Monthly Archives: December 2016

The Bot Craze is Real!

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Over the past year, bots have been a widely discussed topic. Experts and the media have been weighing the possible benefits bots can create for businesses as well as consumers. The U.S. market has expressed a high interest in bots. Products like Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Allo Messenger, and Siri SDK are all technologies that are leading the battleground of this bot war. While bots and systems that benefit from AI and recurrent neural networks are not a new technology, 2016 was the year that most of the big players increased their attention and invested more money into AI and machine learning systems. With all the buzz around them, it can sometimes to be tricky to nail down just what a bot is.

Bots, or conversational UI’s are autonomous services humans can interact with using natural language in existing messaging apps. Amir Shevat, the developer relations lead at Slack defines bots as   “digital users within a messaging product. Unlike most users, they are powered by software rather than by a human, and they bring a product or service into a given messaging product via conversation.”

Since companies have been reinvesting in bots there have been significant improvements in technology. The BBC predicts that nearly half of the most commonly held careers are at a significant risk of being replaced by automation by 2035. Here are a few examples:

  1. Web Designer/Web Developer: (via The Grid) The AI behind The Grid will take designing and coding away from web designers and developers. With just a few photos, it can turn an idea into action in just a few steps. It makes it changes based on human feedback.
  2. Office Manager: (via Betty) AI will soon be managing your offices. Betty is an intelligent bot who is in charge of greeting guests, staff and tracking employee hours. She is also in charge of stocking office materials.
  3. Psychologist: (via Ellie) Ellie is an Ai therapist that uses sensors to read a patient’s body language and respond like a human. She is capable of smiling, nodding and shrugging at appropriate times via her screen’s human avatar.
  4. Human Resources: (via FlatPi) This is the ultimate headhunter! FlatPi is able to filter through tons of candidates in seconds and is therefore transforming the way companies hire. It allows you to hire, track, manage interview and choose the candidate all in the same place and in a less time consuming way.

While all of this new technology is exciting, the most important question is, how long before new technologies take over all of our jobs?

Sources:

http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/21/5-industries-ripe-for-human-machine-learning

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/conversational-economy-part-1-whats-causing-bot-craze-sarah-guo

http://venturebeat.com/2016/07/23/10-jobs-that-a-i-and-chatbots-will-replace-sooner-or-later

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34066941

http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/20/introducing-the-european-bots-landscape/?bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiAiZGY2ZGZhNGQtNTQ4Ny00NGQ2LWE0YzgtMWJkZGU4M2U3MDlkIn0%3D

http://venturebeat.com/2016/08/11/introducing-the-bots-landscape-170-companies-4-billion-in-funding-thousands-of-bots

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284838

“SILICON VALLEY strikes again!”

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Silicon Valley is not only Google, Facebook or Apple, high-tech companies based on internet or correlated products. It is also insurance services, it is starting to focus on making the insurance market more efficient to better serve patients and hospitals. One new health technology upstart is betting that the combination of data and preventive care is the solution for creating a better insurance company.

Clover logo

A company which wants to make this real is Clover Health. Clover Health wants to use software and data to give seniors, particularly those who use the private versions of Medicare, a cheaper option. Generally a Medicare patient goes to a primary doctor’s office, goes to a cardiologist, goes to a hospital, there is no quarterback for that data but especially no one has the time or the data to guide that patient and coordinate all those interactions and make sure each provider gets the right info at the right time.

This is a tough unstructured data problem with all these reports coming to the company. It requires creating tools that are able to mesh all those different forms of data into a unified system that can then analyze whether or not a patient is at higher risk.

And the company has to figure out why that patient is at risk so it nows how to intervene. That’s why the company’s strength is its technology. The company’s technology is supposed to recognize when patients need medical treatment and then intervene in their care to save money for both the patient and the insurance company.

“We’re not just using [technology] to pay out claims,” says Vivek Garipalli, Clover’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “We’re building a learning machine, and we’re using it for health.”

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Model

“We have one goal – to improve the quality of life of our members and physicians.”

It all starts with its insurance model. The company aligns with physicians by reducing friction and increasing transparency, leading to improved patient care. Its physicians are able to focus on people, not paperwork.
Clover is also partner in care, using patient-centered analytics and a dedicated care management team to identify potential risks and directly provide preventive care.

