Monthly Archives: August 2017

Olympic Games face crucial turning point: The Japan News columnist – The Straits Times

Posted: August 3, 2017 at 10:13 am

Wakako Yuki

TOKYO (THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC), facing a critical trend of bid city withdrawal, opened the way for a double award for Paris and Los Angeles as the 2024 and 2028 summer Olympic Games hosts. Los Angeles responded on Monday that the city would accept 2028 candidacy.

The fact that the IOC resorted to such an unusual measure suggests that the Olympic Movement today faces a historic turning point.

"Our discussions and decisions today will chart the course of the Olympic Games for the foreseeable future."

With these words, IOC President Thomas Bach began his speech to open the Extraordinary IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 11.

"Today, when people see that the government, the opposition, business and the sport community - in other words, the entire establishment - is united behind one project (an Olympic Games bid), then the people immediately have mistrust and conclude that something must be terribly wrong.

"Populist movements are on the rise. There is a profound change in the decision-making process in many Western countries. For all these reasons we had and continue to have a much smaller number of potential candidate cities," he said.

By giving Paris and Los Angeles, the two remaining cities in the 2024 bid race, the right to host the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympic Games, the IOC has found a way to ensure stability for the next 11 years. Emphasising this point, Bach secured unanimous agreement to the proposal.

However, establishing stability is not the same as solving the problem. It is necessary to focus on the root of the trend.

Why are there such strong public criticisms slowing down the Olympic bid momentum?

Many cities withdrew from the 2022 and 2024 Olympic bidding after defeats in local referendums or due to political decisions citing negative public opinion. Is the Olympic Movement coming to a crossroads? I listened to the views of the IOC members at the extraordinary session.

Many IOC members endorse the view put forth by Bach that today's political and social climate, the zeitgeist, is a factor. In other words, it is a view that looks for the cause in trends outside the Olympic Movement, not internally.

Europe, the birthplace of the modern Olympics, has been shaken by economic crises, terrorism and immigration issues.

Today there is less need for city redevelopment as many European and U.S. cities have matured, changing the meaning of hosting the Games. In the age of the internet, negative impressions move freely, making it easy for critical opinion and opposition movements to spread.

The public movements that led to the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in the United States, and to the Brexit decision in Britain, contain at heart misgivings toward the existing political and economic system and long-held values. The same adverse wind faces Olympic bids.

Hence the modern Olympic Games, which for last three decades have built and expanded their reach using a capitalist model and by gaining support from political and economic systems, are now prone to face criticism, often under the banner of "concern for cost."

IOC members often point out that the only Games cost for which the IOC has any responsibility are the operation costs of the organising committees, which are not on the rise and are almost all in surplus.

There is no doubt that the Olympics are a mirror reflecting international society and are influenced by present trends. However, if one were to look back over the Olympics' history, it may seem that the shortage of bid cities can be attributed to external factors in those particular eras, as well as overlapping incidents that have occurred during the preceding Olympiads. Two factors seem to affect the decline most: costs being out of control, and the damage to Olympic values based on ethics and ideals.

When in the past the number of bidding cities decreased to two or less, it was thought to be a warning signal for the continuation of the Olympics. For the 2022 Winter Olympic bid (won by Beijing in 2015) and for the 2024 Summer Games (to be voted on in September) only two cities remained in the final selection for each.

The last decline in Olympic history took place in an era that the late Juan Antonio Samaranch, who became IOC president in 1980, called "a challenging period which was labeled by critics as the demise of the Olympic Games."

The decade featured the terrorist incident during the 1972 Munich Games, the financial overrun of the 1976 Montreal Games (after this there was only one candidate city), and the 1980 Moscow Games that were hit by boycotts. The host city selection held in 1981 featured two Asian cities, Seoul and Nagoya (won by Seoul). Though the boycotts were an external factor, they damaged the philosophy set forth by the Olympics, and lowered their perceived value. The opposition movement in Nagoya at the time serves as proof of this.

The trend was turned by the commercialisation of the Games led by then-President Samaranch, and right after the financial success of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the number of Olympic bid cities recorded a new surge. However, in the last several years, they have declined again.

Looking at the current situation in light of the past, a similar trend may emerge. There were reports that the total cost of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which actually included massive urban development, reached 5 trillion (S$61.47 billion), an all-time high for either the summer or winter Games.

