Friday, February 01, 2019

Connecting humans to the Internet. (for medicinal purposes only!)
Peter Holley reports:
When his chemotherapy patients leave the hospital to continue treatment at home, Edward Greeno faces a new challenge.
He can no longer ensure they’re taking their medicine.
Greeno, the medical director of the Masonic Cancer Clinic at the University of Minnesota, has come to realize that some patients, like children hiding naughty behavior from a parent, will fudge the truth to avoid his disapproval, even when their health is at risk.
To combat patients’ fibbing and forgetfulness, Greeno has begun deploying a new tool in recent months: a pill embedded with a tiny, ingestible sensor. The sensor transmits data from inside the patient’s body to a wearable patch placed on their abdomen, which then connects to a mobile app that patients and doctors can access.
Read more on The Columbian.




Law enforcement will love this. Who will be the first to offer them a “confess-o-matic?”
Engineers translate brain signals directly into speech
In a scientific first, neuroengineers have created a system that translates thought into intelligible, recognizable speech. This breakthrough, which harnesses the power of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence, could lead to new ways for computers to communicate directly with the brain.




Easing into our Disaster Recovery discussion.
Creating an Effective Business Continuity Plan




Moving from a car service to a transportation service...
Uber just added public transportation to its app
Uber customers who live in Denver may notice something strange when they open the company’s app today: a tiny train car with the word “transit” next to it, sitting atop the list of usual ride-hailing options. A quick tap produces a list of bus or train routes as well as the expected fare price and end-to-end directions. It’s the first example of Uber’s year-long effort to integrate public transportation options into its app.
According to the company’s transit team, the goal is to discourage people from using their personal vehicles by offering more transportation options, whether that’s a bike, scooter, or now, a bus or train. It’s no secret that Uber wants to become the “One Ring” for transportation, the app that brings all other modes together and, in the darkness, binds them.




Protectionism? So, Amazon can’t sell Amazon stuff and they can’t invest in Indian companies that sell Amazon stuff.
Amazon and Flipkart pull 100,000s of products to comply with new Indian law
First announced at the end of 2018, the new regulation imposes a ban on exclusive sales, prevents retailers from selling products on platforms they count as investors, and it applies restrictions on discounts and cashback promotions.
That’s hugely problematic for Amazon and Flipkart, its rival that’s owned by Walmart following a $16 billion investment last year. After a 2016 ruling prevented it from owning inventory, Amazon restricted its system so that its own products were offered by entities that it jointly owned with local partners. However, the newest regulation forbids it from working with organizations that it has ownership of, hence it is estimated to have pulled as many as 400,000 products from sale in India, according to a New York Times report.
The same report suggests that Flipkart could pull as many as one-quarter of its products in order to comply with the rule, according to analysis from consulting firm Technopak.




Perspective.
Humanics: A way to ‘robot-proof’ your career?
A recent study by Pew Research found that in 10 advanced and emerging economies, most workers expect computers will do much of the work currently done by humans within 50 years. Workers are clearly anxious about the effects on the job market of artificial intelligence and automation.
Estimates about how much of the workforce could be automated vary from about 9% to 47%. The consultancy McKinsey estimates up to 800 million workers globally could be displaced by robotic automation by 2030. Some jobs will change dramatically, while others will disappear altogether.
… Future-proofing your career is less about picking a safe job and more about constantly updating your skills throughout your career, according to Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun, who wrote Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
He says education needs to change dramatically if workers are to adapt to this new environment. His solution, which he calls humanics, has three basic pillars:
Technical ability: understanding how machines function and how to interact with them.
Data discipline: navigating the sea of information that's generated by these machines.
And the human discipline: "which is what we humans can do that machines for the foreseeable future, cannot emulate.




I suppose it’s not too early to start looking at candidates, but I am surprised at how few names I recognize.
What The Potential 2020 Candidates Are Doing And Saying, Vol. 4
Welcome to a weekly collaboration between FiveThirtyEight and ABC News. With 5,000 people seemingly thinking about challenging President Trump in 2020 — Democrats and even some Republicans — we’re keeping tabs on the field as it develops. Each week, we’ll run through what the potential candidates are up to — who’s getting closer to officially jumping in the ring and who’s getting further away.


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