Some remarkable applications have been built, including Google Translate and Google Duplex. But the limitations of these applications as a form of intelligence should be a wake-up call. If machine learning and big data can’t get us any further than a restaurant reservation, even in the hands of the world’s most capable A.I. company, it is time to reconsider that strategy.
Lumos is a connected bike helmet with controllable lights for safety and signaling with features centered around the Apple Watch: the ability for the watch to discern your hand signals while riding, illuminating the helmet’s turn signals. (And) when the helmet is switched on, it will record your activity through Apple Health. Other devices could integrate Apple Watch gestures and automatic functions into their feature sets. When you switch on your connected TV or Apple TV, gestures could replace remote functionality.
Despite the negative impact they may have on the world, it’s not the job of businesses like Facebook, Google and Amazon to leave money on the table that could go to shareholders. Rather, it’s the job of citizens to elect leaders who can rein in the tech giants with regulation and, possibly, by using antitrust laws. The result of so much concentrated power is that erstwhile rivals like Snap are “the walking dead.” Breaking up the big tech firms “could unleash another 20 to 30 years of innovation and growth.”
The royal wedding is an opportunity to make a quick buck on merchandising. The tourist souvenir market around the royal wedding represents a £50 million ($67.7 million) opportunity for U.K. business, cross-branded with booze, fajitas and condoms. And that doesn’t include internet retailers. If the prospect of raising a Presidente Margarita to U.K. royalty sounds vapid, silly, or self-promoting, it is. Or perhaps these brands are embracing the spirit of the royal wedding itself.
With the old models for retail broken and rents finally in decline, risks are being taken. That willingness to experiment means stores more resilient than imagined because new technology minimizes the need for shelf space epitomized by the pop-up shop, The new retail is mediated by the digital: shops without shopping bags act as showrooms for products to order later online; stores as places to hang out and drink coffee and then Instagram that you were there.
There’s a shortage of people who can do data science. People with data science bona fides are the most sought-after professionals in business. Job postings for data scientists rose 75% from 2015 to 2018, while job searches for data scientist roles rose 65%. “People are transitioning from other fields like economics, psychology, mathematics because the field is exploding." Data science a meshing of statistics, math and computer science to create algorithms that predict what you may want to buy next . "The best minds of our generation are being put to work in advertising."
The emirate tested 3D-printing construction potential in 2016 when it opened (a) building created by a 3D concrete printer with a robotic arm that was 6 metres high and 12 metres wide. The people needed for the task included one technician to monitor the printer, seven people to install the building on site, and 10 electricians and specialists to take care of the mechanical and electrical engineering. The 3D-printing strategy aims to reduce labor by 70% and cut costs by 90%.
Amazon started widely selling its Echo speaker, voiced by the personal assistant Alexa, in 2015. Since then, the name has declined in popularity 33%. Are people afraid that their Echo will answer when they call out their kid’s name? Or are they just tired of hearing it all the time?Siri has never been a very popular name.
You are your employers’ most valuable assets, and bosses are desperate to keep you happy. You have the power to shape the way they operate and the standards they uphold. What if Facebook employees took (it) to task for neglecting the violence their products are causing in Myanmar and Sri Lanka? What if Google or Twitter employees threatened to walk unless (it) took action against extremists and hate speech? What if Apple employees insisted (it) stop parking billions of dollars in offshore tax shelters, or Amazon engineers threatened to quit unless (it) paid warehouse workers higher wages?
On May 15, EPI released a report finding Uber drivers earn $11.77 an hour after Uber’s commission and expenses, and $10.87 an hour adjusted for the extra contributions that independent contractors make toward Medicare and social security. That puts Uber drivers solidly in the lowest fifth of American earners. Uber, in an internal presentation on driver income, pointed to Lyft and McDonald’s as the greatest competition for workers.
