Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 140
June 6, 2017
Lyft and Nutonomy partner to bring first self-driving Lyft service to Boston
Lyft has another partners in the world of autonomous vehicles, its third behind GM and Waymo if you’re keeping count. The newest partner is Nutonomy, the Boston-based autonomous vehicle technology company that made waves by being first to real roads with a self-driving taxi – thanks to a team-up with Singapore’s economic development board. Now, Nutonomy and Lyft are launching a self-driving ride hailing service closer to home – in Boston, where a pilot project will see a couple of cars begin picking up riders sometime in the coming months.
During a press call to discuss the new partnership, Lyft co-founder and CEO Logan Green noted that his company believes ride sharing will account for “over 80 percent of all miles traveled” within a couple of decades, and that the way this will happen is via autonomous vehicle tech. That’s why it’s entering into this partnership with Nutonomy, he said, which, in its first stage, will focus on the passenger experience.
Both Nutonomy and Lyft are relatively inexperienced when it comes to actually transporting passengers in self-driving vehicles, as Nutonomy CEO and co-founder Karl Iagnemma noted on the call. So, too, is basically everyone, however, since this is relatively untrodden territory.
“We don’t really know in detail how riders are going to engage with autonomous vehicles because, frankly, we just don’t have that much experience,” Iagnemma said. That’s why they’ll be looking to use this partnership to gather data on rider interaction with the service, from hailing, to meeting their vehicle, to in-car experience and more. Green noted that it’ll focus on the entire “end-to-end” rider journey, and will include a new extension of the Lyft app that appears in-car on tablets mounted within the vehicles used for the pilot.
[image error]
Those cars will initially be a small number of Renault Zoe EVs, which Nutonomy began road-testing in Boston starting last November. Iagnemma confirmed that Nutonomy engineers are already working on integrating Lyft software into “a couple of” vehicles, to be deployed sometime “in the coming months,” for actual customer pickups, though no more specific timeline was given.
Green and Iagnemma noted that long-term, the companies hope to field “thousands” of Nutonomy vehicles on Lyft’s ride hailing network. Green wouldn’t comment specifically on how this partnership will or won’t impact existing work with GM and Waymo, only noting that each are completely separate agreements, each “very different” in nature.
The two are a good fit because they’re both “safety first organizations,” too, according to Green. But neither is ready yet to discuss exactly how riders from Lyft’s user pool will be selected to take part in the trial – Uber’s debut Pittsburgh service, which was open to regular riders, would alert customers that they’d be receiving an autonomous test vehicle after their trip was confirmed, and it’s likely Lyft will do something similar.
This partnership is also all about mutual benefit; no money is changing hands in either direction as a result of the deal.
“There is no financial arrangement between the two companies,” Logan confirmed. “It’s a collaborative, R&D-based partnership.”
In addition to its new collaborative effort with Lyft, Nutonomy recently announced a partnership with Peugot owner PSA for autonomous vehicle testing in Singapore. Iagnemma noted on the call that this is designed to ultimately help integrate Nutonomy’s tech in a range of PSA vehicles that can eventually be run on ride hailing platforms like Lyft’s, once they become more prevalent.
Source:
Uber Fires 20 Amid Investigation Into Workplace Culture
Uber has fired more than 20 employees in conjunction with an internal investigation into its workplace culture, according to a current Uber employee.
The company disclosed the move at an all-hands meeting at its San Francisco headquarters on Tuesday, said the person, who spoke anonymously because he or she was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Uber executives did not name the individuals who were terminated.
Uber is taking steps to correct what many in the ride-hailing company say are deep-seated management and culture issues, which have been brought to light over the last few months. In February, Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, said that she was sexually harassed by her supervisor during her time at Uber and that the human resources department ignored the claims. Other employees reported systemic issues within Uber, where a premium was placed on strong performance and growth, often at the expense of other workplace behavior.
[image error]
Uber has hired former United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and his law firm, Covington & Burling, to conduct an independent investigation of those claims and Uber’s overall culture. The findings are not yet out.
Uber’s terminations announced on Tuesday stem from a separate investigation conducted by Perkins Coie, another law firm hired by Uber. Lawyers from Perkins Coie consulted with Uber on the internal investigation, and Uber acted upon that firm’s recommendations.
