Tesla’s secret master plan was never really a secret. Tesla’s original plan, laid out in a 2006 blog post, was to build an electric sports car, plow profits from its sales into a more affordable car, build an even more affordable one and then deploy infrastructure to power them with carbon-free electricity.
Microsoft’s cloud computing business is on a tear. The company reported its Azure cloud services division grew 108% from a year earlier in its most recently completed quarter. Microsoft’s “commercial cloud,” which includes computing infrastructure as well as product lines like Office 360, brought in $12.1 billion this past quarter, accounting for more than half of the company’s total revenue, according to quarterly results released on Tuesday.
Illiteracy takes a massive toll on peoples’ lives, as well as $1.2 trillion out of the global economy each year. People unable to read are shut out of jobs, services, and wider social networks, trapping them in poverty. As the developing world moves online, this disadvantage will only grow steeper.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center asked a panel of 1,896 experts if artificial intelligence would destroy more jobs than it created within a decade. The answer, including responses from Google’s chief economist and MIT computer scientists, was definitive: they have no idea (pdf). The group came down almost 50-50 on both sides of the argument.
They promised us jetpacks. But if they arrive in the future, many of us may not be able to afford them.
So much code to write, so few developers. The chronic talent shortage afflicting Silicon Valley is now all over the US—and the developers are too.
When it comes to privacy controls, we may now have too much of a good thing. Smartphone owners must now make more than 100 privacy decisions about how how much data their apps can share on Apple’s iOs and Google’s Android operating systems. That number will only climb as privacy settings affect more of our devices and software.
More than a million people working in America’s fields, and far more globally, are about to face competition from workers who never sleep, get tired or ask for a living wage.
The job site Indeed.com found Silicon Valley’s hold on tech workers is slipping as opportunities, and the cost of living, changes the equation for living and working in one of the priciest places in the country.
Unicorns have had a rough time lately. But they are not hurting for cash.
Yahoo just released a travel app called Radar. It has a basic conversational interface. You tap two buttons that recommend attractions or restaurants in selected cities using data from Yelp and TripAdvisor. Radar can, in theory, scan your email to personalize new trip reservations to the app and help you figure out how to get there.
Nest, best known for its smart thermostat, applied to patent a smart crib that would keep tabs on infants, and, when necessary, display soothing sounds and images. The Alphabet subsidiary wants to plug it into a smart home system that would make for data-rich nap times. The proposed device includes a thermal-imaging camera, pressure sensors, speakers, microphones, projectors, and air-quality instruments, according to a pending 2014 patent application published for the first time on Thursday.
San Francisco can’t make up its mind whether to move-in or evict its hometown startup. Eight years after it was founded on a couch in San Francisco, the city is Airbnb’s most avid user. A new Statista analysis found San Francisco has nearly double the listings per capita (9.8 per 1,000 inhabitants) versus any other city, based on InsideAirBnB data. (Airbnb cited its own similar statistics on San Francisco when we asked for confirmation.)
The first attempts by startups using artificial intelligence to design websites haven’t amounted to much. A much-anticipated company called The Grid has failed to deliver on expectations. There is still no AI art hanging in MOMA yet.
What separates millions of people from employment is not a lack of jobs. It’s training.
After fifty years of soaring crop yields thanks to fertilizers, pest control, and irrigation, that growth is bottoming out. We solved the food shortfall in the 20th century, but we need to do it again in this century. The UN says crop production must rise 70% by 2050 to meet demand.
In seven months, Barack Obama will leave the White House as president of the United States. He’s going to need a job. In an interview with Bloomberg on June 13, he hinted at the possibility of joining entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.
It’s never been easier to start a company. There’s rarely been more money in venture capital. Yet last year we saw the fewest number of new software-as-a-service companies founded since 2011. This year is on track to be even worse.
Mexico’s currency has the unenviable role of serving as the bellwether for volatility in the world’s emerging markets. And Brexit is sending it for a tumble.
Legendary New York fashion photographer Bill Cunningham died on Saturday (June 25) after a career that moved fashion’s focus from the runway to the life of the street, and transcended fashion to chronicle our times.
Poll after poll predicted the Remain vote would win the day and there would be no Brexit. Almost all of them got it wrong. Thursday’s referendum left the UK preparing to leave the European Union, and many pollsters wondering what went wrong with their efforts to gauge public sentiment.
Following its vote to exit the European Union, the UK is being forced to revisit an issue that had appeared settled. Gibraltar, a small British overseas territory at the entrance to the Mediterranean known for its famous Rock of Gibraltar, has become once again the subject of a tussle with Spain.
The world’s cargo fleet is moving from fossil fuels to electrons. But powering them won’t be simple. With today’s technology, driving a semi-truck 500 miles (804 kilometers) would require a 23-ton lithium-ion battery, half the weight of the truck itself. Fuel cells would need a massive, $2 million hydrogen fuel tank to go the distance. Embedding wireless charging coils in roadbed would be expensive and inefficient.
There are two narratives about the technology economy. The first says technology companies drive inequality and burden the poor with a crushing increase in the cost of living. The second portrays them as an engine of prosperity in America’s cities that lifts all boats. Neil Lee, a researcher at the London School of Economics & Political Science, wanted to know what the data said.