Within the next decade, China wants to be the world leader in robotics, artificial intelligence, and clean-energy cars. Last year, Chinese-led funding accounted for a quarter of worldwide venture capital, a 15-fold increase, with most investment going to Chinese companies. “There’s no question that China is now very much in the same league as the United States” when it comes to innovation, hardware, and capital flow. All you need is an idea, and they will give you money.”
What is amazing today is table stakes tomorrow, and that makes for a business opportunity. There is no one right organizational structure, product focus, or development cycle: what matters is that they fit together, with a business model. That is where Apple and Amazon are more alike than not: both are aligned in all aspects of their business: the end goal of that alignment: the customer experience. Owning the customer relationship by means of delivering a superior experience is how these companies became dominant, and, when they fall, it will be because consumers deserted them.
Self-driving cars are now a fixture in some American cities, but they are reliant on high-precision 3D maps of roads. That means they can’t tackle the vast majority of the country that hasn’t been charted. An autonomous navigation system could rely on sensors and GPS data like Google Maps. The GPS data (provides) a rough estimate of where on the road the car is. It sets a final destination as well as a “local navigation goal” within sight of the car’s sensors. The car uses LIDAR to estimate where the edges of the road are on the assumption that the road is flat compared to its surroundings.
Amazon will host an event in the city of Hangzhou -- Alibaba's hometown -- to connect online merchants with 400 Chinese manufacturers keen to sell electronics, car parts, home goods and more directly to American and European consumers. Amazon experts will provide insights into buying trends so merchants can stock up for the 2018 holiday season. The gathering is part of Amazon's effort to evolve from an e-commerce platform into a global logistics operation. The idea is to help Amazon merchants connect directly with manufacturers in China.
In the wake of the net neutrality repeal, companies like Charter are trying to claim that states have no legal authority to hold them accountable for failed promises, slow speeds, or much of anything else. Cable operators are enjoying larger broadband monopolies than ever before thanks to telcos that have no interest in upgrading aging DSL lines at scale. But, ironically when the Ajit Pai's FCC rolled back classification of ISPs, it also abdicated its own authority allowing it to tell states what they can do
The average NFL fan who is a non-bettor watches about 15-16 games a year. The NFL fan who is a bettor watches 45-50 games a year. "That kind of information is gold!" Legal sports gambling gives more fans access to a huge array of “prop bets” that would be available on every play of every game. "Leagues want a piece of the action." The NBA and MLB have already been lobbying states for an “integrity fee”-1% of bets - cut of the action. Amateur (college) athletes are the most vulnerable to corruption because they are not paid. "Gambling is a huge fan engagement tool."
The companies that may have cracked the code are those that can assign repetitive, precise tasks to robots, freeing human workers to undertake creative, problem-solving duties that machines aren’t good at.Computers can zoom through activities humans find difficult, such as repeating a set of movements precisely over time. Mundane tasks can overwhelm complex machines. Those tasks call on multiple senses, including touch and depth perception. For companies, choosing the appropriate tasks to automate is important.
76% of the companies that went public last year were unprofitable.It used to be that in order to survive, businesses had to sell goods or services above cost. But that model is so 20th century. The new way to make it in business is to spend big, grow fast and use piles of investor cash to subsidize your losses, with a plan to become profitable somewhere down the road. The smell of burning cash has spread beyond Silicon Valley. The rise in unprofitable companies reflects the willingness of investors to keep fast-growing upstarts afloat long enough to conquer a potential “winner-take-all” market.
Wealth managers are getting bigger, convinced that scale will let them spread costs over a larger base and allow them to spend more on technology, compliance, and marketing. Clients expect sophisticated data as well as data security. 15,000 independent U.S. advisory firms control $3 trillion in assets. It’s an industry with solid profits and the potential for recurring fees. Robo-advisers have made people in the industry worry they could be automated out of their jobs.
Any major leap forward on cost and efficiency will no longer be possible through automation alone, since most of the tasks that can be automated in a factory have already been tackled. We will have (to) invent new processes requiring new manufacturing techniques. Automating has proved more difficult because customization and complexity requires flexibility. It will have to be more than adding a few more robots i to make a significant difference in cost.
