Choose an article or a video at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology
and present it to us. Discuss it with your colleagues.
The problem with ecological cars emission in UK Since the adoption of the European Emission Allowance Directive in the European Parliament, all car makers have tried to submit. Since 1992, the Euro I standard has been in force, which limited the emission of carbon monoxide to the atmosphere. The Euro VI standard currently applies, which limits the series of exhaust gases. These include: hydrocarbons, nitrogen and carbon oxides, and dust. The most significant change was brought by the Euro IV standard. For the first time it introduced the limitation of nitrogen oxides, which are responsible for the harmful compounds of smog. What is smog? Smog consists of sulfur oxides, nitrogen and carbon. In addition, solid substances such as suspended dust (PM). Dust suspend in atmospheric aerosols may be in liquid and solid form. These can be particles of sea salt, clouds from the Sahara and artificial compounds made by people. These compounds often come fr
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Link to the article : Humanoid 'rescue robot' learns parkour : by BBC
What we can see is an humanoid robot performing some fairly complex looking jumping.
Since the video went live, most of the comments were from people making fun and referencing various sci-fi films.
If we were to approach this video with a serious mindset, is'n it amazing how far we have come? Although Boston Dynamics are to be considered leaders in area of autonomous robots and what we have seen on the video is far from being "commercially usable", its still amazing what their robots and brilliant technicians behind them can do !
Any thoughts ? Are you guys amazed just as me ? or maybe you are becoming a little worried ?
Link to the video: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45605538/would-you-want-an-ai-version-of-yourself
As you might know an artificially intelligent version of person has been already created. It was a version of Donald Trump. The AI could tweet and interact like US president. "Sidekick" behavior is based on data from president's interview, tweets and speeches.
Now company that involved into the project wants to sell the product on the global market. So in the nearly future everyone could have their own AI on mobile phones. Your "Sidekick" would be a good friend to you, you always would have an opportunity to speak with it and also the app be able to make a simple decisions for you.
In my opinion it looks creepy, it's useless and dangerous. If app made a decisions for us, we would loose our identity and personality. But what do you think? Is it a good idea?
Link to the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45790074
BBC states that Google revealed its new Google Pixel during some kind of "privacy storm" connected with Google+ service. They claim that Google didn't make public a bug discovered in Spring which made personal data of 500,000 users not properly protected. And whereas I've heard about new Pixel devices, I haven't heard about this potential data breach, so I guess it's not such a huge scandal that it could affect sales of the Pixel 3. Even author of the article states that it won't be affected directly, so the link is just a bit clickbait-y in my opinion. ;)
In the next section of the article we can just read about new Pixel devices. 2nd series of this phones was known for having great camera and the main focus if the author was this functionality. In Pixel 3 Google still sticks with the single rear camera, which makes it a little edgy in the smartphone industry, where dual camera setup became a minimum. They claim that everything could be done on the software side and looking on the photos taken from Pixel 2 it could be true. People say that the camera on Pixel 2 was so good that they wonder whereas the one on the Pixel 3 could be better.
As far as camera capabilities, integration of Google services and stock Android experience are concerned I would say that Pixel 3 could be really cool device, but its design is just awful for me. Horribly big notch and bezels on the top and bottom of the device (in case of regular Pixel 3) make it just too ugly for me and I wouldn't consider buying it.
Link to the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45823180
In this article, BBC mentions that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) discovered cyber-vulnerabilities in nearly all weapons systems tested between the year 2012 and 2017. Pentagon states that they thought their systems are secure which is kind of bizarre because 50-page report created by GAO mentions that for example most default passwords were not even changed and one changed could be broken in 9 seconds.
Especially now when cyber attacks are so common, it is ridiculous that the weapons which are meant to defend the US can be easily taken over by their enemies and used against this country.
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45845431
Recently about 14 million Facebook users have suffered from data breach. Hackers acquired very sensitive information about victims such as usernames, gender, location data, relationship and religion status, history of work and education. Despite this very serious incident Facebook haven’t provided sufficient support and security for its compromised users. In the past other companies had provided access to credit protection agencies which lower the risk of identity theft. BBC asked Facebook’s spokeswoman, whether the company should involve more in assuring victim’s data security, she responded that they won’t be taking any more steps at this time. Additionally, European Union have initiated own investigation into the breach and compliance with obligations under GDPR, thus Facebook is in real danger of potential fine up to 1.6bln$ which is approximately 4% of its annual global revenue.
Anyone wondering if their profile has been hacked can get more information on Facebook support website
Facebook hack victims will not get ID theft protection
It is year 2018 of a century, that started a period in history, which is already called an “Information era”. The Information is already the most valuable tool in Humanity’s possession. Being able to conduct, modify, interpret, and operate on it has provided us with a huge amount of utility and numerous opportunities to change the flow of life entirely. Right now we even have the currencies that do exist only as a machine code. People’s personalities, information about our world, and other data as well. And… There is still not a single decent way to completely protect it.