Mr. Holder’s report has been delivered to Uber’s board, though it is unclear when it will be distributed more widely within the company.
Source:
Sony PlayStation VR sales reaches 1 million milestone
#playstation vr was launched back in October 2016 and since then #Sony has sold quite well in the market, competing against the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and HTC Vive. In February, a report surfaced that Sony managed to sell 915,000 PS VR devices and was quickly stepping toward the million mark.
Now, after almost four months since that report, Sony has finally confirmed that the sales of its PlayStation VR have crossed the 1 million mark. This puts Sony ahead of HTC’s Vive and Oculus Rift. According to an analysis by SuperData, Vive VR sold 420,000 units by the end of 2016, while the Oculus Rift sold only around 243,000 units.
However, Sony was unable to cross the milestone set by South Korean company Samsung, whose Gear #Vr Headset has shipped to over 5 million people worldwide.
What Sony CEO had to say
Shawn Layden, president and CEO of Sony, has said that although the million units sales may sound like a great achievement, but it really was no big deal. He explained that nearly 60 million people own the PlayStation 4 console, and just one million of them have decided to get the VR headset from the company. This is why Layden thinks there is still a lot of work left to be done.
The Sony CEO also pointed out that sale of the VR headset had suffered due to the shortage of supply to stores during December, when people had to search a lot to get their hands on one unit. To ensure that such things do not take place in the future, Layden says that he will make an effort so that the company is well prepared for the demand.
Sales were also relatively slower because of the fact that there were not many interesting VR titles on the PS4 platform. Although, “Rez Infinite,” “Thumper,” and “Resident Evil 7” were good games and much appreciated, the VR side of the console has been greatly ignored by game developers.
Whats next for PS VR
Layden said that the recently released sci-fi shooter “Farpoint” and an Aim Controller peripheral will usher in the new age for the PlayStation VR platform. The president of Sony also promised fans that a lot of new VR related programs would be announced at the upcoming E3 2017 event. So, it seems the company is really trying to push the VR medium.
However, VR experience is not restricted to games only, Layden revealed plans of working together with Vince Gilligan and Sony Pictures to bring the ‘Breaking Bad’ experience to the PlayStation VR. What this experience may be like is anybody’s guess for now. More of this may be revealed at the E3 event.
Source:
Ashley Graham Reveals She Was Sexually Harassed At Work At 17
Ashley Graham recently revealed that she was sexually harassed on a modeling set when she was just 17 years old.
The model recently sat down with Glamour for the magazine’s July issue to discuss her rise to fame as a plus-size supermodel and her passion for body-positive activism. During the interview, the 29-year-old opened up about a disturbing experience when she was a young model on set.
“There was an incident on set of a campaign job when I was 17 years old ― I haven’t told this story ― and there was a photo assistant who was into me,” Graham told the magazine. “He was like, ‘Hey, come here,’ and he led me into a closet. And I was like, ‘What?’ I thought he was going to show me something. And he pulled me in, and he pulled his penis out. And he was like, ‘Grab it.’ And I was like, ‘No! That’s disgusting.’ I freaked out. And thank God I was closer to the door, and I just bolted out.”
Graham said she never told anyone about the incident because she had hoped the man had changed. Now, however, she uses the experience as a reminder to herself to always be in control of her work and her workspace.
“I’ve seen him at jobs since. I even knew a girl he dated,” she said. “I didn’t tell her because there was a voice in me that said, ‘Maybe he’s changed.’ It was my young mentality. But I told myself, ever since that incident, that I wasn’t going to allow someone at work to manipulate what I wanted to do on set. So any image that you see out there is one that I wanted to take.”
[image error]
Why Valedictorians Rarely Become Rich and Famous — and the Average Millionaire’s College GPA is 2.9
A Boston University researcher who followed valedictorians and salutatorians into adulthood found that most did in fact achieve the traditional markers of success. Nearly everyone graduated from college, where their average GPA was 3.6; the majority went on to earn a graduate degree; and nearly half landed in top-tier professional jobs.
So far, so expected.
“But how many of these number one high-school performers go on to change the world, run the world, or impress the world? The answer seems to be clear: zero.”
The above is a quotation from Eric Barker’s new book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, where he cites the Boston University research.
Barker’s point is that while top students generally go on to be successful, few of them go on to achieve the kind of wild success most of us dream of.