The mandatory addition of solar panels means added construction costs, perhaps as much as $10,000 per home, in the short term. (But) housing prices will rise (as) homes built before 2020 will likely add solar panels, as buyers begin expecting this as a feature in homes. California projects the new initiative will save consumers $80 on monthly heating, cooling and lighting bills (based on a 30 year mortgage). Less than 20% of homes built in California currently include panels.
When people shop online, their visits are tracked and shared with an outside firm that scores their behavior and decides whether to approve or deny purchases. Chip-card technology has reduced fraud in stores, but many retailers say they are now seeing the behavior shift online. A third of the 50 largest retailers in the U.S. say online fraud has risen 30% since they transitioned to the new chip technology. Evaluat(ions are) based on online browsing behavior, like transaction data and geolocation information.
84% of employees would consider jacking in their current job to move to an employer with a fantastic reputation – even if the salary bump wasn’t that big. Employer brand isn’t just about keeping current employees happy; it’s also about how attractive your company appears to outsiders, including ex-employees. Big data and AI tools sift through candidates’ profiles and identify the most suitable people for a position. Data and analytics can save a lot of time by narrowing the field
How we see problems drives what kind of solutions we come up with. Our brains are wired to look to the past, not the future. We develop mindsets so that we can make decisions quickly, without having to pause to examine every aspect of our lives. That’s why it’s so important to take time to test our assumptions, expose ourselves to dissenting opinions and push ourselves to see things in a new light.
In Google’s view, computers help you get things done — and save you time — by doing things for you. Facebook has adopted a more extreme version of the same philosophy: computers doing things for people. Tech’s second philosophy is not that the computer does your work for you, but that the computer enables you to do your work better; that computers are an aid to humans, not their replacement.
Gaming is as popular as pet ownership—two-thirds of American households include at least one person who plays video games for 3+ hours per week. (They tend to) younger, have high school diplomas or Associate degrees, and be male. In 2015 $91.5 billion was spent on video games and gaming products around the globe. Video game makers may have untapped audiences in older individuals and women – and dentists.
Much of service work was automated over the last few decades. Computers make the decisions. Automation begets automation. We’ve been forcing human service workers to act like robots. This makes service interactions unpleasant enough that people want to avoid them, so now, Google will provide everyone with a robot that can act like a human. Technological capitalism has generated the match for the robotic service worker: a robot service worker.
These companies aren’t out to nail trends, as fast fashion did, but to sell an all-encompassing clothing system through which consumers are meant to live. In tech terms, the brands are platforms and the products must be scalable, aimed at as wide and profitable an audience as possible. It’s clothing as software, embracing an ethos of one-for-all uniformity. It echoes how Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb are democratic—anyone with an internet connection can use them—but in practice work in different ways for different users, benefitting some and excluding or exploiting others.
Health care is a $3 trillion a year industry. Integrating Alexa with health care makes sense. In many households, Alexa becomes part of the family. Amazon could remind a user of medications to be taken, coordinate with apps to log glucose or blood pressure levels, or track of doctor’s appointments. With an aging population and an anticipated shortage of nurses, the addition of Echo devices in physicians’ offices and hospitals could help spend their time more efficiently. (And) it could give Amazon more insights into its users.
The hottest shows on TV networks — which command the highest ad prices — are attracting older viewers, which is a challenge for brands that want to reach millennials and teens. As TV ad spending has begun to drop, marketers have been diverting more money to Google and Facebook, which have increasingly focused on expanding their video — and video ad — business. Companies love digital advertising because it gives them the ability to target ads based on their own lists of customers
Devices will have access to "a smart battery management system that uses machine learning to anticipate which apps you'll need next." The battery power for most smartphones is spent updating apps that may not be running, so the technology aims to learn your habits and shelve apps you may not use. They've done something similar with brightness settings on smartphones. "Adaptive Brightness" will allow phones to learn how you set your brightness settings and replicate it depending on the light.
