cut at
#Imprint Energy is developing flexible, printed batteries for wearable devices Ultrathin zinc-polymer battery. Imprint Energy is developing flexible,
rechargeable batteries that can be printed cheaply on commonly used industrial screen printers. The California startup has been testing its ultrathin zinc-polymer batteries in wrist-worn devices
the batteries can deliver enough current for low-power wireless communications sensors, distinguishing them from other types of thin batteries.
as well as AME Cloud Ventures, the venture fund of Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, to further develop its proprietary chemistry and finance the batteries commercial launch.
where she collaborated with a researcher in Japan to produce microscopic zinc batteries using a 3-D printer.
The batteries that power most laptops and smartphones contain lithium which is highly reactive and has to be protected in ways that add size and bulk.
and one is displays, says Steven Holmes, vice president of the New Devices Group and general manager of the Smart Device Innovation team at Intel.
Despite demand for flexible batteries, Ho says no standard has been developed for measuring their flexibility, frustrating customers who want to compare chemistries.
but these printers costs range from $75, 000 up to over $1 million. Most individuals, and even a lot of businesses end up having to sit on the sidelines only dreaming that one day these prices will fall.
I saw some 3d printed objects that were unlike those on display by other companies. When I picked them up,
I found that this 3d printer did not fit into the same category as those other machines on the display floor.
That printer was the#Mcor IRIS, created by a company called Mcor Technologies. Mcor is a relative newcomer on the 3d printing scene.
a water-based adhesive, inkjet printer ink, and your standard A4 business paper. That s right, no expensive polymers, resins,
and the full-color IRIS printer which was released in 2012. Both printers utilize a technology called Selective Deposition Lamination (SDL.
In SDL, standard sheets of paper, like you currently use with your desktop printer, are fed into the machine.
The initial sheet is bonded to the build plate, then the printer deposits an adhesive and follows by stacking another sheet of paper on top.
This occurs until the printer is ready to begin the actual cutting and printing of the object.
It begins to stack the paper using a process that selectively deposits a water-based adhesive to each individual sheet of paper,
based on instructions received by computer CAD and slicing software. This occurs until a completed object has been printed.
there is an additional step involved where each piece of paper is colored using a modified 2-dimensional inkjet printer,
This allows for the printing of objects that can look extremely realistic. As you can imagine,
Mcor s Director of Marketing tells 3dprint. com. Staples, Gunma Internet, Vincennes University, WH Williams/Williams 3d,
and then 3d print their faces in full color with the Mcor IRIS. The resulting facial 3d prints were on display in a gallery in Europe.
a price that is pennies in comparison to some of the other industrial level printers on the market today.
due to the fact that many of them are only obtainable through the manufacturer themselves, Mcor printers use simple A4 business paper.
once the printing of an object is complete. If you don t like how an object turns out,
allowing their printers to print objects that look extremely realistic. This means that photographers, engineers and designers can all take photographs
and create CAD files, and then print 3d objects with enhanced color precision. Typically when 3d printers are fed color data,
they translate it into machine-specific colors, rather than maintaining the original ICC. This means that traditionally colors are not as realistic and precise as intended.
Likewise, a company s logo will be the same colour on the computer screen as on a model 3d printed by the Mcor IRIS because of our ICC profile.
More details on Mcor can be found on their#website where they have made available a free#White paper,
According to a Canadian Pet Market Outlook report, about half of Canadian households without children own pets.
As of mid-2014, more than 2, 000 megawatts of energy storage projects have applied to interconnect with the state s grid, according to recent data from state grid operator California ISO (PDF.
A project-by-project breakdown of all the applications is available in#PDF. What s more, CAISO only tracks projects seeking interconnection to the high-voltage transmission grid,
because the technology and intellectual property has been floated to the public as an open source transportation solution.
Magline further improves on system economics by utilizing apacket switching model that enables offline stops without slowing traffic on the mainline.
next-generation rolling stock and signal upgrades are expected to raise high-speed rail services in the excess of 320 kilometers per hour.
The product, known as Bag2go, can be tracked via a smartphone app. It also allows for self-service check ins
AT&T unveiled a similar concept at a demonstration of itsnext-generation technologies in May. The company envisions integrating the product with standard suitcases
About ten years after the commercial debut of the Internet, America s newspapers posted record high advertising sales of $49. 4 billion in 2005.
In spite of the declared determination of most publishers to pivot from print to pixels, the industry s share of the digital advertising market has plunged by more than 50%.
and overall digital data are from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. While newspaper publishers are continuing to gain audience at their web and mobile sites,
their interactive efforts typically trail the level of engagement achieved by many native digital media.
By contrast, Facebook alone attracts 166.5 million uniques per month. Here is the big difference:
While the typical visitor spends#1. 1 minutes#at a newspaper site, the average dwell time at Facebook,
the super-sticky social network, is nearly half an hour. Weekday print circulation dropped 47%from an average of 54.6 million papers a day in 2004 to an average of 29.1 million papers per day in 2014,
according to my analysis of a random sample of data from the Alliance for Audited Media. Sunday circulation in the same period fared somewhat better,
sliding 40%to an average of 34.7 million papers per week in the period ended in March,
NAA data show that the industry s total advertising and audience revenues across all categories shrank 35%in the last decade, wilting from $57. 4 billion in 2003 to $37. 6 billion in 2013.
