Somewhere in Scotland

Somewhere in Scotland

Jumping Robot

BBC

What bothers me is that he doesn't have a head. They could stick a plastic head on top of the robot -- Larry or Mo or Curly, for instance. Or the head of a wild boar, grinning, as he jogs past you: unforgettable.

The humanoid robot by Boston Dynamics is seen running through a field and jumping over a log.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-44089636/atlas-the-robot-shows-off-running-skills

Atlas the robot shows off running skills

When Robots Talk

From Grauniad of the UK

Hopefully, before long, people will be able to send their humanoid robot double into work, and no one will notice the difference...

And, if the dinner date is nothing to look forward to, the Replicant can go along and stand in for Master. 

What a bright AI-enabled future. 

________________

"I was asking Roger a question and he sounded, somewhat robotic."

"Robotic? You mean, more than usual?"

________________

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/google-duplex-assistant-phone-calls-robot-human?

The Notebooks of Jose Naranja

Soon, in a pizzeria near you

CALLER:
Is this Gordon's Pizza?

GOOGLE:
No sir, it's Google Pizza.

CALLER:
I must have dialed a wrong number. Sorry.

GOOGLE:
No sir, Google bought Gordon’s Pizza last month.

CALLER:
OK. I would like to order a pizza.

GOOGLE:
Do you want your usual, sir?

CALLER:
My usual? You know me?

GOOGLE:
According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with three cheeses, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and meatballs on a thick crust.

CALLER:
OK! That’s what I want.

GOOGLE:
May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and olives on a whole wheat gluten-free thin crust?

CALLER:
What? I detest vegetables.

GOOGLE:
Your cholesterol is not good, sir.

CALLER:
How the heck do you know?

GOOGLE:
Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.

CALLER
Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetable pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.

GOOGLE
Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you only purchased a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once, at Drug RX Network, 4 months ago.

CALLER:
I bought more from another drugstore.

GOOGLE:
That doesn’t show on your credit card statement

CALLER:
I paid in cash.

GOOGLE:
But you did not withdraw enough cash according to your bank statement.

CALLER:
I have other sources of cash.

GOOGLE:
That doesn’t show on your last tax return unless you bought them using an undeclared income source, which is against the law.

CALLER:
WHAT THE HECK?

GOOGLE:
I'm sorry, sir, we use such information only with the sole intention of helping you

CALLER:
Enough already! I'm sick to death of Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and all the others. I'm going to an island without internet, cable TV, where there is no cell phone service and no one to watch me or spy on me.

GOOGLE:
I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport first. It expired 6 weeks ago.

Printed Squid Drones

US Army Is Developing Stealthy 3-D Printed Squid Drones:

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-army-developing-stealthy-3d-printed-squid-drones-25498

Ancient Paper Art, Kirigami, Poised to Improve Smart Clothing

New research shows how paper-cutting can make ultra strong, stretchable electronics
http://www.labmanager.com/news/2018/04/ancient-paper-art-kirigami-poised-to-improve-smart-clothing?utm_campaign=Newsletter_LM_Monitor_2018&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=62033794&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_61OA60uYPv53gO_DtqB-uBIPkCcOUB1MOU8LZNdsUHI6maW2_Ynw0nYnM7SgE-8cVfPJvONfmuVMbFS2c920wcT6d0xilP-SMAirrm-Xb466iIT8&_hsmi=62033513#.Ws-xSi7wZhE
And the original paper:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adma.201706390

Free Microsoft Training: Developing Intelligent Bots from Zero to Hero

Free Microsoft Training: Developing Intelligent Bots from Zero to Hero

https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/developing-intelligent-bots-from-zero-to-hero-17797?l=MzJTnlC6D_2605192810

The Mythical Man-month

Full Text of The Mythical Man-month (downloadable from the University of Michigan):

https://umich.instructure.com/files/884126/download?download_frd=1

On Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle Fatality

From the Brookings Institution:

What Uber’s autonomous vehicle fatality tells us about the future of place:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/20/what-ubers-autonomous-vehicle-fatality-tells-us-about-the-future-of-place/

Web Development Books

From Software Development Times:

"10 books every web developer should read to increase their software IQ"

https://sdtimes.com/webdev/10-books-every-web-developer-read-increase-software-iq/

I would have included "Don't make me think" @

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521640036&sr=8-1&keywords=don%27t+make+me+think

Learning Angular 4/5

If you wish to start teaching yourself Angular 4/5, you may wish to start at "Angular Tour of Heroes" @

https://angular.io/tutorial

Ted Neward has been writing a series of articles on Angular in the MSDN magazine; those might prove to be useful as well.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/mt829391?MC=CloudDev&MC=MachLearn&MC=WebDev&MC=MSAzure&MC=Windows

News of Self-Driving Car

From Grauniad of the UK

"I had an urge to do it, Your Honour," explained the car . "I couldn't help it. It's because of algorithm ADP666X999ZYTQX."

Self-driving cars are so good at mimicking human behaviour that they can be reckless and run over pedestrians in broad daylight!

I may be wrong but I am not aware of any such trials on open roads taking place in European cities when the technology is clearly not up to scratch.