Seeing news like this always irritates me. It shows, that all the data, no matter how big and sophisticated the companies that possess it, and how advanced their security levels are, is still accessible. It is not an easy task, however, that is good to begin with.
Although, it seems the only one achievement of all the informational security science. To make access to the “Private” data as hard as possible. But hackers obviously evolve as well. They train and have access to the tools as sophisticated as the ones in Pentagon or CIA’s possession. No wonder, that all the World leaders are still using old good paper mails to communicate and discuss the most serious topics at a distance, with letters being delivered in heavy-armored helicopters and planes. To read them, hackers will need a personal army, which is certainly not happening.
It may look fascinating to watch after this battle between hackers and companies from a distance… If only your safety and private data as well as access to your personality, savings and everything else were not at stake. What is your thought on that?
Link to the video: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45747393/virtual-lives-could-vr-change-how-we-think-of-others
As bizarre as it may sound, but this is exactly what researches are trying to achieve by "putting" people into the body of a person of different race, gender or religion. They run a simulation that puts the subject into an uncomfortable or even dangerous to subject situation and after that, they try to determine if subjects attitude towards the person they dislike has changed. One test put domestic violence offenders in bodies of the victim. According to the result of that test subjects started to understand fear experienced by victim much better and become more sympathetic towards them.
But that's not the only use case for VR. Scientists also noticed that the idea of "embodiment" can be used in education. It can enhance the abilities of user when solving a specific problem, for example, users embodied as Einstein performed better on a cognitive task. That virtual experience can help people to become more self-aware and improve their self-esteem by looking at themselves from completely another perspective.
It's unusual but quite interesting method to help people with low social skills but it's hard to tell if such method of therapy is one hundred percents effective and will work for most people, but for sure it as it was mentioned in the video it can be used in the gaming industry. In my opinion, virtual reality, for now, still lacks realism, when it comes to such simulations. What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think that "embodiment" can actually help to improve our perception of society?
Link to article: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45605539/meet-moxi-the-hospital-robot-helping-nurses
In this video we can get to know more about Moxi which is a socially intelligent hospital robot created by Diligent Robotics which recently started trial in three hospitals in Texas, US.
There is a shortage of nurses in the world so the reason why Moxi was created was to support clinical staff by conducting non-patient facing tasks such as fetching and restocking supplies or setting up patient rooms. Thanks to assistive robot, clinical staff can focus more on patient rather than logistic tasks.
Moxi is equipped with sensors which help to navigate all, even small areas but also with flexible arm and precise gripper which helps to grap all kind of supplies.
It has head and LED which allows to clearly communicate and show intention before moving to the next task. Moxi has significantly more “Human-like” look than earlier designs and that makes people more comfortable when they work with robot.
Moxi’s specific tasks and responsibilities at each hospital can be tailored to fit each hospital’s needs and I think that Moxi can be a huge opportunity for hospitals and big help for medical staff in everyday work.
But what do you think?
Amsterdam's canal boats go electric
In the description to video we can read that: "All of Amsterdam's canal boats must go electric by 2025, but switching from diesel to electric is not straightforward."
And indeed- a standard boat needs 66 bateries, each costs 2 500 euros. Boat companies are having to spends milions to go green.
Switching to electricity it's a solution for a pollution problem in Amsterdam. The diesel engines were also really loud, in opposite to the electric engines which are much quieter.
What do you think about that? Maybe you have a similar idea for Warsaw?
Internet connectivity through light waves could help 5G reach into buildings and underground.
All of us from time experience problems with cellular connection and with even further grow of internet you will consume more and more data. You most probably heard about 5G and crazy speed you might get from it. The only caveat is that 5G use high frequency and penetration ability is really low so if you are in concrete building it might not have a connection. Obvious solution for that is to use wifi indoors but even best wifi will not be enough for many people. This is where new technology li-fi come into play. The speed is phenomenal it's basically the speed of light. But there is a price to pay - the range is really low but can substitute 5G inside metro. It would be great to use better speed everywhere without any problems modern wifi have.
What do you about the update? Will update if your phone is supported? Do you spend much time with your phone so you need the last feature?
Link to the video: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/newsbeat-45826400/call-of-duty-why-we-put-own-twist-on-battle-royale-mode
In the previous Call of Duty games we had three modes: singleplayer with story campaign, multiplayer with various modes such as deathmatch, domination etc. and starting from Call of Duty: World at War we had a third mode called Zombies.
But the popularity of Battle Royale games such as Fortnite or PUBG forced Activision to implement Battle Royale mode in their new Call of Duty game.
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, the Battle Royale mode will be called 'Blackout' and it's taking what is popular in Battle Royale but also adds their own mechanics to this mode to provide fans with unique Call of Duty experience.
Pre-release reception on the game was mixed. Many fans expressed their disappointment at the game's lack of a singleplayer campaign. Moreover, fans were disappointed when Treyarch informed them that map packs can only be made available through season pass and not separately, which had been an option in the previous games.
