By CBS News
German postal carrier Deutsche Post DHL is testing a drone delivery service that could deliver medical and food supplies to areas with minimal road access.
Archive for the ‘business’ category: Page 316
Dec 9, 2013
Tech Giants Band Together to Fight Government Surveillance
Posted by Seb in categories: business, ethics, government, privacy, surveillance
If NSA employees were bummed that President Obama hasn’t paid them a visit, they’re going to be devastated to learn that all their favorite tech companies are publicly calling them out. Eight companies – Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn and AOL – have put aside their rivalries and issued a call for the reform of government surveillance. “We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide,” says an open letter featured in full-page ads in several newspaper on Monday. “The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish.”
Dec 7, 2013
3D printed pizza is coming sooner than you think
Posted by Seb in categories: 3D printing, business, food, fun
By Drew Prindle —
For some odd reason, pizza always seems to be at the forefront of emerging technology. It was the first food you could buy via online ordering, the first food to legitimately be delivered via drones, and now it’s dipping its saucy little Italian toes into 3D printing.
Natural Machines, a startup out of Barcelona, has developed a prototype 3D printer called Foodini that can pump out decent, edible-looking pizza just like a normal 3D printer pumps out custom-made lightswitch covers and drain plugs.
Dec 5, 2013
First Tesla Model S Purchased With Bitcoin
Posted by Seb in categories: bitcoin, business, transportation
If you’re not familiar with Bitcoin, you might want to change that. The electronic cryptocurrency is rapidly gaining acceptance around the globe, with many businesses–and even one university–accepting Bitcoins as readily as dollars. Now, a Tesla Model S has been purchased directly with Bitcoin.
The car, sold for an undisclosed sum of Bitcoin by Lamborghini Newport Beach in Costa Mesa, California, appears to have been a lightly used model, if only because it wasn’t sold directly by Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA].
ALSO SEE: 2015 Ford Mustang Preview: Official Photos And Video
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Dec 5, 2013
Could Apple’s next products have Minority Report-like control?
Posted by Seb in categories: augmented reality, business, futurism, human trajectories, media & arts
Monday, November 25, 2013
We don’t usually write much about buyouts here at DVICE. Buyouts usually go something like this: big company pays a crap-ton of money for smaller company and then we never hear from the smaller company again. Whoopty doo.
But Apple’s latest buyout of PrimeSense for $360 million is worth some discussion because the company’s tech could become part of the building blocks for the living room of the future. That, or we could be looking at some serious Minority Report-type tablets or Macs.
PrimeSense was the company behind the 3D depth camera tech in the original Kinect (Microsoft has since moved on with its own in-house tech for the Xbox One’s Kinect). Microsoft talked the big talk in 2010, and the hacks were a nice distraction, but ultimately, Kinect’s primitive technology only managed to make us look like silly fools dancing around to Dance Central in front of our TVs.
Dec 4, 2013
Google’s humanoid robots take on Amazon’s courier drones
Posted by Seb in categories: business, engineering, robotics/AI
Android developer Andy Rubin leads new robotics division that aims to complete online shopping with home delivery by droids
Juliette Garside, telecoms correspondent
Online shopping is not the most glamorous aspect of the digital revolution, but it has just become the latest Silicon Valley battleground, with droids racing drones to become the courier of the future.
First Amazon promised to eliminate the drudgery of the post office queue with parcels delivered by drone. Now Google has revealed that it is developing humanoid robots that could one day carry groceries to your door.
Andy Rubin, the Google executive who brought smartphones to the masses by developing Google’s free Android software, has revealed he is working on a secret project for the search engine company to create a new generation of robots.
Rubin resigned unexpectedly from running Android in March, and over the past six months has quietly overseen Google’s acquisition of seven small companies whose combined technology could be used to create a robot with animal characteristics such as a form of vision and moving limbs.
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Dec 2, 2013
China’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange Seeks Recognition for Currency
Posted by Seb in categories: bitcoin, business, economics, finance, geopolitics, human trajectories, policy
BTC China, the nation’s largest Bitcoin exchange, has had low-level discussions with regulators seeking recognition of the digital currency that would allow it to be used to buy goods and services in the country.
The company has sought to discuss Bitcoin regulations with officials from agencies including the People’s Bank of China, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, BTC China Chief Executive Officer Bobby Lee said in a Nov. 29 interview in Shanghai. It’s not yet been able to arrange any high-level meetings, he said.
“They’ll ask us ‘how should you be regulated,’ and I’ll say ‘Hey, here’s what we’ve done proactively and here’s how we think you should regulate us,’” Lee said of the Shanghai-based company’s talks with regulators. Bitcoin is “not on the black list and it’s not on the white list. It’s in the gray area.”
Dec 1, 2013
GE Turns to 3D Printers for Plane Parts
Posted by Seb in categories: 3D printing, business, engineering, human trajectories, robotics/AI
General Electric (GE), on the hunt for ways to build more than 85,000 fuel nozzles for its new Leap jet engines, is making a big investment in 3D printing. Usually the nozzles are assembled from 20 different parts. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing can create the units in one metal piece, through a successive layering of materials. The process is more efficient and can be used to create designs that can’t be made using traditional techniques, GE says. The finished product is stronger and lighter than those made on the assembly line and can withstand the extreme temperatures (up to 2,400F) inside an engine. There’s just one problem: Today’s industrial 3D printers don’t have enough capacity to handle GE’s production needs, which require faster, higher-quality output at a lower cost.
Dec 1, 2013
Amazon testing ‘octocopter’ package-delivery drones
Posted by Seb in categories: business, drones, human trajectories, robotics/AI
In the next five years, the Internet retail giant expects to use small drones to deliver packages to customer doorsteps within 30 minutes of their order.
Amazon is testing a delivery service that uses drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes of an order being placed.
Dubbed Amazon PrimeAir, the service uses 8-propeller drones about the size of a remote-controlled airplane to transport shoe-box-size plastic bins from fulfillment centers to customers’ homes. The service, which still requires more testing and clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration, could take to the skies as soon as four to five years, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told Charlie Rose during an interview Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
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Dec 1, 2013
Military–Industrial Complex Supermanagement!
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: business, complex systems, economics, education, engineering, ethics, existential risks, finance, futurism, information science, science, singularity, sustainability, transparency
EXCERPT
To further underpin this statement, I will share Peter Drucker’s quote, “…The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic…” And also that of Dr. Stephen Covey, “…Again, yesterday holds tomorrow hostage .… Memory is past. It is finite. Vision is future. It is infinite. Vision is greater than history…” And that of Sir Francis Bacon, “… He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator …”
And that of London Business School Professor Gary Hamel, PhD., “…You cannot get to a new place with an old map…” And that of Alvin Toffler, “…The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order…”
View the entire presentation at http://lnkd.in/dP2PmCP