Instead, kids who struggle with, or don’t particularly enjoy, formal education are more likely to get there. In fact, a study of 700 American millionaires found that their average GPA was just 2.9.
[image error]
There are two potential reasons for this phenomenon, Barker writes:
1. “Schools reward students who consistently do what they are told” — and life rewards people who shake things up.
Karen Arnold, the Boston University researcher, told Barker: “Essentially, we are rewarding conformity and the willingness to go along with the system.”
In other words, the valedictorians found out exactly what the teachers wanted and delivered it consistently.
But if you think about the world’s most influential thinkers and leaders, most came up with an out-of-the-box solution to some political or scientific issue. Going along with what was already working moderately well never made anyone famous.
When he visited the Business Insider office in May, Barker explained: “In school, rules are very clear. In life, rules are not so clear. So a certain amount of not playing by the rules is advantageous once you get out of a closed system like education.”
2. “Schools reward being a generalist” and the real world rewards passion and expertise.
Barker explains that, even if you’re fascinated by history in high school, you can’t spend all your time studying the European Renaissance. At some point, you’ve got to stop and move onto your math homework.
But once you’re in the working world, you’ll need to excel in a particular domain — and other knowledge or skills won’t matter so much.
And here’s the real shocker: Arnold found that intellectual students who genuinely enjoylearning tend to struggle in high school. They find the education system “stifling” because it doesn’t allow them to pursue their passions deeply.
Barker summed up all the research nicely in the interview with Business Insider: “Valedictorians often go on to be the people who support the system — they become a part of the system — but they don’t change the system or overthrow the system.”
None of this is to say, of course, that if you were your high-school valedictorian, you’ll never achieve big-time success. You might very well.
But you’ll have to keep in mind that playing by the rules won’t get you as far as it once did. Taking risks and going against the grain — “sticking it to the man,” if you will — is harder to do, but it’ll get you farther.
Source:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295095
UN chief warns oceans are ‘under threat as never before’
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first-ever UN conference on oceans with a warning that the seas are “under threat as never before” with one recent study warning discarded plastic rubbish could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.
The UN chief told presidents, ministers, diplomats and environmental activists from nearly 200 countries on Monday that oceans – “the lifeblood of our planet” – are being severely damaged by pollution, over fishing, and the effects of climate change as well as refuse.
The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement – a decision criticized by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and other speakers.
Guterres said the aim of the conference is “to turn the tide” and solve the problems that “we created”.
He said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for far too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.
[image error]
“We must put aside short-term national gain to prevent long-term global catastrophe,” Guterres said. “Conserving our oceans and using them sustainably is preserving life itself.”
General Assembly President Peter Thomson, a Fijian diplomat, said: “the time has come for us to correct our wrongful ways”.
“We have unleashed a plague of plastic upon the ocean that is defiling nature in so many tragic ways,” he said. “It is inexcusable that humanity tips the equivalent of a large garbage truck of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day.”
Thomson also warned that illegal and destructive fishing practices and harmful subsidies for fisheries “are driving our fish stocks to tipping points of collapse”. And he said increasing human-caused carbon emissions are not only driving climate change but causing rising sea levels by warming the oceans and making them more acidic with less oxygen, which harms marine life.
Thomson said the conference probably represents the best opportunity ever “to reverse the cycle of decline that human activity has brought upon the ocean”, and to spur action to meet the UN goal for 2030 to conserve and manage the ocean’s resources.
The conference asked governments, UN bodies, and civil society groups to make voluntary commitments to take action to improve the health of the oceans. So far, more than 730 commitments have been received, most on managing protected areas, according to conference spokesman Damian Cardona.
At the end of the conference on Friday, nearly 200 countries will issue a Call for Action addressing marine issues that Cardona said have already been agreed.
Source:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/chief-warns-oceans-threat-170605205005263.html
June 5, 2017
A dad casually mowed the lawn with a tornado in the background
Theunis Wessels decided it was time to mow the lawn on Friday, and no storm was going to stop him.
His wife Cecilia went to take a nap and was woken up by their nine-year-old daughter who’d seen a tornado brewing and was upset that her dad wouldn’t come inside, The Canadian Press reported.
Cecilia snapped a photo to send to her parents back in South Africa, where the Wessels lived before moving to Alberta, Canada, and posted it on Facebook.