What do you think about that? Do you still play Call of Duty games?
Climate change: Is your Netflix habit bad for the environment?
Link : https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45798523
In this article, it points out that, how much does the Internet inflict on the environment?
]f the use of the Internet causes the warming of the planet, what can be offered?
energy is needed to keep data flowing on the internet,Some of that energy is generated from clean energy sources, but much of it comes from burning carbon-based fossil fuels, which scientists believe is a contributing factor to rising global temperatures.
Watching video over the internet at home is roughly the same as having two or three old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs on, say Prof Chris Preist and Dr Dan Schien, of the University of Bristol's computer science department.
Streaming video accounts for the biggest big chunk of the world's internet traffic.
Most of the world's internet traffic goes through these data centers and they host streaming platforms such as Netflix, Facebook and YouTube.These data centers are estimated to currently consume at least 1% of the world's electricity every year and its about 0.3% of global CO2 emissions.
What can humans do to deal with this problem?
Data centers should be transferred to cooler locations, because less energy is consumed to keep them cool.
The International Energy Agency's latest report suggested that despite the increased workload for data centers, which will triple by 2020, the amount of electricity used will only go up by 3%.
This is down to continued improvements in the efficiency of servers and data center infrastructure, and a move to bigger but more efficient centers.
What is your opinion about this article ?
Can you suggest a better solution?
Have you noticed that Internet consumption is causing warming of the planet?
In our time some people found another way how to use drones. Drones are used as offensive weapon, to delivery drugs or phones to prison and to spy on people. And this summer one of drones have nearly caused air accident.
DroneDefence company have developed hand-held a gun that fire a net to trap drone. Also last year was installed system at the Guernsey prison which has a series of sensors around perimeter and can recognize any incoming drone and attack him by multiple radio transmitters that emit a signal designed to overwhelm the drone's radio transmissions. And then drone will lose connection with operator and like all drones when they lose connection they return home. Law enforcement have chance to track the drone and find the operator.
I think it's not the best option, but people are working to find the best way how to solve this problem. Maybe in the future will be some invisible walls that drones can't cross.
But how we can protect yourself from spying? I can't answer :)
Provided that the boat's battery is powered by renewable energy sources.
Due to the fact that we do not have a lot of sea traffic in Warsaw, this method is not cheap, but the use of electric buses and the ban on the entry of petrol-powered single-passenger cars in the city center, can reduce the Warsaw pollution.
Link to the video: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45369165/somnox-robot-aims-to-put-owners-to-sleep
Somnox - is a brand new robot which will help you to fall asleep.
It was designed by Julian Jagtenberg to help people to get some sleep after a hard day. The idea came to his mind after he saw how his mom was struggling with insomnia.
But how does it work? The robot is breathing, so you subconsciously adjust your own breathing rhythm accordingly and it gradually slows down towards a more meditative state of breathing, it also can play some podcasts or guided meditation so you can calm your mind after a busy day.
For me, it is a great idea and I would buy such a robot for myself!
But what do you think? Would you like to sleep with Somnox?
1. I always update my hardware to be up to date with the newest features.
2. I do not own a phone with android os so I will not do this :)
3. I like the idea of adding a limit for specific apps so you will not waste your time browsing, for example, Imgur or Reddit for 2-3 hours a day. I think that I need this feature on my phone.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45795573
In fact, it is almost 19 hours long and covers more than 15000km. And that was the point when I started to think that I’m glad I’m living in the 21st century. Just think about it, we have this amazing opportunity to travel to anywhere in the world, while people living a hundred years ago could only dream about it. Of course I should mention the price of the ticket, which is pretty high for this flight and Singapore Airlines won’t reduce it, because, as they said in this article, they are selling premium product and it’s targeting mainly business travelers. But still the good thing is that we have this opportunity now!
But on the other hand I started to think is it good for our health? Almost everyone knows what jet lag is. How crazy will your jet lag be after 17 hours in the air? And what about atmospheric pressure that will affect passenger for this long time? What do you think?
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45553489/video-games-created-using-artificial-intelligence
I found this post interesting because of two things: games and AI.
Video games industry is growing rapidly, and everyday players wants to see something new, something interesting, something innovative in games. Which definitely requires a lot of time and effort from game developers. So the idea of making AI that will create game for us sounds good, doesn’t it?
So I watched the report and have mixed feelings about it. This combination of old Nintendo games plus AI’s understanding of it looks funny but pretty useless. I think that only people could make games for people because of understanding of humans nature. We know what makes people laugh and what makes people cry, and it is emotions that are most important in games.
So for now I, as the game developer, can not be afraid that the AI will take my work, because the training of this neural network will take a lot of time and we can’t be sure that it will worth it. How do you think, can AI create Half-Life 3? ;)
This article is about how traumatizing a content moderator job can be.
I assume that as a website/social portal user You don't want to see depraved content - but someone has to. The article claims that Facebook has 7,500 content moderator working 24 hours a day, around the globe, and we must realize that there are many companies which need such employees. The fact that only 1 person is suing his/her employer is really surprising for me.
