Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 76
September 26, 2017
Elon Musk throws down the gauntlet and challenges Mercedes to spend more than $1 billion on electric cars
News broke last Thursday that Daimler, Mercedes’ parent company, was investing $1 billion in its Alabama plant to start building an electric SUV in 2020.
Many outlets said the investment was an obvious challenge to Tesla, a formidable competitor in the US’ electric space that plans to build its own compact SUV, the Model Y, in 2020. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, however, begs to differ.
“That’s not a lot of money for a giant like Daimler/Mercedes. Wish they’d do more. Off by a zero,” Musk said on Sunday on Twitter.
Musk has long welcomed competition in the electric-vehicle space, saying it will help speed the growth of sustainable transportation. He open-sourced patents in 2014 as part of that aim.
Musk’s comment supports his stance that automakers with a bigger cash cushion should do more to advance electric cars.
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“It doesn’t really harm Tesla but helps the industry,” Musk said during a 2014 call, “And I think actually it will help Tesla, mostly with respect to attracting and motivating the world’s best technical talent.”
Daimler responded to Musk’s tweet, noting that it said in Nov. 2016 that it would spend $10 billion on next-generation electric vehicles and $1 billion on battery production.
You’re absolutely right @elonmusk. Here the missing zero: Investing >$10bn in nxt gen EVs & >$1bn in battery prod.
September 25, 2017
Showtime acquires rights to Bill Clinton-James Patterson novel ‘The President Is Missing’
The premium cable network announced Friday that is has acquired the rights to adapt “The President Is Missing,” the upcoming novel by former President Clinton and James Patterson.
The thriller, which is be published in June 2018, tells the story of a sitting U.S. president’s disappearance.
According to the Associated Press, Showtime won a bidding war to develop the thriller for television. The network’s affiliation with CBS and its boss, Les Moonves, helped seal the deal. Moonves knows Clinton, and Patterson has worked on the broadcaster’s “Zoo” and “Instinct” series.
Clinton will provide unique insights and “the level of detail that only someone who has held the office can know,” Showtime said. The fictional work brings to life the “pressures and realities of the most important position in the world.”
“I’m really enjoying writing this book and working with Jim,” Clinton said in a statement. “And I can’t wait to see Showtime bring the characters to life.”
Showtime President and CEO David Nevins said developing the adaptation “is a coup of the highest order.”
“The pairing of President Clinton with fiction’s most gripping storyteller promises a kinetic experience, one that the book world has salivated over for months and that now will dovetail perfectly into a politically relevant, character-based action series for our network,” he said.
Patterson, who has sold more than 380 million books worldwide during his decades-long career, said Clinton’s involvement in the novel provides “rich storytelling opportunities for this series.”
The 42nd president has authored several nonfiction books, but “The President Is Missing” is his first novel and marks the first time an American president has ever coauthored a thriller. The book is to be published jointly by Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Co.
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Fearing eruption of volcano, thousands begin evacuations in Bali
Nearly 50,000 people have fled the Mount Agung volcano on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, fearing an imminent eruption as dozens of tremors rattle the surrounding region, officials said Monday.
Waskita Sutadewa, spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency in Bali, said people have scattered to all corners of the island and some have crossed to the neighboring island of Lombok.
Indonesian authorities raised the volcano’s alert status to the highest level on Friday following a dramatic increase in seismic activity. It last erupted in 1963, killing about 1,100 people.
Thousands of evacuees are living in temporary shelters, sports centers, village halls and with relatives or friends. Some return to the danger zone, which extends up to 12 kilometers from the crater, during the day to tend to livestock.
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Officials have said there’s no immediate threat to tourists but some are already cutting short their stays in Bali. A significant eruption would force the closure of Bali’s international airport, stranding thousands.
“It’s obviously an awful thing. We want to be out of here just to be safe,” said an Australian woman at Bali’s airport who identified herself as Miriam.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said hundreds of thousands of face masks will be distributed in Bali as part of government humanitarian assistance that includes thousands of mattresses and blankets.
“Mount Agung is entering a critical phase. Although it has been declared in the alert status on Sept. 22, it is not guaranteed that it will erupt imminently,” he said at a news conference in the capital, Jakarta.
