School robotics competition taken out by four-wheeled ‘Janet’ – Stuff.co.nz

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MATTHEW CATTIN

Last updated16:54, February 23 2017

MATTHEW CATTIN/FAIRFAX NZ

Isaac Kirkwood with his robot Janet.

A four-wheeled late night creation dubbed 'Janet' has beaten the best bots in the country.

The robot, built by Orewa College student Isaac Kirkwood, took out a national senior robotics championship at ACG Strathallan, after topping a series of challenges.

Facing competitors from eight schools around the country, the year 12 student put Janet through the paces with several rounds of manual and autonomous tasks.

The competition demands "on the fly adaptations" throughout, Isaac says, and to find an advantage, the robots have to be reprogrammed and rebuilt between rounds.

READ MORE *Feilding High School robotics team recognised at world champs in USA *Robotics competition hardly VEXing for Manawatu students

"You can't just sit there twiddling your thumbs," he says.

All of Janet's functions, from the sensitivity of the controller joystick to the range of its movements, were programmed by Isaac using computer coding.

Throughout the day, Isaac - sometimes in an alliance with rival schools - outscored his competitors, and came away with the win.

Orewa College science teacher Nish Rabeendran says that despite the win, the school was very close to not entering the competition this year, due to its timing.

Scheduled to line up with schools in the USA, the competition date meant students have to dedicate time in their holidays.

When all of Orewa College's robotics team but Isaac pulled out due to other commitments, Rabeendran says he figured he would give it up, and enter a team in 2018.

But Isaac wasn't to be dissuaded.

Leaving things until last minute, Isaac spent much of the evening before competition day watching movies with a friend.

It wasn't until later that night, he got to work on the robot.

"I'm really grateful he took the whole thing on. It's amazing we even had a robot to enter," Rabeendran says.

Janet is built from the school's robotic kit set, gifted to Orewa College by Kiwi First, a robotics charitable trust.

Rabeendran, who applied for the Kiwi First grant, hopes to see robotics take off at the college, and says it's the perfect blend of science, digital technology and fun.

Last year, Isaac represented the school at the Massey University STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) Challenge.

As part of the Orewa College technology team, Isaac created a paperless Duke of Edinburgh award app to win the challenge.

-Rodney Times

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School robotics competition taken out by four-wheeled 'Janet' - Stuff.co.nz

Opinion: Taxing robots is Bill Gates’s dumbest idea yet – MarketWatch

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The blue screen of death. That little paper clip that used to pop up with irritating suggestions every time you used Word. Pre-loading Internet Explorer on every personal computer. Four decades into a career that has made him one of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates has come up with some genuinely terrible stuff over the years.

But he has just had his worst idea yet taxing robots.

The founder of Microsoft MSFT, -0.20% argues that with robots increasingly likely to replace many human workers, the only way to make up for all the lost tax revenue, and to civilize the spread of automation, is to charge the machines directly. It is increasingly popular theme. The European Parliament has taken it up, and it is a flagship policy for the Socialist candidate in Frances presidential election.

Why are the voice assistants in our phones, speakers and computers overwhelmingly female instead of male? WSJ's Joanna Stern explains. Photo/video: Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal.

Yet is it also completely crazy. Why? Because robots wont pay any taxes, their owners will. Because it will slow down the one thing that is likely to lift productivity. And because it encourages the fallacy that somehow there is somebody else who can pay for the state rather than ordinary workers.

Whether the robotic revolution is everything it is cracked up to be remains to be seen. There is certainly a huge amount of hype around drones, driverless cars, artificial intelligence, and automated factory work. Advances in computing are making lots of tasks like delivery susceptible to automation, and white-collar jobs in fields such as medicine, law and accountancy may soon come under pressure as well.

As that gathers pace, governments around the world are becoming increasingly worried about the impact on the tax base after all, payroll charges are one of the largest sources of their income, and every time a carbon-based worker is replaced with a silicon-based one, that money disappears. You dont need to be penning a dystopian novel to start imagining a world in which mass unemployment is widespread, bankrupt governments have no money to alleviate their suffering with welfare, and pretty much all the worlds wealth is in the hands of a few AI billionaires.

To his credit, and unlike many of his high-tech peer group, Gates is at least worried about that.

In an interview this week, he made the case for taxing robots as they replace workers. Right now if a human worker does $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed, he told Quartz. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think we would tax the robot at a similar level.

He is far from alone. Last year, a draft report from the European Parliament made the case for making robots pay the same kind of payroll taxes as their human counterparts.

In France, Benoit Hamon came from nowhere to win the governing Socialist Party nomination for president on the strength of a plan for taxing machines to help pay for an ambitious universal basic income. In his ideal world, it appears, wed all relax all day, while the robots did all the work, and wed be paid from their taxes.

In fairness, you can see what they are all getting at. Robotics, like any innovative technology, will create a wave of disruption. There will be losers as well as winners, and there is no reason why the people whose jobs are taken should not be compensated. Payroll taxes make up a huge percentage of government revenues, especially in countries such as France. Lose that, and society may cease to function.

The trouble is, taxing robots is a terrible idea, and one that will only damage the economy. Heres why.

First, there is no evidence to suggest that robots will destroy jobs rather than simply change the type of work people do. We have a couple of hundred years of scare-mongering about new technology to tell us that every time a new type of machine comes along, everyone worries about what people will do instead. And then lots of new jobs get created that we never imagined before.

Gates, who destroyed the typing pool with his word-processing software, should know that better than anyone.

Next, robots wont be paying the taxes people will. It might seem obvious, but every automated machine will be owned by somebody, usually a person or a corporation. The tax will simply be paid by them. The robot itself wont have a salary, and wouldnt need one they dont eat, go out on dates, buy books or clothes, or do any of the things that people need money for. The tax will simply be paid by the owner. If we want them to pay higher taxes, we might as well charge them directly rather than do it via the robot.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when you tax something you get less of it. Thats why we tax cigarettes or gas-guzzling cars at high rates because wed like people to give up smoking, or drive more fuel-efficient vehicles.

If we tax robots, at the margin, companies will use them a bit less often. Sure, that means we will keep a few low-paying jobs for a bit longer. But it will also slow down the rate of productivity growth, and in the medium term that will make everyone poorer.

If anything, we should offer business a tax break for installing robots not a penalty.

And thats before we even get into the issue of whether we want to pointlessly antagonize the robots by slapping taxes on them you have to assume that all the people making that case have never watched any sci-fi.

In truth, AI and robotics promises to fuel a new wave of growth, which the world could certainly use. Even if it doesnt, it will certainly replace lots of dull tasks, and remove a lot of daily drudgery. The last thing we want to do is tax that out of existence no matter how many software billionaires tell us we should.

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Opinion: Taxing robots is Bill Gates's dumbest idea yet - MarketWatch

See the Ancient World Through Virtual Reality – Smithsonian

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Lithodomos VR creates immersive virtual recreations of iconic ruins.

Have you ever stood in front of historic ruinsthe Parthenon, say, or one of Britains many ancient castlesand closed your eyes, imagining what the scene before you would have looked like centuries ago?