Because this job position is quite new, there is no long-term support plan for those employees. There is no research which would shown what is the impact on mental health of those people.
It would be best if AI could do this, but there are many circumstances - what is the tipping point ? Is this a cartoon or a real video ?
For sure this job is now for everyone.
This article shows a problem I've never though about, and it's highlighting a really complex problem to solve.
Link to the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45823450
WhatsApp is messenger application for smartphones and computers (you have to scan code to combine these devices). By the BBC article: "WhatsApp is used by more than 1.2 billion people around the world". It's something like Facebook messenger, you can write messages, call with video or share your statuses. It's very fast and I like it but my friends prefer other applications and I can't use it now.
Article is about application bug. It's normal, I don't know about application which is free of bugs. It is not possible, do you agree with me? It was problem with video call. To be honest, I have never used this function because If I have to call to somebody I prefer to use my phone option without any additional applications. Anyway, it was about transferring data during the call. It could lead to crashes. Facebook (WhatsApp owner) announce that they fixed it and everything is fine. In addition, they said that nobody was attacked (the most important for us) and no information has leaked. On the other hand, it was very long time to update which was fixing it because bug was discovered at the end of August and update was released in October. I like developers who are reacting as fast as possible and I hope that current month was first possible term.
As I said, WhatsApp is good option and I don't want to change it even If I don't use it very often. They admitted to an error and fixed it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45727841/the-fall-of-nokia-how-this-finnish-city-fought-back
“It was a terrible time” , ”There was an anger and there was a shame” –Petteri Lahtela and Arto Pussinen says about Nokia collapse.
In early 2000s Nokia was selling 40% of the world’s mobile phones. But after 10 years it collapsed. More than 4300 people lost their jobs. It was big hit for economy of Oulu, Finnish city but Oulu peoples doesn’t give up, it was the start of a new beginning.
After collapse was over 4000 competent IT people available. People who developing mobile phones use their knowledge for creating wearable devices, medical devices and products for automotive industry. People was active, they find they old contacts over the world and invite companies to Oulu. Also Nokia run program named “Bridge” to help their employees find new opportunities. Result of this program was setting up new start ups(in 300 to 400). Nowadays Oulu has many IT companies that make innovation products(car industry, digital health and many more).
What do you think, if Nokia hadn’t collapsed, would Oulu be a city with innovative technologies in IT?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690
Author of this article hypothesise that in the next few years we won't need to own cars to travel in convenient way because of autonomous electric vehicles. He said that it is hard to believe in such a big change in transport area but he pointed similar fast change in the past. As a example he said about people who were living in 1913 and they couldn't imagine that few years later in 1930 horses will be replaced by cars.
I think that we need a time to improve our technology and safeness of self-driving cars but I can imagine that it will be a good solution. I like driving cars but we need to looked at from the perspective. For me it is much convenient to use e.g. Uber because I can do another things during travel than wasting time on driving ourself. I don't need to worry about parking and I can sometimes drink a glass of wine and don't care that I have to leave my car in the town.
As an owner of a car you have a lot of extra costs after buying a car like an insurance, potential repairs and a fuel. I think that people would prefer to pay even the same amount of money for their own chauffeur as autonomous electric vehicles can become.
What do you think about this? Maybe do you have another opinion about this? Please share your predicts about a transport future.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690
The main message of the article is to show us how the future of cars will change.
There is many of tests and tech analysis which makes us aware that in less than 20 years we won't have our own cars. Main idea and hope in self driving, that can be vehicles as Ubber-style wich will be better and cheaper instead owning car.
This article also showed us how quickly, horses were replaced with cars (In NY and in only 13 years).
Nowadays Uber and different networked taxi are very popular and changed the way we move arund. It is cheap and safety option.
Now let's try to imagine to call taxi and there is no driver, taking out the driver and conversion of cars to autonomous cars is equal to cut costs by at least 50%.
That is very curious topic, there is another idea to switch normal car to electric.
At this moment in most of countries electric vehicles are more expensive but they have more adventages - they tend to last longer and environment friendly.
Generally self driving is our future because of this will be less risk to other road users and if the owning cars will reduce we gain a lot of space in town and cities.
It can be a big revolution!
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690
In this article bbc is trying to convince you that in 10 years your car might become more expensive than you think.
Your car is used only 5% of the time, 95% is parked outside and only losing value.
It’s stated there that in this one decade 10£ Uber drive travel will be cut into 1£.
Such a big change in that short amount of time seems impossible but if you think that in 1900 on 5th Avenue in New York there were no cars, just horses and only 13 years later, it was completely the other way around.
So it is possible and here is why.
The main predicted reason for the price drop is getting rid off driver and the invention of driverless Uber car it would cover the 50% drop. Another 40% will be achieved, by changing the internal combustion engines to electric motors.
Even if you would like to still have your own car, it will be much harder and harder. During the course of the years autonomous cars will be more safe and reliable in opposite to humans drivers who might be banned from some or all roads.
