Monthly Archives: October 2019

19 October 2019
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E-Economy (Beyond the West): Its Benefits Beyond Itself

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Hello everyone,

Today, I will look at things from the perspective of a non-Westerner! Coming from Asia, I was shocked that even my international business classes focused primarily on companies from the West and neglected some up-and-coming countries which are most definitely revolutionising their industries and economy.

One prominent example is of course China, who has already beat the United States (China 129: US 121) in the number of companies featured on Fortune 500, or even in the number of unicorn start-ups (China 125: US 120). While it may have lagged in the past, China has a domestic size that consists of more than 1/7 of the total population on earth – which means it can model after successful companies and create an entire ecosystem that is entirely their own (as they already did by isolating US companies like Google, Whatsapp, Facebook, Apple Pay to make their own very successful Chinese equivalents: Baidu, WeChat, QQ, Alipay).

The e-economy has allowed China (and many other countries) to increasingly globalise their products beyond their domestic borders, and has brought about much economic prosperity. And of course, China is revolutionary in how they are projected to win the AI race – triumphing both US and Europe. But what is even more fascinating is the repercussions of the Chinese economy investing even in Africa!

Africa — the continent which is often overlooked in discussions about thriving technology — has Rwanda and is benefitting from a 7.5% GDP growth, along with being in line to be one of Africa’s major technology hubs! In 5 years, it achieved 4G coverage of over 95 percent. And with that foundation, start-ups have also been able to introduce a variety of projects – including implementing a cashless tap-and-go system for the Kigali bus system and offering wi-fi on public transportation! Rwanda has also partnered with China’s Alibaba to establish Africa’s first electronic world trade platform, which provides Rwandan enterprises with cloud computing and mobile payment services to enable local companies to sell their products and services outside of Rwanda.

I think it is absolutely heartening to know e-economy benefits beyond the company which is selling the product. With its interconnected networks, e-economy brings economic prosperity for possibly more than one country, helps propagate soft power for the country, changes people’s perceptions of the country, and elevates the citizens’ quality of lives!

 

References:

  1. https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/rwanda-tech-hub?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2
  2. https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/four-years-later-95-rwanda-covered-4g-internet
  3. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-48911746/rwanda-bids-to-become-high-tech-hub
  4. http://www.itwebafrica.com/unified-communications/669-rwanda/245269-rwanda-to-roll-on-public-transport-wi-fi-in-2019
  5. https://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/2171148/rwanda-joins-alibaba-led-electronic-world-trade-platform-amid-us
  6. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02360-7
19 October 2019
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AI As Danger To Public Road Safety

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Impact of Technology on Driving

 

Prepared by: Artem Beregovskykh

[5]

 

In the past 20 years, technology had a massive impact not only on the business market segments but also on our day-to-day life and the automotive industry is not the exception. With the increased use of technologies and its implementation in the new cars, they became safer, more economical, less polluting and more “independent” than they have ever been. On the other side, drivers became way too reliant on the new systems and in some cases that leads to deadly accidents. This report will focus on the impact of new systems implemented in cars and how they benefit and deteriorate the way we transport ourselves.

 

Automakers are investing the majority of their budgets on improving the safety of their new car models [3]. Several new systems were introduced to reduce the possibility of getting into an accident, let’s look at some of them in a more detailed way. Firstly, the Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) approximately 50% of both head-on and rear-end collisions were prevented by this system. Furthermore, the auto manufacturers in North America have agreed that this feature will come as a standard option on new vehicles from 2022 [3]. Second, Blind-Spot warning systems help you changing lanes and avoiding hitting a car in the blind spot have reduced nearly 14% of side crashes [2]. The electronic stability control (ESC) helped to prevent nearly half of the severe accidents involving roll-overs [3]. Adaptive Headlights are turning with your cars wheels allowing you to see what is in front of your car when you are entering a turn and avoiding an obstacle at the curve if it is present [1]. Although, the governments around the world are stiffening the regulations on safety features of new cars a lot of people worldwide are still dying in major crashes.

