DailyDirt: Do It Yourself Shopping -- Stores Without Employees?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Maybe you've been to a store with the self-check-out lanes where you have to scan and bag your own groceries. Some stores have had success with this kind of self-serve technology, but others haven't. Still, brick and mortar stores need to try out different ways to be more convenient for shoppers in order to compete with same-day shipping from various online retailers.

• In Sweden, a new grocery store (called Naraffar) doesn't have any cashiers and lets customers shop its aisles using a smartphone app. The store is open 24/7, and pre-registered customers unlock the store with their phones to pick out items that are charged to their credit cards automatically. It's basically a walk-in vending machine, but presumably there are some human workers who re-stock the shelves (or maybe not someday). [url]
• The job of a convenience store cashier isn't exactly glamorous, but about 22 years ago, a classic movie was released about a couple of guys working behind a counter. If you haven't seen Clerks, check it out before Clerks III comes out in 2018. [url]
• Paul Feldman started a bagel business that trusted people to pay for the bagels they ate -- relying only on gentle reminders and homemade, plywood money boxes to collect the cash. Perhaps surprisingly, his payment rates were generally more than 80% -- and Feldman kept detailed records over about a decade and for over a million bagels served. Pleasant weather correlated with higher payment rates (and less bagel theft), but perhaps this economic experiment shouldn't be generalized to white collar crime or other businesses. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: automation, bagel man, clerks, clerks 3, naraffar, paul feldman, retail, self-service, shoplifting, stores, trust, white collar crime

DailyDirt: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow... (Ok, Stop!)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Maybe this past weekend was a bit snowy for you if you live on the East Coast. Shoveling your driveway, and then shoveling it again, and then digging through the big mound of snow where the street meets your driveway -- fun times, for sure. If you were wondering if anyone had a robot snowblower, wonder no more.

• Here's a remote-controlled snow blower -- complete with chains on its wheels to give it a bit more traction. You still have to go out to the garage to start it, but after that, get back inside and steer from a window. And if you want something that's more heavy duty, try this bot. [url]
• A remote-controlled snowplow isn't quite as cool, but it'll work when the show is manageable. This robot has six wheels and looks like it could go a few rounds on Battlebots. But if you're going to use a plow, maybe stick a plow on an autonomous Tesla or something. [url]
• If you insist on shoveling the snow yourself because it builds character, try using an old steel coal shovel. Take it easy, too, and don't over do it. [url]
• If you're willing to shell out for a more professional robot, a Japanese company makes a cute yellow snow remover called Yuki-taro. It has GPS, cameras and it's self-guided. Plus, it turns the snow into igloo bricks -- for just about $9,000. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: automation, rc bot, robots, snow plows, snow shovel, snowblowers, yuki-taro

DailyDirt: Creative Robots Replacing Artists And Writers...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots are taking away valuable jobs from more and more humans everyday. People used to connect phone calls. People used to categorize links on the internet (and some still do). But those jobs have been largely replaced by more efficient algorithms. Jobs that require some human creativity are supposed to be immune from an attack of automation, but it really depends on what kind of creativity.

• Algorithms that mimic Vincent Van Gogh's style -- or other artist's styles -- will be able to create enormous libraries of digital artwork. If non-human artists' work is in the public domain, maybe we'll see an insane amount of clip art in the near future. [url]
• Japanese fembot HRP-4C can sing like human pop stars. This isn't new, but when nobody really recognizes the composers behind pop music, will anyone care when the voices are artificially generated, too? [url]
• Turning data into written text isn't exactly a creative task, so humans might not be required to do it for much longer. We've seen computers writing news stories, so it shouldn't be too surprising that a bot is writing millions of words every day now. These bots aren't writing the great American novel, but maybe if we introduce them to a lot of virtual monkeys banging away on typewriters.... [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: artificial intelligence, automation, clip art, composers, fembot, pop music, robots, shakespeare, vincent van gogh

DailyDirt: Semi-Automatic Jobs

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Lots of jobs these days couldn't be done as efficiently or as well (or at all) without a little computer help. Computerized assistants (eg. Siri/Cortana/Alexa/GoogleNow) are even helping us with more and more everyday tasks. Increasingly skilled machines are able to perform jobs -- and may be destroying some tedious segments of the labor market. But it's not just manual labor that might be replaced by robots. Automation can help almost anyone become more productive in their work, and as the costs of machines come down with time, we might want to prepare for semi-automated jobs to become fully automated.