This, combined with the economic recession in Europe, scared off European candidates for the 2022 Winter Games bidding. The following year saw a damning revelation of systematic doping in Russia, together with the corruption of the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, then an IOC member.

These led to a loss of confidence in the fairness of competitions and damaged ethical values. For the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, Brazil's political and economic turmoil obviously played the key part, but the delayed preparations and financial challenges left a negative impression.

"There may be some of that reaction (rooted in current political and social trends), but I suspect much of it is the result of growing concerns about corruption and moral leadership," was the observation of Dick Pound, who led an investigation into the Russian doping scandal. "Sport has, to a considerable degree, allowed those values to become tarnished. If it can re-instate them, I believe that much of the current doubt or cynicism could be dissipated."

Using the 11 years of "golden stability" that will be secured by choosing hosts for both the 2024 and 2028 Games, how can the IOC restructure the Olympic Games and the bidding system? Bach responded that he intends to "increase the value of the Olympic Games."

By reducing costs, and making reforms that will attract more bidding cities, Bach hopes to establish historical proof in the examples of successful Games organisation, including Tokyo 2020.

He often says: "If you react to a challenge, your options are limited. We want to be the leaders of change, not the object of change."

So he did, at the end of 2014, when the IOC approved the "Olympic Agenda 2020" for reform, which already highlighted the need for cost reduction and changes to the bidding process.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be the first summer Games under the reformed policy, expected to be the cornerstone of efforts to change the tide.

Paving the way for two cities to hold the 2024 and 2028 Olympics is another strategic cornerstone.

While putting on a strong face, the IOC can break the negative trend of cities withdrawing bids.

Furthermore, the two cities are expected to present "golden opportunities" for raising the value of the Olympic Games; Paris, where the modern Olympic Games saw their creation by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, and Los Angeles, promising another private-funded Olympic organisation.

What then?

"The rest is up to my successor," said Bach, with a big smile hiding the meticulous calculations behind it.

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Here’s where you can buy the "Equal Rights Now" tee you’ve seen almost every celebrity wearing – HelloGiggles

Posted: at 10:13 am

Females Are Strong As Hell

If youve been on Instagram at all since November, then youve probably noticed a resurgence in politically-charged tees. Tees have always been loud statement-makers, especially in a political context. How clothing is made, what it means in relation to the zeitgeist, and what it represents are all inherently political, even though it may not always be obvious. And in case youre looking to wear your woke-ness on your sleeve with a shirt, then you may want to grab this Equal Rights Now tee featuring iconic feministsDorothy Pitman HughesandGloria Steinem.

The photo on this shirt, which first appeared in a 1971 issue of Esquire magazine, features Gloria and Dorothy with their fists up. Its a stern and timeless testament to everything the womens empowerment movement stands for: Intersectional equality on every front. Now, the famed photo is getting a DIY makeover on this shirt and furthering the demand for equal rights for all.

Thanks to everyone who supported our represent.com/equalrights campaign so far! Help raise money and awareness for the Equal Rights Coalition to finally pass the Equal Rights Amendment! #EqualRightNow

Giving some background on the amendment, Represent states,

The ERA still hasnt been passed, and the goal of this shirt is to help promote awareness so that it can finally be adopted. And for $24.99, you know your money is going to a good cause while also helping you spread the word about the importance of this amendment.

The shirts start shipping on August 25th, so prepare your bodies. Youll be able to wear these sooner than you think.

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Should the Leading Online Tech Companies Be Regulated as Public Utilities? – Lawfare (blog)

Posted: at 10:12 am

Should the leading online tech companies be regulated as public utilities? Maybe so, according to White House advisor Steve Bannon. His basic argument, according to The Intercept, is that Facebook and Google have become effectively a necessity in contemporary life. Thus far, the tech sector and Washington think-tank crowd have not grappled with that possibility in much depth, if at all. This post will provide a look at some reasons that leading tech companies today resemble sectors traditionally subjected to public utility regulation, and then consider some strong critiques of such a regulatory approach.