Thanks to virtual reality, seeing ruins as they looked in their heyday is becoming possible. It may even be a game changer for the ways we visit ancient cities like Jerusalem or Paris.

When I catch up with Australian archaeologist Simon Young, hes in Rome.

Its low season at the moment in Italy, but there are still hundreds and thousands of people wandering in the streets and looking at ruins, he says.

Young would like to show those people what Rome looked like nearly 2,000 years ago by fitting them with virtual reality headsets. His company, Lithodomos VR, creates immersive virtual recreations of iconic ruins. The recreations can be used on site with a smartphone headset, or from home or school using a commercial VR system like Oculus Rift.

Its 360-degree 3D virtual reality, Young says. It really helps you to place yourself back in time.

Today, Romes Temple of Venus and Rome lies split in half, most of its columns gone, ravaged by centuries of fire, earthquakes and pillaging. But put on a virtual reality headset with Lithodomos app, and suddenly its a June afternoon in the 1stcentury AD. The temple before you is whole again, its vanished columns standing tall, its faade all shining white marble, the intricate relief sculptures of its pediment cast in shadow by the summer sun.

The app maps your physical location onto the temple, allowing you to look around from various angles. It might be raining outside, or nighttime. But in the VR world, the sky is a hazy blue, the perimeter of the temple lined with trees.

In addition to the Temple of Venus and Rome, Lithodomos has a recreation of the Arnes de Lutce, a Roman amphitheater and stage from the beginning of the 2nd century AD, now just fragments tucked away behind apartment buildings in Pariss Latin Quarter. Its also recreated the Odeon of Agrippa, a concert hall in the center of the Athenian agora, and parts of ancient Jerusalem. The scenes are available on two Lithodomos apps released in December and January. Young plans to work on scenes from Delphi, Spain and the UK in the near future.

Young sees his software being used by tour groups who would provide their guests with headsets, or by individuals using cheap, portable viewers likeGoogle Cardboard. He also hopes to partner with museums and universities to create other historical VR experiences, such as allowing museum-goers to view artifacts up close and in 360 degrees.

Lithodomos is not the only company working on historical VR.Singapore-based Hiverlabhas ambitions to digitize heritage sites across the world. So far theyve created a VR tour of a medieval Armenian church in Cypress, which lets users wander the structure as it is today, as well see what it might have looked like centuries ago. The freeTimelooper applets viewers experience various historical momentsGeorge Washingtons second inaugural address, the construction of the Empire State Building, the Great Fire of London.

In the past several months, Young says, several tour operators in Rome have begun offering VR-enhanced tours. The day before, hed been to the Domus Aurea, the Golden House built by Nero in the 1stcentury AD. The sites superintendent had installed an Oculus Rift experience, and visitors were busy checking it out.

One woman swore, she was so amazed by the experience, Young says.

But as an archeologist, Young worries that some companies offering ancient world VR experiences arent serious enough about accuracy.

Some game developer in Silicon Valley who has no idea thinks, oh, a column would look great there, he says. The real danger is that, because VR is such a powerful medium, if someone visits the Colosseum, they walk away with the idea that this is what it was like.

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See the Ancient World Through Virtual Reality - Smithsonian

Virtual Reality used in marketing: What if the Blue whale is AT&T? – ZDNet

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SpiritualVR Panel: Right to left: Moderator Alison Raby, Digital Raign; Cheryl Fraenzl, Esalen Institute; Ashara Ekundayo, Impact Hub Oakland; Lia Oganesyan, Veer Hub; Anastasiya Sharkova, ARVR Academy; Dorote Lucci CoreReboot.

Consciousness in Virtual Reality was the topic for a recent all-female panel discussion (above) organized by SpiritualVR and hosted at UploadVR in San Francisco. Everyone had lots of interesting things to say but one thing that investor Anastasiya Sharkova said stuck with me.

She spoke about her first experience with virtual reality which was a title called: TheBlu: Encounter. Developed by Wevr in Venice, California -- here's the blurb from the website:

"Imagine what it is like coming face-to-face with an 80-foot blue whale, whose eye ball is almost the size of your entire face.

An experience which feels real, but clearly couldn't possibly be so, with a sense of uncanny scale and unexpected empathy."

Sharkova says that she knew full well that the whale wasn't real and that everything around her was computer generated and artificial yet when she looked into the whale's eye she felt a powerful emotional connection. And it began to change her behavior.

"For about two weeks I was using a lot less water. I took only short showers -- and believe me I love my morning showers," Sharkova said. "VR is such an immersive experience that it totally overwhelms your senses you become convinced something real is happening."

I've read about VR helping change people's behavior and thoughts in therapeutic contexts such as dealing with post traumatic stress syndrome. But what if it were used for commercial messages, what if the whale was AT&T or some other corporation?

After the panel I asked Sharkova what happens in the near future when the blue whale is AT&T?

She said that it is still early enough that companies in the industry will get together and they will create rules and figure out how to apply them.

Self-regulation is the only regulation that US tech firms will advocate for because government regulations and laws can constrain new markets.

However, all governments eventually regulate all new technologies of importance especially in communications -- essentially anything with a large distributed network. Electric power, railroads, radio, TV and telephone are examples.

[I'll be returning to this topic very soon. VR in Marketing -- the rising technologies of persuasion.]

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Virtual Reality used in marketing: What if the Blue whale is AT&T? - ZDNet

Google’s next trick is bringing your face into virtual reality – TechRadar

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For those unable to just "try it first to see if you like it," mixed reality video can be immensely helpful in showing off virtual reality experiences to those without a fancy VR headset.

There's usually just one little hitch, though: the wearer in these videos has a big ol' headset strapped to their mug that prevents viewers from seeing their expressions or eye movement. That may not be a snag for long, as Google has a solution.

In conjunction with the tech giant's Daydream Labs studio, Google has devised a clever way to "remove" a headset in mixed reality video - swapping in a 3D model of a person's face.

(Image: Google)

Using an HTC Vive and eye-tracking software courtesy of SMI, the fake face can respond to the wearer's expressions and where they're looking - resulting in a visual effect that Google likens to a translucent scuba mask instead of an opaque peripheral.

Of course, the human eye is still pretty good at detecting real faces versus virtual ones, so the effect still has some slight uncanny valley feel to it.

Still, it's more realistic than the cartoony avatars other companies want to use to represent users in a virtual space, and certainly beats the alternative of just watching someone stand around in an empty room with their mouth agape and eyes covered.

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Google's next trick is bringing your face into virtual reality - TechRadar

New virtual reality tool helps architects create dementia-friendly environments – Dezeen

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Visual showing appearance of a room without and with the Virtual Reality Empathy Platform headset

Scottish architect David Burgher has developed a new virtual reality tool that mimics the visual impairments experienced by dementia sufferers to helparchitects design betterspaces.

Burgher, an architect at Scottish practice Aitken Turnbull, worked with researchers from the Dementia Centre and the Glasgow-based CGI company Wireframe Immersiveto create the tool namedVirtual Reality Empathy Platform (VR-EP).