In 1963, the 3,031-meter (9,944-foot) Agung hurled ash as high as 20 kilometers (12 miles), according to volcanologists, and remained active for about a year. Lava traveled 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) and ash reached Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away.
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The mountain, 72 kilometers (45 miles) to the northeast of the tourist hotspot of Kuta, is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia.
The country of thousands of islands is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
Source:
http://time.com/4955416/mount-agung-volcano-bali-eruption/
Daydream View users can now browse the web in VR with Chrome
Google is looking to make VR more mainstream. To that end, Chrome’s “happiness evangelist” François Beaufort, recently announced on Google+ that VR web browsing capabilities are coming to Chrome in the near future.
Actually, basic support is already available in the newest Chrome 61 stable build. What does this mean exactly? Well that Google Chrome users with a Google Daydream View headset will be able to view and interact with (most) websites in VR mode, as well as follow links between pages, and move between 2D and immersive viewing for sites that support WebVR.
Google added support for WebVR tech in Chrome back in February, but now you’ll be able to experiment surfing any site on the web in VR, regardless of whether it has specific VR extras added or not.
The list of Daydream-ready smartphones has been growing steadily in recent months and currently contains high-end models that have received a lot of attention from the Android community including the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30, but also the older ZTE Axon 7and Huawei Mate 9 Pro.
Since some basics capabilities are already available in the latest stable Google Chrome 61 release, those who have a Daydream View headset and compatible phone at their disposal can go ahead and start browsing the web in VR.
Source:
http://www.androidguys.com/2017/09/25/daydream-view-users-can-now-browse-the-web-in-vr-with-chrome/
Apple starts collecting browsing data in Safari using its differential privacy tech
Today’s public release of macOS High Sierra brings with it some key updates to Safari — including the ability to disable cross-site cookie tracking and turn off autoplaying ads. Arriving alongside those features is a less publicized new addition to Apple’s proprietary browser: data collection. The company is using its newly implemented differential privacy technology to gather information from user habits that will help it identify problematic websites.
This form of data collection is the first of its kind for Safari, aimed at identifying sites that use excessive power and crash the browser by monopolizing too much memory. Apple is also documenting the popularity of these problematic domains, in order to prioritize which sites it addresses first.
Differential privacy is a method for collecting large swaths of information without grabbing any personally identifying data in the process, so none of the information can be traced back to the user. The concept dates back to academic research, algorithmically obscuring user data, while bulk collecting information, in order to identify larger trends.
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As SVP Craig Federighi put it in a WWDC keynote, “[O]ne of the important tools in making software more intelligent is to spot patterns in how multiple users are using their devices.”
Apple has already used differential privacy for some relatively low-level applications, including predictive text in keyboards, emoji usage and search predictions. As such, the technology is already part of the company’s Device Analytics program.
It’s an opt-in box that you can choose to tick, depending on whether you want to send that information to Apple, much like you would with the company’s crash reporting. As such, Apple won’t be prompting users with an additional sign up or notification marking the new data collection in Safari.
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Apple starts collecting browsing data in Safari using its differential privacy tech
You can learn to build aerial taxis with Udacity’s new Flying Car Nanodegree
Online education company Udacity is growing its new Nanodegree program yet again – it’s adding two entirely new programs to the roster, including a new entry-level self-driving Nanodegree, as well as a brand new one focused on ‘flying cars’ (though it’s actually a bit more nuanced than that).
The Flying Car program will include course material created by world-leading aeronautics and aerospace industry experts, including MIT professor Nicholas Roy, ETH Zurich professor and Kiva Systems co-founder Raffaelo D’Andrea, University of Toronto Aerospace Studies professor Angela Schoellig and Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun himself. Thrun is also CEO of personal aircraft startup Kitty Hawk, which is also acting as a hiring partner for the new program to provide job opportunity for Nanodegree grads.
Despite its name, however, the Flying Car program isn’t actually all that focused on flying cars – its mandate covers a range of future transportation tech, and includes education material around drones, including quadcopters with self-flying capabilities and remote-controlled aircraft.
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MIT’s Roy calls the ‘Flying Car’ name a “metaphor” in a blog post announcing the new program, and Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun told me in an interview that there was some internal date about using the name at all. The curriculum is going to focus primarily on fundamentals of autonomous flight, including path and motion planning, vehicle control and perception sensor systems.
