Interesting Stuff by Crhis Sandoval - 9/14/2016: AI's hard to see; Airbnb’s Work to Fight Discrimination, Build Inclusion; Transportation Overk‏

Some cool stuff from my favorite local tech newsletter.  Thanks for sending this out Chris!

-Mike Cairns

Robots & AI Stuff AI is hard to see “AI systems are already making problematic judgements that are producing significant social, cultural, and economic impacts in people’s everyday lives” MUST READ What AI will look like in 2030 “Now is the time to consider the design, ethical, and policy challenges AI technologies raise” More Robots & AI Stuff: ·         </span>TINY ROBOT VS ANTS Diversity & Inclusion Stuff Airbnb’s Work to Fight Discrimination and Build Inclusion< /span> (PDF) “putting in place powerful systemic changes to greatly reduce opportunity for hosts and guests to engage in conscious or unconscious discriminatory conduct.” MUST READ Airbnb Adopts Rules to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts “Diversity advocates said Airbnb’s actions were a notable first step, but wondered how some of the changes could be enforced and whether the moves went far enough” More Diversity & Inclusion Stuff: ·         NCAA Moves Championship Events From North Carolina, Citing Anti-Gay-Rights Law ·         When tech firms judge on skills alone, women land more job interviews ·         And Do You Belong? I Do ·         Giraffes: more diverse than you thought. Trends How Transportation Overkill Is Killing Us “pedestrian struck by vehicle going 40mph has 10% chance of surviving, one struck by a car at 20mph has a 90% chance. So when we post a 40-mile speed limit on a boulevard where pedestrians walk, we’re saying in the event of a crash, a 90% mortality rate is acceptable. Thes e decisions matter.” MUST READ Middle class incomes had their fastest growth on record last year “5.2% increase was largest recorded by bureau since it began tracking in the 1960s” More Trends: ·         How the careless errors of credit reporting agencies are r uining people’s lives Future of Cars Stuff No Driver? Bring It On. How Pittsburgh Became Uber’s Testing Ground “You can either put up red tape or roll out the red carpet. If you want to be a 21st-century laboratory for technology, you put out the carpet.” How Tesla Fixed a Deadly Flaw in Its Autopilot “ingenious solution could make self-driving cars much safer—if it works” More Future of Cars Stuff: ·         Google's Self-Driving Car Project Is Losing Out to Rivals ·         This flying car’s real, it can fly 430mi on a tank Customer Experience Stuff Why User Experience Always Has to Come First “Privileging easy money over better user experience is the antithesis of customer centricity” More Custom er Experience Stuff: ·         Steve Jobs Talks About The Courage To Remove Outdated Tech In Oddly Prescient Video ·         There Are No Truffles in Truffle Oil ·         Save BIG on Hong Kong Real Estate: Shop for a haunted apartment ·         Authenticity’s Paradox: If You Flaunt It, You Lose It Military Stuff Marine Tried To Warn A Comrade, Now He Faces A Discharge “The inquiry was retaliation, Bowe says, for embarrassing the Marine Corps brass.” 20 Marines Face Discipline After Muslim Recruit’s Death’s Ruled Suicide “revealed departures from policies and procedures established for Marine Corps recruit training” Marine drill instructor accused of running a clothes dryer with a Muslim recruit inside “Even back in the day when they were really brutal at Parris Island, I can’t imagine that happening. That’s abuse” More Military Stuff: ·         Army Announces Long-Anticipated Family Program Cuts ·         Army About to Kick Out Paralyzed Hero ·         Pentagon looks to the past to counter digital warfare of the future ·         To Launch a Nuclear Strike, Clinton or Trump Would Follow These Steps Wells Fargo Stuff ·         Q&A: Former LA Times reporter on story that led to $185M Wells Fargo fine READ THIS ·          Wells Fargo Opened a Couple Million Fake Accounts ·         How Regulation Failed with Wells Fargo Innovation Stuff ·         How I Built a $2B Company by Thinking Small ·         Apple’s greatest innovation: its ecosystem ·         Google's Clever Plan to Stop As piring ISIS Recruits ·         LoveBot tells your wife you love her so you don’t have to