The VR-EP kit comprises a laptop with high-performance graphics, a virtual reality headset,games controller, camera and bespoke software programming.

Those wearing thevirtual reality headset are able to experience some of the symptoms of dementia, including dimmer lighting. Burgher hopes the tool could be used togauge appropriate lighting levels, room layouts and way-finding toimprove design ofcare homes, hospitals and sheltered housing.

"People with dementia can have perceptive and cognitive impairments, which is compounded in older people who see the world in a much hazier way," Burghertold Dezeen. "This can lead to anxiety, confusion and disorientation."

"VR-EP replicates these visual impairments through a digital filter process in a fully immersive and interactive virtual reality environment."

Over800,000 people are currently living with dementia in the UK, with the number expected to grow to 1.7 million by 2051. The cost of care is estimated at26.3 billion per year, outstripping that spent on cancer and heart diseasetogether.

Burges believes this figure could be minimisedby designing "dementia-friendly" spaces from the outset, helping those with dementia to live more independently and reducing the number of accidents.

As well as reducing anxiety, the improved design offers a better, safer and more independent quality of life. Dementia-friendly design doesn't have to cost more," said Burgher. "In fact, by using VR-EP, designers will get it right first time and therefore reduce costs."

"It can reduce risk of accidents and aggressive behaviour, improve staff recruitment and retention, and save on the significant costs associated with dementia care."

Aitken Turnbull Architects and Wireframe Immersive hope to adapt the virtual reality tool to give architects empathy for a range of sensory disorders and export itfor use across Europe, China and the US.

Recent virtual reality developments include Gravity Sketch, which allows designers to edit and manipulate objects in virtual reality, as opposed to on a desktop screen.

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New virtual reality tool helps architects create dementia-friendly environments - Dezeen

Explore the Amazon Rainforest with New Virtual-Reality Film – Live Science

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"Splash" the three-toed sloth hangs out near a tributary of the Napo river in Ecuador's Yasun National Park during the VR shoot in Amazonia.

You can explore the Amazon rainforest's spectacular beauty and biodiversity right from the comfort of your home, thanks to a new 360-degree virtual-reality film from Conservation International.

The film, called "Under the Canopy," brings viewers into the depths of the Amazon, with the region's diverse environment on full display. But beyond the picturesque views, the film also shares a message with viewers: This incredible landscape is threatened and needs to be protected. The annual forest loss due to deforestation in the Amazonia region is more than 1.5 times the size of Yellowstone National Park, according to Conservation International, the nonprofit environmental organization that developed the virtual-reality experience.

The film begins at the top of a 200-foot-tall (60 meters) Ceiba tree. After descending to the rainforest floor, viewers set out on a journey with an indigenous guide named Kamanja Panashekung. Panashekung's family has lived in the region for generations, and he shows viewers how the rainforest supplies everything his people need to survive, according to Conservation International. [Beyond Gaming: 10 Other Fascinating Uses for Virtual-Reality Tech]

"Kamanja's community is one of over 350 indigenous communities throughout Amazonia that depend on the rainforest, as we all do, for the air we breathe and the water we drink," M. Sanjayan, Conservation International's executive vice president and senior scientist, said in a statement. "'Under the Canopy' gives those who may never visit the Amazon rainforest an opportunity understand what is at risk. Sustaining the Amazon is not an option; it is a necessity."

However, the impact of deforestation is not limited to the 30 million people who call the Amazon home. Trees in the Amazon act as a carbon sink absorbing and storing carbon dioxide, which helps lower greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

The Amazon region also supports more flora and fauna species than any other environment, playing an important role in global biodiversity, scientists have said. Throughout the film, viewers will encounter tropical birds, butterflies, sloths and more.

Using either a virtual-reality headset for an immersive experience or watching the 360-degree video, viewers will see firsthand what the people, plants and animals of Amazonia experience. The film addresses how deforestation and climate change impact their ecosystem, said Chris Holtz, director of conservation and sustainable development at the MacArthur Foundation, which supported the production of the film.

"Intact forests play a unique role in mitigating climate change and regulating the functioning of the planet. Yet, many are at risk," Holtz said in the statement. "The virtual reality experience of 'Under the Canopy' allows anyone to immerse themselves in the rainforests of Amazonia and walk alongside members of an indigenous community in Suriname who conserve these forests as part of their traditional lands and, importantly, for the benefit of all humanity."

Original article on Live Science.

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Explore the Amazon Rainforest with New Virtual-Reality Film - Live Science

Want to simulate anti-gravity in VR? Use a headset in your swimming pool – Digital Trends

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Why it matters to you

Virtual reality may be able to give you the visuals for any setting, but taking a waterproof headset into your swimming pool could simulate weightlessness, too.

Folks in tech have a thing about convergence. Whether its combining personal data assistants with cellphones to create smartphones, or crossing web browsing computers with televisions to create smart TVs, theres something irresistible about combining two different concepts and hoping the results are greater than the sum of their parts.

Thats what friends Stephen Greenwood and Allan Evans may have achieved when they decided to combine a scene from a popular Netflix series with virtual reality headsets to create floating underwater VR. Sure, it sounds a bit crazy, but its hard not to be a little intrigued.

More: With Googles new Expeditions app, teachers can take their whole class on a VR field trip

We were out in San Francisco one night, Greenwood, who is director of creative development at Discovery Digital Networks, told Digital Trends. I had just been watching the show Stranger Things on Netflix, and was really inspired by one scene in the show where one of the characters is in a sensory deprivation tank. We started talking about sensory deprivation, and all of a sudden we came up with the idea of using a VR headset in one of these sensory deprivation tanks.

Evans, co-founder of headset maker Avegant, immediately set about thinking of ways to develop a prototype to see if the idea was worth exploring further. The very next day he got hold of a diving mask and 3D-printed two blocks to go inside it to allow a waterproof Android smartphone to be slotted inside like an aquatic Google Cardboard device. It was then just a matter of finding a swimming pool to test the creation in.

The first experience I wanted to test out was simulating a space environment, Greenwood continued. I was able to track down a CG-rendered video of the International Space Station floating above the Earth. The impact was pretty much immediate. Even though its not the highest resolution or fidelity, there was a moment where for a brief second you really felt like you were an astronaut floating in space.

Evans isquick to point out that this is in no way a finished product. Its the earliest possible stage of a prototype, he said. It couldnt be any earlier.

Theyre not finished yet, though.The next step is to see if we can incorporate a positional tracking system so that, rather than just being able to turn your head to look around at a 360 video, theres the ability to swim toward objects in virtual reality, he continued. Thats going to be a big step to us.

Hey, at the very least this neat hack promises to makebath time infinitely more enjoyable!