____________________

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/uber-self-driving-car-kills-woman-arizona-tempe

3-D Printed House

BBC -- Better than a garden shed

If it is an HP printer, you're going to need a lot of liquid-concrete cartridges, and they won't be cheap.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43411581

3D-printed home takes 48 hours to build

www.bbc.co.uk

It is hoped the technology can create better, cheaper homes for those who desperately need them.

Flying Car

GIZMAG 

It could be yours for US$600,000. 

Not sure it ticks all the boxes in terms of aesthetics 😝, but then again... 

"I am going to give a car like that to the Dictator, sorry, President, of North Korea," tweeted Donald Trump. "Great gift for a great man. We are best friends now. I'm not going to nuke him now, not now anyway. Donald has changed his mind, as he often does: only stupid idiots never change their mind, people! (Melania, listen to me when I tweet: you might learn something, girl.) We're going to do great things together. The car will have to be made 100% of top-end US steel and aluminium, if we have enough of it to produce a flying car, as it is. If we don't, we'll use Canadian steel, not Chinese, because China is bad and I don't like China. All American for my new South Korean buddy, I mean, North Korean friend. The President of South Korea can have a 4X4 Chevrolet people carrier or something. Got to go and do some golf, my fellow Americans! Enjoy! PS. And remember: Donald is looking after you. Bye. PPS. And stay safe: Donald loves you. Bye. Bye." 


https://newatlas.com/production-version-pal-v-liberty-flying-car/53724/?

Production-ready $600,000 Pal-V Pioneer Flying Car shown in Geneva newatlas.com The quest to become the world's first commercially available flying car grew hotter this week when the first production-ready flying car was shown at the Geneva Motor Show. The 90-only, limited-edition PAL-V Pioneer will cost $600,000 and the Liberty Sport edition comes in at $400,000 .

In the news: Company Mission Statement:

In the news

Company Mission Statement: If waiters and waitresses can, You can! 

I think those researchers have got it all wrong: chairs are a thing of the past -- we should all stand throughout our working day. But desks are a thing of the past too. They are so 20th century. 

People should be made to walk around, balancing their laptop on one arm, and their bottle of mineral water and/or frappuccino coffee and/or anything else they may need on the other arm, thus moving around seamlessly and creatively around a futuristic, environmentally functional, Feng-Shui-designed open-plan office that is also a play area for adults and children alike, therefore addressing the dynamic and organic needs of The Space-Time.

PJ.

PS The Space-Time is a new concept currently trending on Twitter and Instagram that encompasses space, time, and everything in between. In other words, it gives meaning to Everything and is so, so super-meaningful, mega-cool, and like, useful. If you don't believe me, just Google it.

___________________ 

Standing desks. Media and fans raved about them, even though little solid scientific evidence supports their alleged ergonomic and health benefits. In fact, many scientific studies show that they cause lower back pain and have other negative effects, like putting pressure on your skeletal and circulatory systems and increasing the risk of deep thrombosis and varicose veins. Now, a new research paper suggests standing desks have a negative effect on our cognitive abilities, too. [PS: It also gives you piles.]

A research team from Curtin University, in Perth, Western Australia, observed 20 subjects working for two hours on standing desks. The results–published in the journal Ergonomics–show negative impacts on both their bodies and their minds.

Defying Gravity

Venn Diagrams for IT

I have found it efficient to utilize Venn Diagrams in my IT work.

I thought you might like to know that both Visio 2016 and MS Word enable one to create Venn Diagrams.

In Visio 2016, File menu, click New -> Business, and then click Marketing Charts and Diagrams.

[You might need to search for Marketing Charts and Diagrams through the Search Box.]

If you scroll all the way down, you can see Venn Diagram.

In Word 2016, try the following:

Insert -> SmarArt -> Relationship and select the type of Venn Diagram that you prefer.

But these only create static diagrams that are not tied to data.

Our friends in the Bioinformatics community, needing to look at gene expression overlaps, have created many tools in this space.

Many have liked Venny (http://bioinfogp.cnb.csic.es/tools/venny/ ) which supports up to 4 data sets.

I have used VennDIS (please see: http://kislingerlab.uhnres.utoronto.ca/projects/) produced by the University of Toronto. It is a client application written in Java and supports up to 5 data sets.

I used it to discover overlaps among the attributes from 5 different schema.

I think Venn diagrams that are tied to data could help us better visualize and understand the Taxonomy and Data Dictionary of our systems.

[There are many more tools, it seems - many of them completely Web-based.]

Xianos Compiler

From UK - Xinaos - a parallel compiler for MSIL & C#

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/teaching/distinguished-projects/2009/m.tait.pdf

Robot opening a door

From City AM of the UK

Opening a door is actually a complicated operation, as the laborious manoeuvre performed by the ugly quadruped of a robot shows. They could have given it some sort of head to 'humanize' it: a grinning clown, for instance... 

Imagine arriving at a company's operations centre and having a thing like that opening the door for you -- unexpectedly? They'll have to call the Nurse Robot and the Doctor Robot and the Ambulance Robot in the wake of your heart attack... 

_________________

http://www.cityam.com/280516/watch-boston-dynamics-headless-robot-opens-doors-you?

Watch: A headless robot can now open doors for you www.cityam.com First they could play chess, then they could dance around (on wheels) and balance on one foot, but the latest robot from Boston Dynamics can actually