While it’s old news (March, 2018), I’ve often wondered why Siri seems to be getting worse, and how/why Amazon and Google beat Apple to the market for Alexa-like assistants. MacRumors has this article where they report several of the problems related to Siri’s development. (Their article is based on an article written by The Information, which requires a subscription.)
Two days ago Google announced their “Principles/Objectives for using AI”:
1. Be socially beneficial
2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias
3. Be built and tested for safety
4. Be accountable to people
5. Incorporate privacy design principles
6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence
7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles
Zalando has started their own tech radar list.
“Technology is our superpower. Inequality is our kryptonite.”
I’ll add that not caring about the planet we live on is also our kryptonite.
As I get ready to release my new website on How I Sold My Business, I did some research on revenue per employee, specifically revenue per employee in the computer services industry.
As it turns out, there are all sorts of good information sites on the internet. Probably the most consistent source of information is the Fortune Magazine site, specifically these two links:
I was surprised to read in this TechCrunch article that Apple now has the second-most autonomous vehicles registered in California. A bigger surprise was seeing that GM has nearly double the amount that Apple has.
Bloomberg has a story titled, The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code.
Per this Wired security news this week story, a company named Securus claims to be able to track nearly any cell phone in the United States, within seconds.
If you’re interested in computer system performance, ExtremeTech has an article titled, CPU utilization is wrong on PCs, and it’s getting worse every year. The original article was written on the same topic by Brendan Gregg in 2017, but the problem has been made worse by the Spectre and Meltdown patches.
If you’re interested in developing applications for the Google Assistant, there is now a Google Assistant Developer Community Program. From that link: “To support your efforts and celebrate your accomplishments, we put together an ever-improving program with benefits and incentives that are tied to specific milestones.”
Makezine.com has a little article on Google’s AIY kits (DIY machine learning kits), including their Voice and Vision AI kits being for sale at Target. Google also has a terrific page that shows how to put the Voice kit together.
In case you’re worried about artificial intelligence (AI), there’s this:
Me: Alexa, cancel the current timer.
Alexa: I don’t have a timer called “current,” but there is one called “Fifteen minute timer.”
Me: *sigh*
Wow, in the last 48 hours Twitter, GoDaddy, Etsy, and other websites/businesses have sent me emails saying that their privacy policies have changed. The stuff Facebook has gone through (or created, depending on your perspective) seem to be having a rapid ripple effect on the industry.
On April 22, 2018, the Mosaic web browser — the internet’s first major web browser — turned 25 years old. And I’m old enough to remember using it. (Image from this tweet.)
If you’re interested in learning about “pay for written content” models, Medium has an article titled, The Medium Model
How we are building a system for high-quality publishing at scale.
Very much enjoyed reading Tim O’Reilly’s book, WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us the last few nights. Just surprised it didn’t have animals on the front cover. ;)
Per this Bloomberg article, “Volkswagen AG secured 20 billion euros ($25 billion) in battery supplies to underpin an aggressive push into electric cars in the coming years, ramping up pressure on Tesla as it struggles with production issues for the mainstream Model 3.”
“The world’s largest carmaker will equip 16 factories to produce electric vehicles by the end of 2022, compared with three currently ... plans to build as many as 3 million of the cars a year by 2025 is backstopped by deals with suppliers including Samsung. LG, and Contemporary Amperex Technology for batteries in Europe and China.”
“In total ... plans to purchase about 50 billion euros in batteries as part of its electric-car push, which includes three new models in 2018 with dozens more following. Volkswagen’s battery plans compare to Tesla’s $17.5 billion worth of purchase obligations as of last year, including $15.4 billion in deals through 2022, primarily related to buying lithium-ion cells from Panasonic, according to a recent filing.”
This morning Google announced their Google News Initiative, which is a number of things, but has these three objectives:
Here’s a good story about how Intel missed out on the mobile CPU market, and what they’re trying to do about it now. It’s always interesting to me to read about how leaders of large corporations misread the possibilities of the future, thereby endangering the future existence of their business.
If you’re into technology, I highly recommend Benedict Evans’ weekly newsletter. In this weeks email you’ll find stories like, The Inside Story Behind Pebble’s Demise, Google’s blog post titled Assessing Cardiovascular Risk Factors with Computer Vision, a story about how Intel Fights for its Future by Jean-Louis Gassée, and Pete Warden’s story of Why Low-Power NN Accelerators Matter. All good reads.
