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New & Noteworthy
Explore our latest news and insigts locllay and around the globe.
What We’re Reading
A First Look at Amazon’s New Delivery Drone
For the first time, Amazon today showed off its newest fully electric delivery drone at its first re:Mars conference in Las Vegas.
Blackstone Bets $18.7 Billion on Amazon Effect in Warehouse Deal
The mall is now a warehouse, and Blackstone Group LP is betting $18.7 billion on the shift.
How Amazon Goes Small to Make It in New York
From The Wall Street Journal: Developers are building high-end homes in revitalized urban neighborhoods with waterfront views for residents drawn to quality of life and prime location.
The Latest Housing Hotspot: Downtown and by the River
From The Wall Street Journal: Developers are building high-end homes in revitalized urban neighborhoods with waterfront views for residents drawn to quality of life and prime location.
Nvidia’s researchers teach a robot to perform simple tasks by observing a human
From TechCrunch: Researchers are now thinking about how robots and humans can work in close proximity to humans and even learn from them.
Two-thirds of world population will live in cities by 2050: UN report
From CNN: The coming decades will see the growth of colossal megacities as the world's population increasingly moves into urban environments, a new United Nations report predicts.
Levi’s Project F.L.X. redefines the future of how jeans are designed, made and sold
Levi’s is now using an automated laser system to make distressed jeans which were previously made through a manual process.
Amazon Go, a high-tech version of a 7-Eleven with no checkout lines and no cashiers
From Recode: Amazon Go allows customers to grab items and just walk out without stopping to pay.
City-center robot distribution is speeding up one-hour delivery
From WIRED UK: Fulfillment centers are coming to underground parking garages, moving distribution from out-of-town warehouses to right next to where people live.
America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
From Bloomberg: The so-called retail apocalypse has become so ingrained in the U.S. that it now has the distinction of its own Wikipedia entry.
Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
From TechCrunch: Waymo, the former Google self-driving car company is launching public road tests of its autonomous minivans with no safety driver on board.
We Survived Spreadsheets, and We’ll Survive AI
From the Wall Street Journal: History shows technology fuels new kinds of jobs in addition to the ones it renders obsolete.
Nordstrom Tries On a New Look: Stores Without Merchandise
From the Wall Street Journal: Adapting to changing customer habits, another retailer tries inventory-free stores.
Automation Nation
From CBS News: With our economy becoming more and more dependent upon machines, what will that mean for the future of employment?
Do You Live On The Front Lines Of Automation?
From Fast Company: If you live in Las Vegas, El Paso, or Louisville, there’s a particularly good chance that your job could be taken by a robot in the next two decades.
Machines of Loving Grace
By John Markoff: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots
A well-researched introduction to the history of robotics and artificial intelligence in the United States.
Chains are banking on this new strategy to combat the restaurant apocalypse
From Business Insider: Struggling restaurant chains are turning to a new strategy to try and appeal to customers: delivery.
The Parts of America Most Susceptible to Automation
From The Atlantic: Economists expect that millions of American jobs are going to be replaced by automation in the coming decades. But where will those job losses take place?
There’s one major thing everyone gets wrong about Amazon and the retail apocalypse
From Business Insider: Amazon and the rise of online shopping have been repeatedly blamed for the staggering rate of store closures and bankruptcies disrupting the retail industry in the US.
The industrial robotics market will nearly triple in less than 10 years
From re/code: Collaborative robots are expected to account for a third of that market.
Warehouse Startup ShipBob Raises $17.5 Million Amid Expansion Push
From the Wall Street Journal: Funding round to allow company to open e-commerce distribution centers in more cities.
Artificial Intelligence Looms Larger in the Corporate World
From The Wall Street Journal: Artificial intelligence, long a subject of fanciful forecasts, is starting to enter the corporate world in a much bigger way, as costs decline and the need increases to identify patterns within ever-growing troves of business data.
Artificial intelligence is getting more powerful, and it’s about to be everywhere
From Vox: Even if you’ve dismissed AI technology in the past, there are two big reasons to start taking it seriously.
A.I. versus M.D. – What happens when diagnosis is automated?
From The New Yorker: In some trials, “deep learning” systems have outperformed human experts.
A conversation with AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio
From Microsoft: When Microsoft acquired deep learning startup Maluuba in January, Maluuba’s highly respected advisor, the deep learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio, agreed to continue advising Microsoft on its artificial intelligence efforts.