Weekend Thoughts - 3.17.18

Image by Marisa04, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. The great physicist Stephen Hawking passed away this week at the age of 76. If you're not familiar with his work, it's definitely worth looking into. I first learned about Hawking by reading his book, A Brief History of Time back when I was in college. Most people know who Albert Einstein was, and I'd wager that Hawking was as influential to the study of science as Einstein was in his day. Both men changed the world for the better, and with Hawking's recent death we have truly lost one of the great minds of our civilization.

2. People have been losing their jobs to new technologies for a long time, but the frequency of this phenomenon has been increasing since the dawn of the Internet. Now that we have the opportunity to continue our education online, tech companies have poised themselves to essentially retrain the workers that they are replacing via automation. Online courses can prepare beginners for entry-level jobs in the tech industry in just eight to 12 months. This is one step in the right direction, which will hopefully do at least a little bit to deal with the issue that an estimated 75 million to 375 million workers worldwide will be replaced by automation by 2030. At least for now we can see that it may be possible to retrain entry-level workers to work in the tech industry.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 3.10.18

Image by strecosa, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Tech companies are trying to develop machine learning and artificial intelligence into consumable products but have started to run into quite an interesting problem. Similar to a human being who has imbibed a psychedelic substance, machines are prone to hallucinations. All it takes is for a subtle change to images, text, or audio to fool a system into thinking that something is in front of them when it really isn't. This is both a difficult problem to solve and an extremely important one. Consider what would happen if an autonomous vehicle started machine-tripping and wasn't able to see stop signs or pedestrians, for example. Hallucinating artificial intelligence is a problem that will absolutely need to be solved before we can place our trust in these conscious machines.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 3.3.18

Image by Marisa04, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Car ownership is expected to plummet in the coming decades. In fact, the amount of young Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 who hold a driver's license has already dropped from 76 percent in 2000 to 71 percent in 2013. And that trend does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Assuming that this decline continues, the ride-hailing business is poised to expand past Uber and Lyft. New services headed up by companies like Bosch, Sony, and Avis are getting involved in this industry. I'm excited that more ride-hailing services seem to be on the horizon because more competition in this area could end up being better for consumers.

2. In the ever-evolving technology space, security is becoming increasingly more important. Major US cell phone carriers are hard at work on a new open mobile authentication standard. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon say that they have a solution that could roll out later this year that will replace the flawed two-factor authentication protocol that is currently in use. Currently known as multi-factor mobile authentication, this method will provide better security than the existing two-factor type. If it ends up working as well as these carriers are claiming, we will all benefit.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 2.24.18

Image by suketdedhia, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. A new 3d-printed smartphone microscope attachment will be able to examine samples as small as 1/200th of a millimeter. That's plenty accurate for scientists to conduct research. And as a bonus, the device does not require external light or power sources and can be made by anyone with access to a 3d printer, since the development team is sharing the 3d printing files publicly. This type of innovation is exciting because it will enable more scientific research to be conducted, which will further help us understand our world.

2. Bike-sharing is back again this week with a thinkpiece from Wired that explores the possibility that bike-sharing will become more competitive with car-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. According to research in other parts of the world, electric bikes can disrupt other travel modes (like public transit, taxi, and ridesharing) because they are easy to use, have the benefit of additional power, and are capable of traveling from point A to point B without reaching as much congestion or experiencing multiple transit transfers. Only time will tell if this proves true in America, the land of the automobile. But here's hoping...

3. Although Amazon opened its first automated grocery store a year late, the company plans to open as many as six more cashierless Amazon Go smartstores later this year. Although the specific locations have not been announced yet, they are expected to show up in Seattle and Los Angeles.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 2.17.18

Image by tomdaemon, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. The bike-sharing war is heating up as competitors eagerly attempt to raise additional funds. LimeBike (which is seemingly Silicon Valley's favored competitor) raised $50 million in funding back in October in an effort to expand into twice as many markets around the country than it previously existed in. The dockless bike-sharing model allows customers to unlock a bicycle with their smartphone and pay $1 to rent it, leaving it wherever they want when they are done riding. The LimeBike service exists in the city where I live (Durham, NC) and a few of my colleagues rented bikes for an afternoon ride a few months ago. The process was easy peasy—both renting and returning the bikes. As a cyclist who commutes by bike to work every day, I have been happy to see bike rentals become more easy and affordable, which will hopefully encourage others to ride bicycles more frequently. But as an environmentalist, I am disturbed by the amount of bikes I see discarded in various areas around town that just seem to stay parked where they are. China even has ridiculous bike-share "graveyards" due to issues with its dockless bike-sharing services. Ultimately, I'd like to see dockless bike sharing expand to more areas, but the ongoing maintenance of the bicycles and the eyesores that parked bikes can create in some places are two things that I think need more consideration.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.