The thesis is that the online ad market has disappeared, and thus, paywalls are the only option. Online advertising rates have declined -due to greater and greater supply or Google and Facebook sucking up all the ad revenue. (But) paywalls won't work for most (because) most sites vastly overestimate how large their audience is and (2) how much people value their content.
Researchers published a research paper saying they could embed commands directly into recordings of music or spoken text. So while a human listener hears someone talking or an orchestra playing, Amazon’s Echo speaker might hear an instruction to add something to your shopping list. With audio attacks, the researchers are exploiting the gap between human and machine speech recognition.These deceptions illustrate how artificial intelligence — even as it is making great strides — can still be tricked and manipulated.
Trademark applications from China have grown 12-fold and for 2017 totaled thousands more than the combined filings from Canada, Germany and the U.K. One in every nine trademark applications reviewed by the U.S. is China-based. As part of a national effort to ramp up intellectual-property ownership, China’s governments are paying citizens hundreds of dollars for each trademark registered in the U.S.
Ad buyers interpreted Amazon's move as a sign the company is accelerating its own digital ad offerings. The company has the potential to challenge the digital marketing duopoly of Google and Facebook. Amazon's web reach, subscription base and voice search services (pose) the gravest threat to Google. After Amazon pulled Google hardware from its e-commerce shelves, Google retaliated by blocking YouTube from Amazon's streaming devices. Google has redoubled its e-commerce voice-based searches that compete with Alexa.
Our behaviors have become increasingly transparent throughout history. Not because some dark entity was profiting from them, but because greater transparency was something that had far-reaching benefits for society and individuals. 60% of us have Gmail accounts which are scoured for who, where, and how we are. Research could predict intelligence, sexual orientation, and political leaning with 85-95% accuracy from something as simple as the foods you liked.
Google has long worked to make Maps seem more personalized, but since Maps is now about far more than just directions, the company is introducing new features to give you better recommendations for local places. What does a four-star review really mean? Google Maps will take those reviews and mash them up with what it knows about you to give you a more personalized score based on your context and interests.
Stories is a media format in the way that a magazine or a murder mystery or a 30-minute television program is. A story, of the Instagram and Snapchat sort, is a collection of images and short videos, with optional effects, that a user can add to, but which disappears after 24 hours. It is about how those things look through the sensors and software of a smartphone. Stories might be the first true smartphone media format. And that might mean that they will become the dominant format of the future.
For all its innovation and wealth, the Bay Area can feel like a place that doesn’t work right. The region has not been optimized. To planners, this sounds like the naïveté of newcomers mistaking political problems for engineering puzzles. Americans love (old-world European cities), but make it impossible to build them here. A city’s dynamism derives from its inefficiencies, from people and ideas colliding unpredictably. "A city is not fundamental(ly) optimizable." (And) it’s unclear what you’d optimize a city for.
Facebook has the one thing that every business wants: 2 billion users. But it needs to sell those users more things and make them the customers rather than product. And the best way to copy the successes of other tech companies where users are used to paying cash for online services. (And) it’s possible to envision Facebook as a competitor for the same original programming eyeballs as Netflix, and asking the same price for subscriptions. Then there’s the giant social elephant in the room: the workplace.
A key feature of machine-learning algorithms is their performance improves with more data. The use of algorithms creates a technological momentum to treat information about people as accessible data. They are “inherently political,” because their functionality demands certain social practices and discourages others. In an algorithmic meritocracy, what the models demand becomes the new standard of excellence. If we follow the flow of algorithmic logic, a more meritocratic will inevitabl(y) have implications for democratic institutions
Am I a data mine, or am I a data factory? Is data extracted from me, or is data produced by me? Data does not lie passively within me, like a seam of ore, waiting to be extracted. Rather, I actively produce data through the actions I take over the course of a day. Platform companies act more like factory owners than owners of oil wells or copper mines. Beyond control of data, the companies seek control of actions, which to them are production processes, in order to optimize the efficiency, quality, and value of my data.
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As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance.
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