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Elon Musk 1 Billion OpenAI to Build Robots for Household

#artificialintelligence

The man has built vehicles and rockets. Up next is domestic robots. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has initiated the startup OpenAI which will build robots meant to function inside the home environment. By creating a robot from scratch, the machine will be thoroughly tested which is a good thing in the long run. How a machine is able to perform ordinary activities is what is at stake here.


SoftBank's Son to remain at helm for five to 10 years

The Japan Times

SoftBank Group Corp. CEO and Chairman Masayoshi Son said Wednesday he will continue to lead the telecom giant for five to 10 more years, saying there are things he still wants to do. The remarks come a day after SoftBank abruptly announced the company's group president, Nikesh Arora, whom Son had chosen as his successor two years earlier, would be stepping down from the post after Wednesday's annual shareholders meeting. "I was planning to invite SoftBank executives and my friends to my 60th birthday party and just when we would make a toast, I wanted to announce that I would pass the torch on to Nikesh from the next day," Son, 58, said during the meeting in Tokyo. Arora wanted to take the helm in a few years but, "I've made a commitment to lead the company at least five more years or maybe 10 more years," said Son, adding he feels "deeply sorry" about changing his plans and causing trouble for Arora. For his part, Arora told shareholders, "This is a decision I respect and even support because he is too young in his heart and his mind to not continue to lead this great company."


This app wants to spy on bad drivers, but it's really all of us, too

Washington Post - Technology News

The idea behind app Nexar is ambitious: create a type of air-traffic control system for the road. Catalogue the cars in a given location, track dicey behavior and help drivers avoid dangerous intersections and even bad drivers. Nexar is a free dashcam app that, using artificial intelligence, creates a database of an area's roads and drivers. If car stops short in front of you, even a few cars in front of you, Nexar's database can send you a notification so you'll have more time to brake. If an accident happens around the corner and cars are getting detoured onto your route, the app will tell you.


How to regulate Airbnb and 'homesharing'

Los Angeles Times

Here's the short-term rental dilemma: Websites like Airbnb and VRBO have made vacation rentals and house-sharing incredibly popular by making it easier for travelers to find homey, affordable lodgings and for homeowners to earn extra money by renting out all or part of their dwellings. But short-term rentals are not only illegal in Los Angeles' residential communities, they can create nuisances in neighborhoods and take much-needed housing off the market. Cities in the U.S. and abroad have struggled to manage the resulting boom in short-term rentals. Some cities, such as Hermosa Beach and Ojai, have decided to ban short-term vacation rentals (those less than 30 days) altogether. Mayor Eric Garcetti and members of the City Council have rightfully recognized that the "sharing economy" offers real benefits to residents and the city.


The FAA Just Released Its New Drone Rule Book

Popular Science

Transportation of property for compensation or hire allowed provided that The aircraft, including its attached systems, payload and cargo weigh less than 55 pounds total; The flight is conducted within visual line of sight and not from a moving vehicle or aircraft; and The flight occurs wholly within the bounds of a State and does not involve transport between (1) Hawaii and another place in Hawaii through airspace outside Hawaii; (2) the District of Columbia and another place in the District of Columbia; or (3) a territory or possession of the United States and another place in the same territory or possession. If a company or person wants to fly a drone in a way different from these rules, they can do so by applying to the FAA for a Certificate of Waiver, which if granted will give them a legal exception. The rules are a major step towards clarity in the vague world of drone law, though I'm certain there is much still to be decided and discovered in the full body of the rule. Here, if you wish to delve through it, is the full rule.


SoftBank to sell stake in game developer Supercell to China's Tencent

The Japan Times

SoftBank Corp. is selling its stake in Finnish game developer Supercell to Chinese technology firm Tencent in a deal announced Tuesday that values the company at about 10.2 billion. Under the deal announced by the three companies, Tokyo-based SoftBank will relinquish its stake in Supercell for 7.3 billion, and Tencent will gain up to 84 percent of Supercell. The rest of Supercell will be owned by its employees. It will continue to run its own operations in Helsinki. Supercell, founded in 2010, developed games for Apple and Google's Android smartphones and tablets, including hits such as "Hay Day," "Clash of Clans" and "Boom Beach."


New Tank Turret Can Control Drones, Too

Popular Science

This tanklike machine could now control a drone from the turret, too. A tank is a moving armored box designed to cause some pain. These tracked armored beasts of war are almost a century old, with the basic form more or less solidified by the end of World War II: put the big gun in the turret, and then drive, with a bunch of other tanks, towards the danger. In the massive battles of the European theater, and in the hypothetical plans for a NATO/Warsaw Pact fight in the Cold War, a tank was guaranteed to have clear targets. Today, as tanks are more often than not found patrolling cities and fighting insurgencies, foes are harder to find.


The Limits of "Grit"

The New Yorker

Angela Duckworth, in her best-selling book, "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance," celebrates a man whom she calls a "grit paragon": Pete Carroll, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, who led the team to a Super Bowl victory in 2014. It seems that Carroll had seen Duckworth's TED talk nine months earlier and got in touch, eager to reassure her that building grit was exactly what the Seahawks culture was all about. Two years later, Duckworth visited the Seahawks training camp. She lectured to the team's players and coaching staff. The subject was . . . Duckworth was impressed by the Seahawks, and she quotes sentiments that are characteristic of the Carroll ethos: "Compete in everything you do. Since the team trains ferociously all the time--going all out, for instance, in bone-crunching intra-squad practice sessions--this conversation may not have been entirely necessary. Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, finds grit in the best possible places. Her grit obsession, as she recounts, began at least a decade earlier. As a graduate student, she visited West Point, where each year twelve hundred new cadets go through a gruelling seven-week training regimen ("Barracks Beast") before entering freshman year. Most make it through, though some do not. Duckworth could make some guesses. In this same period, eager to find out what made top people successful, she was interviewing "leaders in business, art, athletics, journalism, academia, medicine and law." She discovered that "the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways.


How startups like Prepathon, Purplle and others have taken an early lead in chatbots ETtech

#artificialintelligence

While Gupta might have been relieved that he was not taken to task by his stern coach at Prepathon, an online test prep startup founded in September 2015, what he didn't know was that the person he was chatting with on the Prepathon app was not his coach but a bot! Millennials - those born between 1980 and 2000 - are texting more and talking less. And millennials matter because they will account for 40% of all consumers in the US by 2020, as projected by Goldman Sachs. While Jaiswal might be content with one chatbot, others want multiple bots. Aarti Gill is one of them. The cofounder of FitCircle, a chat-based health and fitness platform, boasts 32,000 bot users.


Artificial Intelligence will destroy entry-level jobs - but lead to a basic income for all

#artificialintelligence

Young people will bear the brunt of Artificial Intelligence (AI) fuelled job losses as smart systems undercut entry-level roles in everything from marketing to retail. Machine learning and expert systems will not destroy jobs wholesale, predicts George Zarkadakis, digital lead at advisory firm Willis Towers Watson, but will remove the need for many tasks that employees have traditionally cut their teeth on at the beginning of their careers. Zarkadakis cited a study by consultants McKinsey, which found that just under one third of activities that make up 60 percent of existing jobs will be automated. Unfortunately for new entrants to job markets, the bulk of these activities will be concentrated in starter roles, said Zarkadakis. "We've done some research ourselves and looked at the impact on entry-level jobs. Jobs that graduates get once they leave university. We found that many of the entry-level jobs are very susceptible to complete obliteration," he told The AI Summit in London.