Historically, utility regulation has been more prominent where we see: (1) high market share; (2) a service that is vital for consumers; (3) a natural monopoly; and (4) barriers to exit by consumers. For the first factor, one can debate which market measurements to use, but Facebook and Google are unquestionably large. Both have billions of users globally. Google has about an 88 percent market share globally for search, and Facebook now reaches about 89 percent of U.S. Internet users. As to the second, online services are perhaps not quite as vital to daily life as electricity, but Bannon is likely correct to say that services such as search, navigation, and social networks are effectively a necessity of modern life.

The third factor appears more complicated; at first glance, tech companies are not a great fit with the traditional concept of natural monopoly, which economist William Baumol defined as an industry in which multi-firm production is more costly than production by a monopoly." Traditional utility regulation focused on sectors such as electricity, telephone, and cable: high capital costs to entering those markets meant it usually made no economic sense to build a duplicative set of power, phone, or cable lines to the home. For online services, by contrast, the cost of creating a new web site is trivially small, so new social networks can easily begin with an innovative approach and instantly get to the users home or mobile device. However, a network becomes more valuable as more people joina concept called a network effect. Network effects can readily exist for social networks, with sites like Twitter and Facebook increasing in value to each member as more users join. Strong network effects can create costly if not impossible conditions for new entrants seeking to compete with the market leader.

Lastly, as for barriers to exit for consumers, the government applied traditional utility regulation when consumers had no easy way to cut themselves off from a service, such as electricity or phone service. This condition may well apply to Facebook, Google, or other major tech firms. For Facebook, ending use would risk losing touch with friends, accessing news and emergency alerts, and quite a bit more. For Google services, logged-in users could lose access to some of the most advanced email, navigation, video, search, and other personalized services.

There are also compelling arguments against the view that online services today deserve regulation as public utilities. For online services, a competing service really is just a click away if the current service does not serve customer needs. In addition, antitrust experts emphasize the importance of leapfrog competition, in which a different company or business model does not compete head-on with the current market leader, but instead jumps to the next generation and displaces the incumbent there. This phenomenon has many examples in information technology. MySpace lost out to Facebook. Windows and Microsoft Office dominated the PC market for many years, but have no similar hold on todays pervasive mobile devices, while Google Docs and other cloud software services have successfully challenged Microsofts software license model.

More broadly, public utility regulation as a cure may be worse than the disease. A major deregulatory backlash followed the public utility regulation applied to numerous U.S. industries in the 1960s. Under President Carter, a progressive alliance of economist Alfred Kahn, then-Senate staffer Stephen Breyer, and Ralph Nader succeeded in eliminating the Civil Aeronautics Board and price setting for airline tickets, opening the way for discount airlines. Under President Reagan and afterwards, deregulation spread to many previously-regulated utilities, including energy, telecommunications, and other sectors.

Observers vary greatly in which of these deregulatory changes they favor, and my intention here is not to pronounce judgment on which of the changes was desirable. Instead, I suggest that the deregulatory movement had at least three insights that corrected for some of the earlier preference for public utility regulation. First, as airline deregulation exemplifies, the traditional public utility approach does not work well for markets characterized by innovation and rapid change. Second, the debate over proper designation of public utility status should cite more than a study of market failures to justify public utility or other regulation; instead, as Neil Komesar has ably argued, policymakers should look empirically at both government failures and market failures to assess whether regulation is likely to be worthwhile in a given setting. Third, even Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama have issued Executive Orders supporting use of cost-benefit analysis to proposed regulations (while recognizing the difficulty of quantifying important variables). Applying these three insights to tech firms, innovation and rapid change are common to the tech industry, government imperfections in regulation can be high when applied to cutting-edge technology, and the costs of regulation can be especially steep in industries that otherwise would continue to innovate.

In short, there are some reasonably strong arguments that the biggest online services today are similar to traditional public utilities due to their high market share, network effects, and difficulty for consumers to live without the service. On the other hand, the old public utility approach to regulation had numerous flaws, and does not adapt readily to high-innovation markets where competition is typically based on factors other than price.

Rather than fitting public utility models for electricity or airline pricing, the emerging calls for regulation bear a closer resemblance to some of the Federal Communications Commissions past efforts to use its public utility authority to regulate television content. The growing calls for online services to take down ISIS and other terrorist communications can be seen as an update to the FCCs prohibitions on profanity (George Carlins seven dirty words) and broader historical efforts to prohibit indecent content. The calls for limits on fake news can similarly start to resemble a modern-day Fairness Doctrine, where fake news is unfair and blocked, while real news is fair and goes out to viewers.

