Problems with Uber's Self Driving Cars

Uber’s self-driving cars were seen as problematic months before striking and killing a woman in Tempe, Arizona. These issues are related to technical difficulties when driving through construction zones or next to tall vehicles. This brings up a compelling case because these cars are most likely going to be the means of transportation in just a few short years.

Uber originally was testing with two employees in every car. One of these employees had the obligation to take over driving if the autonomous system failed, while the other analyzed what the computer was testing. In other words, the second employee had the duty to record and monitor the system performance. Therefore, the first employee was the only one responsible for safety related issues.

After Uber had tested with two individuals in the car, they moved to one which brought up great concern for many throughout the organization. Being alone in a self-driving car for hours would be boring and be extremely difficult to stay alert for long durations of time. I believe this is one of the main issues with Uber’s training program. Another issue regarding this topic was that the trainees would oftentimes record data while the car was moving. This is more dangerous than texting and driving!

Two cases that go along with the Uber’s poor training dealt with an employee falling asleep during the training and being spotted by a coworker and another where the employee was air drumming while going through a busy intersection. For all the reasons stated above, I do not think our society should transition directly to autonomous cars, but instead slowly transition to them by implementing more and more "self-driving" features to cars. Technology advancements as significant as this should not be rushed like some of these companies are doing. It should be a slow process that can we can adjust to progressively. 

Source : 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/technology/uber-self-driving-cars-arizona.html

The Environmental Issues of Cobalt Mining

      Cobalt mining is one of the most highly demanded minerals to date being required for new battery technologies (rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries) in almost all smart devices and electric car batteries.  It is estimated that every smart phone contains around 5-10 grams of cobalt, a laptop 1 ounce (28.35 grams), and an electric car battery can contain 10-20 pounds (up to 9072 grams) of cobalt. 

     

      The country most impacted by the pursuit of this mineral is Congo, where 60% of the cobalt on the market comes from. Congo is no stranger to exploitation of its resources, where ivory, gold, silver, rubber and many other natural resources have attracted foreign companies in the past.  In 2010, the United States required US companies to attempt to verify that a list of desired minerals that is obtained from Congo mines to be free from militia control to avoid human rights issues. However, cobalt isn’t on that list, and labor conditions at these mines are highly unregulated and child labor is widely used. Although there is no association with militia groups in these mines, conditions and wages of the workers at these mines are deficient. Many health problems have risen in the workers from their exposure to cobalt without proper equipment. 

      The list of symptoms includes: birth defects, contaminated drinking water, lung diseases, eye diseases, cancer, skin disorders and many others. All of this for $2-$3 a day, for what they can muster to sell to the big Asian companies who dominate lithium ion battery production. This is our modern-day blood diamond crisis, and it is only going to get worse if credible sourcing of cobalt in supply chains isn’t enforced by the world’s major companies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJ8me22NVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T___azqvPKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUBxT9dR5E4

Bridging the Gap: Autonomous Cars

Self-driving (or autonomous) cars have been portrayed in futuristic movies, covered in the media, and have faced much scrutiny in recent years. So what are autonomous cars? They are defines them as a vehicle that can guide itself without human conduction (Techopedia). A fully autonomous car might not be perfected or available to the market today and probably wont be for another decade, but they're coming alright. This concept might frighten people, especially after the autonomous Uber car incident in March 2018. Currently Google, GM, Volvo, and other companies are working on perfecting the fully autonomous car. however, even if these vehicles are safer than the average human driver, there will still be accidents until some sort of nationwide infrastructure for every car to communicate through is implemented. Elon Musk had an interesting opinion about this topic;

"The thing that's tricky with autonomous vehicles is that autonomy doesn't reduce the accident rate or fatality rate to zero. It improves it substantially... but the accidents that do happen with autonomous vehicles get a disproportionate amount of attention." (Elon Musk)

Link to full article: Tesla's Elon Musk

He has a great point, the negative news coverage would outweigh the positive and it would take even longer for the public to accept. So how do we bridge this gap and ease into the autonomous car world? Ask Audi, currently one of the leaders in self driving human support technology. Bits and pieces of this technology are seen in other car manufacturers, like self parking and auto-break capabilities, but Audi is redefining the gap between features and full autonomy. The 2019 Audi A8 has plenty of 3 star autonomous features such as driving in traffic under 35mph and the garage parking system which you can step out of the car and control with your smartphone. What Audi is trying to master is how the car executes the "handoff" that is alerting the driver to take the wheel. This has been more of a challenge than perfecting the auto-driving capabilities. In the A8, engineers are fine tuning these features. Currently the car watches the driver using facial recognition and has steering wheel touch sensory, if there is inactivity the car will use visual and audio alerts as well as pump the breaks until the driver is attentive. If this doesn't work the car will turn on the hazard lights, slowly break, and pull over safely.