 

As new cars are becoming more technologically-advanced we expect them to be safer. However, in the USA there was a 50% increase in car accidents from 2015 to 2016 involving deaths and fatalities, which was the biggest annual increase in 50 years [4]. Also, from 2005 to 2008 the rise of telephone usage contributed to the growing amount of car accidents by 28% [9]. In the USA in 2017 texting and driving included 14% of fatal crashes [7]. Another way automakers are trying making public roads safer, is by developing and introducing self-driving systems. On the automotive market, Tesla is seen as the most tech-driven company but there were a lot of complaints from the drivers when Tesla cars were very close to hitting an obstacle when operating under the autopilot if the driver was not strictly following its manoeuvres [6]. However, there were also tragic instances when Teslas were involved in deadly car accidents when the autopilot was turned on. In 2019 Model  Tesla went under a truck resulting in the death of a driver. In the same year, the most expensive model in Tesla’s lineup Model X went into a barrier, caught on fire killing the driver [8]. In the end, people become highly dependent on the new technologies in their cars that they lose the caution and control over the process that increases the possibility of dying or getting serious injuries in a car accident.

 

Although, new cars are safer and more efficient than the old ones there are a lot of things that must be done to prevent future collisions and deadly accidents. Moreover, today’s drivers must be constantly involved in the driving process and control the environment around them, this approach will help reduce most of the crashes. To sum up, I believe that all auto manufacturers  should engage in more deeper research and development of the new systems in cars to reduce the possibility of its failure to a minimum. However, in the near future, I do not believe that cars will be able to operate without the driver’s presence.

 

 

Works Cited

 

  1. Agarwal, H. (2018, March 20). How Does Technology Help To Reduce Car Accidents? CEOWORLD magazine. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://ceoworld.biz/2018/03/20/how-does-technology-help-to-reduce-car-accidents/.
  2. Automated safety systems found to prevent car crashes. (2017, August 23). Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4815388/Studies-automated-safety-systems-preventing-car-crashes.html.
  3. Bubbers, M. (2017, October 17). Five vehicle safety technologies that can help you avoid a crash. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/culture/technology/five-vehicle-safety-technologies-that-can-help-you-avoid-a-crash/article36533631/.
  4. Coplan, & Crane. (2016, December 10). How Technology is Increasing Car Accident Risks. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.coplancrane.com/posts/understanding-rising-car-accident-risks-caused-by-new-technology/.
  5. Feldman, J. (2018, November 14). It’s Time to Change Tactics in the Fight Against Distracted Driving. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.legalexaminer.com/transportation/its-time-to-change-tactics-in-the-fight-against-distracted-driving/.
  6. Gibbs, S. (2015, October 21). What happens when Tesla’s AutoPilot goes wrong: owners post swerving videos. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/21/tesla-autopilot-goes-wrong-videos.
  7. Styles, M. (n.d.). 2019 Cell Phone Texting and Driving Accident Statistics. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.after-car-accidents.com/texting-and-driving-accidents.html.
  8. Tesla Model 3: Autopilot engaged during fatal crash. (2019, May 17). Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48308852.
  9. Wilson, F. A., & Stimpson, J. P. (2010, November). Trends in fatalities from distracted driving in the United States, 1999 to 2008. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/.

 

 

 

 

19 October 2019
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‘Advanced AI’ will soon manipulate social media platforms

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Twitter bots in 2019 can perform some basic functions, like tweeting content, retweeting, following other users, quoting other users, liking tweets and even sending direct messages. But even though bots on Twitter and other social media seem to be getting smarter than previous iterations, these A.I. are still relatively unsophisticated in terms of how well they can manipulate social discourse.

Elon Musk tweeted that “advanced AI” will be used to “manipulate social media” — if, he guessed, it hasn’t done so already. He added that “anonymous bot swarms” are “evolving rapidly.”