The efforts to regulate online services as utilities, moreover, are likely to advance more quickly in countries other than the United States. The United States is more laissez faire than the rest of the world and proud of and reluctant to interfere with American-grown tech success stories. By contrast, the European Union has been willing to take high-visibility actions against Google, in the right to be forgotten limits on what can be shown in search results, and in the recent EU antitrust order that Google must avoid prioritizing search results of Google-affiliated services.

In conclusion, those who thought public utility regulation was a thing of the past might want to reconsider what is likely to happen with respect to the largest online tech companies. Steven Bannon, in calling for public utility treatment, may be expressing something in the American zeitgeist, and other countries are likely even more willing to regulate in this area than the United States. For those who are familiar with the many problems of public utility regulation, the time has likely come to make more considered and persuasive explanations for the flaws of that approach.

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Automation May Lead to a Workless Future for Humans. Here’s How We Can Cope. – Futurism

Posted: at 10:10 am

The Automation of Everything

To add to our apprehensions about the future, it seems were running out of letters with which to name successive generations: after Baby Boomers, came generation X, then Millennials (aka Gen-Y), who have now been succeeded by Generation Z.Whether or not one finds any symbolism, omen, or irony in this is beside the point. What is important to ask is: what kind of world will those born in the XXI century grow up in?

Will the automation of everythingleave many people behind, bringing despair and disappointment? Or will it urge humanity to redefine self-actualization? Will the realization of ones potential no longer be defined by career success or measured by net-worth? If and when it becomes unnecessary for a significant portion of the population to be working, will we be able to adapt our value system to allow for guilt-free leisure, encourage more creative exploration, and recognize the value of lifelong learning?

Just days after the e-commerce giant from Silicon Valley dazzled the world with the introduction of Amazon Go, it has made the first commercial delivery by drone. The fantasy world of tomorrow with flying cars and cashless stores seems to be turning into the mundane reality of today. This fantasy, though, is all too real for people whose livelihoods are threatened by it. Just imagining a scenario where the jobs of cashiers and retail salespersons in the U.S. are fully automated, we are looking at adding 7.5 million people to the ranks of the unemployed.

For comparison, since the beginning of XXI century, the American economy has been adding, on average, 0.8M jobs per year. Whether its Uber, Google, Apple, Tesla, or any other company that will bring a viable driverless technology to the market, it is not a matter of if but when. Here again, 3.5 million jobs in America could disappear in a heartbeat, should this technology become commonplace. Loss of just those two narrowly-defined professions could undo 14 years worth of job creation.

Beyond those vivid examples, a widely-shared blog on the World Economic Forums Agenda platform projects that roughly half of all jobs will be lost to automation in less than two decades. One could take solace looking at past experiences where some vocations fade away, but the new ones come in their stead. Many analysts argue, though, that this time will be different.If those predictions come true, and we are indeed heading for a workless future, now would be high time to kick off a policy discussion on how we must prepare for it.

Just as we intellectually recognize that the world of tomorrow will have much less employment, (or at least, much less of what we define as employment right now), the job-creation rhetoric continues to dominate our political discourse. This proverbial tomorrow may take a decade (or two, or five) to arrive. Undoubtedly, some version of it will and burying ones head in the sand is no solution. Focusing on the skills necessary to compete for the yet-to-be-invented jobs is only part of the puzzle. As the gap widens between population growth and automation on one side, and job creation to meet the needs of our machine-powered future on the other, we have to begin making serious adjustments to maintain social cohesion.

What if continued automation of work be it legal research, or medical diagnostics, or writing of newspaper articles delivers productivity gains that can be distributed among the population without the need for everyone to contribute in a traditional way? Should such future be imagined, it will require a major paradigm shift in how our society is organized, how we define contribution, where we find fulfillment, and how we draw meaning from our daily activities.

The first question, which is already being vigorously debated, is how can one support oneself when one is not expected to be working. Unconditional basic income, or digital dividend, is one concept thats gathering momentum. Some jurisdictions have either toyed with the idea or are piloting it. The political debate needs to engage the taboo topic of guaranteeing economic security to families through a universal basic income. writes David Ignatius for The Washington Post.

