This look at recent tech highlights includes machines taking over the Earth, a smart bed to help you sleep and how researchers can turn on the kill switch for mice.
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Machines Begin Taking Over the Earth
The machines may be winning. A Japanese insurance company plans to replace 34 workers with an IBM Watson artificial intelligence-based system, according to ABC News in Australia.
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The Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Company reportedly will give the AI responsibility for handling insurance payouts by reviewing hospital records, patient medical histories and injury data, Computerworld reported. The company expects a 30 percent productivity increase while saving $1.65 million in salaries.
Don’t get too complacent. Forrester Research reports that by 2021, as much as 6 percent of U.S. jobs will be taken over by AI and robots.
Smart Bed Adjusts for Tossing, Turning & Snoring
Is your bed smarter than you? Even with the sensors in Select Comfort Corp.’s Sleep Number 360 smart bed, I feel safe to answer a resounding “No” for you. The company unveiled the smart bed at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month.
Biometric sleep tracking as you toss and turn enables the smart bed to automatically adjust its configuration so you can sleep better. But wait, there’s more! The Sensing SleepIQ biometrics also detect snoring and can try to reduce it by raising the person’s head slightly. What about my cold feet, you may ask? Not to worry; the bed also includes foot-warming technology that can adjust to your normal bedtime to warm things up.
While it might be more effective (for me, at least), to pair the smart bed with a smart alarm clock to dump you out of bed when it’s time to go to work, Select Comfort has a kinder, gentler idea. A smart alarm system can use a wake tone during your lightest stage of sleep to ease you into consciousness.
2TB Thumb Drive Holds Plenty of Movies
How many times have you misplaced a USB thumb drive, or just plain lost one? What would you think if it was a 2TB drive that cost you $800-$900?
I’m sure Kington Technology’s DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte drive Computerworld describes will come in handy for some people who need the ability to store up to 70 hours of 4K video. The five-year warranty sounds nice, but I doubt it covers losing the thumb drive at a coffee shop.
But for me, I’ll stick with the 64GB thumb drive that I think sits in my Amazon Fire case. (I know that sounds odd, since the Fire tablet uses a micro-SD card for extra memory, but I use that case to hold power cables for my non-exploding Samsung S7 Galaxy edge and my Pebble smartwatch and hearing aid batteries.)
Wireless Companies Push into IoT Territory
Wireless companies want to cash in on the Internet of Things (IoT) as seen at CES. AT&T added two new IoT starter kits for developers – one for Amazon Web Services (AWS) developers, with the other for Raspberry Pi developers.
In addition to the LTE Cat-1 modem, you’ll get six months of 300MB prepaid data, a USB plug, a microSD card and an NXP K64F development board. (I doubt you’ll need that 2TB USB thumb drive for these kits.)
AT&T competes with Verizon to make money off IoT. According to a report by David Curry on readwrite, AT&T’s focus on AWS and Raspberry Pi seems to be a collaborative approach that might win over developers.
Researchers Turn Mice Kill Switch ‘On’
Why anyone wants the ability to turn the kill switch on in a mouse’s brain is beyond me. But researchers found a way to unlock an organic switch through genetic engineering.
For those particular mice, they can point a laser at an object – not just food – and the mice will jump onto it and bite away like they were trying to capture and kill it. Fortunately they didn’t attack each other. The scientists unlocked the set of brain circuits that control chasing prey also.
I think any of us who have watched horror movies has a fear of what comes next. Fortunately, so far that only happens in the movies. (Remember, “The Walking Dead” is only a TV show.)
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