Weather Stuff ·      Earth Temperature Timeline MUST SEE ·      Permafrost 'bubbles' leaking methane 200X above norm<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#FFFF9B"> ·      Cool new interactive weather site: Ventusky ·      Close-Up View of Volcano Eruption ·      Temperature anomalies 1880-present Magic Box ·      FINALLY: blog devtoed to SA taco culture!!! #YUM ·      Why Do Tourists Visit Ancient Ruins Everywhere Except the US? ·      70yo man robs bank to get arrested and away from wife ·      Texas A&M pays off poor colleges to lose football games (and they wanna stop paying) ·      The Thrill of Losing Money by Investing in a Manhattan Restaurant ·      Chicago Paleta Man's Story Inspires Nation, $140K Raised To Help His Family Voting Stuff ·      voteplz: Literally the easiest way to vote Energy Stuff ·      Costa Rica has gone 76 straight days using 100% renewable electricity Animal Stuff ·      Video of Evolution in Action ·      Tasmanian Devils Evolving Genetic Resistance to Cancer Threatening Species Diversions ·      Fury Road - Crash & Smash SO GOOD ·      Unicycling atop a huge chimney ·      Incredible paper ball shot secures entire class 100% in chemistry test ·      Joy Division’s Ian Curtis rides a rollercoaster ·      In A Sometimes-Bizarre Election Year, The Onion Ramps Up Its Satire

Interesting Stuff by Chris Sandoval

This is a weekly newsletter that I subscribe to by Chris Sandoval that I absolutely love.  I thought I would post it to my blog this week for all to share.

-Mike Cairns

==================================================================================================

The newsletter was on vacation last week and came back with some extra vacation weight. Enjoy this 16% larger issue!

Think & Work Differently

What Lessons do People Learn too Late in Life?

You should send this to your kids. MUST READ

The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber

“Alex Honnold doesn’t experience fear like the rest of us.”

What companies get wrong about open-office plans

“Rather than providing workers with more space, companies were better off pairing workers according to complementary skills”

More Think & Work Differently:

·         Kindness as self-defense – the power of ‘non-complementary behavior’

·         Mayor has an incredibly simple idea to help the homeless. It seems to be working.

·         Like It or Not, “Smart Drugs” Are Coming to the Office

·         HOWTO: Give Better Speeches: Talk to a Dog

·         Incredible story of miraculous airplane landing can teach you a lot about focus

Security, Privacy & Fraud Stuff

HOWTO: Hack an Election in 7mins

“This isn’t a crazy hypothetical, these machines barely work in friendly environments.”

This is what Apple should tell you when you lose your iPhone

Beware of phishing attempts if you ever lose your phone.

More Security, Privacy & Fraud Stuff:

·         ATM and and PIN-pad hacks show chip cards aren’t impervious to fraud

·         ‘Smart’ locks yield to simple hacker tricks

·         Hackers Make the First-Ever Ransomware for Smart Thermostats

·         High-tech methods behind massive theft of Jeep, Dodge cars

·         AI Just Changed the Future of Information Security

Disruption & Transformation Stuff

Google isn’t safe from Yahoo’s fate

“on the wrong side of major trends in the digital advertising industry”

Alphabet Learns Change Isn’t as Easy as ABC

“The Company Formerly Known as Google is still figuring out how to be a conglomerate. But at heart, it’s the same world-changing cash machine.”

More Disruption & Transformation Stuff:

·         The Competitor Amazon Never Saw Coming

Customer Experience Stuff

Department Store Creates Brilliant Gift Registry to Help Domestic Abuse Survivors

Whoa. Powerful. Have a tissue handy for the videos, especially the third one.

Looks Can Kill: Deadly Results of Flawed Design

“realm of UX is riddled with preventable tragedies.”

More Customer Experience Stuff:

·         Designing for Augmented Reality and Pokemon Go

·         Twitter has been failing its users for a decade by enabling harassment

·         Why Facebook Is Blocking the Ad Blockers

Innovation Stuff

Paralyzed Patients Learn to Walk Again Using Virtual Reality

“brain-machine interfaces, when used in conjunction with exoskeletons and virtual reality, can trigger partial recovery in patients recovering from spinal cord injuries”

“Next time you’re afraid to share ideas…”

You should print this out and hang it at your desk.

More Innovation Stuff:

·         3 Core Behaviors of Brilliant Thinkers

·         HOWTO: Hack Your Brain For Creative Ideas Before You Even Get Out Of Bed

·         Free-standing waterfall at Versailles

·         China Built That Crazy Traffic-Straddling Bus

Robots & AI Stuff

AI: What else could intelligence be?