This novel policy proposal is often contrasted with welfare, with the resulting arguments being both for and against. The problem with that discourse is that its framed in terms of the current situation where policies are designed to discourage freeriding of some upon the efforts of others. What we should be considering instead is the circumstance where all humans are freeriding on the efforts of machines. The latter do not create demand, which in turn creates a serious conundrum for our economic system.

As radical as the universal basic income idea may sound, in strict terms, its a simple technical solution to a significant social problem. It would be far more difficult to imagine, let alone incorporate, a new value system where unemployment is not stigmatized. Adopting norms in a society where ones contribution is no longer defined by economic output, is a challenge of a different scale and complexity altogether. To address it before the societal tensions boil over, we will need a ton of courage, a lot of blue-sky thinking, and a great deal of policy experimentation.

We must begin by openly acknowledging and ultimately facing the reality. As political careers are made and broken on the promises of job-creation, it will require a great deal of courage for our leaders to take responsibility and initiate a frank debate on the possible workless future. To better cope with the uncertain future, well have to develop a new vocabulary to articulate the dilemmas we have yet to face.

It is also the intellectual framework within which we look at our economic systems that needs to change. Here we can start with redefining GDP to better account for non-compensated contribution (such as childcare and housekeeping) or better yet, move towards a wider matrix such as Social Progress Index or any other methodology that recognizes human contribution and progress in new ways. Perhaps we should also retire terms like labor productivity and, instead, refocus on measuring self-actualization.

One of the simplest, and yet also more complicated, questions to ponder in a world free of traditional employment, is what will we do with our free time? It would be good to ease our way into it by looking at the 6 Hour Workdaypolicies that Sweden is introducing to increase productivity and make people happier. Shorter work days will help prevent burnout and allow people a space to find other activities from which they can derive meaning. For those who are employed, a job isnt just a vehicle to earn ones living, it is a means to address the basic human need for belonging. Exploring how this need could be met outside of the workplace would be a worthy undertaking.

Given that the ambition of an individual today is often conflated with professional aspirations and then measured by ones career success, ambition of the future could potentially be viewed through the prism of building ones capacity for imagination and aspiration to learn, generate, and exchange ideas. Popularizing the idea of a sabbatical breaks in professional fields beyond academia (where it is already fairly commonplace), would help us in making this a smoother transition.

All of those efforts will have to go hand-in-hand with addressing the rising inequality and recognizing the Spiritual Crisis of the Modern Economy, where failure [to find a job after losing one] is a source of deep shame and a reason for self-blame.

The imagined future where humans may not have to work as machines will be taking care of ever-widening range of our needs and wants is not assured, but it is highly probable. We can debate the timeline and keep stuffing this difficult conversation into a can, so that we could kick it down the road. What would be more constructive, though, is delving into this debate headfirst, trying out new policies, learning from one another, and shaping our workless future to minimize its discontents. Our kids (the Gen-Zs) will thank us for it!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Futurism or its affiliates.

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Experts talk automation in Acme – Traverse City Record Eagle

Posted: at 10:10 am

ACME The people responsible for shaping the future of transportation have gathered this week at the annual Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars.

The five-day conference attracts major players in the automotive industry from around the globe. Speakers include Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and the director of Ministry of the Economy of Mexicos Trade and NAFTA Office. But executives from BMW, Toyota, Tesla, General Motors, AM General, Bosch, Mazda, Volkswagen, IBM, Nissan, ExxonMobil and Lear Corporation took center stage, along with experts from dozens of development companies and suppliers.

Governors Hall at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa was filled with business people in dark blue jackets and black pantsuits, all of them focused on one thing the future of the automobile. Transportation is big business on a global stage, and the industry is in the midst of a technological upheaval.

Gasoline and diesel displaced horsepower a century ago. Electricity now is pushing fossil fuels off the worlds roads. At the same time, computers are in the early stages of removing humans from the drivers seat. Thats the gist of this weeks meeting in Acme electricity and automation.

As seen here today, highly automated driving is no longer a dream, but a reality, said Continental North America President Jeff Klei.