The International News Marketing Association provided the historical data and I compiled the current data at Yahoo Finance.
One major consequence of the industry-wide contraction is that newsroom staffing dived by 31%from 54,700 journalists in 2002 to 38,000 in 2012,
The so-called Fingerreader, a prototype produced by a 3-D printer, fits like a ring on the user s finger, equipped with a small camera that scans text.
A synthesized voice reads words aloud, quickly translating books, restaurant menus and other needed materials for daily living, especially away from home or office.
Special software tracks the finger movement identifies words and processes the information. The device has vibration motors that alert readers
Developing the gizmo has taken three years of software coding, experimenting with various designs and working on feedback from a test group of visually impaired people.
including making it work on cellphones. Shilkrot said developers believe they will be able to affordably market the Fingerreader
and offices offers cumbersome scanners that must process the desired script before it can be read aloud by character-recognition software installed on a computer or smartphone,
the new device would enable users to access a vast number of books and other materials that are not currently available in Braille.
Users also had to be alerted at the beginning and end of the reading material. Their solutions?
Audio cues in the software that processes information from the Fingerreader and vibration motors in the ring.
The Fingerreader can read papers, books, magazines, newspapers, computer screens and other devices, but it has problems with text on a touch screen,
said Shilkrot. That s because touching the screen with the tip of the finger would move text around,
producing unintended results. Disabling the touch-screen function eliminates the problem, he said. Berrier said affordable pricing could make the Fingerreader a key tool to help people with vision impairment integrate into the modern information economy.
because corrupt politicians threaten innovation and a fair Internet. We have no protection for network neutrality because of the enormous influence of cable company s money in the political system
Intel s latest chips have transistors with features as small as 14 nanometers, but it is unclear how the industry can keep scaling down silicon transistors much further or
A project at IBM is now aiming to have built transistors using carbon nanotubes ready to take over from silicon transistors soon after 2020.
transistors at that point must have features as small as five nanometers to keep up with the continuous miniaturization of computer chips.
New york. Nanotubes are the only technology that looks capable of keeping the advance of computer power from slowing down,
In 1998, researchers at IBM made one of the first working carbon nanotube transistors. And now after more than a decade of research, IBM is the first major company to commit to getting the technology ready for commercialization.
We previously worked on it as a sandbox type of thing, says James Hannon, head of IBM s molecular assemblies and devices group.
Hannon led IBM s nanotube work before Haensch, who took over in 2011 after a career working on manufacturing conventional chips.
Wilfried joined with a silicon technology background and our focus really shifted. Haensch s team chose the target for commercialization based on the timetable of technical improvements the chip industry has mapped out to keep alive Moore s Law
This is the point IBM hopes nanotubes can step in. The most recent report from the microchip industry group the ITRS says the so-called five-nanometernode is due in 2019.
IBM has made recently chips with 10 000 nanotube transistors. Now it is working on a transistor design that could be built on the silicon wafers used in the industry today with minimal changes to existing design and manufacturing methods.
IBM s chosen design uses six nanotubes lined up in parallel to make a single transistor.
The IBM team has tested nanotube transistors with that design, but so far it hasn t found a way to position the nanotubes closely enough together,
Last year researchers at Stanford created the first simple computer built using only nanotube transistors. But those components were bulky and slow compared to silicon transistors
says However, for now IBM s nanotube effort remains within its research labs, not its semiconductor business unit.
says IBM s Hannon. If nanotubes don t make it, there s little else that shows much potential to take over from silicon transistors in that time frame.
Although IBM hasn worked t out how to make nanotube transistors small enough for mass production, Mirta says it has made concrete steps,
#Advances in emotional computing will give businesses an unfair advantage Pepper will understand human emotions.
They've developed software that can detect 400 different variations of humanmoods. They are now integrating this software into call centers that can help a sales assistant understand
and react to customer s emotions in real time. Better than that, the software itself can also pinpoint
and influence how consumers make decisions. For example, if this person is an innovator, you want to offer the latest and greatest product.
Mary Czerwinski is a cognitive psychologist at Microsoft Research doing pioneering work in Affect Computing.
a small wireless device on her wrist was monitoring her emotional ups and downs (through heart rate monitoring and electrical changes in her skin).
Other technologies monitor how hard you're pounding on your keyboards (another possible indicator of mood.
Imagine if your computer flashed you a message: Don't send that e-mail! What does it all mean?
and will be summonable with a smartphone app. The system s automated nature, transit expert Joe Dignan told#BBC News,
Benches can now be added to the list of things like watches, cars, phones, and everything else that comes in a smart variety.
the benches will feature plugs to charge your smartphone, and will also wirelessly connect to the internet to provide location-based information, like air quality data.
Your cell phone doesn't just make phone calls Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a statement Friday, the Globe reports.
and designed by three female engineers working with the MIT Media Lab spinoff startup Changing environments, according to Yahoo Tech.
one of the three inventors of the Soofa, told Yahoo Tech. One trait we have is we run around with our phones all the time,
and they die every five minutes. So for us it s really important to be charged up all the time
covered by Cisco systems at no cost to the city, the Globe says. And while the first wave will only occur in the Soofas hometown,
and New york too, Yahoo Tech says. Via Business Insider Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat t
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