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Want to simulate anti-gravity in VR? Use a headset in your swimming pool - Digital Trends

Row erupts as East London gallery accused of showing ‘alt-right’ and ‘racist’ art – Art Newspaper

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LD50, an East London gallery that has come under fire for promoting fascism, says the cultural sphere has become the preserve of the Left and anyone who opposes this political viewpoint is now publicly vilified, delegitimated [sic] and intimidated with menaces. The statement, posted on the gallerys website on 21 February, comes amid calls for the space to be shut down over an exhibition and series of talks it hosted about the alt-right movement. Last summer, the Dalston-based gallery, which is run by Lucia Diego, held a neoreaction conference featuring speakers including Peter Brimelow, Brett Stevens and Iben Thranholm. Brimelow is known as an anti-immigration activist and author and is the president of the VDARE Foundation, a white nationalist organisation based in the US. Stevens edits a far-right website and has previously praised the racist mass murderer Anders Breivik, while Thranholm is a Danish journalist who writes about Christianity and theology and is an outspoken critic of European immigration policy. LD50 then organised an exhibition, titled Amerika, that included Pepe memes (Pepe the Frog is an online cartoon character that has been branded a hate symbol after racists depicted him as Adolf Hitler and a member of the Ku Klux Klan) and a cardboard cut-out of Donald Trump. The show prompted artists and campaigners to start the Tumblr blog, Shut Down LD50 Gallery, which says the gallery is using the cover of the contemporary art scene and academia to legitimise the spread of materials [that have drawn on fascist traditions] and the establishment of a culture of hatred. The blog says that LD50 has been responsible for one of the most extensive neo-Nazi cultural programmes to appear in London in the last decade. The gallery has posted all criticism on its website, including Tweets by artists denouncing its programme. LD50 has defended its programme, saying it has found itself in recent months increasingly interested in the political ruptures in the West: America and closely observed events there throughout the extraordinary and dramatic election cycle. The gallery says it presented a very liberal audience with a speaker who was knowledgeable in alt-right and NRx [neoreactionary] discourses to create a dialogue between two different and contrasting ideologies. Of its exhibition, LD50 says it explored some of the topics currently faced by our generation, including themes of memetics, the occult, male frustration, artificial intelligence [and] algorithms. The gallery maintains that the role of art is to provide a vehicle for the free exploration of ideas, even and perhaps especially where these are challenging, controversial or indeed distasteful. It continues: Art should have exemplified this willingness to discuss new ideas, but it has just become apparent to us that this sphere now (and perhaps for the last few years) stands precisely for the opposite of this.

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Row erupts as East London gallery accused of showing 'alt-right' and 'racist' art - Art Newspaper

Johnson chasing 8th title, racing immortality – La Crosse Tribune

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. Jimmie Johnson might have had an easier time had his 6-year-old daughter asked for help with a school art project. Genevieve Johnson instead left dad briefly bewildered with a messier question:

At school, the kids are asking her, saying, Your dads famous, Johnson said. How do you answer that question?

Does your dad dress in a Lowes fire suit, slide into the No. 48 Chevrolet and race on national television every weekend? Does your dad have more than 2.3 million Twitter followers, is he besieged by autograph seekers and asked to voice cartoons on the Disney Channel?

Yes, Genevieve, your father is famous.

But the more contemplative question is this: Is Johnson the greatest to ever drive a stock car? That answer is up for debate, though arguments for other contenders thin as Johnson continues to add to his championship collection.

Seven of em, if youve lost count.

An eighth would push Johnson past Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for the most ever, leaving him alone as NASCARs greatest.

Johnsons shot at history hit him in 2010 when he won his fifth straight Cup title and talk about chasing eight intensified. He won his sixth in 2013, and his surprising seventh last year now makes an eighth championship seem more inevitable than a longshot.

With 80 career wins and a pair of Daytona 500 victories, the 41-year-old Johnson wont let the record define him.

No, he said, but Im going to try (and win it), though.

Long before he fires up the Chevy, Johnsons championship pursuit begins near dawn with a run. Johnson long ago traded his race helmet for a bicycle helmet during off-hours at the track and put a twist on his Sunday finish line by running the occasional marathon before a race.

At Daytona, he biked 42 miles on Sunday morning hours before he pulled double duty and raced in the Clash and qualified for the 500. Hes inspired and coached members of the NASCAR family crew chiefs, fellow drivers and helped whip them into shape before he whipped them on the track.

With a wife, two daughters and enough race trophies to stuff a storage unit, the fitness freak has never been happier. Johnson has even won over fans who had grown tired of the 48 dynasty built with team owner Rick Hendrick and crew chief Chad Knaus. Before the championship race at Homestead, Johnson was greeted by fans holding up seven fingers, not the one-finger salute hed grown accustomed to receiving.

I get the respect from being around a long time, now he said. I think the age kind of does something.

NASCAR fans are coming around to what the drivers have known for years Johnson is an easy guy to root for.

I dont know anyone who doesnt like Jimmie, 2010 Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray said. I feel like hes the guy that you would like not to like because he does win all the time. Hes got a beautiful wife. Hes got great-looking kids. He just kind of like has everything. But hes just always so nice.

Life as a stay-at-home dad will be confined to the winter for now. While Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards have called it quits the last two years, Johnson said hes not even thinking of retirement. He loves racing too much.

When it feels like work someday, Ill stop, he said. It hasnt been there yet.

Certainly not when hes coming off a bit of a surprise championship.

Johnson was practically gifted his seventh title when Edwards aggressive attempt to win the championship ended in a wreck. Johnson got the restart of his life in overtime, took the lead on the very last lap, won for the first time in his career at Homestead and grabbed the final Sprint Cup trophy.

Johnson won all his titles in the Chase era and goes for eight under a rules revamp that divided races into segments and every point counts. Who knows? The format could be just the jolt needed for him to win five straight championships for a second time.

If I did it before, I guess it is possible, Johnson said. Its probably not probable. But its certainly possible.

Just keep some fingers free to count more championships.

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Johnson chasing 8th title, racing immortality - La Crosse Tribune

Aussies should prep for immortality, as life expectancy rises – Techly

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As children, you were probably taught that life expectancy was around 75 maybe 80 at a stretch.

However, recent breakthroughs in science and medicine have begun to challenge preexisting assumptions about human longevity.

An international team of scientists funded by the UK Medical Research Council and U.S Environmental Protection Agency has just published a study on life expectancy in the medical journal Lancet.

The findings of the study come with some caveats, but shows a significant rise in life expectancy in most of the 35 developed countries that were studied.

One notable exception is the U.S, where a combination of obesity, risks at childbirth, homicides and a lack of equal access to healthcare is inhibiting the rise. Life expectancy in the U.S is predicted to lag so much behind other developed nations that it will be around parity with Mexico by 2030. Dont tell Trump.

Of all the developed nations studied, South Korea is likely to see the largest increase in life expectancy. According to the study, there is a 90 percent probability that South Korean women will live longer than 86.7 years.

The study also showed that men, who tend to live shorter lives, are closing the gap on life expectancy.

According to the study, Aussies are kicking goals when it comes to living.

The key to longevity may also be a really big knife

Male Australians born in 2010 can expect to live to around 80, which is currently longer than any other country. However, it is predicted that by 2030, South Korean male babies will overtake this and are expected to live to around 84.

Meanwhile, female Australians are currently ranked fourth in life expectancy at around 84. Aussie sheilas born in 2030 can expect to live to the ripe old age of 87ish.