I personally have a car and I love to drive it. For me driving is pleasure to feel how the car sticks to the road on tight corners. As cool as autonomous cars would be, it would be hard for me to resign from pure driving experience. Asides of autonomous car I would still have my own: stupid, unreasonable, expensive but still fun car to drive.
And what do you think about future of cars? Would you replace your with autonomous vehicle?
Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45553489/video-games-created-using-artificial-intelligence
The video presents the game fully created by AI. Researchers input video from three old Nintendo games. Then they asked the algorithm to generate new one - with its own understanding of levels, enemies, and rules.
Currently, we are living in the world in which the AI algorithms becomes better in such games as 'chess' or 'GO' than human beings. Those games were being developed thousands of years and require thinking, predicting. The point is, that human is no longer challenging for those algorithms. I can't wait to see the games fully developed by AI which will be more challenging than those which were invented by us.
Deficit of energy is one of the biggest problems of the future. Companies and energy tycoons are racing in new ideas about recycling energy. The one of them is the biggest battery which was created by Tesla. It can accumulate energy for 30000 houses within one hour. I believe that investing in recycling energy is significant, because of the ending resources on our planet. It's necessary to remember that, there exist another supplies, which we can use for energy, for instance nuclear and hydroelectric power plants. I wish that in Poland there were that kind of things.
When I noticed the tittle of the article that „Facebook hack victims will not get ID theft protection” I felt offended and terrible because I despite the lack of the direct participation in this hacker attack I don’t feel safe when publishing new posts or videos or photos on my facebook. More over I am not feel safe in my daily using the mobile phone because I have connection to the internet and I have facebook app, so if facebook team doesn’t thing about my safety, every time I can be controlled by hacker eg they can know my location or with whom I going to meet today, what I’m talking about with friend or even what I was eating fot the breakfast today.
At the time of reading article like this I’m reminding myself that in the are of nowadays technology very good hackers could control everything what they want without my knowledge about this. I’m scared by the fact that super computer scientist could do more than everyone thing eg they can watch you by your camera without your agreement.
Returning to the main topic, I want to say that this is unacceptable that such big company as facebook can ignore important thing for each individual and in my opinion people should sue the facebook and demand your rights.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45664643
The article is about people working as social media moderators. At first glance, the work seems easy. However, employees often deal with violent and violent content. Watching such scenes affects the psyche, which is why moderators use psychological consulation.
Another interesting aspect of this work is deciding what is right and what is not. In such matters, there is no status quo and there are many factors that affect the decision. Sometimes it is difficult to assess where the boundary between an innocent joke and harmful content is.
People working in such a position must show a strong psyche and be emotionally mature. Such work is not suitable for very religious people. What's more, such work requires frequent breaks due to the impact of the content being watched.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690
We are used to thinking of cars as a common possession. They are tools allowing for a comfortable life. They give us freedom to go wherever we please, whenever we please. Oftentimes we see them as symbol of wealth and status. That’s why we’d scoff at the thought that we’d willingly give up on having a car of our own.
But it’s not as unreasonable of a claim as it sounds, when you look at the technological developments and the shifts in the workings of a society that we’re seeing nowadays.
The author of the article provides several very compelling arguments, as to why car ownership might become a thing of the past. The first point brought up is the emergence of Uber and similar business models and their eager adoption by the society. Taxi service was something that existed for a long time, but turning it into a distributed system, enhanced by computerization, helps to cut the costs and make it more responsive to the client’s needs. The writer then introduces the concept of marrying that system with the self-driving car technology and using electric cars over the ones with a conventional internal combustion engine. The resulting massive reduction of costs makes for a new idea – rather than ask for a payment for each ride, introduce a subscription to what would essentially be “transport as a service”. It doesn’t sound incredible – certainly, we had such arrangement already with public transport – but the idea that you’d gain all the benefits of traveling by car for a mere fraction of the cost is definitely compelling.
There might be individuals who’d disagree with this sentiment and would rather still have a car of their own, they are likely to be slowly drowned in the sea of people making use of this new technology. After all, with the way our civilisation is progressing, ability to pay a monthly fee for a transportation service that “just works” will easily gain traction over the need to buy and maintain a costly machine. Perhaps to an extent, as mentioned by the article’s author, where human-driven cars will be banned from the roads, for the sake of safety and efficiency.
Would you use such a service? Do you see problems with a worldwide adoption of it?
Money rules the world !
I’d argue that it’s not going to be the increase in the upkeep of your own car, but the very competitive price of the “transport as service” model that will bring about the end of car ownership. Owning a car will become a “labour of love” of sorts – keeping it maintained, fuelled and having the documentation in order will require time and money not many will be willing so sacrifice, given the easy option of paying a monthly fee.
I agree with you on the experience part - I too would like to still have a car that I can drive around for fun (and to make getting the driver's license meaningful), though if given an option, I'd surely be using the self-driving car on every morning drive to work.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45809919 - Amazon scrapped 'sexist AI' tool
For a moment I will play the devil’s attorney.
