e^CNC

Machines making machines meets networked intelligence. A tumblr dedicated to the technique, products, and goals of modern making/hacking/engineering. alexanderpf.com

[cnce]

We appear to be locked into a cycle in which automation begets the erosion of skills or the lack of skills in the first place and this then begets more automation. -- William Langewiesche

[hiphopfightsback]

Most heroes of progression are never mentioned in history books.

[bijan]

It is time for our industry to pause and take a moment to think: as technology finds its way into our daily existence in new and previously unimagined ways, we need to learn about those who are threatened by it. Empathy is not a buzzword but something to be practiced. Let’s start by not raging on our Facebook feeds but, instead, taking a trip to parts of America where five-dollar lattes and freshly pressed juices are not perks but a reminder of haves and have-nots. Otherwise, come 2020, Silicon Valley will have become an even bigger villain in the popular imagination, much like its East Coast counterpart, Wall Street.

via Om Malik, Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum - The New Yorker (via bijan)

[cyberlabe]

We evolve our models as we test their predictions

[di--es---can-ic-ul-ar--es]

[sickfuture]

[wordsnquotes]

I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (via fyp-philosophy)

[cnce]

How Robots Can Acquire New Skills from Their Shared Experience

Posted by Sergey Levine (Google Brain Team), Timothy Lillicrap (DeepMind), Mrinal Kalakrishnan (X) The ability to learn from experience wi...

[interestingsnippets]

It’s worth noting automation isn’t just about making businesses more efficient or profitable. In some cases, it might also be the right thing to do for society. If robots prove more capable surgeons or artificial accountants are less willing to facilitate tax evasion than the occasional dodgy human version, there would be a solid ethical argument for making humans redundant from those professions. This is great news for those who hate their jobs – not only are they freed of meaningless work and therefore happier, they’re doing the right thing. But what about those who like their jobs? Would the ethical argument appear anything more than rationalisation for their newly found unhappiness? That depends on whether losing a job you loved due to automation would actually have a negative impact on your happiness. If automation meant you were able to use the time you’d previously spent working doing things that felt more pleasurable or meaningful, you might still be better off

With robots, is a life without work one we’d want to live? | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian (via interestingsnippets)

[brucesterling]

*Virtual Reality as an industry, 2016

[interestingsnippets]

In the beginning… the Loon team guided its balloons largely with handcrafted algorithms, algorithms that would respond to a predetermined set of variables, like altitude, location, wind speed, and time of day. But the new algorithms make greater use of machine learning. By analyzing massive amounts of data, they can learn as time goes on. Based on what has happened in the past, they can change their behavior in the future… Loon’s machine learning is far from perfect. And that too is true of machine learning in general. Very true. Artificial intelligence isn’t always intelligent. It doesn’t always get us where we want to go. But as time goes on, it’s getting better at getting us where we want to go—even in the stratosphere.

Google’s Internet-Beaming Balloon Gets a New Pilot: AI | WIRED (via interestingsnippets)

[softdetours]

Selected illustrations from the Silicon Graphics TechPubs Library (1995-2000).

[prostheticknowledge]

Metamaterial Mechanisms

Fabrication research from Hasso Plattner Institute is process to give single 3D printed objects elastic mechanical properties:

Recently, researchers started to engineer not only the outer shape of objects, but also their internal microstructure. Such objects, typically based on 3D cell grids, are also known as metamaterials. Metamaterials have been used, for example, to create materials with soft and hard regions. So far, metamaterials were understood as materials—we want to think of them as machines. We demonstrate metamaterial objects that perform a mechanical function. Such metamaterial mechanisms consist of a single block of material the cells of which play together in a well-defined way in order to achieve macroscopic movement. Our metamaterial door latch, for example, transforms the rotary movement of its handle into a linear motion of the latch. Our metamaterial Jansen walker consists of a single block of cells—that can walk. The key element behind our metamaterial mechanisms is a specialized type of cell, the only ability of which is to shear. In order to allow users to create metamaterial mechanisms efficiently we implemented a specialized 3D editor. It allows users to place different types of cells, including the shear cell, thereby allowing users to add mechanical functionality to their objects. To help users verify their designs during editing, our editor allows users to apply forces and simulates how the object deforms in response. 

More Here

[alexanderpf]

[emergentfutures]

Okta partners with Google to secure cloud identities

Okta and Google have announced a partnership aimed at getting enterprises to secure their users' identities in the cloud.

[cnce]

Elon Musk's SpaceX has signed its first customer to use a previously flown rocket, with launch planned for later this year, the companies said on Tuesday.

[cnce]

The Price of Solar Is Declining to Unprecedented Lows

Despite already low costs, the installed price of solar fell by 5 to 12 percent in 2015