Audi A8 2019:

This model is arriving in late 2018 and will be available for just over $100,000. Since this is an expensive luxury vehicle, it wont make a huge impact until other manufacturers begin to adopt these capabilities and make them more cost effective. Alex Davies from Wired says "The A8 hasn’t proven itself yet, and Audi will never sell enough of the executive-­toting sedans to make much of a dent in traffic fatalities. But its human-­centered focus can serve as a model for other companies."(Davies)
Before we can put fully driving, point A to point B cars, there must be transition, especially for human safety. This innovation can help bridge the gap between human and fully autonomous vehicles, creating an advancing, yet safer world.


Link to Audi Article: Wired

Drones in the Advertisement Industry

With the evolution of technology and the changing environment as to how advertisers reach consumers, one of the new developments is drone advertisements. While it is currently mostly still developmental in nature, the future of drone technology is surely going to impact how business market themselves to consumers and reach target markets. Currently companies such as Amazon and Google are investing into use of drones for transportation of goods, but they have many other uses as well.

One of the major industries investing in the potential for drones to be used as advertisements is the billboard industry. There have been various testings of using drones to fly advertisements at concerts, rallies, outdoor events, and other events. The drones are effective because they eliminate the cost associated with having to purchase billboard locations, or the cost of flying a plane with a banner. Drones pose virtually no cost other than the initial investment. An article on the subject "Drone advertising may be the future" looks into the use of completely 3 dimensional drone LED displays. The new drones can emit a spherical image from its frame that can be seen from any point of view. This is revolutionary in the industry as current displays are one dimensional must be properly located to reach people. While this seems like a far fetched idea it is already currently in the works. The most recent Super Bowl did a coordinated light show using drones that was viewable by millions of people.

The company leading the charge in the industry is DroneCast. DroneCast is a Philadelphia based company that uses drones to fly banners at large events. They are now working with Fortune 500 companies such as Ford Motor Co. and Sony. In an article I read on the company they talk of some of their advantages in drone advertisements. One of the major advantages is that drones are hard to ignore. For example people speed right past billboards every day without noticing them, however a drone that is able to move to capture longer viewing time are much harder to simply skip over.

Some of the major issues that the companies that pursue drone advertisement will face will include regulations by the FAA as well as the potential for hackers to pose a threat to the drones. Specifically, the hacker interest in drones will be sure to cause concerns as the drones get larger in size, as they could potentially be used for alternative motives. What makes the drones susceptible is that most of them will be programed with flight patterns. These patterns can be intercepted and changed causing a potential threat vector. I believe that as the market for this form of advertising grows, there will be an increased number of IT jobs related to the security and protection of the drones. One of the reasons I find this very interesting is because it backs up the reoccurring theme that there is going to be such a high demand for IT jobs into the future and this is only one example. An article in The Economist talks about how drones are " either cheap toys or expensive weapons, but interesting commercial uses are emerging in the middle".

The article in The Economist goes on to talk about how 110,000 drones were sold for commercial use in 2017. "In “Drones Reporting for Work”, published in 2016, Goldman Sachs, a bank, argued that drones are becoming “powerful business tools”. It predicted that of the total of $100bn likely to be spent on both military and civilian drones between 2016 and 2020, the commercial segment would be the fastest-growing, notably in construction (accounting for $11.2bn), agriculture ($5.9bn), insurance ($1.4bn) and infrastructure inspection ($1.1bn)." (unknown author, the economist). 

Overall it is very evident that in the next couple years drones will have a heavy impact on commercial use, especially that in the advertisement industry. The new IT developments will pose many advantages to advertisers, but potential vulnerabilities will also arise. 

Article Links: 
http://insideunmannedsystems.com/advertising-drones-deliver/
https://www.wetalkuav.com/droneadvertising/
https://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21723003-most-drones-today-are-either-cheap-toys-or-expensive-weapons-interesting

Drones and the Future

Drones have the potential to do a lot in the future and the now. They can be used in delivery services and there has even been a sports league created from racing drones. Overall, the potential is massive but has to be done in the right way.