As an insurer, Clover pays all its members’ bills. This gives the company an evolving health profile for every customer. Since Medicare members visit doctors more frequently and have higher costs than anyone else in the country, Clover is amassing a huge volume of data. The company has trained its system to look for anomalies, such as missed doctor’s appointments, failures to pick up prescriptions or visits to the ER.

The company’s algorithms and software identify the most at-risk patients, and then its nurse practitioners visit patient’s homes, and coordinate necessary tests that may be missing in the patient’s profile. Clover Health also analyzes lab data to identify patients who are in danger of serious illness, such as diabetes.

“If we know something is on a 30-day refill and we haven’t seen a claim in 35 days, we know they aren’t taking it regularly,” Gale (Clover co-founder) said. “We can reach out — for example, maybe do they not understand how they’re supposed to be taking this — and intervene. This is info that’s available to us because we’re the payer. The doctor that prescribed gave them a piece of paper that’s now on them. The doctor doesn’t know if they’re getting that filled unless they’re asking them regularly. That’s part of the data advantage.”

ECONOMIC SIDE: Uncle Sam pays Clover a monthly fee for each Medicare Advantage customer the startup enrolls. The amount varies depending on where the person lives, but it averages $850 before adjusting for chronic conditions or healthy habits, the Medicare Rights Center says. Clover uses the money to pay members’ bills and generates almost all its revenue from whatever is left over after reimbursing doctors, hospitals, labs, pharmacies and other points of care. The company offers plans with no monthly premiums or ones that go as high as $225.
By law, Medicare Advantage providers must pay out 85 percent of premiums they get from the government. The goal of the Clover is to counsel them before they require costly treatments. In fact, helping patients avoid hospitalization saves the company an average of $10,000, so the potential savings nationally could be huge.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPEClover Health’s primary competition are the traditional Medicare insurance companies, such as United Healthcare. But those companies aren’t collecting the data from their patients in the same way Clover Health does.There are also other startups, too, that are also trying to re-invent the health insurance industry like Oscar Health, Bright Health and GoHealth. But the companies are targeting a very different demographic, and Clover Health’s selling point is the technology that powers it.

In conclusions, Silicon Valley has just given birth to a company which is “anusual” from the big corporations which stay there. Clover thought “How could we change something so traditional and expensive as Health Insurance in the USA?” I think is is doing it well because in the digital era informations are like “digital gold” and if you succeed using them well you can get a lot of money. However, in addition to this the company is using informations for an important goal: take care about people’s health and do it for a better price. This last point for american people is a very important topic and it could be a good solution for the american private health system. So, they make money, you have more care, you prevent diseases and pay less than before, I think everyone wins.

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-07/silicon-valley-is-trying-to-reinvent-health-care-starting-in-new-jersey

https://www.cloverhealth.com/en/

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/17/clover-health-a-data-driven-health-insurance-startup-raises-100m/

http://fortune.com/2015/09/18/clover-health-medicare-insurance/

http://fortune.com/2016/05/20/clover-health-funding/

Next year Microsoft will make available 3D technologies for everyone

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This year Microsoft has announced that it is going to make available 3D technologies to everyone.

Microsoft Paint 3D – the simple computer graphics app. It will be completely integrated into a future update of the operating system (Windows 10 Creators Update), which is planned for spring 2017.

Microsoft created the application as an easy-to-use tool for non-professionals. As well as, it should be equally inspiring for the professionals who get used to working with the sophisticated design programs. Paint 3D allows for the creation of fully 3D objects using mouse and keyboard, touchscreen or stylus inputs. It also provides a library of basic shapes to work with – spheres, cubes, cones and whatnot – as well as a few generalized objects. There is an additional option to import own 3D objects as well as 2D images to use as labels, colors, and textures within the creations. Along with this, it enables users to create their own thematic emojis.
In the beginning, will be possible to upload 3D pictures to the web to Microsoft’s new 3D community, but further to exchange and share through social networks, messaging apps, email and everything else. It will include capture apps for phones and tablets. One more remark, at startup only Microsoft phones will have the app and just later it will be launched on iOS and Android. Word documents and PowerPoint presentations will include the new tools for handling 3D content as well. Microsoft Paint will empower not only 3D modeling but 3D printing too. The new 3D tools are also planning to be incorporated into the Edge browser, Skype, and OneNote and even might be connected to Minecraft. The company is cooperating with the numbers of manufacturers such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo to make available the 3D experience through the virtual reality on any PC running the Windows 10 Creators Update. Simultaneously, Microsoft is working on an augmented-reality component to its 3D solution. Again, the important thing is that the 3D objects will work not just with Microsoft’s advanced and expensive HoloLens, but also on regular PC screens.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZyyfMUv-Og
You can watch one more preview video about how the Microsoft Paint 3D works using the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mik8NQrY41c