“We build machines with narrowly human properties, skills, behaviors – a terribly restrictive idea of intelligence”

Don’t Replace People. Augment Them.

“What will new technology let us do that was previously impossible?”

AI: There's Still Hope for the Human Race

“ubiquitous AI utility will allow humans to also evolve as it deepens memory, generates immediate recall, speeds recognition, decision making”

Brave new world of robots and lost jobs

“‘automation bomb’ could destroy 45% of work performed in the US”

More Robots & AI Stuff:

·         ROBOT BRICKLAYER

·         Death of garbage in, garbage out

·         6 Signs Your Job Is Due To Be Automated

·         When robots take over, how will we be paid?

Trends

The link between health spending and life expectancy

“US is an outlier”

Too Poor to Afford the Internet

“one in five Americans remains in the digital dark”

More Trends:

·         Black families need >200yrs to match wealth of today's white families

·         10 States Where $1 Buys You the Most, Least

·         College Degree Might Get You a Just Side Job

Military Stuff

The Decline of War

“The world was far more dangerous when you were born.”

More Military Stuff:

·         Navy SEAL-turned-scientist works to solve puzzle of battlefield brain injuries

·         How a gold star became a symbol of the ultimate sacrifice

·         Pentagon bans Pokemon Go over spying fears

·         What would happen if a modern US aircraft carrier was sent back to War of Independence?

Millennials & Gen Z Stuff

How Millennials Became Spooked by Credit Cards

“they’re gravitating toward payment methods skirting both cash and credit”

 

Akkermansia gut bacteria may promote weight loss

So today while I was reviewing the changes to the new uBiome website, I noticed that they added a section for a rare type of Bacterium that has shown to promote weight loss.  I didn't have any of this particular bacteria in my sample, but it made me wonder what probiotic supplements and prebiotics could be used to promote healthy growth of it in your gut and help overweight individuals lose weight in a more healthy way.

I found this article that explains some ways that you might do that.  This isn't scientifically verified and could be biased to sell a product, but it did get me thinking about ways that I could improve my health using food as medicine.

Akkermansia wiki articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkermansia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkermansia_muciniphila#Human_metabolism

I post this so that I can follow up and do some further investigation myself and see if trying some of these probiotics actually impact my gut flora of this type of probiotic.

New Free Peer to Peer Internet access?

The power of blockchain is popping up all over the place, but this company is one that really has me intregued.  Combine the power of blockchain with wireless peer to peer networks could open up the internet to many more people throughout the world.

To start testing out maidsafe:

https://github.com/maidsafe/safe_core

I am interested to see if nano degrees are the way of the future.  I think that it could help to get students into the workforce faster without having to spend so much time getting "well rounded" at a traditional university or college.  I am a big fan so far.

Nano Degrees:
https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree

Online Courses:
https://www.udemy.com/

Free Online courses from MIT:
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

I see this as a better way to educate in the future and I hope that more companies consider this type of training verses traditional schools.

Microsoft Holographic

Microsoft Holographic is coming. ...

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/06/01/opening-windows-holographic-to-partners-for-a-new-era-of-mixed-reality/

I can't wait to see some of the mixed reality applications.

With all of the AI bots out there, it is exciting to see a simple to build AI bot to play with.  I will have to try this one out.  Thanks Carlos Chavez for pointing this one out to me!

http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/26/motion-ai-lets-anyone-easily-build-a-bot/

New Amazon Echo in a WebPage

Echosim.io is a new Online tool that allows you to use Alexa in a browser.  This is a great way to test your new Alexa skills without having to be sitting right in front of your Alexa.

Check it out at https://echosim.io/ and make sure to give Sam Machin a shout out for creating this in the Alexa Hack-a-Thon.

Also, you might want to check out the developer community for other cool ideas that people are using Echo and Alexa for.

https://developer.amazon.com/public/community/post/Tx3BB1JHNS1TDTS/Introducing-Echosim-io-A-New-Online-Tool-Built-by-the-Community-for-the-Communit

Humanity in 1000 years

I watched the following video and it got me to thinking about how much different humanity will be in 1000 years.  I think that this video is right on on some points.
http://sci-techuniverse.blogspot.com/2015/12/heres-what-humanity-may-be-like-in-1000.html#more

I summarize this video with the following bullets.

• Nanobots
• Humans will impact their on evolution
• Space colonization

What did you think?