The first thing is delivery services. Amazon has attempted to launch their drone services delivery but it is only available to customers who are very close to an Amazon shipping center. Amazon is a massive company that is constantly expanding so I believe that in the next 5 years they will be able to meet the delivery expectations with a drone for anyone not in very rural areas. The drone delivery is honestly more a marketing ploy than anything truly designed for faster delivery. Amazon can deliver packages same day without drones currently, but people get extremely excited about the possibility of watching their package come in on a drone in as little as 30 minutes. There are also other specifications the drones must reach such as weight carrying requirement to hold packages weighing over 5 pounds and they have to comply with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This can be tricky because all drone uses has to be a certain distance from an airport they can only go at certain times and their travel time and destination must be documented and recorded to ensure safety. Drones also have to potential to be used by companies such as UberEats for delivery of food in populated areas where driving a vehicle to and from a restaurant can take upwards of 45 minutes, a drone could do it in 5. Overall, drones a tricky tool to use because the regulations and security requirements that need to be fulfilled before they can be used full time.

The next thing created by drones is actually a drone racing league. Contestants travel around the world racing drones in different courses and winning prize money and trying to raise your rank in the league to qualify for the bigger and bigger tournaments. These events have recently been aired on ESPN and are growing in popularity. Creating a new sports league is not an easy task and the drone technology has allowed this to happen. The drone pilots put the technology to the test as they complete the courses in record fast times pulling off all sorts of maneuvers in the process. Overall, the league is getting bigger and bigger and has the potential to become a relatively large sport at some point in the future.

Drones are the future with so much potential. If regulations can be agreed upon between public and private entities the possibilities are endless.


Sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/drones-law-faa-regulations-2017-7
https://federaldroneregistration.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz8WPuLLq2gIVA9RkCh2IZg3WEAAYASAAEgJ0afD_BwE
https://www.faa.gov/uas/
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Prime-Air/b?ie=UTF8&node=8037720011

New Google Pixel Buds will change the world as we know it!

One day I was in my entrepreneurship class and our teacher showed us a very interesting and innovative new product that is currently available in the market. This product is basically a pair of wireless headphones that allow two people who speak two completely different languages to communicate in real time. The product works through an app that lets one person speak and the ear bud will translate that into the selected language for the other person listening and vise versa. This product is known as the pilot ear buds by Waverly labs.

After doing more research I found out that the dominate company Google has also created a translating ear piece. This blog will focus on Google's Pixel Buds because I believe these will be more popular than the Pilot ear buds.  The video below demonstrates how the Google pixel buds work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE_DtGgovjc

The videos goes in depth by explaining all of the new Google Pixel Bud features. These features include simple pausing and changing of volume by tapping and swiping the ear bud, send messages and make calls. These advanced headphones have up to 40 different languages. These headphones are currently available for purchase. The headphones came out in November and are available for $159. Although, these headphones are not 100 percent wireless due to there being a cable that connects the two and is necessary to power them. This can be seen as a pro since having just small ear buds can be easy to lose as seen in Apple's Air Pods.

The following article explains how these headphones are the start of something great. The article states that there are a few errors when using the translating feature but the article continues to say that this is only the first version, as time goes on there will be improved versions until these are used all around the world!





https://www.vogue.com/article/google-pixel-buds-translation-travel

SnapChat: The Remodel and The Repercussions

As many have you have probably already noticed, a couple months ago SnapChat decided to completely redo the layout of the application. As most millennials are, I am a frequent user of all forms of social media. I have profiles on SnapChat, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Handshake and Twitter. I have had many of these profiles for upwards of 5 years and there are always updates that take place over a time period that large. However, the update to SnapChat is probably the single biggest remodel that I have seen out of this group.

Early reviews for the update came back very negative. According to TechCrunch, eighty three percent of the reviews on the App Store were given a one or two star rating. With SnapChat stories located only on the far left side of the application, users stats showed zero growth in users posting stories in a three month period. This statistic is alarming because the three month period prior to the update showed growth of 7 percent in this category.

Here is a picture of what the actual update looks like on each different section.



The biggest impact that the update has for me is the change in the layout of the news part of SnapChat. One of the biggest reasons I go on SnapChat multiple times a day is to look at the various news sources that can be found on the app. Typically, I would go through all the stories I had on my feed and then go through some of the news sources. With the new update, the stories and news pieces of the app have been separated.