Along with South Korea and Australia, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Japan are also doing well.

By 2030, the populations with the highest life expectancies are predicted to be:

1. South Korea 2. France, Japan 3. Spain 4. Switzerland 5. Australia

For men it will be:

1. South Korea 2. Australia 3. Switzerland 4. Canada 5. Netherlands

The study utilised 21 different models of life expectancy in order to come up with as definitive predictions as possible. However, when dealing with the future there is always a degree of uncertainty.

The authors posit that South Koreas top position is most likely due to improvements in the economy and education. In addition, infant mortality has dropped and nutrition has improved. Obesity, something that Aussies need to be wary of, is not a huge issue in South Korea and very few women smoke.

Professor Majid Ezzati, an author of the study, told BBC News:

South Korea has gotten a lot of things right They seem to have been a more equal place and things that have benefited people education, nutrition have benefited most people. And so far, they are better at dealing with hypertension and have some of the lowest obesity rates in the world.

The countries performing well all invest in universal healthcare systems which reach or attempt to reach the entire population.

In Australia, we are lucky enough to have such a system.

Stefan is an Adelaide-based writer who has returned to Australia after living in Taiwan for 14 years. In his spare time he plays nerdy board games, collects vinyl and brushes up on his Mandarin.

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Aussies should prep for immortality, as life expectancy rises - Techly

L3 MAPPS to Supply Digital Control Computer System Hardware for … – Nuclear Street – Nuclear Power Plant News, Jobs, and Careers (press release)…

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--Press Release--

L3 MAPPS announced today that it has won a contract from Bruce Power to replace the existing Bruce B Unit 6 Digital Control Computer (DCC) system with all-new hardware. Three DCCs will be delivered to Bruce Power. The first unit (DCC-Z) will be used as a maintenance platform and is due to be installed in the first quarter of 2018. The other two DCCs (DCC-X and DCC-Y) are redundant units for plant operations and are expected to be delivered in the second quarter of 2019.

DCC systems are used to monitor and control the major reactor and power plant functions at CANDU* nuclear power plants. The new DCC system will feature the latest SSCI-890 CPUs and will replace the legacy Varian V72 computer systems and related equipment to ensure continuous, safe and reliable performance over the service life of the plant.

Our first DCC system, built in the early 1970s, was for the Bruce site. With this new project, we have come full circle, marking a new chapter in L3 MAPPS DCC business, said Michael Chatlani, Vice President of Marketing & Sales for L3 MAPPS Power Systems and Simulation. We are happy to continue our long collaboration with Bruce Power. Leveraging our record of on-time, on-budget performance, we look forward to our further support of the Bruce site for many years to come.

Replacing the DCCs at the Bruce site is an important element of the Life-Extension Program at Bruce Power, said Mike Rencheck, President & CEO of Bruce Power. Bruce Powers Life-Extension program will mean the Bruce site will continue to power the province until 2064, and this is good news for families and businesses across Ontario. Bruce Power, and the electricity it provides Ontario families and businesses, is part of the solution over the short and long terms to provide a source of low-cost stable electricity.

Bruce Power is Canadas first private nuclear generator, providing 30 percent of Ontarios power at 30 percent below the average residential price. The Bruce site, home to eight CANDU reactors in Tiverton, Ontario, is the worlds largest operating nuclear generating facility. The company is progressing with a series of incremental life-extension investments, including Major Component Replacement, to secure a clean, reliable and low-cost source of electricity for Ontario families and businesses for decades to come.L3 MAPPS has over 30 years of experience in pioneering technological advances in the marine automation field and over 40 years of experience in delivering high-fidelity power plant simulation to leading utilities worldwide. In addition, the company has more than four decades of expertise in supplying plant computer systems for Canadian heavy water reactors. L3 MAPPS also provides targeted controls and simulation solutions to the space sector. To learn more about L3 MAPPS, please visit the companys website at http://www.L3T.com/MAPPS.

Headquartered in New York City, L3 Technologies employs approximately 38,000 people worldwide and is a leading provider of a broad range of communication and electronic systems and products used on military, homeland security and commercial platforms. L3 is also a prime contractor in aerospace systems, security and detection systems, and pilot training. The company reported 2016 sales of $10.5 billion. To learn more about L3, please visit the companys website at http://www.L3T.com.

Safe Harbor Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this news release are forward-looking statements. Statements that are predictive in nature, that depend upon or refer to events or conditions or that include words such as expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, estimates, will, could and similar expressions are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements set forth above involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any such statement, including the risks and uncertainties discussed in the companys Safe Harbor Compliance Statement for Forward-Looking Statements included in the companys recent filings, including Forms 10-K and 10-Q, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

# # #

*CANDU is a registered trademark of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, used under license by Candu Energy Inc., a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group.

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Kambalda faces future with no nickel output – The West Australian

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Kambalda has run on nickel dust since it kicked off the base metals Australian boom in the 1960s.

It is now facing having virtually no nickel production in the town by February next year, with Independence Group saying reserve life extensions at the harvesting phase Long nickel mine have proved unsuccessful.

Long which delivered 2365 tonnes of nickel to the BHP Billiton Kambalda concentrator in the December quarter and RNC Minerals Beta Hunt, which is now largely a gold operation, are the only producing nickel mines in Kambalda, where a series of operations have been put on care and maintenance amid low prices for the stainless steel ingredient since 2015.

Independence Group managing director Peter Bradford, who is also grappling with lagging development at the companys flagship Nova nickel- copper mine 160km east of Norseman, said drilling at Victor West had proven unsuccessful.

It is now hoping to find extensions at Long North, but said IGO could not expand a $2 million-$3 million a year exploration budget in Kambalda unless realistic targets were found.

In the first half we were drilling at what we call Victor West, but that work didnt prove to be successful and were getting ready to do some work at Long North, he said, adding the company was revisiting 3-D seismic data from a decade ago with new technology.

So were doing that work, but being miners, we are eternally optimistic that were going to find the next Moran at Long, Mr Bradford said.

But while we continue to maintain that optimism and pursue some of these mining extension opportunities, were also pragmatic, and in parallel we continue to make sure we have closure plans and that sort of thing up to date as we are required to by law.

He told analysts on an earnings call this week IGO could spend between $5 million and $6 million on mine closure at Long if reserve life could not be extended in the next year.

The glimmer of hope for nickel producers is a slight price rise over the past year amid an expected supply deficit. Mr Bradford is forecasting a supply deficit in excess of 100,000t by the end of this year, with recent mine closures in the Philippines cancelling the potential supply flood from the relaxation of Indonesias 2014 nickel export ban.

Panoramic Resources could bring Lanfranchi back if the nickel price, $US4.90 a pound yesterday, rose above $5/lb for a substantial period.

It would be likely to bring the Savannah project in the Kimberly online first, but Mincor will have a lead time of more than a year to bring Miitel or Durkin North into production if the price is right.