• A "semi-automated mason" robot (aka SAM) can lay bricks faster than a human without getting tired, but it still needs a human bricklayer to clean up excess mortar and to do trickier spots like corners. One human and one SAM robot can do the job of four or more masons, and the ratios might favor the robots sooner than we think. [url]
• An unmanned air traffic control tower exists in northern Sweden at a remote airport. Humans are actually monitoring sensors and cameras at the Ornskoldsvik Airport, but they're about 90 miles away. A few of these remotely-operated control towers are being tested in several countries already, but it'll take some time before control towers without human traffic controllers are ready for large commercial airports. [url]
• The jobs that artificial intelligence and automation can't do are usually tasks that require creativity, emotional awareness or dexterity. However, software might be able to approach those tasks from a different angle to achieve human-level results. Chess was once deemed too challenging for computers, so perhaps we shouldn't underestimate the creativity of programmers (or emergent behavior). [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: air traffic controller, artificial intelligence, automation, bricklayer, labor, robot, work

A ContentID For Online Bullying? What Could Possibly Go Wrong...

from the let's-think-this-through dept

Let me start out by saying that I think online harassment and bullying is a significant problem -- though also one that is often misrepresented and distorted. I worry about the very real consequences of those who are bullied, harassed and threatened online, in that it can often lead to silencing voices that need to be heard, or even causing some to not even bother to participate for fear of the resulting bullying. That said, way too frequently, it seems that those who are speaking out about online bullying assume that the best way to deal with this is to move to push for censorship as the solution. This rarely works. Too frequently we see "cyberbullying" being used as a catchall for attacking speech people simply do not like. Even here at Techdirt, people who dislike our viewpoint will frequently claim that we "bullied" someone, merely for pointing out and discussing statements or arguments that we find questionable.

There are no easy answers to the question of how do we create spaces where people feel safer to speak their minds -- though I think it's an important goal to strive for. But I fear the seemingly simple idea of "silence those accused of bullying" will have incredibly negative consequences (with almost none of the expected benefits). We already see many attempts to censor speech that people dislike online, with frequent cases of abusive copyright takedown notices or bogus claims of defamation. Giving people an additional tool to silence such speech will be abused widely, creating tremendous damage.

We already see this in the form of ContentID from YouTube. A tool that was created with good intent, to deal with copyright infringement on the site, is all too often used to silence speech on the site, either to silence a critic or just through over-aggressive robots.

So, imagine what a total mess it would be if we had a ContentID for online bullying. And yet, it appears that the good folks at SRI are trying to build exactly that. Now, SRI certainly has led the way with many computing advancements, but it's not clear to me how this solution could possibly do anything other than create new headaches:

But what if you didn’t need humans to identify when online abuse was happening? If a computer was smart enough to spot cyberbullying as it happened, maybe it could be halted faster, without the emotional and financial costs that come with humans doing the job. At SRI International, the Silicon Valley incubator where Apple’s Siri digital assistant was born, researchers believe they’ve developed algorithms that come close to doing just that.

“Social networks are overwhelmed with these kinds of problems, and human curators can’t manage the load,” says Normal Winarsky, president of SRI Ventures. But SRI is developing an artificial intelligence with a deep understanding of how people communicate online that he says can help.

This is certainly going to sound quite appealing to those who push for anti-cyberbullying campaigns. But, at what cost? Again, there are legitimate concerns about people who are being harassed. But one person's cyberbullying could just be another person's aggressive debate tactics. Hell, I'd argue that abusing tools like contentID or false defamation claims are a form of "cyberbullying" as well. Thus, it's quite possible that the same would be true of this new tool, which can be used to "bully" those the algorithm decides is bullying as well.