First of all, lets say that the algorithm did nothing wrong. As did the IT engineers who have written it. So, the task of the algorithm was to choose the best people for the job form all the CVs given to it. Great. Now is the tricky part. How did the algorithm knew who are those “best” people. It didn’t at the begging. Probably it was also not the idea of the engineers. The created a beast that would eat your CV, compare it to its data base and print out “hired” or “not hired”. So, the data base and how the AI is learning. Probably (because we don’t know how the AI is made) it went like this:
AI was born. Loud cry in 0s and 1s as it came to our world hungry for data. So his fathers and mothers from development team did what they should. The have given AI the data given to them from HR.
Data that was not biased because most of it were male CVs but because most of the ones that had big stamp “hired” on them were male. And many of CVs from females were with stamp “not hired”. The “hired” were much more tasty for young AI.
So the AI grew on that data and learned itself that most of the CVs containg word “woman” were to be given “not hired” stamp. The AI was then exiled for its bad behavior. Was it faulty? No it did exactly what it was told to and probably was giving the same or very similar results to what was HR doing. But it is much easier to tell “bad AI” then “our people in HR are hiring mostly men”.
So the moral of the story is: always blame the IT department and its creations.
And as my personal thought on the topic:
There is so many unknowns to say what happened. Maybe the AI was indeed faulty, maybe the learning base contained to many “not hired” CVs from females. For the AI itself gender does not exist so calling it “sexist” is like calling a rock racist because somebody thrown it at person of different color.
Also, if company is making the AI to decide who to hire it actually puts shade on the company, not the faulty machine. But Amazon is famous for its bad treatment of workers.
This article deals with new hardware products from Facebook and Google.
It’s interesting change of direction. Two well-known software companies presents hardware products. One of the reasons can be of course money. Software made by this company is free for individual clients as opposed to hardware products.
When we look closer on this devices, concerns about privacy may arise.
Facebook introduced Portal video chat screen. I associate this with “The Circle” movie, but Facebook said that he: “put privacy first”.
Google presented among others new Pixel 3/3XL phones which is also interesting becouse Google makes android OS. So it can be the best android smartphone, but on the other hand it cannot be too good, becouse it can threaten Samsung (and other android phones makers) position in the market.
In my opinion Pixel 3 XL has too big notch and chin.
What do you think about it? Is it a good direction?
Are you going to buy one of this devices and why?
Full article GoPro's new camera put to the test
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45559577/gopro-hero-7-stabilisation-put-to-the-test
Go Pro produced new camera and it has in-built stabilization to record smooth and nice videos without need for using additional stabilizing devices like gimbal etc. Generally I’ve heard about gimbals about year ago and I’ve started to read about it. I’ve came to conclusion that the main thing that was different in my holiday movies and popular youtubers movies was stabilization. After some time I’ve found one gimbal that I could afford and I bought it. While I was recording on holidays, some people were surprised about what I’m doing. All recordings are great but to be honest, I’ve already bought a gimbal and I have stabilization for my Go Pro but now they’ve found a way to get rid of such brilliant device and hide it inside camera. Big high five for Go Pro and engineers working there! For sure I’ll buy this Go Pro when it will be in sale and a little cheaper.
Scientist at Bristol University have just received a 2 million pound grant to work on an interesting upgrade for our regular clothing. It has not changed for over 10.000 years and with current technologies we can make it better. Their idea is based on an exoskeleton - a wearable powered machine that is enhancing human's strenth. Usually those are build with hard materials, but researchers are working on a soft clothing that could fulfill similar role. It will be much more elastic and easier to fabricate but at the same time it will support it's user with extra strength. It's supposed to help disabled and older people to move. "The right trousers", as they called this product, has it's name inspired by a popular clay animation "Wallace and Gromit: The wrong trousers".
Personally I’ve found this idea intriguing. With easier production and similarity to what we are currently wearing, such an intelligent clothing would find much more use for general consumer and in turn offer much more support for researchers working on this product. And offering a simple device that could help older people to, for example, stand up easier, would be a great product and find a niche in clothing market.
Would you buy such enhanced clothing for your grandparents?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45735861
The article tells about the minimum number of followers you need to be able to "start making anything" and the popularity of different social medias.
First of all, Kat Richardson told that you needed to have at least 10k followers on instagram in order to make profit. Payment for such accounts and their owners is "fairy low leve" - around 100$ for an Instagram post but it grows rapidly.
When you have 30k followers and your target is fashion and beauty your post’s price can reach around 750$.
Enough about numbers. Lets talk about real benefits for the one who buys this posts. Mostly long-standing relationships between brands and influencers tend to be more beneficial. Actually it’s more profitable for the person that do post it.
But everything depends not only on the number of followers. There are certain number of factors that could increase the salary of "instabloger". For example, the number of swipes on instagram story or number of clicking on the link.
Interesting fact is that Kim Kardashian is able to get around 1m$ for 1 sponsored instagram post.