The photo quickly made the rounds on social media as people added their own interpretations of the photo — and expressed admiration for Theunis’ commitment to maintaining a well-manicured lawn.
[image error]
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js ” data-e2e-name=”embed-container”>
i’m the guy mowing the lawn and the tornado is all the responsibilities i’ve been ignoring pic.twitter.com/yfSA2pJYCz
—antonio (@antoniodelotero) June 4, 2017
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js ” data-e2e-name=”embed-container”>
stopping thru an important event of the main story to do sidequests pic.twitter.com/xPke7LFhI9
—Kyou (@ningiou) June 4, 2017
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js ” data-e2e-name=”embed-container”>
I wish I was as chill as the Canadian dad mowing the lawn in a tornado.
—Audrey Proa (@proaconstricta) June 4, 2017
As for Theunis, he told The Canadian Press that the tornado wasn’t as close as it looks in the photo, that it was moving away from him, and that he was “keeping an eye on it.”
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js ” data-e2e-name=”embed-container”>
Can we superimpose lawn mowing tornado dad into other dangerous situations with him just “keeping an eye on things”? pic.twitter.com/es9HDaTRsC
—Ryan Burkhart⚾ (@BaseballBurk) June 4, 2017
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js ” data-e2e-name=”embed-container”>
Son: Dad, there is a tornado behind you. Get inside.
Dad: I’m keeping an eye on it.
Son: It’s a tornado..
Dad: You want an uneven lawn, son?
—Stephen Osentoski (@StephenToski) June 4, 2017
Source:
Digital Currencies (Such as Bitcoin and Ethereum) Deciphered
I’ve approached digital currencies with the mantra, “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” I’m not a programmer and my tech language fluency is minimal. I’ve studied markets, trends, and bubbles though, which gives me a healthy dose of skepticism.
Over the time it’s taken me to decipher the subject, I’ve been frustrated by most crypto-currency explanations. So here I’ll describe them from an outside journalistic perspective, not as an inside expert.
Many people with deep knowledge like to flex the complexities and nuances of what they know as a kind of proof or verification. The problem I have with this is sometimes these jargon-laden explanations come across like sub-prime mortgage gibberish—esoteric knowledge accessible to the initiated, potentially veiling a crazed bubble people think they understand, but really don’t.
So here’s how I start to think about it: what is the difference between a USB cable and a FireWire cable? A digital engineer might be passionate about the hardware and structural differences, but to most everyday people they are just cables. One transfers data faster than the other.
This helped me begin to think about the difference between the blockchain and the cloud. Note there is no cloud, it’s all servers.
Blockchain is a particular type of server that runs according to a particular code so that information is processed and stored in multiple places at the same time. The result is the information cannot be counterfeited. This makes e-currency effortless to transact because the money can be secure without the need to trust a third party middleman like a government or bank.
Software engineer Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet said, “Bitcoin is a remarkable cryptographic achievement [because] the ability to create something which is not duplicable in the digital world has enormous value.”
Writers like Neal Stephenson predicted the emergence of digital currencies as early as the ’90s. In fact, when Elon Musk and Peter Thiel founded Paypal, their original intent was to create a digital currency, but they were ahead of their time.
There are many different digital currencies that rely on different blockchains—database servers—and blockchain technologies. The two crypto-currencies considered to be the most reliable are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum is supported by the reputable online wallet Coinbase.
What’s interesting about digital currencies, for example with Bitcoin, is that it is run by a code which dictates the maximum amount of Bitcoins that can ever exist. We haven’t reached the maximum yet, by the way. People mine for Bitcoins by contributing hardware to the global blockchain. Once all the Bitcoins have been mined there will be a finite amount.
It’s this finite limitation of Bitcoin that will enable it to be something like a gold standard.
The double value is that these blockchains can also serve functional purposes besides hosting digital currencies. So owning digital currency is kind of like owning stock in a company.
In our digital world, with its infrastructure that seems to be infinitely hackable, different blockchains will use their software for different purposes as more companies and services adopt blockchains for dynamic databases. Simultaneously, an impending severe economic crisis might propel people’s transition of faith from traditional bank backed currencies to pragmatic digital currencies for our new global civilization.
Source:
http://www.influencive.com/digital-currencies-deciphered/
