From: Technology Predictions that were Totally Wrong
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The break in our childish innocence comes the first time we use an eraser. We draw a chin and think it looks nothing like a chin, and in frustration we erase it. That’s it. Our bond of trust with our artistic instinct has been severed. We will be erasing for the rest of our lives. I speak here not of great and accomplished artists, for whom I hold great awe, but for you and me, whose work, let’s face it, will not soon be given a gallery show.
It seems to me Annette said something like this: Begin with a proper sketch book. Draw in ink. Finish each drawing you begin, and keep every drawing you finish. No erasing, no ripping out a page, no covering a page with angry scribbles. What you draw is an invaluable and unique representation of how you saw at that moment in that place according to your abilities. That’s all we want. We already know what a dog really looks like.
Wearable Technology at the U.S. Open
“It’s fascinating to see this guy at the peak of his youth and his health, to watch the stress that he’s under when
Roger Federer is handing him a ball,” David Lauren said last week, just days before the United States Open, which starts on Monday.
“You can actually see his heart rate spike,” said Mr. Lauren, who has monitored those activities remotely. “You can see his breathing.”
Mr. Lauren, the executive vice president for advertising, marketing and corporate communications for the Ralph Lauren company and a son of the designer, isn’t cyberspying, nor is he tricked out with some newfangled sensor providing access to his subject’s inner workings. It’s the ball boy who will, in a manner of speaking, be wired.
The Seattle Times’ take on the Al Jazeera allegations
Boeing watchers may find that a documentary on the Dreamliner that debuts this week on Al Jazeera English, like the 787’s smoldering batteries in 2013, produces more heat than light.
Like those powerful and problematic lithium ion batteries, however, the documentary does raise troubling questions and leave some matters unresolved.
“Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787” is likely to attract a lot of eyeballs both here and in South Carolina, where workers at the North Charleston plant — recorded without their knowledge — express some disturbing opinions about the plane.
A worker at one of two Boeing 787 assembly lines in Charleston, in the US state of South Carolina, contacted Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit to share his worries about the “Dreamliner”.
The worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, says “with all the problems reported on the 787, there’s 90 percent that’s getting swept away”.
He describes the troubles with the plane as “an iceberg”. He claims only 10 percent of problems are visible to the flying public, with the rest “hushed up”.
“I’ve seen a lot of things that should not go on at an airplane plant,” the worker says. “It’s been eating me alive to know what I know, and have no avenue, no venue to say anything.”
In a statement to Al Jazeera, Boeing says that “787 airplanes delivered from both South Carolina and Washington final assembly and delivery operations meet the highest safety and quality standards that are verified through robust test, verification and inspection processes”.
Why FedEx might be OK with a ruling against them in the independent contractor case.
“I view the decision in our case as one that should be powerfully influential in challenges to the use of independent contractors in the ‘sharing economy,’ ” lead plaintiffs attorney Beth Ross, who filed the first challenge to FedEx’s independent contractor policy in 2005. After that, similar challenges were filed in about 40 states.
The list of potential targets starts with Uber Technologies and Lyft, both of which have been sued by drivers who serve customers who use the “ridesharing” services. The drivers contend they should be considered employees. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
Scientists at Harvard claim a breakthrough in telepathy
Research led by experts at Harvard University shows technology can be used to send a simple mental message from one person to another without any contact between the two.
Neuroscientist Giulio Ruffini told the Today programme: “You can actually transmit information directly from one brain to another brain without intervention of the senses.”
“The next step would be to try to find more powerful techniques to send more complex information,” he added.
Cisco avoids claims that systems led to Chinese torture
Cisco Systems Inc. is off the hook in a California federal suit alleging it orchestrated surveillance systems for the Chinese government that were used to torture and persecute members of a religious group, according to a Friday decision.
U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila ruled Friday that the plaintiffs, practitioners of Falun Gong, insufficiently alleged that Cisco’s Golden Shield network was connected enough to the alleged human rights abuses, or that those abuses touched and concerned the U.S. as directly as called for by the U.S….
The USPS gets a big edge in delivery over rival FedEx: they don’t pay parking tickets
Undeterred by snow, rain, heat, gloom of night – and cheaper than ever. The U.S. Postal Service is slashing
prices for big retailers in a bid to wrest holiday shipments from FedEx and UPS.
For customers shipping at least 50,000 packages a year, Uncle Sam’s mailing service will charge up to 58 percent less for its accelerating Priority service, in some cases undercutting its for-profit rivals.
FedEx and UPS are none too happy about this. The Postal Service has a monopoly on letters, they argue, and is raising prices on some customers unfairly to subsidize big retailers. The Postal Service, however, has another huge advantage they are past griping about: It doesn’t have to pay traffic tickets.