Determining copyright infringement is already much more difficult than people imagine -- which is why ContentID makes so many errors. You have to take into account context, fair use, de minimis use, parody, etc. That's not easy for a machine. But at least there are some direct rules about what truly is "copyright infringement." With "bullying" or "harassment," there is no clear legal definition to match up to and it's often very much in the eye of the beholder. As such, any tool that is used to "deal" with cyberbullying is going to create tremendous problems, often just from misunderstandings between multiple people. And that could create a real chilling effect on speech.

Perhaps instead of focusing so much technical know-how on "detecting" and trying to "block" cyberbullying, we should be spending more time looking for ways to positively reinforce good behavior online. We've built up this belief that the only way to encourage good behavior online is to punish bad behavior. But we've got enough evidence at this point showing how rarely this actually works, that it seems like perhaps it's time for a different approach. And a "ContentID for harassment" seems unlikely to help.

Filed Under: automation, bullying, contentid, cyberbullying, harassment
Companies: sri

DailyDirt: Tiny Robot Surgeons

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Minimally invasive surgery requires surgical tools that are pretty small, obviously. As technology allows robots to get smaller and smaller, it's increasingly possible for tiny robots to perform complex medical procedures -- improving recovery times and avoiding unnecessary tissue damage. Check out a few of these robot projects that could make going under the knife a little less unpleasant.

• Research on Drosophila could be automated by a $5,000 robot that can perform brain surgery on fruit flies and analyze 1,000 flies in less than a day. Graduates students will have a ton more data to work with -- without having to squint through a microscope and fumbling with tweezers. [url]
• Cyberplasm sounds like a horrible name for a medical robot that could swim around inside your body looking for evidence of disease. A painless and convenient robot that replaces invasive surgical procedures will probably trump the name, though. [url]
• An intracranial robot inspired by maggots feeding off dead flesh could remove brain tumors more effectively than current methods. A prototype robot is under development, and it could improve the outcomes of some neurosurgeries. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: automation, biomimicry, cyberplasm, drosophila, health, medicine, robots, surgery

DailyDirt: Robot Servants Taking All Our Jobs!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots that can perform simple physical tasks don't look all the impressive currently, but as the software controlling them gets better and better, we can expect robots to be able to do more jobs that previously required a human being. Self-driving cars may just be the beginning of a much larger shift towards robots doing all kinds of odd jobs. Robot are already starting to do more house chores like cleaning/vacuuming... and someday they might be able to wash and fold our laundry.

• Amazon has recently hosted its first "Amazon Picking Challenge" to award prizes for developing robots that can replace humans in warehouses to identify, pick up and package items to ship. Amazon already has some Kiva Systems robots working alongside humans in its warehouses, but the kinds of tasks these "picking robots" can do might spur much more versatile automation for tedious labor (and possibly putting thousands of people out of work). [url]
• What are the odds of your job being automated in 20 years? A simple bit of software will tell you. How accurate are these estimated numbers? Don't ask that question, puny human! [url]
• Routine cognitive workers might face automation sooner than they expect, and physical tasks might become more easily automated, too. Will the world enjoy more leisure with our robot slaves doing all the work -- or will we have a society of ultra-rich and ultra-poor? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ai, amazon picking challenge, artificial intelligence, automation, autonomous robots, cognitive computing
Companies: amazon, kiva systems

DailyDirt: Robots That Ask, 'Would You Like Fries With That?'

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots are poised to take over a LOT of repetitive tasks that people are still doing because it's been hard to get computer vision and robot arms to replicate some kinds of detailed work. Machines are getting a better quickly, though, and plenty of manual labor jobs could be eliminated in the near future. Automation isn't quite ready to take over a huge fraction of the labor market just yet, but it might not be too long before no one will be able to joke about young kids looking for an unskilled job and upselling fries with a fast food order.