BHP Nickel West, which runs the Kambalda concentrator, the Kalgoorlie nickel smelter, and the Kwinana nickel refinery, is back in the black after delivering $US37 million in underlying earnings in the first half of the financial year, a $US136 million turnaround on the $US109m loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation it booked in the same period in 2015.

BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said the company would hold onto the once ailing asset, just three years after it failed to find a buyer.

It continues to show examples to the rest of the organisation as to how we can drive even more safety and productivity and Im happy with it in its form within the portfolio for now, he said.

With hopes for a potential rise in the nickel price, Mr Bradford said near mine and regional exploration could become more attractive in 2018, even if Long did close.

We have not made any final decisions that far ahead, but my expectation is that in the event we werent successful in identifying reserve life extensions between now and February, we would pursue opportunities in a care-and-maintenance environment after the cessation of that reserve life, he said. The team on site is currently re-looking at some of the resource areas that may not have been viable in the past.

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Kambalda faces future with no nickel output - The West Australian

Sean Spicer blames chaotic town halls on ‘professional protesters.’ So did Obama’s team. – Washington Post

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Congressman Dave Brat (R-Va.) faced a raucous group of detractors and supporters at a town hall meeting in tiny Blackstone, Va. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

President Trump and the Obama administration share a stance toward protests at town halls: Meh.

Here's Trump on Tuesday evening in response to flare-ups at GOP town halls in recent days.

And here's White House press secretary Robert Gibbs back in August 2009, when the tea party was starting to raise hell in town halls about the Affordable Care Act:

Q: Are you concerned at what appears to be well-orchestrated protesting of health care reform at town halls as derailing your message?

GIBBS: No. I get asked every day about the myriad of things that could be derailing our message. I would point out that I don't know what all those guys were doing, what were they called, the Brooks Brothers Brigade in Florida in 2000, appear to have rented a similar bus and are appearing together at town hall meetings throughout the country.

Gibbs added: I hope people will take a jaundiced eye to what is clearly the astroturf nature of so-called grassroots lobbying This is manufactured anger.

Gibbs, it turns out, wasn't really right. We'll see whether Trump is.

Astroturfing, for those unfamiliar, is the political practice of making something appear organic as though it's coming from the grass roots. The implication is that the protesters aren't really regular-Joe citizens, but political activists sometimes appearing at multiple town halls to cause a scene and make the movement appear bigger than it is.

Update: Now Sean Spicer, echoing Trump, says, "It is a loud group, small group of people disrupting something, in many cases, for media attention." Spicer, though, is actually more charitable to the protesters than the Obama White Huse was, saying they are a "hybrid" of activists and astroturfing.

The problem with town hall protests is that they are, by nature, defined by anecdotes and the viral nature of a limited number of heated exchanges. It's nearly impossible to know how representative this is of broader unhappiness with the president (or anything else). It's too difficult to quantify anger, where it's coming from and how representative it is of the broader populations.

Scott Jennings, a former aide to President George W. Bush who has also worked forSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), made what I think is a valuable point about all of this:

Whether Tuesday'sprotesters in Anderson County, Ky.,who told McConnell to do your job wereactually out-of-town malcontents" -- the same allegation Gibbs made in 2009 is kind of beside the point. Even if these people lived in Anderson County, or anyplace in Kentucky, do their chants really represent the broader population in their county or their state? Just because a small group of people is making good TV, does that mean McConnell should really be concerned? And has there been an appreciable change in voter sentiments less than four months since the election?

Polling suggests we're in pretty much at the same position. Trump was elected as an unpopular candidate, and he's nowan unpopular president. The opposition to him was extremely vocal during the campaign calling him a racist, sexist, misogynist and Islamophobe and it remains extremely vocal today.

But the comparison between today and 2009 is an instructive one. It's entirely possible that those protests more than sevenyears ago were being organized and weren't totally organic, as Gibbs alleged. But it's also clear that any such organizing was successful precisely because actual opposition to the Affordable Care Actwas a strong motivator for people to turn out to the town halls. And opposition to Obama's health-care planbecame such a rallying cry on the right that it spurred the Republican takeover of the House in 2010 and then helped them take the Senate in 2014. It was certainly more substantial than Gibbs professed to believe at the time; it amounted to the canary in the coal mine for Democrats in Congress.

That said, it's just so difficult to know where to draw the line between flashy protests at town halls and legitimate, game-changing shifts in the political zeitgeist. It's not that we shouldn't cover these protestsand try to understand them. And it's not that these burgeoning town hall eventscouldn't become a sign of something bigger; they certainly could, and opposition to Trump has majority status in the United States. But we should always be aware that anecdotes can also be just that anecdotes.

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Sean Spicer blames chaotic town halls on 'professional protesters.' So did Obama's team. - Washington Post

Summer of Love 50th Anniversary Posters Wake up Market Street – 7×7

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Break out your flower crowns and your crochet crop tops: The Summer of Love returns to San Francisco this year for a 50th anniversary celebration.

As part of a series of celebrations leading up to this summer, the San Francisco Arts Commission asked three local artists to examine the historic season of revolution through a contemporary lens for its popular Art on Market Street Poster Series. The first in the series, The Zeitgeist by Deborah Aschheim, highlights some of the people and events that defined 1967 through highly detailed pen and ink drawings.

From now through May 12, 2017, pedestrians along Market Street will see scenes that recall the 1967 Spring Mobilization, the Vietnam War, and the Human Be-In, alongside portraits of individuals including City Lights Books founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Each image is contextualized by a caption: A drawing of a Black Panther woman is accompanied by a quote from famous Panther member Kathleen Cleaver.

"Deborah Aschheim's beautifully rendered posters capture the spirit of the ideas and radical expression that made the San Francisco Bay Area the epicenter of the counterculture movement," said Director of Cultural Affairs Tom DeCaigny. "The 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love is an opportunity to reconnect with its important legacy of political activism, inclusiveness and, above all, love."

To prepare for the series, Aschheim rigorously researched the archives at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, unearthing the stories of people who participated in the Diggers, an anarchist art troupe that was a fixture of the Haight-Ashbury; the Vanguard, an early LGBT rights group based in the Tenderloin; and a number of other significant political activists from the late 1960s.

"My project explores the intersection of political and social utopian ideas that drew people to San Francisco, from the Free Speech movement at Berkeley to the art, music, and lifestyle scene," says Aschheim. "I hope that entrepreneurs and billionaires have not replaced revolutionaries and poets as our heroes. I want to re-animate an authentic vision of 1967 that still has the power to inspire us to disrupt society in creative ways."

// The Zeitgeist can be seen in Muni bus kiosks on Market Street between Embarcadero and Eighth Street through May 12. Subsequent series will feature new work by Sarah Hotchkiss and Kate Haug.