Summing up, Instagram is pretty good place to start making money if there is no other way.
(https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45559577/gopro-hero-7-stabilisation-put-to-the-test)
GoPro have recently released a new camera called GoPro Hero 7 that can revolutionize a way of filming by youtubers and adrenaline lovers who wish to get a perfect stable video. GoPro have created a camera that can create a really smooth and stable video without using any external attachments (for instance gimble) that can be really hard to carry in every day situations. The camera itself is really small and perfectly designed to take everywhere you go. The sound have been improved drasticly and even in heavy weather you can clarly hear a voice of a filmer. This is a crucial change because in previous versions the sound wasn't good enough to create a video like vlogs or commentary video only using GoPro camera. Now people who want to start making films should really consider buying GoPro Hero 7 rather than a big camera ( for example Canon EOS 6D Mark II DSLR Camera) that needs few extentions like gimple or handle that will very much change the cost of a full set.
A good comparison between GoPro Hero 7 and normal big camera is shown in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EEiRtxU3aw
In my opinion GoPro Hero 7 is a great camera for any type of trips and normal day using where you don't need any long range lens or you are just a layman when it comes to cameras. I'm using previous version of Hero camera and even though it has some flaws I would recommend getting one for everyone who wants to capture important and mesmerising moments in their lives.
Google with pixel 3 is an interesting phone with great camera, I don’t understand why you think it can’t threaten giants as Samsung ,yeeeeeea the notch is way to big but aside of that it is a good package.
Am I going yo buy it? No I will stick with my iPhone :)
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180918-the-outrageous-plan-to-haul-icebergs-to-africa
As I mentioned before, once I heard about it first time it sounds crazy for me. As I think for everyone, just because no one never does anything similar before. Even though, an idea of tow iceberg to the water-stressed region was proposed already at the beginning of 19th century (to the Canary Islands). In my opinion, it should be extremely expensive water however in the article mentioned that the price of iceberg water for Cape Town will cost only 2$ per 1000L. As for me, not that much. But for pure African countries even such price is quite big.
What do you think? Does water from icebergs is a solution for earth regions which in danger to be dried out?
Last week, Bloomberg Businessweek published a report on a supposedly big hack involving Chinese military planting tiny chips in order to infiltrate U.S. companies.
According to the report, 30 U.S. companies, including Apple and Amazon, were victims of a huge conspiracy by Chinese hackers, who planted microchips on logic boards used in servers and data centres which process data of millions of users.
However, not long after the report became mainstream, the aforementioned companies and U.S. federal agencies strongly denied any allegations. Apple even went one step further and issued a first-of-its-kind public statement called „What Businessweek got wrong about Apple” in which they accused Bloomberg of ignoring Apple’s official statements during the investigation and called the whole report bogus and „simply not true”.
Who do you think is right? Is Bloomberg’s report bogus? Or are the companies and agencies lying, trying to control the situation?
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45836086
This article is trying to approach the hard topic of how companies that have built their fortune on software can enter the hardware industry. Facebook recently revealed their new product - Portal which is a video chat screen that follows you around the room. Google showed a similar piece of technology but without the camera and better speaker which is more a direct attack toward Amazon Echo rather than next social-data sharing machine like Facebook's Portal. The author also raised the issue of how the companies would start earning the profit out of their new products in a way that won't sell more and more of our privacy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45132817
Excellent example of sentence It's not how old you are but how you are old. 70 yers old Taiwan grandfather Chen San-yuan is know in his district as a Uncle Pokemon. Why? Because he righs bike with 11 phones to play Pokemon Go.
He learnt about Pokemon from his grandson and thenceforward he wander streets in his pokemobile.
Personally I think that it is incredible. This man is breaking all age-bariers, showing us that even the eldest can make fun from the most childish things.
What about you? Do you wish to have that type of grandparent or not?
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45836086
And why is that so? In my opinion there are three reasons.
First, as it is said in article, people are simply not used to pay for the products of companies which have most of their services free of charge. Since these two companies best know for their software, when they try to conquer hardware market, surprisingly, not a lot of people stand in line to get their product.
Second, most of us really like the concept of having everything we need in one place. Really. Why should I buy separate camera, player or TV if I can have everything in my smartphone? I think that these companies just try to enter the market which is slowly fading away while all our gadgets are merging into one “super device”.
And finally, last but not the least. Companies themselves are not sure what their clients want. We live in times, when technologies develop rapidly and demands grow fast. And probably because of that, companies can’t always orientate in this storm of client requests. But it’s not only confusion which causes launching of unsuccessful projects. Even bigger problem is lack of new concepts. For example, take a look at last year’s presentation of iPhone. Their biggest innovation was ability to animate emojis. It just proves that even the most famous, well known and respected companies are running out of ideas.
So what do you think about it? Should Facebook or Google try to create their own hardware? And would you buy it?
