From autonomous things, to edge computing, and 5G, these five trends are expected to have a deep impact on the semiconductor sector in the year ahead.
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Category: robotics/AI
While a 90-day ceasefire period is in place for negotiators to end the war, major Chinese technology companies and national initiatives are expected to continue to face challenges in 2019 as the world’s two largest economies remain at loggerheads over global leadership in hi-tech innovation.
Here we take a look at the views of analysts, executives, and experts to see which sectors and companies will likely be in the spotlight in 2019 and what the big issues are expected to be.
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As 2018 draws to a close and we start anticipating the developments that will happen in 2019, here’s a look back at our ten most-read articles of the year.
This 3D Printed House Goes Up in a Day for Under $10,000 Vanessa Bates Ramirez | 3/18/18 “ICON and New Story’s vision is one of 3D printed houses acting as a safe, affordable housing alternative for people in need. New Story has already built over 800 homes in Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Mexico, partnering with the communities they serve to hire local labor and purchase local materials rather than shipping everything in from abroad.”
Machines Teaching Each Other Could Be the Biggest Exponential Trend in AI Aaron Frank | 1/21/18 “Data is the fuel of machine learning, but even for machines, some data is hard to get—it may be risky, slow, rare, or expensive. In those cases, machines can share experiences or create synthetic experiences for each other to augment or replace data. It turns out that this is not a minor effect, it actually is self-amplifying, and therefore exponential.”
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Can machines make moral choices?
A massive new survey developed by MIT researchers reveals some distinct global preferences concerning the ethics of autonomous vehicles, as well as some regional variations in those preferences.
The survey has global reach and a unique scale, with over 2 million online participants from over 200 countries weighing in on versions of a classic ethical conundrum, the “Trolley Problem.” The problem involves scenarios in which an accident involving a vehicle is imminent, and the vehicle must opt for one of two potentially fatal options. In the case of driverless cars, that might mean swerving toward a couple of people, rather than a large group of bystanders.
“The study is basically trying to understand the kinds of moral decisions that driverless cars might have to resort to,” says Edmond Awad, a postdoc at the MIT Media Lab and lead author of a new paper outlining the results of the project. “We don’t know yet how they should do that.”
Power suits, robotaxis, Leonardo da Vinci mania—just a few of the things to look out for in 2019. But what else will make our top ten stories for the year ahead?
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What will be the biggest stories of the year ahead?
00:35 — 10 — Powered Clothing.
In 2019 power dressing will take on a whole new meaning when this strange-looking clothing hits the market. Not so much high fashion as high tech, it’s a suit with built-in power that will literally get people moving. Part of the wearable robotics revolution, the suit is made up of battery-powered muscle packs which contract just like a human muscle to boost the wearer’s strength. With the global population of over 60s expected to more than double by 2050, and retirement age increasing, there’s no shortage of potential markets. But don’t expect the suits to ease the burden on aching limbs and overstretched health services anytime soon — as these suits don’t come cheap. According to the manufacturer they’ll retail for around the cost of a bespoke tailored suit.
02:13 — 9 — The year of cheap flights.
2019 will be the year low-cost long-haul travel takes off. You’ll be able to buy a ten thousand mile flight from London to Sydney for around $350 and this is why. The world will boast two new state-of-the-art mega hub airports and competition between them will drive down the cost of flying. Daxing Airport outside Beijing is due to open in 2019 and will feed growing demand for air travel in China. Beijing already has one of the world’s biggest airports and for China this new mega hub will send an important message to the world. Rivaling Daxing as a national symbol of global prestige will be a new mega hub airport in Istanbul. Opened in 2018 it covers a staggering 26 square miles — an area larger than the island of Manhattan. And in 2019 consumers will again be the beneficiaries of a state sponsored economic push. But the low fares offered by competition between these hubs could be short-lived.
04:06 — 8 Stonewall riots at 50.
In 2019 LGBT communities will mark the anniversary of a seminal event — it will be 50 years since patrons at New York gay bar, The Stonewall Inn, resisted police attempts to arrest them. The resulting Stonewall riots kick-started the modern gay rights movement. In many countries the laws that continue to allow intolerance and inequality have their roots in religion. But one former British colony has given hope to the global movement for change. In 2018 India decriminalized homosexuality and gay rights campaigners hope 2019 will be the year other former British colonies follow suit. In February Kenya’s High Court will rule on whether to decriminalize same-sex intimacy which is currently punishable with up to 14 years in prison. Campaigners hope that decriminalization could start a domino effect across Africa.
A computing system that mimics neural processing could make artificial intelligence more efficient — and more human.
The evidence that self-driving vehicle manufacturers aren’t always upfront with the public hasn’t helped either. An excoriating October New Yorker investigation into the early years of the Google self-driving research project that eventually became Waymo found that the company had performed reckless road tests early in its work — and hadn’t always reported accidents.
Road Ahead
Musk’s promise to accelerate fully autonomous research, along with a call for more internal Tesla testers for the program, run precisely counter to that narrative. That’s not surprising: the eccentric Musk is known for imagining futures that are still years away — and using his wealth and influence to attempt to steer history toward or away from them.
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