This should produce Nanodegree holders with skill sets that can scale to match the opportunity – from practical applications today in areas like commercial drone asset monitoring, to a future where short-range autonomous cargo and even passenger transportation is a viable real world tech.
“Today, the self-driving car is a much more present thing in terms of politicians thinking about it, and society thinking about it,” explained Thrun. “But one of the things that I am afforded here in Silicon Valley is to understand where the world is going. I firmly believe that flight, be it drones for package delivery, or what we do at Kitty Hawk where we build vehicles for passenger transport, that those things have a big future.”
Flying cars aren’t exactly the flight of fancy they once were, either; a range of companies, including Thrun’s Kitty Hawk, but also including Airbus and even Uber, are either building autonomous personal transportation systems themselves, or doing a lot to encourage their development. Some of the big remaining challenges that stand in the way of this kind of tech becoming the real deal include the very subjects being taught in the program – of course, identifying and providing resources where the market is underserved is what Udacity’s Nanodegrees are all about.
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You can learn to build aerial taxis with Udacity’s new Flying Car Nanodegree
Microsoft and Facebook’s massive undersea data cable is complete
Microsoft, Facebook, and the telecoms infrastructure company Telxius have announced the completion of the highest capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean. The cable is capable of transmitting 160 terabits of data per second, the equivalent of streaming 71 million HD videos at the same time, and 16 million times faster than an average home internet connection, Microsoft claims. The cable will be operational by early 2018.
Called Marea, which is Spanish for “tide,” the 4,000 mile long subsea cable lies 17,000 feet below the ocean surface and extends between Virginia Beach, Virginia and the city of Bilbao in Spain. Marea also stretches a route south of most existing transatlantic cables. Because of this, Microsoft says the cable will provide resiliency for those living in the US and Europe by safeguarding against natural disasters or other major events that might cause disruptions to connections like those seen during Hurricane Sandy. More importantly to Microsoft and Facebook: both companies have large data center operations in Virginia.
“Marea comes at a critical time,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. “Submarine cables in the Atlantic already carry 55 percent more data than trans-Pacific routes and 40 percent more data than between the US and Latin America. There is no question that the demand for data flows across the Atlantic will continue to increase.” For most of the route, the cable — made up of eight pairs of fiber optic cables enclosed by copper — lays on the ocean floor. Some parts are buried to protect from shipping traffic, usually in areas closer to the shore.
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In a blog post, Microsoft said the project was completed nearly three times faster than usual, in under two years. Marea’s cables are an “open” design, which will allow it to evolve as technology does, and as the population of internet users around the world jumps. The Marea cable also provides a path to network hubs in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, where the next billion internet users are anticipated to come from.
Tech companies are increasingly moving into the infrastructure space, funding new cables themselves, rather than joining telecom consortiums which operate undersea cables already. Google has also invested in two cables that run from the US to Japan, South America, and other countries in Asia. With the Marea cable, Facebook and Microsoft’s investment gives them more control over the vast amounts of data they need to move quickly around the world. Both companies will benefit from improvements in cloud services for products like Microsoft’s Office 365, Azure, and Xbox Live, and Facebook’s Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.
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ZUCKERBERG BRUSHED OFF OBAMA’S PRIVATE WARNINGS ABOUT FACEBOOK
In the days immediately after the 2016 election, Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg seemed offended by suggestions that the social network he created might have had any influence on the outcome, beyond serving as a marketplace for the exchange of ideas. “Personally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, it’s a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea,” he said, on stage at the Techonomy conference in Half Moon Bay, California. While some were quick to blame Facebook for amplifying misinformation about Hillary Clinton,Zuckerberg suggested that critics were betraying a “profound lack of empathy” by not taking voters who supported Donald Trump seriously.
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Zuckerberg wasn’t wrong to be skeptical of Democrats assigning blame rather than engaging in self-reflection. But in dismissing the possibility that social media might be anything other than a force for good, Zuckerberg was also slow to recognize Facebook’s own vulnerabilities in an age of information warfare. About a week after the Techonomy conference, however, Zuckerberg received a “wake-up call” from President Barack Obama, The Washington Post reports. During a meeting of world leaders in Lima, Peru, nine days after the election, Obama tried to personally appeal to Zuckerberg, warning that unless Facebook did something, its fake-news problem would only be exacerbated in the next presidential election:
For months leading up to the vote, Obama and his top aides quietly agonized over how to respond to Russia’s brazen intervention on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign without making matters worse. Weeks after Trump’s surprise victory, some of Obama’s aides looked back with regret and wished they had done more.
Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem posed by fake news. But he told Obama that those messages weren’t widespread on Facebook and that there was no easy remedy, according to people briefed on the exchange, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of a private conversation.
The account of Zuckerberg’s post-election reckoning also reveals new details about what Facebook executives knew, and when they knew it. The Post reports that Facebook notified the F.B.I. as early as June 2016 when a hacking group working in connection to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit, started making fake Facebook profiles to disseminate stolen e-mails and manipulate public opinion—days before Guccifer 2.0, a hacking persona now thought to be a front for Russian intelligence, took credit for hacking the Democratic National Committee. But after looking into the accounts, which were linked to the GRU’s hacking group called APT28 or Fancy Bear, which set up a Facebook profile for Guccifer 2.0 and a Facebook page called DCLeaks, the company came to believe they weren’t linked to a foreign government but were instead financially motivated.
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Robotic Dentist Implants 3D Printed Teeth in Woman’s Mouth in Autonomous Surgery
We’ve all volunteered for things in our lives, whether it’s something we want to do or something we may not be super excited about. Many volunteers are needed in the medical field to test out new technology – how would we know it’s possible to transplant organs without trying it out first? I have always been fascinated by the selfless people who volunteer to donate their kidneys to strangers; I don’t know if I could do it. Some volunteers offer not to donate, but to be on the receiving end of new procedures that need to be tried out. A woman in China recently volunteered to have 3D printed teeth implanted in her mouth…by a robotic dentist.
According to the South China Morning Post, there is a major shortage of dentists in the country – about 400 million people in China are in need of dental implants, but each year, only about one million people receive them. Sometimes when people can’t get dental surgery, they’ll visit individuals who are not qualified to perform dental work, causing themselves more harm. Dental surgery is hard enough, given the small, often hard to see space that dentists have to work in, without having to worry about not having enough dentists.
We often see 3D printing technology combined with dental applications, and using robots in surgery is not a new concept either – we’ve seen robots that are designed to perform hysterectomies and even brain surgery on epilepsy patients, but this is the first robot dentist I’ve ever heard of. This is also the first completely autonomous robotic dental implant surgery, and the researchers who developed the robot hope it will be able to help with the shortage of qualified dentists in China, as well as cut back on problems caused by human error.
As a person who is already terrified of going to the dentist, the idea of a robot wielding the instruments sounds like my absolute worst nightmare. But, I do believe anything that can safely cut down on human error during surgery is a good idea, so I should probably get used to robots running operations.
Source:
https://3dprint.com/188789/robotic-dentist-3d-printed-teeth/
Clinton: Trump should send Navy to help Puerto Rico
Hillary Clinton is calling on the Trump administration to send the U.S. Navy to help Puerto Rico in its relief efforts after Hurricane Maria tore through the U.S. territory, leaving destruction and damage in its wake
Clinton in a tweet on Sunday urged President Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis to deploy the Navy, including the United States Naval Ship Comfort, immediately in order to help those on the island reeling from the Category 4 storm’s aftermath.
“These are American citizens,” she added, along with a retweet of the images of the faces impacted by the destruction.
President Trump, Sec. Mattis, and DOD should send the Navy, including the USNS Comfort, to Puerto Rico now. These are American citizens. https://t.co/J2FVg4II0n
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 24, 2017
Hurricane Maria brought large amounts of destruction as the whipping winds and relentless rain pummeled the islands in the Caribbean, claiming the lives of at least 19 people in the region.
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About 3.4 million residents in Puerto Rico are living without electricity after the storm knocked out the power on Wednesday. Officials are warning that it could be months before they see the lights flicker back on as repair efforts just begin to get afoot.
Federal emergency relief resources are already strained after a wave of powerful storms hit the U.S. over the past few months including Hurricane Harvey and Irma.
Trump spoke with the governors of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thursday, a day after declaring the impact of Hurricane Maria a major disaster.
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Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló called the Category 4 storm the “most devastating storm to hit the island this century, if not in modern history.”
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