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-45783088/amsterdam-s-canal-boats-go-electric
In the current state of ecological “wake up” Amsterdam join to fight for using clean energy in boats. Their idea is to change all engines in Amsterdam boats to electric till 2025. It is one of the more important mode of transport in Netherlands so that’s quite bold move.
In the next chapters we can read about local boat owner’s point of view and cost of the operation. A typical boat needs about 66 batteries, making the conversion cost around 165,000 to 250,000 euros. They can be recharged in about 10 hours and last about two days between charges.
For me, it’s obvious that it is ridiculous operation for many of entrepreneurs, because for years, they have been working on different rules. They can be mad but they also should understand importance of increasing quality of everyone’s life by following path that cars are going from a few years.
In next chapter we can get to know that batteries which would be included in boats aren’t the same as the ones we see in cars. They are adapted to be more durable and environment friendly. Every battery problem or serious contact with water will be reported to the manufacturer.
I think it's all good idea but there should be more compromises and slight evolution towards electric energy like we see in automotive industry
Link to the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45664643
A job, where the worst created content on the internet is viewed every day so that we do not need to experience it. It doesn’t surprise me at all viewing that kind of humiliating, depraved content later people do not even want to shake hands. Albert Einstein said one’s: “Logic will bring you from A to B. Your imagination will take you everywhere.” Unfortunately, our imagination can be misused, especially on the internet when you are able to hide your identity. Many people do it nowadays using social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and earlier myspace posting this kind of unethical material. That’s why the demand for content moderators is rising hence more and more people start to use social media.
Viewing this kind of material can lead to change your attitude inside your own social life, some even to psychological trauma such as post-traumatic stress disorder. No wonder people are having problems to adjust back to the social environment. Compared to the army, soldiers receive medical and mental treatment after their difficult experience, what about decency moderators then? There are no regulations yet, but Facebook introduced pre-training for all moderators and employs clinical psychologists. Also, everybody has access to mental health resources. However, the content moderators don’t use this kind of service, because it could show weakness to their employer. It’s a vicious circle. Reasoning, this problem should be discussed and shared to make the public aware of the particular circumstances.
What do you think about decency moderator? Are they unrecognised heroes? Do they keep us and our descents save? Moreover, do you always have in mind what you post? Feel free to comment and contribute ideas
Client cannot check if the website is keeping data in a safe way.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45845431
Hackers stole highly personal information from 14 millions of users. The stolen data included username, gender, locale/language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in, website, people or pages they follow and the 10 most recent searches.
Whats more interesting - Facebook said it had no plans to provide protection services for concerned users.
We all know that everything stays on the Internet, but is Facebook's attitude right?
First of all it can all work out in such a short time because history has showed us not once that innovation explode with it's implementation rapidly (just recall how rapidly cars replaced horses). Second of all, consider the current Uber business model and how powerful it is. In most major cities an Uber driver - or one of its rivals - is usually just a couple of minutes away, and charges less than established taxis, let's say $10. Now take out the driver, you've probably cut costs by at least 50%, so self-driving cars have cut our $10 journey to $5. Finally, electricity. It is worth mentioning that at the moment electric vehicles are more expensive than similar models with internal combustion engines, but offer significantly lower lifetime costs. What important is that the typical electric car has around 20 moving parts compared to the 2,000 or so in an internal combustion engine. As a result electric vehicles also tend to last much longer. Add in the low cost of recharging batteries compared to refuelling and it brings another dramatic reduction in out $10 journey. Fully autonomous electric taxi networks could offer rides at as little as 10% of current rates. So we've now cut our $10 fare to just $1.
What do you think about it? Do you agree with Tony Seba and his team ideas or you rather do not believe in such theories? Tell me what you think.
Link to article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-45910479
Science has advanced so far that scientists working on alternative energy sources are taking confident steps to replace natural phenomena. I have concerns about this, since in the past century, China has already suffered from interference in the ecosystem. In 1958 - 1962, sparrows were exterminated in the country, and later the crop stocks were destroyed by locusts. We hope this experiment will be successful in every sense.
Scientists note that the first launch will be experimental. However, the subsequent moons will have greater commercial benefits. They will have a special covering capable of reflecting sunlight on the Earth, by analogy with moonlight. Its illumination will be eight times brighter than from the real moon. This is due to the fact that the satellite is planned at a distance of about 500 kilometers from the earth's surface (the real Moon is at a distance of 384 thousand kilometers). However, to illuminate the whole night sky. For a person, its brightness will be perceived several times dimmer than ordinary street lighting.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that the artificial moon helps save energy, saving 1.2 billion yuan (173 million dollars) in the country's budget. The satellite can also be used to illuminate disaster zones when electricity is turned off. This will greatly assist in conducting search and rescue operations.
Link to the video: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-46432641/vr-helps-investigate-fires
In this video, BBC describes one of the useful uses of VR technology. In our case how you see from the topic name about the investigation fires for firefighters or police. With the help of this technology, to us describes how exactly VR help the staff to do their work better and faster. I recommend you to view this short and interesting video about VR uses in real life.