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Summer of Love 50th Anniversary Posters Wake up Market Street - 7x7

Interruptions with fluid movements – The Navhind Times

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NT BUZZ Gallery Gitanjali is hosting the second session of Fontainhas Exchange, Is, Interrupted, a performance by Astri Ghosh in collaboration with Pushpanjali Sharma and Gautam Nima through poetry, movement, music and text developed in response to and in conversation with the artworks of Praveen Naiks solo exhibition at Gallery Gitanjali, Notes From The Zeitgeist. Using the gallery as a stage, poet Astri Ghosh and performing artists Pushpanjali Sharma and Gautam Nima will come together to peel through interruptions in identity, intimacy and intention. Astri Ghosh is a poet and writer. After working as a journalist for many years she turned to translation and has published 12 books in Norwegian, English and Hindi. Her translations have been included in four anthologies. She grew up in Delhi and Mussoorie, and moved to Norway to study at the University of Oslo. Astri is currently translating twelve contemporary plays of Henrik Ibsen, four of which were published in 2015. Pushpanjali Sharma and Gautam Nima are interdisciplinary performing artists based in Goa. They are engaged in developing performances and pedagogies that serve experiential knowing through embodiment, movement and dance and somatic and mind-body practices. They believe experiential learning, embodied knowing and interdisciplinary education is the way to bring about change, and this can successfully happen through non-dual practices. They use movement arts towards self-knowing, personal transformation and healing, and teach the same through their workshops. As dancers they are interested in opening dance beyond the realm of entertainment and fitness, encouraging individuals to embark on a journey of self knowing through the lived body and movement as experience. Their performance works are contemplative and philosophical in nature, exposing the unseen, unheard and unvoiced. Through their performances they work towards reducing the gap between the audience and artist and enhancing their experience by inviting them to be a part of their work through interaction and their own creative contribution.

(The performance of Is, Interrupted will be held at Gallery Gitanjali on February 22 at 6 p.m. The event is open to all).

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DENIM SPIRIT: An economy based on abundance – Finger Lakes Times

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Looking out on Seneca Lake, when the sky is cloudless sapphire blue, the sun shining brilliantly from its distant perch, it seems as if the star at the center of our solar system gets caught in the fire of shimmering diamonds atop small waves.

I am talking about those white crystals gleaming by the thousands off the lake, so bright that naked eyes are forced to squint. Looking at those white blossoms of light shining off the waves, I imagine they are waiting to be picked like so much cotton in a field of blue.

There are real jewels of light in the field of dreams inside the human heart and mind. It is not even my imagination; they are real. If harnessed, these bits and pieces of light within the crowded cosmos inside us would utterly transform life as we live it.

Love, for example, is one such element. Think about the nature of it. Love creates love, whether the romantic, familial, or friendship kind. There is no scarcity in love, only abundance. There is an edgier, subversive element to love as well. The willful choice to love someone someone we could more easily hate than love actually heals our woundedness over time. Now think about love in economic terms.

Abundance is intrinsic in love.

Love generates a greater capacity to love, and the more we do it, the more we have of it. It is enough to make a capitalist miserable. If it were a commodity of trade, love as a self-generating resource, with an ever-increasing capacity for production, would be dangerously subversive to any economy based upon scarcity and self-interest as our economy is. In

bottom-line, quantitative economics, love is astonishing and subversive.

Forgiveness is another small shimmering diamond found within the deep space of the human heart and mind.

Forgiveness is like a cell attracting other cells in the process of forming new life. Forgiving someone actually generates within us an even greater capacity to forgive ourselves deepening our capacity to accept who we are, just as we are, even without further improvement.

Forgiveness is synergistic like that: The willful choice, for example, to forgive someone we could more easily resent, conditions and builds emotional and spiritual muscle that we also need in order to more deeply accept ourselves. So, like love, the nature of forgiveness is abundance rather than scarcity.

But in our economy, the consumeristic one, the presence of forgiveness would sound a death-knell to whole industries. The consumerism upon which our economy is built, depends upon and trades in the power of diminishment and injury, raising self-doubt and self-hatred so that consumers buy more of what promises to make them beautiful or acceptable. Forgiveness would corrode those efforts from the inside out.

Consider another gem, one almost never heard spoken these days: mercy. Mercy spawns mercy.

Even though rarely mentioned in polite society any more, mercy is a crucial element of any universe we would ever want to live in. What mercy does is melt away our drive to be right, and to win at all costs, and to demand punishment and retribution. Mercy bears the sweet, nearly indescribably fruit we call kindness.

Imagine a social order that valued mercy even more than justice? If we were thinking about our own self-interest, isnt that the kind of society we would want if we found ourselves on the margin?

So, whereas our economy creates and trades in currencies based on scarcity, the elements of our better natures are self-generating and therefore exhaustively abundant. Love, forgiveness, and mercy just to name three reproduce exponentially when exposed to fresh air and are allowed to circulate and be nurtured.

So often we credit competitiveness and dog-eat-dog fierceness with being elements upon which a better economy is built. We even imagine those are the driving forces that have promoted us as winners on the evolutionary scale. But I wonder, as I think about these sparkling beauties in the field of human qualities, if our assumption is indeed true.

Cameron Miller is the author of the spiritual fiction The Steam Room Diaries and numerous published poems, and is publisher of http://www.subversivepreacher.org. He lives and writes in Geneva and serves as the priest of Trinity Episcopal Church. He can be reached at dspiritflt@ gmail.com.

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DENIM SPIRIT: An economy based on abundance - Finger Lakes Times

Mark Cuban Says Basic Income Would Be the ‘Worst Response’ to Automation – Fortune

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Mark Cuban at FOX Studios in New York City on June 9, 2016.John LamparskiGetty Images

Business mogul Mark Cuban found himself in a Twitter feud this week over how best to deal with future job losses caused by automation.

The tech investor, Shark Tank host and Dallas Mavericks owner tweeted earlier this week that we need to prepare for impending job losses due to robots and artificial intelligence, CNBC reports.

When asked by writer Scott Santens, an advocate of universal basic income (UBI), whether he would support the policy of governments providing a baseline income to all citizens regardless of their employment status, Cuban replied that it was one of the worst responses to the problem.

UBI advocates argue that giving citizens cash income is more effective than welfare programs in countries where it has been piloted, and that the policy may not, as detractors suggest, incentivize unemployment.

Countries such as Finland , Namibia and Liberia have experimented with the policy with varying results. Santens replied to Cuban with a picture of a fact sheet claiming that self-employment in Namibia rose 301% after implementing UBI, while in India recipients were found to be three times as likely to start their own businesses.

For more on the impacts of automation, watch Fortune's video:

Cuban nonetheless rejected the argument, saying he had spent a lot of time looking at it and wasnt convinced, prodding Santens for more evidence and triggering a trailing back and forth between the two.

The billionaire investor has previously said little about how automation may impact jobs in the future. As a major investor in tech giants like Amazon ( amzn ) and Netflix ( nflx ) , Cuban is likely to reap benefits from AI where the average worker may see less desirable outcomes.

A number of other major figures in the tech industry, such as Tesla ( tsla ) CEO Elon Musk , have begun to back policies like UBI out of concern that a wave of unemployment could be created by automated labor.

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Mark Cuban Says Basic Income Would Be the 'Worst Response' to Automation - Fortune

Amazon, Uber, and Bill Gates’s Robot Tax: An Automation Snapshot – Xconomy

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As we gear up for Robo Madness 2017: A.I. Gets Real, our annual robotics and artificial intelligence conference at Googles offices in Kendall Square, lets connect a few dots around the topic of automation.