In the first tweet, Musk said that anonymous bot swarms deserved closer attention. Bots are autonomous programs that often attempt to game social media, by retweeting a specific tweet to promote it across the platform, or to spread disinformation across the platform by making it look like thousands of people are tweeting about the same bit of (fake) news. In his next tweet Musk clarified on his first warning by saying that if advanced AI (which he describes as artificial intelligence beyond the possibilities of regular bots) hasn’t already been applied to easily manipulate social media, it won’t be long before that happens.

His tweet was made just hours after The New York Times published an article showcasing a study showing that at least 70 countries have experienced digital disinformation campaigns over the past two years.

“In recent years, governments have used ‘cyber troops’ to shape public opinion, including networks of bots to amplify a message, groups of “trolls” to harass political dissidents or journalists, and scores of fake social media accounts to misrepresent how many people engaged with an issue,” Davey Alba and Adam Satariano wrote for the Times. “The tactics are no longer limited to large countries. Smaller states can now easily set up internet influence operations as well.”

In the documentary “Do You Trust Your Computer?”, Musk warned of the dangers of a single organization someday developing superintelligence.

“The least scary future I can think of is one where we have at least democratized AI because if one company or small group of people manages to develop godlike digital superintelligence, they could take over the world,” Musk said.

“At least when there’s an evil dictator, that human is going to die. But for an AI, there would be no death. It would live forever. And then you’d have an immortal dictator from which we can never escape.”

I think that the problem of your security on the web will get only worse as the time goes and bots may be only one side of it. Many users are being victims of spam performed by bots and usual security methods like Captcha can’t solve this issue.

 

References:

Futurism.com

Fastcompany.com

Bigthink.com

Businessinsider.com

 

19 October 2019
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Hero Arm. Or how a flaw becomes a superpower.

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“Welcome to the future where physical limitation becomes superpower!” – under this slogan a unique bionic prosthesis of the arm was demonstrated.

Hero Arm is Engineered and manufactured in Bristol, UK, but available now only in the USA, UK and France. Bionic hands, meanwhile, can cost up to £60,000 apiece. Open Bionics’ Hero Arm will launch at a fraction of that cost – around £5,000 – thanks to the savings offered by a combination of 3D printing and tablet-enabled 3D scanning of the wearer. The company affirm this makes it the most affordable bionic arm or hand currently available.

Manufacturers claim that this is the most convenient prosthesis ever, that includes many facilities and functions. Even though the Hero Arm is powered by space grade motors, advanced software and long-lasting batteries, it is lightweight (no more than 1 kg) and super sleek, that is why it feels like part of you. Special sensors within the Hero Arm detect muscle movements, meaning you can effortlessly control your bionic hand with intuitive life-like precision. Also, haptic vibrations, beepers, buttons and lights provide you with intuitive notifications. Socket is breathable, dynamic and easily cleanable. Moreover there are many different swappable covers(a wide range including Star Wars BB-8, Marvel Iron Man, Disney Frozen and Deus Ex),that means that  you can switch up your style to match your mood.

As the result the company has been rewarded with both public accolades and funding for its work. In recent years, Open Bionics has scooped a James Dyson Award (in 2015), a Wired Social Innovation Award (in 2016), and a $ 1 million UAE AI & Robotics International Award for Good, all of which gave Open Bionics the impetus to create the Hero Arm.

It’s nice to realize that with the development of new technologies, the lives of many people become better and easier.

refferences:

Open Bionics’ releases affordable 3D printed bionic arm

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/04/open-bionics-hero-arm-us/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB8XovEkgdhSZ-vzH_6JCjMbP7rE8jB19PxbyynmwjEHRNVqaJIlgLMI0tG8e_MiGQRny1Yow6mTY2Msp37h_K6VuIceo4P0g0zZcyGlL4EYGGpXY2gmds3G7K6-R8bnRdPelY8L3OBYXHqjQs2Y5lnKJ-cg2HOQou-hd0Y41k9Z

https://miridei.com/interesnye-idei/izobreteniya/top5-izobretenij-leta-2019/

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