Sources:

http://mashable.com/2016/10/26/microsoft-3d-platform/#xYVsdLhmemqL

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/software/84041.html

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/microsoft-sees-future-3d-latest-windows-event-124847873.html

More than moon power!

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Solar panels have been around for a long time. Solar energy theory has been around since the 1800’s but the one of the first silicon based panels came out in the 1940’s, that was invented by Russell Ohl back in 1941. However it has a less than 1% efficiency.

This brings us to the present, we have tried so many different ways and configurations to get energy from the sun and to convert it into usable work. The main problem with solar panels is heat. Ironically the brighter the sun the more energy you get, however, the brighter the sun the hotter the panels get and this leads to a higher ohm resistance in the panel itself which means a reduced efficiency.

Enter the British company RawLemon. They have invented an orb that works similar to a Fresnel Lens. This clear water filled orb is able to concentrate the sun, with the help of a solar tracking device, and then create useful work from the concentrated solar rays. This orb is so good at concentrating light that it can even generate electricity from moonlight!

RawLemon sucking up moonlight, from IndieGoGo

RawLemon was able to make some smaller versions of the devise and they collected over 150% of their crowdfunding goal raising a total of $233,062 IndieGoGo. Unfortunately their website is getting “an upgrade” so you can’t purchase anything from them at the moment.

Rawlemon in the daytime.

Now let us move on to something that has a bit of controversy behind it. The V3Solar Cone.

The company claims that with this special design they are able to be at least 20 times more efficient than a traditional flat solar panel. As I mentioned before the hotter a panel gets the more inefficient the panel becomes. V3 gets around this because the solar panel is always spinning at the optimal speed. This allows, in theory, the panels to be exposed to sunlight just long enough for proper energy exposure but also the ability to cool down as it spins away from the sun as a “fresh” solar panel is brought around back to the direct sunlight.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQYXvNC5tpk]

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Nintendo and the unbeloved smartphone

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If there is something like a traditional company in the virtual world, it must be Nintendo. The Japanese giant, that just landed a coup with the augmented reality version of Pokémon, has been in the video games market since the 70s and developed countless classics from Super Mario to Zelda.

And its tradition does not only base itself on a rich history but also on the decisions made nowadays: Until today – Thursday the 15th of December 2016 – good old Mario has never run across the iPhone screen with Nintendo’s permission.

It is soon a decade ago, that Apple laid the cornerstone for today’s smartphone market. However, Nintendo has been relentlessly refusing to bring its popular game characters to the small computers. The Japanese hoped for the attraction of Super Mario, Zelda and Co. – who wants to play it, must buy a Nintendo console. In addition, they would get the sale of a console game equal to 40 to 60 euros or dollars.

In the meanwhile, the “free-to-play” model has been introduced to smartphone gaming, where the game itself is free and the providers then try to earn the money via virtual products or help to jump levels. A few games like Candy Crush collect millions, for many others it is a tough business.

The customers, however, definitely like to play on the smartphone – and Nintendo is now experiencing a steep fall in sales of its consoles and games. That’s why entering the business with mobile games has become almost inevitable.

Nintendo still wants to enter the market according to its own rules though. Only an initial level of Super Mario Run is free, sort of a demo. If you want to play the game completely, you will be charged 10 euros or dollars. This is much more than is common today with a mobile phone game.

Nintendo remains a renegade in this streamlined market – and already announces to tackle it with a new console, Switch, which will try to be a mobile and home device at the same time. The Japanese continue to jump and run between outside innovation and own tradition and seem to be more innovative than most while doing so.

Airbus’ project which will totally change the way of flying by planes

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The French airplane producer Airbus has presented special module cabins, which can be easily shifted to modify the airplane with a totally different interior. Parts like bar, restaurant, sleeping-rooms, spa and even a playground can be introduced. It is all to increase the income of airlines.


