Robots Archives - The Source

Report: Messenger Kids advocates were Facebook-funded

Messenger Kids, Facebook said, had been designed to serve as a “fun, safer solution” for family communications. It would be available for children as young as 6, the company said. To forestall criticism, Facebook asserted that the app had been developed alongside thousands of parents and a dozen expert advisors.

But it looks like many of those outside experts were funded with Facebook dollars. According to Wired, “At least seven members of Facebook 13-person advisory board have some kind of financial tie to the company.” Those advisors include the National PTA, Blue Star Families, Connect Safely, and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40530927/report-messenger-kids-advocates-were-facebook-funded
Fake news is an existential crisis for social media

Elections don’t take place in a vacuum. And if people are angry and divided in their daily lives then that will naturally be reflected in the choices made at the ballot box, whenever there’s an election.

Russia knows this. And that’s why the Kremlin has been playing such a long propaganda game. Why it’s not just targeting elections. Its targets are fault lines in the fabric of society — be it gun control vs gun owners or conservatives vs liberals or people of color vs white supremacists — whatever issues it can seize on to stir up trouble and rip away at the social fabric.

That’s what makes digitally amplified disinformation an existential threat to democracy and to civilized societies. Nothing on this scale has been possible before.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/18/fake-news-is-an-existential-crisis-for-social-media/?ncid=rss
Why Iceland is Perfect for Crypto Mining
Engineering against all odds, or how NYC’s subway will get wireless in the tunnels

The company faced a number of challenges in building out the system. The first challenge was that the installation could not disrupt transit customers. Bayne said, “We had to figure out how to deploy network and equipment while minimizing disruption of the transit system itself.” That meant working overnight when labor costs are higher, and also placed the company at the mercy of the MTA’s maintenance windows to install network equipment.

Even more challenging was securing the right equipment. The NYC subway “is a 110-year-old system with low ceilings and lots of water, and it wasn’t designed to embrace a lot of electronics,” Bayne said. Wireless equipment “had to withstand all of these changes in environmental conditions: cold, heat, water, brake dust. Everything had to be passively cooled and fully-enclosed so it didn’t ingest any of the environment into the equipment.” That specialized, “mil-spec” equipment doesn’t come cheap.

As with the story of any infrastructure, particularly in New York, rolling out wireless connectivity to 282 active underground stations was anything but cheap. The final cost of the rollout was north of $300 million for Transit Wireless, a dramatic increase from early estimates which said that the project would cost “up to $200 million.” As a private entity spending private dollars, the company obviously had enormous incentives to hold down costs.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/engineering-against-all-odds/?ncid=rss
How Should Your Company Prepare For Robot Coworkers?

A December 2017 survey by insurance and risk management advisory firm Willis Towers Watson in Arlington, Virginia, found that U.S. companies will nearly double the amount of work done by automation (to 17%) within the next three years. Ninety-four percent of companies that are already using robotics and AI will expand their use of automation by 2020.

But are companies ready for those changes? Maybe not, the survey found. Less than 5% of respondents say their HR functions are fully prepared for the changing requirements of these new ways of working.

“So we’re getting beyond the hyperbole of, ‘Robots are going to replace humans,’ and thinking about this in a more nuanced and practical way,” says Renee Smith, who leads the Future of Work consulting activities at Willis Towers Watson. Instead, employees will need to integrate the work that’s done through automation or algorithmic technologies and learn how these tools can enhance performance. Organizations need to start thinking about how the workplace changes when people work side by side with technology, and how to get them ready to do so successfully, she says.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40528265/how-should-your-company-prepare-for-robot-co-workers

Photo: Sean Thomas

Want to be Successful? Learn to Like Other People

One of the biggest opportunities for growth at work comes from the way you solicit feedback and what you do with it afterward. Research demonstrates that while employees who speak up tend to improve how well teams function, many tend to be afraid to do so, worrying that their input won’t be well-received. Simply assuming the best in others can lay the foundation for managers and their team members alike to learn and improve without wounding egos.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40401630/want-to-be-happier-and-more-successful-learn-to-like-other-people
Why So Many Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Cities

America’s largest cities have so much going for them. They are rich, productive, and pulsating with culture and life. So what happened to the great urban revival? “America’s cities have domestic net out-migration because they’re not affordable,” said E. J. McMahon, the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy. “For many, New York City is a temporary portal. The Baby Boomers retire to Florida. The middle-class Millennials move to Long Island for a house. The woman from Slovakia comes to Queens, lives in her second-cousin’s basement, gets her feet on the ground, and gets a better apartment in West Orange, New Jersey.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/why-is-everyone-leaving-the-city/521844/?utm_source=feed
With robots on the job, it won’t be IT as usual

“It’s very much a different mindset than traditional IT,” said Mike Gennert, a professor and director of the Robotics Engineering Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, Mass. “IT managers worry about how they manage information, how it’s used, how it’s stored and secured. But none of that has the ability to directly affect the physical world. Robots affect the real world. That brings issues IT managers have not had to confront.”

For instance, It’s bad enough if a company computer is hacked and it becomes part of a zombie botnet. But what if someone hijacks a company robot and makes it do things, harmful things, in the real world?

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3188889/robotics/with-robots-on-the-job-its-not-going-to-be-it-as-usual.html
Does Silicon Valley Have a Contract-Worker Problem?

But increasingly, critics argue that the freelance model is being abused, with workers being treated as if they were on payroll without getting any of the benefits afforded to payrolled employees. Some Silicon Valley insiders are beginning to worry that start-ups’ overreliance on contract workers could come back to haunt them if they run afoul of longstanding labor rules. If that happens, these high-flying disruptors could be facing serious disruption themselves.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/silicon-valleys-contract-worker-problem.html
Also:

Then, there is the problem of massive labor oversupply. Unlike for Uber or TaskRabbit, which operate in a given city with a constrained supply of workers, the pool of labor for such digital work is for all intents and purposes infinite. One contingent-work platform reported having nine times as many workers as necessary. A Filipino virtual assistant described the inevitable result: “I first set [my hourly rate] at $8, because that’s what my previous client was paying me,” the assistant told the researchers. “But I found it quite difficult to find jobs. So I set it at $4. And I think I even set it at $3.50 currently. So, I mean, if you don’t get a lot of invitations, you don’t have any other choice but to lower down your expectations, I guess.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/gig-economy-global/522954/?utm_source=feed
What “Personal Space” Means to the Rest of World

Countries that greatly value their personal space include Romania, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Uganda. Participants from all five of those places would prefer it if you stood more than 120 cm away, or roughly four feet. But participants from Argentina, Peru, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Austria don’t mind if you chill about 90 cm away, or less than three feet. The U.S. isn’t too far off from that, expecting strangers to keep a cool 95 cm distance between them.

That said, nobody likes any stranger standing two and half feet or less away. So stop it. Unless you’re on a cramped metro train or something and can’t help it. It’s also important to note that women and elderly participants of all cultures required more space.

http://lifehacker.com/what-personal-space-means-to-the-rest-of-world-1794130182
Certainly not the first time a reporter has addressed this topic, but always good to have a refresher.

Photo: Nina Strehl

Tag: Robots

News You Can Use: 4/19/2017