BERLIN: As it gets harder to tear our eyes away from smartphones, televisions, tablets or computers, concerns are growing over a blue light emitted by their screens, blamed for harming the retina and causing interrupted sleep.
Electronics giants are turning crisis to an opportunity — quickly declaring that their latest products feature ‘safe’ screens.
Continue reading Tech companies planning ‘safe’ screens for your TVs, smartphones.
MOUNTAIN VIEW (California): Google, a leader in efforts to create driverless cars, has run into an odd safety conundrum: Its cars don’t make enough mistakes. Last month, as one of Google’s self-driving cars approached a crosswalk, it did what it was supposed to do when it slowed to allow a pedestrian to cross, prompting its “safety driver” to apply the brakes. The pedestrian was fine, but not so much Google’s car, which was hit from behind by a human-driven sedan.
Google’s autonomous test cars are programmed to follow the letter of the law. But it can be tough to get around if you are a stickler for the rules. One Google car, in a test in 2009, couldn’t get through a four-way stop because its sensors kept waiting for other (human) drivers to stop completely and let it go. The human drivers kept inching forward, looking for the advantage — paralyzing Google’s robot.
Continue reading Driverless car runs into problem: Cars with drivers.
We will soon open cars with our smartphones, store data on Cloud and command computers with our voices.
You know what’s the most magical thing about technology? It is its fixation to replace old with new, obsolete with promising and smart with genius. This is the reason why, every decade, a set of tech things that eased our lives in a million ways make way for something newer, better and brighter.For example, the fixed line gave way to the pager and mobile, cassettes to compact discs and digital content, wires to infrared and Bluetooth, yellow bulbs to CFL and LEDs. Here are a few other products that will soon age and fade.
Continue reading 5 gadgets that may soon ‘Rest in Peace’.
Robots no longer need to learn on their own: They can now share insights over networks, so that powerful knowledge spreads quickly to other robots, writes Mark Buchanan.
About 542 million years ago, something weird and profound happened on Earth. Quite abruptly, life went inventively crazy, proliferating from simple, rudimentary single-cell organisms into myriad multicellular forms. Evolution discovered the idea of more sophisticated and specialised cells, and most of the basic body plans we know today. Biologists call it the Cambrian explosion.
Human technology may be on the verge of a similar explosion.
Maybe robotic capabilities will advance so quickly that most human skills will become redundant, and robots will destroy our economies or create massive inequality.
Continue reading Robot age is arriving sooner than we thought.
Before a robot takes your job, you’re likely to be working with one side-by-side.
That’s the takeaway from a new report by Forrester Research, Inc.
The report wades into a heady and long-running debate over whether, how, and to what extent will robots take over human jobs – a hotly discussed topic amid recent progress in robotics and artificial intelligence. Most experts agree that machines will depress the job market in coming decades, possibly by as much as 47%, according to a widely reported 2013 Oxford paper.
Continue reading Before a Robot Takes Your Job, You’ll Be Working Side By Side.
WILMINGTON, N.C. — Law enforcement agencies are relying on technology more these days to help them do their jobs. In Wilmington, acoustic technology picked up the sound of gunfire and led police straight into a homicide investigation within minutes.
“This narrows it down quite a bit and directs our officers pretty precisely and accurately as to where to go,” said Wilmington Police Captain Jim Varrone.
Continue reading Gunshot technology helps Wilmington police respond to shootings
GURGAON: This one’s straight out of a Terminator film. Sharp welding sticks jutting out of the robotic arm of a machine pierced a worker killing him at a factory here on Wednesday. The worker had apparently moved too close to the robot while adjusting a metal sheet that had come unstuck.
The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital but he was dead by the time he was wheeled in.
Ramji Lal (24), from Unnao, UP, worked as a loader for SKH Metals, an auto ancillary company, at the Industrial Model Township (IMT) Manesar. He joined a year-and-a-half ago.
Continue reading Terminator redux? Robot kills a man at Haryana’s Manesar factory.
Kuniako Saito, a Japanese engineer in graduate school, and his team at Cocoa Motors have created a portable ride that is the World’s first ‘car in a bag’. The vehicle, named as ‘WalkCar’, is quiet small and can fit in a backpack. This wonderful invention is made of aluminium and depending on the model, indoor or outdoor version, the weight is between two and three kilograms or 4.4 to 6.6 pounds. This WalkCar can carry a weight of up to 265 pounds (120 kg) and never requires a parking spot!
Continue reading Japan’s invention: Move around with your car in a bag known as WalkCar.
Today, almost everything in your car is managed by an electronic control unit (ECU). The problem is that these minicomputers are increasingly coming under attack. Fraunhofer researchers have now developed a platform that makes it possible to flexibly install secure devices in a way that is based on open and vendor-neutral hardware and software standards.
Continue reading Flexible solution for secure IT in cars.
NEW DELHI: A California automotive start-up is hoping their prototype supercar will redefine car manufacturing. The sleek race car dubbed ‘Blade’ didn’t come off an assembly line – but out of a 3D printer.
Kevin Czinger of Divergent Microfactories has spent most of his career in the automotive industry. One day he realized that no matter how fuel-efficient or how few tailpipe emissions the modern car has, the business of car manufacturing is destroying the environment.
Continue reading Meet Blade, world’s first 3D-printed car.