The argument over whether people actually look at the news sources on SnapChat is one that is also very rampant. According to the Pew Research Center, as of August 2017, more than two thirds of Americans claim to get some of their news from social media platforms. This percentage was an increase of 25 percent from the previous year. Specifically for SnapChat, roughly 30 percent of users rely on the application to get their news. This number increased by almost 50 percent from 2016 to 2017. Overall, I think it is clear that the new format of SnapChat may be unpopular in the early stages, but it will not slow the growth it is experiencing in this statistic.


References:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/11/snapchat-redesign-uninstall/
http://www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/

How Technology Can Actually Help...If We Let It.

Recently my friend Taylor just posted a post based on an ASAPscience video on the neurological effects of prolonged regular screen use. It's hard to argue with the fact that we turn to phones primarily to decrease our boredom, increase dopamine levels, solve problems more easily, and feel connected. We are also pretty aware that we slowly start to give away our natural brain functions such as generating our own dopamine, exercising our internal compass rather than following Siri's navigation, and stimulating our brain's creative power.

Long story short, there does not (yet) exist a technology that can break our addiction to technology. You just need to stop using your phones so much. Yes, it takes a lot of willpower, but the exercise of that willpower is what it takes to rebuild those depleted dopamine levels. It's not easy, it's not impossible; there are a few apps that can help.


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/27/mobile-phone-addiction-apps-break-the-habit-take-back-control

The article above gives a list of mobile applications that track phone usage. Many of these apps are designed to make users aware of how much they truly spend on their devices, while others take a step farther and offer reward incentives. It may be a bit of a paradox to use technology to help you break away from reliance on technology and it won't work for everyone, but it might be worth a try if you accept that there is a problem.

Here's a couple tips to help you get your brain back to "normal." I say "normal" because your brain is like a river; it's always changing. But we don't want that river to be polluted and dammed up as described in Taylor's post.

1. We're the healthiest generation ever for the sole reason that hygiene and medical practice is at an all-time high in efficiency. We're somewhat compromising our spinal health by crouching down to look at our phones. When you use your phone, try not to slouch so hard and so long, and find some ways to straighten out your back relatively frequently.

2. Eating healthy, consuming small amounts of beneficial unsaturated fats, drinking tea, and eating seafood, are some ways to naturally increase your dopamine levels.

3. Harness your creative side: There's no such thing as not being creative. Reading these words, speaking English, and thinking are all creative acts. School is a creative act. Your job is a creative act. Find your creative channels and follow them. If you can't think of any right now, go for a walk. I PROMISE that an idea will come to you during that walk.

Proof: https://www.inc.com/logan-chierotti/stanford-study-reveals-the-only-brain-booster-you-need-to-increase-creativity.html

Listen to music -- if you don't feel inspired by the music you're listening to currently, find some new music. Better yet, try to find some music without lyrics. If you're tired of the way you think, listening to instrumental tracks will literally light up entirely different parts of your brain. Fire up your favorite movie score and pretend you're a superhero or a romantic lead character or the ultimate villain. Throw on some hip hop tracks without vocals and you might find yourself coming up with your own bars. Or listen to some weird experimental music and go wild.

4. Ask a girl/guy on a date -- put Tinder down and walk up to them directly and ask if they want to go on a date. That terrified feeling inside is one of the brain's most powerful stimulants for growth, and if you can remember the first time you successfully asked someone out (or been asked out), that sense of euphoria is on a level that matching on Tinder can't even touch.


Those are a couple ways to help get you on the path to being the best version of yourself. I could give more examples but I want you to use your creativity and fill in some blanks yourself. Technology is awesome -- it can help us be more productive and creative than ever before. Just don't let it control you, and don't be in denial about it. There's more at stake than your pride.

Netflix vs Cable

Since I can remember cable television has been a huge part of my life. Growing up I can remember spending hours in front of the TV watching cartoons and waiting for my favorite TV programs to begin. While cable has been a revolutionary technology, it is in danger of being rendered obsolete by newer technologies i.e. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. What this blog post is going to focus on is the change we have seen overtime in these industries and the implications that cable might face if they cannot change their ways.