Among few patents presented by airlines this year by Airbus and Boeing, this project has the highest chances to success and get introduced. Airbus Transpose are exchangeable cabin modules which can be easily adapted to the needs of the particular airline. In case for example a long flight from Los Angeles to Frankfurt in the business class the airline can install special cabins with beds and an exclusive bar. In case of a flight to India, where we find more economic class passengers the module can be shifted to extra seat rows.

The modules are created in that way to be easily moved from place to place, the installation process is going to be similar to that in cargo airplanes. The specific details about this process are unknown yet.

The prototype of the cabine module created by Airbus is named “Transpose”. The French declare that the greatest advantage is the time – depending on the interior the plane can be modified within few minutes up to few hours. Also the elasticity is important – when the airline orders a bar today it is going to be fixed immediately not depending on the route the plane is going to fly.

Airlines install for example showers in business class. Yeah that’s great but this module has to be fixed for minimum 7 to 10 years. Our project gives the airlines the possibility to test the service – if something fits them they get it. If not then you can exchange it and look for another solution – said Jason Chua, project manager at A3.

 

According to Airbus’ concept in a wide-body aircraft 10 to 15 moveable modules can be introduced.

Nevertheless the path from the idea to the realisation is going to be quite long. The project team assumes that it will take 2 to 4 years to create the prototype.

We decided to show our project now, because we would like to find out what kind of facilities do passengers need on the airplane – adds Chua”

 

There is just lasts the question if the airlines will be interested in that kind of project. Finally as Airbus launched the Model A380, where a casino, restaurant and gym should be introduced, the airlines rejected because they were just interested in a huge amount of seats to bring in as many passengers as possible.

What is your opinion? Is this a good solution for both the passengers and for the airlines?

 

Sources:

https://www.wired.com/2016/12/airbus-new-jet-concept-features-swappable-spas-cafes/#slide-x

https://skift.com/2016/12/13/airbus-wants-airlines-to-radically-rethink-the-passenger-experience/

http://www.travelandleisure.com/culture-design/a3-modular-aircraft-cabin

A new plastic clothing fabric developed for cooling the skin

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A new material is invented by a team of researchers in Stanford University which can keep people cool in warm climates and decrease the need for air-conditioners that requires expensive energy costs.

The material is a plastic-based textile produced with low-cost that lets human body to discharge the warmth in a new way. As we know, sweating helps bodies to balance body heat and this new fabric does this too.

This new fabric allows people to perspire for evaporation like regular fabric does. But, there is new method by this plastic fabric. It emits the body head as infrared radiation and it passes through the fabric. Researches combined nanotechnology, photonics and chemistry to create the cooling fabric. They give polyethylene, a kind of plastic we also use as kitchen wrap, several characteristics required in a clothing material. When the new fabric is applied to clothing, the material could make the person feel almost 2 Celsius cooler.

new-fabric

(Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

All living organisms leave behind heat as infrared radiation. It is imperceptible and benevolent wavelength of light. For example, we get warmed under blankets because blankets don’t let the heat thrown off from our body in the form of infrared radiation. It is also noted that, people are seen in dark via night vision goggles thanks to the thermal radiation produced by our bodies.

Energy consumption related to cooling via air-conditioners constitute nearly %12 of total energy consumption in the United States, as reported by the researches.  There are some attempts to use this fabric in buildings to cool the air inside which is called ‘smart temperature control. But, researchers point out the fact that focusing on the cooling of person rather than entire buildings are far more efficient.

Yi Cui, one of the researchers in the team and associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University, said that ‘If you can cool the person rather than the building where they work or live, that will save energy.’ On the other hand, we have to take into account that, the cost of the new material should be lowered to be used in mass production of clothes.

 

References :

  1. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-09/su-sed082616.php
  2. http://news.stanford.edu/2016/09/01/plastic-clothing-material-cools-skin/

 

The stratospheric plane- the latest technical invention

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Hello Guys. Plane is this mode of transport, which each of us is going to use in our life. In in that post I would like to introduce You the newest eco-friendly plane, which already obtained a great opinions and assessments.

It called Solar Impulse 2 and it is the first plane, which is powered by the solar cells. His flight around the world, which already finished became a huge success. As the forecasts are showing this type of machine will be extremely helpful for the environment protection.