In just the past day or two:

Uber has started testing self-driving cars in Tempe, AZ, after having its tests banned in San Francisco in December. (Of course, Uber has got bigger problems at the moment.)

UPS tested a rudimentary form of drone delivery in Lithia, FL. A drone carrying a package took off from the roof of a UPS truck, dropped the package at a destination, and returned to the truck.

Amazon is planning to sell beer and wine at its Go convenience store in Seattle, which will automatically bill customers on their way out (no cashiers). A human worker will be needed to check IDs, though.

The impact of automation on jobs and society is an increasingly hot topic, with debates going on about how and when human workers will be displaced by robots and A.I. systems.

Bill Gates said in a recent interview with Quartz that governments should tax companies use of automation technologies, to mitigate the impact of job losses. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things, Gates said. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think that wed tax the robot at a similar level.

Gatess idea is that robot taxes can be put towards things like education, elder care, and other societal needs. But government, not businesses, would need to make that happen, he said. And thats what scares me.

Gregory T. Huang is Xconomy's Deputy Editor, National IT Editor, and Editor of Xconomy Boston. E-mail him at gthuang [at] xconomy.com.

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Amazon, Uber, and Bill Gates's Robot Tax: An Automation Snapshot - Xconomy

Automation, employees and the bottom line – CIO Dive

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Advancements in technology are not always welcome, particularly to a workforce fearing displacement. This is particularly true with the rise of automation, with the threat that companies could outsource labor to machines. And while experts say artificial intelligence and automation can provide a cheaper and better way to solve problems that previously took up valuable human time and effort, putting numbers to those changes is challenging.

Almost half of knowledge work activity can be automated, according to a recent McKinseystudy.Physical tasks "in highly structured and predictable environments, as well as data collection and processing" will be the first to be automated, according to the report. And because those types of jobs make up a little over half of activities in the economy, that equates to almost $2.7 trillion in wages.

McKinsey also acknowledges almost all occupations blue collar and white collar have potential for some automation, which could result in a savings of about $16 trillion in wages. Those are big numbers, certainly large enough to garner the attention of businesses looking to trim costs in a competitive environment.

Though it is often approached with fear, automation doesn't necessarily mean bad things for employees. When it comes to replacing workers altogether,McKinsey estimates that could only work in less than 5% of occupations.

Instead, automation is more likely to make employees more productive.

While some people express concerns about job losses due to automation, others focus on how the gradual displacement in the workforce through automation will aid the economy and drive growth. McKinsey estimates automation could raise productivity growth globally by 0.8% to 1.4% annually.

"Technology such as natural language generation (NLG) AI technology that can absorb vast quantities of big data and communicate key insights and conclusions into easily digestible reports will drive our workforce forward by streamlining processes, helping people to do their jobs more efficiently," said Sharon Daniels, CEO of Arria NLG. "The best and brightest will be free to innovate; the engineers to build, the doctors to heal, the scientists to discover."

Only 60%or less of actual work time today is spent productively, according to a report from Atlassian.If employees had access to tools and technology they need to automate their workflow, the amount of time spent on workflow disruptions could be drastically lowered.

Through technologies like AI and automation, "the best and brightest will be free to innovate; the engineers to build, the doctors to heal, the scientists to discover."

Sharon Daniels

CEO of Arria NLG

"Successful work will require humans and machines working together to better delight customers, better grow the top line, and better improve the bottom line," said Tiger Tyagarajan, CEO of Genpact.

Workers will not only be happier, many are likely to see a bump in salary as well, Tyagarajan predicts. For example, a recent Deloitte study in the U.K. found that AI technology has replaced 800,000 lower-skilled jobs with 3.5 million new ones, which pay on average 10,000 ($12,500)more than the jobs they replaced. Those jobs include engineers and data analysts, who create the machines and analyze the data collected by the them.

"Essentially, as tasks and jobs become increasingly automated, that automation opens the door for employees to work more efficiently and creatively to solve problems in which human knowledge is intrinsically valuable," said Tyagarajan. "Machines are taking over more and more repetitive, time-consuming tasks, meaning humans will have more time to take on higher-skilled roles."

Daniels agreed. For example, in financial services and healthcare, the vast troves of data collected can change as fast as someone can analyze it.

"AI capabilities and the ability to automate reporting actually takes the time-consuming and repetitive mechanical tasks away from the human, freeing them to investigate new ideas and to create new solutions," said Daniels."We believe that AI will augment knowledge-workers, who will advance to a whole new level of expertise."

"Successful work will require humans and machines working together to better delight customers, better grow the top line, and better improve the bottom line."

Tiger Tyagarajan

CEO of Genpact

The tasks that are taken away by AI are often the time-consuming, repetitive, mundane tasks associated with preparing reports.

"The responsibility of actual reporting remains intact but now can be done more efficiently, in real-time and at scale," said Daniels. "This does not remove the job per se; it optimizes the dynamics of the task, allowing knowledge knowledge-workers and analysts to do more and know more, faster."

One question that remains unanswered: If automation is to take away jobs, will the CIO be responsible for making that decision?

While it's still unclear, experts say in some cases, it will likely be the CIO, but the chief data officer (CDO) may also play a role.

It will also depend on the area being automated. For example, financial services and healthcare sectors see a strong ROI from using AI technology."While the CIO has a responsibility for implementation, the benefits are delivered to multiple departments and stakeholders, so decision-making typically becomes a collective exercise of evaluating and redefining information-related roles," Daniels said.

Either way, experts say enterprise IT leaders need to begin preparing their workers to embrace robots as teammates, not adversaries. McKinsey predicts workers will have to adapt for automation and perhaps learn new, more complex skills that they then perform alongside machines. It will therefore be more a matter of better assisting machines rather than being replaced by them.

"While the CIO has a responsibility for implementation, the benefits are delivered to multiple departments and stakeholders, so decision-making typically becomes a collective exercise of evaluating and redefining information-related roles."

Sharon Daniels

CEO of Arria NLG

"I would advise CEOs and CIOs to stay focused on creating a company culture that equips employees with the tools to succeed in a workplace cohabited by robots," said Tyagarajan. "Pushback both internal and external is inevitable during times of transformation, especially at the beginning."

Leaders need to be transparent and accountable. This begins with keeping employees in the loop when it comes to how and when the company plans to apply AI and automated systems. Employees need to know that while the robots are coming for some jobs, it is possible to retrain and reskill to work alongside them.

"Developing reskilling and education programs is absolutely key to helping employees feel empowered rather than threatened by the rise of robots at work," said Tyagarajan. "[These] programs should focus on teaching human employees how to create, use and maintain the AI systems they will be working alongside."

Workers should also keep in mind there are many areas where humans still outperform machines such as any task requiring negotiation, judgment or creativity.

"By helping human employees build on these strengths, leaders will help employees accept machine teammates as valuable supplements to human talent, rather than insidious replacements," said Tyagarajan.

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Automation, employees and the bottom line - CIO Dive