Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Will Tesla's camera-only autonomy prove its mettle?
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/07/2025
» I'm still not convinced that Tesla's camera-only approach will work well in all situations. According to a quick AI search, Elon doesn't like Lidar based on "cost, complexity, and philosophical disagreement with its necessity". Other manufacturers seem to have no problem with the first two of these and I challenge his last reason. I would have thought that a combination of available technologies would give you the safest options for all circumstances.
Jetsons cars finally take off
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/03/2025
» Some readers will remember the old cartoon The Jetsons. This promised a future with flying cards, robot assistants and helpful computer tools. We have or are getting very close to the robot assistants, and the latest artificial intelligence offerings seem to be the automated helpers. Missing to date are the flying cars. That may have changed with the new Jetson ONE, a single person flying car I saw a demonstration of in a recent video. It looked good, seemed to fly with good stability and landed without any issue. You can find the demos with a simple search. The craft has vertical take-off and landing capability. However, I shudder to think of what thousands of these might look like in the skies above a city without some serious improvements in driving and collision avoidance.
Imagining a world without cash
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/05/2024
» How safe are you in a purely digital economy? If you are carrying cash, someone can of course rob you, or you can lose it or give it to someone. You can also have a stash of it at home for emergencies or for buying something from a garage sale. For the most part, you retain control over any cash you manage. Electronic cash can still be stolen and your ability to spend it can be taken by someone else if your details get into the wrong hands. However, it's convenient, just tap and go, or in some cases, just wave your smartphone over a pad. While you have no idea where your money actually is, a small piece of plastic, your watch or a phone can retrieve it for you for a payment. You can even use it to get cash from a wall.
Q&A, truth, lies, the web and you
Life, James Hein, Published on 10/04/2024
» The online world is changing and not necessarily for the better. I'm old enough to remember what you were looking for came up as the first search result, when there was a search facility, that is. The old Bulletin Boards kept their subject matter to the topic of the board with opinions kept to opinion sites. Sites on science were not one-sided as they presented the facts along with the supporting data for checking and verification. If people disagreed, they also brought their data along to challenge a thesis and a healthy and often robust debate followed. That was then.
Prediction hits and misses for 2021
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/12/2021
» It is time once again to look back at 2021 to see what happened and how my predictions panned out.
The benefits and risks of neural interfaces
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/02/2021
» This week is dedicated to the brain-computer interface, or BCI. For some time now, sci-fi movies and TV series have presented the idea of a mind-to-computer interface that controls technology, retrieves information and displays it on virtual screens. Meanwhile, in the background, a number of companies have been working on this and the technology is close to realising some of the outcomes only seen in fiction so far.
Words don't come easy to millennials
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/05/2018
» Next time you're in a restaurant or where people gather in small groups, sit and watch for a while. Note how many of the groups are silent, all doing something on their phones. When you find such a group, note how long they go without saying a word to each other. There is an interesting behavioural shift occurring in the phone-enabled world where casual conversation skills are being replaced by surfing, messaging and instant posting. It won't be too long before the best way to find out what the person next to you is thinking is to live feed their Facebook, send them an SMS or Line message, or heaven forbid a tweet.