Let’s introduce the author of that great invention. He is coming from Switzerland and his name is Raphael Domjan, In 2014 that guy circumnavigated the world in boat, which was powered via solar energy. That adventure inspired him to create a super innovative and eco- friendly plane. It has 25- meter of wingspan, where placed 22 square metres of photovaltaic cells. Furthermore Solar Impulse 2 is very light. Without the pilot it weighs 450 kg. The plane can be used 24 hours in the air on the maximum high of the 25000 meters.

Tesla is not futuristic, Lilium Aviation is!

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Lilium Aviation devlopes a futuristic areoplane that can takeoff vertically, and of course also land vertically1. The base of the technique is the same as the French fighter jet Mirage uses.
The futuristic product has gained interest among risk capitalist, one of Sweden’s most famous entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström has invested 10 million euros in the company. He states that one thing that he likes about the project is the fact that it’s just a prototype so far to make the concept work before scaling up production.
The prototype is of course made out of lightweight materials combined with electrics fans to power the machine. Lilium Atviation is based in Germany, founded by engineers and PhDs from the university of Munich. Lilium Atviation is just one of many startups that try to create a flying vehicle for the everyday use.

AeroMobile 3.0 Source

Another company that has come further with their prototype is the Slovenian company AeroMobile2. They have stated that they are planning to start selling their product on the market in 2017. Although their AeroMobile 3.0 looks more like a modified airplane rather than something completely new.
However what we can conclude is that at some point in the not too distance future there will be a personal transportation that is not land-bound.

1 http://www.breakit.se/artikel/5720/atomico-pumpar-in-100-miljoner-i-futuristiskt-flygplansbygge
2 http://www.va.se/nyheter/2015/03/20/de-utlovar-en-flygande-bil-redan-2017/

The impact of new technologies on our daily lives

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Today I’m not going to introduce you a new technology but I’m going to talk about positive and bad impacts that can have new technologies on our lives.

Our daily lives have been affected in different areas with the globalization and technological advances. With the technological progress, we have now better equipment, luxuries and comfort that were not present before. In each commercial sector of a country, we can see the impact of the new technologies. By looking at the benefits of technology, many industries are coming up with new features and equipment to meet and suit the needs of people.

Positive impacts :

  • Easier communication

Technology has improved the communication between people. With the advent of mobile technology, conversation with friends and family members no matter how far they are has become easy.

With the evolution of social networking websites, locating childhood friends or family has become simpler. Technology has enabled people to share information across any place in the world within a fraction of a second.

  • Better learning

Now there are numerous online classroom learning method and several types of online courses which permit to students to gain world class learning. It also enables people to pursue professional courses from recognized institutions that are delivered by renowned lecturers at the comfort of the house.

  • Better employment options

With technological developments, working from home has become easy. People who can’t go outside due to some reason can easily work from their home. Technology has provided new employment opportunities to housewives and students. All they need is a computer and internet connection.

Negative impacts :

  • Online games addiction

Due to the popularity and easy access to several online games, it has been observed that children no more like to indulge in outdoor activities. By spending lots of time on games harms their eyes and damages their health. It reduces their concentration and productivity too.

  • Cut off from social life

Digital communication has been replaced by real conversation because more and more people use excessively their mobiles or laptop. It is adversely impacting the development of physical, mental and emotional development of a person.

  • Deteriorates relationship

Due to overindulgence in technological gadgets, it has been seen that people are not able to give quality time to their family members and near ones. This has created distance between them and is ultimately destroying relationships.

  • New technologies dependence

Now with excessive new technologies and new equipment that facilitate our daily lives, we tend to be dependent of it. For example when there is a dysfunction we are “lost” or we tend to be more lazy because now we can have everything with one click.

 

The good or bad impacts of technology depend on how we use it. It is our duty to educate young generation and adults to encourage its healthy use and abstain from its addiction.

Sources :

https://prezi.com/gir8xp3wmehu/les-effets-positif-et-negati-de-la-technologie/

http://owl-ge.ch/travaux-d-eleves/2011-2012/article/l-impact-des-nouvelles-technologies-dans-la-societe-actuelle

http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2016/12/sponsored-the-impact-of-new-technology-on-humans-lives/

http://mydailyalerts.com/positive-negative-effects-technology-lives