Amazon Canada got into some trouble recently when it was found that a vendor was using its web service to sell doormats decorated with the Indian flag. India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was alerted to the matter by vigilant Twitter users, who consider this usage an insult to their national flag.
For our first posting of 2017, consider a new fitness tracking device in the form of a finger ring. The Motiv Ring tracks sleep patterns, heart rate, steps and other activities, all while looking chic. It will officially debut at this year's Consumer Electronics Show and is priced at $199 (USD).
The Ring contains some technological innovations, including optical heart rate tracking and impressive miniaturization.
One of the predicted consequences of the global village was the fading importance of place. After all, if everyone can talk to and look in on everyone else regardless of location, through the miracle of telephones and TV and Internet, then location would become irrelevant.
We do not yet live in that world. Many people continue to commute to work, for example, to be in the same building with their colleagues.
Will Oremus at Slate has written an interesting piece on the semantic spread of the term "fake news." The term recently came to prominence over the propagation of fraudulent news items as a tool of persuasion in the recent US election.
Three recent New York Times articles illustrate some issues facing information providers like Facebook when it comes to dealing with potentially harmful content being shared through its service.
Today brings another pair of interesting news items to compare. The first concerns an automated vehicle that delivers hot food. The second concerns an automated vehicle that delivers hot lead. (Some lines just write themselves!)
My news feed put up an interesting pair of articles about applications of AI to what might be called knowledge discovery.
The first was an article by Adrienne Lafrance about the search for another Antikythera mechanism. The Antikythera mechanism is an astronomical computer made in Hellenistic Greek times and found in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera in 1901.
Emma Tucker at Dezeen writes about a new feature of the "Angel" electric bicycle by Noordung. The Angel is a high-end electric bike clearly meant to appeal to an exclusive market, at the exclusive price of €9,760 each.
When you hear the term alcohol patch, what do you think of? An imaginary place more adult than the Cabbage Patch? Wrong! A patch that slowly releases alcohol into your bloodstream? Getting warmer!
As Mike Hanlon describes it in New Atlas, the ONUSblue alcohol patch is a sensor that rests on a person's skin and monitors their blood alcohol level:
Logan Koepke has written an interesting article at Slate about the nature of predictive policing. Predictive policing involves the use of computer algorithms to assign police coverage to a given region on the basis of anticipated risk of crime.