Pacific Ocean
Stern of World War II destroyer Abner Read found 75 years after it was ripped off by a Japanese mine
The stern of a US destroyer that was blown off the ship by a Japanese mine 75 years ago, killing 71, has been found off Alaska. The fragment of the USS Abner Read was found in the Bering Sea off the Aleutian island of Kiska, where it sank after being torn off by an explosion while conducting an anti-submarine patrol. The remaining crew managed to save the ship, which was repaired after the attack. On July 17, a NOAA-funded team of scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the University of Delaware discovered the missing 75- foot stern section in 290 feet of water off of Kiska, one of only two United States territories to be occupied by foreign forces in the last 200 years. After sonar mounted to the side of the research ship Norseman II identified a promising target, the team sent down a deep-diving, remotely operated vehicle to capture live video for confirmation.
Does Amazon already have a tech hub in your city? Check here
An Amazon office building at 27 Melcher St. in Boston, which houses some of the 1,200 Amazon corporate staff who work in the greater Boston area. The newly refurbished building was formerly a Necco wafer candy factory. Amazon has 17 tech hubs in North America outside Seattle that employ more than 17,500 corporate, as opposed to warehouse and fulfillment, staff. That number is anticipated to rise to 26,200 by 2023. Here's where they are -- and why. Why: Silicon Valley is here, in addition to Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley and other universities with strong computer science and engineering programs.
Amazon is no longer a Seattle company. Here's what that will mean for future workers and its second headquarters
You could work for Amazon in your PJs. Amazon has more than 1,200 Amazon staff in the greater Boston area. BOSTON – Amazon isn't just a Seattle company anymore, and a visit to its offices in this university city explains why. Here, in an old Necco wafer candy factory in the formerly industrial neighborhood of Fort Point, Rohit Prasad oversees 1,200 workers developing Alexa, the company's digital assistant. Walls made out of shipping containers, a playful nod to Amazon's main business, and exposed brick echo the urban tech vibe of its Seattle headquarters.
Bosch and Daimler teaming up for connected car and AI initiatives
A Californian metropolis will soon become pilot city for fully-automated and driverless driving -- thanks to Bosch and Daimler who are speeding up the SAE Level 4/5 tech in the city. The chosen city will see a fleet of autonomous shuttle service on selected routes in the San Francisco Bay in Silicon Valley, which will be operated by Daimler Mobility Services. The pilot project will demonstrate how mobility services, such as car sharing (car2go), ride-hailing (mytaxi) and multi-modal platforms (moovel), can shape the future of mobility. Both have selected Nvidia as the AI platform supplier as part of their control unit network. This network will also be used in the fleet vehicles wherein both companies will put on the Californian roads in Q2/2019.
High-tech Tokyo tops list of world's most innovative cities
LONDON – Tokyo has topped a list of the world's most innovative cities, leapfrogging London and New York after embracing the "globe-shaking trends of robotics and 3-D manufacturing." The Japanese capital has risen rapidly since entering the top 10 of the Innovation Cities Index three years ago behind Paris, and was one of three Asian cities to feature this year. "What really surprised us this year was the resurgence of Tokyo, moving up to eclipse rival cities like Boston," said Christopher Hire, director of commercial data provider 2thinknow, which published the annual ranking on Friday. "They showed clear direction by embracing smart technology change to lead innovation and leadership in what we have identified as the twin long-term globe-shaking trends of robotics and 3-D manufacturing." Singapore, Sydney and Seoul also ranked highly in the index, which judges cities on 162 indicators including web censorship, wealth distribution and the potential for green businesses.
China plans new era of sea power with unmanned AI submarines
China is planning to upgrade its naval power with unmanned AI submarines that aim to provide an edge over the fleets of their global counterparts. A report by the South China Post on Sunday revealed Beijing's plans to build the automated subs by the early 2020s in response to unmanned weapons being developed in the US. The subs will be able to patrol areas in the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean that are home to disputed military bases. While the expected cost of the submarines has not been disclosed, they're likely to be cheaper than conventional submarines as they do not require life-supporting apparatus for humans. However, without a human crew, they'll also need to be resilient enough to be at sea without onboard repairs possible.
"Future" Tech That's Hiding in Plain Sight: Artificial Intelligence
As hot as stories about artificial intelligence (AI), augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have been in recent months, we often can't help but think of these technologies as a long way off from mainstream adoption. Movies like Ready Player One and Avengers: Infinity Wars only perpetuate this perception by mixing real technologies with fantasy, making the tech we wield in the real world seem primitive in the process. AI, AR/VR, blockchain, and IoT are already playing an important role in our everyday lives, with countless examples hiding in plain sight. In this first article, we're going to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI). In pop culture, AI is often represented as a highly-evolved and self-aware artificial "brain" in a robot capable of overthrowing the human race, as in Ex Machina or The Terminator movies.
Lenovo Smart Display: A worthy rival to the Echo Show
Amazon may have pioneered the smart-speaker movement, but Google isn't far behind. A year after Amazon debuted the first Echo, Google followed in its footsteps with the Home. The company copied Amazon yet again with the Home Mini, which is its version of the Echo Dot. Last year, Amazon revealed the Echo Show -- an smart speaker with a display. And, sure enough, earlier this year, Google announced that it, too, was getting into the smart-display category.
Most Financial Institutions Are Over-Engineering AI Solutions
As financial institutions race to implement artificial intelligence solutions, there is the potential to miss less robust applications that the consumer expects today, while also slowing the development of more sophisticated AI solutions for the future. Subscribe to The Financial Brand via email for FREE!When The Jetsons premiered in 1962, the notion of a robot maid was considered an imaginative dream about a futuristic life as opposed to something that might actually happen within the viewer's lifetime. That same year, the U.S. was heavily focused on the space race to the moon, still more than six years away from the historic Apollo 11 landing. More than 50 years ago, the world began to dream in terms previously unimaginable. As a result, some of the Jetson generation traded their Saturday morning bowls of sugary cereal for mechanical and software engineering degrees -- and in just 56 years, have created a world their parents might have argued was impossible. While the common U.S. household may not have a Rosie yet, consumer robots and artificial intelligence (AI) have never been more commonplace than they are today.
Behind the scenes of Apollo 11: NASA releases 19,000 hours of secret audio feeds for mission
Although much of the world focused on the the first Earth-Moon conversation at 4:18 p.m. EDT July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module Eagle with just 30 seconds of fuel remaining, the entire mission was actually recorded. After painstakingly digitising the original tapes, the audio has now been put online. 'The Eagle has landed': NASA releases Apollo 11 mission audio Melania Trump visits a children's hospital in Nashville Matt Lauer says'I think they see me as an easy mark' Hundreds of audio conversations between the flight controllers and other teams supporting the mission were going on every minute of the mission over an intricate intercom system. 'The untold story of that momentous 8-day, 3-hour, mission by Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins was the round-the-clock support provided by Mission Control and many communications and support locations around the globe,' said NASA. The trio of space explorers lifted off 9:32 a.m.