Throughout the past few years we have discovered a massive trend. In the last year Amazon Prime has doubled its subscribers and Netflix has reached 125 million subscribers. While this has been going on we have seen a sharp decline in that of cable subscribers. In the first quarter of 2018 Charter Communications announced it has lost 122,000 subscribers. These numbers have a story behind them. As stated in the video above, imagine having a favorite book, now imagine only being able to read this book in a 30-minute time slot every day. This sounds horrible. What these streaming companies have done is taken the aspects that people hate about cable TV and gotten rid of them. The first issue is price, while I currently pay $120 a month for cable, I can get Netflix and Hulu for a combined $24 a month. Secondly, these services have allowed users to watch thousands of shows similar to cable but they allow users to do it whenever and wherever they please. Finally, they have gotten rid of commercials. These companies are truly just a much better and more efficient form of cable.

While cable companies have seen a decline in users they are not helping themselves either. The only way that they can combat the lowered demand for their product is to raise prices driving even more users out. The information that I have discovered through my research bare a resemblance to the fall of another company in 2013, Blockbuster. While their in store model worked for a while, they failed to conform to the ever-changing technology driven landscape. If cable companies cannot adapt and bring more value at lower prices to their customers, they will see a similar fate to that of Blockbuster.

Questions

What are some ways cable can combat Netflix?

Do you think cable will become obsolete?

Sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-27/how-cable-companies-learned-to-love-netflix-or-hulu-and-chill
http://time.com/4875549/cable-cord-cutting-streaming-television/
http://fortune.com/2016/03/03/netflix-declining-tv-audience/
https://mic.com/articles/135926/will-netflix-kill-cable-here-s-why-cable-providers-aren-t-dying-anytime-soon

http://fortune.com/2018/04/29/viewers-cable-streaming/

Data Sharing and Simulated Clinical Trials

As the availability of electronic clinical data becomes more accessible and the use of artificial intelligence algorithms become more widely-used, the drug development process becomes the next big industry to harness the power of big data analytics. Pharmaceutical companies on average spend $2 billion over a period of 15+ years to develop, manufacture and bring to market a single drug or therapy.  Additionally, once the drug has been approved by the FDA and brought to market, drug companies receive a patent that expires after 20 years. Factors such as these, as well as evolving political landscapes [that I clearly don’t have time to elaborate on in this post] contribute to the overwhelming prices of drugs.

With critically important therapies like Daraprim and the Epipen rising to unbelievable prices, the topic pharmaceutical drug prices is becoming an increasingly controversial issue that constantly makes the headlines. Apart from political action, how can the issue be addressed? The answer lies in the production of the drug. As stated early, these massive price hikes are mostly due to the fact that drugs cost billions to produce and take almost two decades to bring to market...In other words, each day of production costs $300,000+ in production costs. By reducing the time period to bring these drugs to market a mere couple of weeks, massive reductions in drug costs can be attained.

A solution can be found in the use of data sharing and the application of simulated clinical trials. Within that 15 year timeline for drug development, 10-13 years consist of preclinical and clinical trials...or in other words, conducting experimental treatments on animal and human subjects. In fact, many drugs don’t even progress beyond that stage, costing drug companies an even greater number of costs. Fortunately due to the recent availability of large quantities of electronic clinical data, the potential of creating simulated clinical trials is becoming a reality. This means that by aggregating large datasets that culminate variables from numerous trials over decades of research, artificial intelligence based algorithms can be used to predict the outcome of specific trials without them needing to be conducted in a physical laboratory. These trial simulations have the potential to reduce the drug development timeline by numerous years.

However, the hesitation to share data among different pharma companies hinders this type of progress. Since these past trials, whether successful or not, cost drug companies millions of dollars to conduct, they’re usually very apprehensive to share their data due to their proprietary nature. Additionally, drug companies and researchers are hesitant to share data because if a third-party analysis finds flaws within the original data/analysis, their studies and, professional reputations in general, can be invalidated. Fortunately for the consumer, nonprofit organizations, who have regulatory and federal support, are bridging the gap by uniting companies in non-competitive arenas to share data for the greater good. As this sort of drug manufacture approach become more relevant, drug timelines and costs associated with them will begin to experience drastic declines.

Questions to ponder...

1. Although there will be significant savings in the manufacture process, will this incentivize big pharma to lower prices, or will they just pocket additional revenue?
2. How do you think companies will overcome the fear of error exposure?
3. Do you think this type of approach could become more integrated in a political agenda, or will governmental lobbying just hinder progress as it does in more industries?