• A home-cooked meal could be made from scratch by a $15,000 robot in 2018 (brought to you by Moley Robotics). Do not get in this robot's way... or else "to serve man" may have an undesired meaning. [url]
• Fast food might be prepared faster with a burger-flipping robot from Momentum Machines. A burger robot can churn out 360 burgers per hour and never ask for a raise. (But can it serve breakfast after 10:30am?) [url]
• McDonald's is installing a few self-ordering kiosks to automate some of the ordering process at its restaurants. This isn't exactly a new trend for retail establishments, but this might get a tad less appetizing when all fast food comes out of fancy vending machines. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, automation, chef, fast food, food, kiosks, robots, vending machines
Companies: mcdonald's, moley robotics, momentum machines

Patent Not Sufficiently Broad Or Generic? Cloem Will Help You By Automatically Generating Dozens Of Nearly Identical Patents

from the a-mass-transit-vehicle-for-abuse dept

VentureBeat has news on two "startups" (which neither really are) that could possibly "upend" intellectual property laws: Qentis (copyright) and Cloem (patents).

The first, Qentis, was covered here previously. Qentis isn't actually a company. It appears to be the trolling byproduct of artist Marco Marcovici. The "company" claims to be algorithmically generating millions of photos and pages of text at a rate that will soon see it creating copyrighted material faster than the creators themselves. At some point, Qentis will hold the copyright of everything that can possibly be created, making every new creation instantly infringing.

Never mind the fact that no one has the computing power to generate photos and text at the rate Qentis is claiming it can, or the fact that algorithmically banging out creative works in advance of others doesn't make independent creations automatically infringing. Never mind pretty much all of it because the claims are so blatantly false as to be laughable, especially considering the source.

On the other hand, Cloem's business model seems a bit more grounded in reality. VentureBeat describes Cloem -- and its aims -- this way:

[A] company that provides software (not satirically, it appears) to linguistically manipulate a seed set of a client’s patent claims by, for example, substituting in synonyms or reordering steps in a process, thereby generating tens of thousands of potentially patentable inventions.

Cloem describes its team as a mixture of patent experts and "computer linguistic specialists." The key element of its potentially-patentable variations lies within "seed lists," which draw from a variety of sources, including (according to Cloem) "70,000,000 patent documents." Its algorithms then brute force together lists of "new" patent claims, which can then be filed and used offensively or defensively.

Cloem's business model seems custom-built for patent trolls, who will be able to "expand" their already-broad patents to nail down even more IP turf. Cloem's service also makes it easy for non-inventors to jam up patent offices with me-too "inventions" based on minor iterations of existing patents. While there's a good chance some of these will be tossed due to prior art, more than a few will inevitably make their way past examiners. With millions of patents just waiting to be iterated into "new" methods, Cloem's service further separates "inventing" from "invention."

It's a system that's built for abuse, but Cloem doesn't see it that way. In response to a somewhat critical post at RatioIP, Cloem's rep offers up the defense of "Hey, we just make the tool. We can't control how it's used."

In our view, Cloem is a logical and natural evolution of the patent system. The technology in itself is neutral. Like a tool, we can use it in many ways, both offensive and defensive. It may well be that we could help to “raise the bar” and get rid of undue patents. Some see our system as an embodiment of the “skilled person” (i.e. which indicates what “routine work” can produce and reach), although we do think that cloem texts can be inventive, that is not excluded from patentability.

And that's mostly true. Entities wishing to protect their prior inventions could "fence off" adjacent territory and deter future lawsuits by producing and filing very closely-related patents. But a tool like this -- if it creates anything patentable at all -- will always be more attractive to the "offensive" side of the equation.

Cloem's pitch sets the company at the forefront of an IP revolution, but its envisioned future is no more heartening than Qentis' dystopian, IP-generating machines of loving grace. At least Qentis is a joke. Cloem's taglines only read like jokes.

With Cloem, you can invent more, faster and cheaper.

Except there's no "invention" taking place. Nothing generated by Cloem's algorithms will be any more "inventive" than all the re-skins and palette swaps clogging up the "Games" section in mobile app stores. Cloem hopes to bridge the gap between its "silos of knowledge" and its silos of synonyms, somehow coming up with worthwhile patents in the process. Sure, previous knowledge always informs new creations, but it takes more than swapping the sentence "a plurality of discrete content items arranged chronologically" around in the method description to generate inventive, worthwhile patents.

Filed Under: algorithms, automation, generic, inventions, patents
Companies: cloem