He spoke Monday afternoon outside the resort, where two cars a Cadillac ATS and a Chrysler 300 fitted with autonomous technology created by Continental and Magna International completed a 7-hour, 300-mile journey, 92 percent of it without any human driver input. The cars began in Detroit, drove through the Detroit-Windsor tunnel to Ontario, returned to the U.S. on the Bluewater Bridge, then cruised northwest to Acme.

Klei referred to the technology installed in the cars as a cruising chauffeur. Technically, that level of automation is called Level 3 or conditional automation. The designation means the vehicle can drive itself in certain environments, such as on a highway. Human control is required at toll booths and in complicated situations like busy city streets.

Levels 4 and 5 are designated as fully automated, technologies in which a human driver never is required. Level 4 is limited to a certain geographic area, such as on a proving ground or within a certain pre-mapped region. Level 5 would allow a vehicle to travel anywhere.

Current technology cant provide full automation, Ryan Eustace, vice president of autonomous driving for the Toyota Research Institute, told the crowd in Governors Hall.

Theres a lot of top-down human awareness that needs to be built in, he said.

He described the constant stream of unknowns on the road pedestrians, animals, broken water mains, traffic cops, accidents, poorly-marked detours as the social dance of driving.

It will be years, he said, before the eventual goal of an automated car that cant crash (because it warns the driver or automatically intervenes to prevent a crash) becomes reality.

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Providing Industrial Robots with Senses for Automation – R & D Magazine

Posted: at 10:10 am

In 2012, two inspiring Ph.D.s, kos Tar and Jzsef Veres, were studying bionics and robotics in the same class in college. The two started a project to build a two-legged robot. During this research and development, one of the focus areas was to develop the senses of the robot to create its ability to touch and feel objects to measure forces on its leg along the X-Y-Z axes. This led them to the development of a layered structure in which silicone would actually change its form under a greater load and made measurement possible in all directions.

Since that time, OptoForce has become a market leader in helping to bring multi-axial force and torque control with optical technology to a wide range of businesses and industries relying on industrial automation and robotics for their operations.

Today, OptoForce equips industrial robots with a sense of touch so that more tasks can be automated, freeing production from redundant, tedious tasks that are needed, and helping businesses save significant time and money.

The company, based in Budapest, Hungary with customers and distributors located around the world, recently announced the opening of its U.S. office to help companies across the U.S. and Canada.

Here are some of the company capabilities.

Optical Force Sensing

Optical force sensing measures deformation and deducts the applied load. Strain gauge technology has been the most prominent on the market since its inception in 1938. The principles havent changed much since that time, and so the primary limitations such as brittle structure, expensive manufacturing and heavy weight, has been constraining widespread application. Optical, silicone-based-force sensors, which were first commercially available from OptoForce, are now opening up new possibilities in automation for companies around the world.

3-Axis Force Sensing: OptoForce sensors have only one structure for measuring deformation along the 3-axes (X, Y, Z). In optical force sensors, photodiode measures the amount of reflected light, originally emitted by the LED. By comparing the measured values on the photodiodes, the acting forces can be precisely reconstructed, not just by the magnitude but also the direction

6-Axis Force/Torque Sensing: Six-axis sensors can measure the lateral forces along with the torques around the X, Y and Z vectors. An array of the three-axis sensors can be used to construct a six-axis force/torque sensor as well.

The OptoForce six-axis Force/Torque Sensors provide six degrees of freedom force and torque measurement and are designed for industrial automation applications that require human hand dexterity. The sensors are made to fit most of the currently used industrial robot arms and were developed so that integration with various interfaces is simple.

Available Applications

Typical applications are force control devices and also include assembly; teach in activities; crash detection; hand guidance tasks; fix and rotate; connectors insertion; peg insertion or pin-in-the hole tasks; used next to end effectors in case of grinding, polishing, deburring, finishing; and arc welding. OptoForce sensors provide a cost-effective yet smart solution. High durability and an unlimited number of custom opportunities resemble all of OptoForces sensor types.

More specifically, the following applications are examples of where robotics can take advantage of OptoForces sensors:

Presence Detection: The OptoForce Force Torque Sensor, along with the OptoForce Move application, fine tunes a Universal Robots protective stop function, so that even the smallest counterforces that are smaller than 10 N - can be perceived.

Center Pointing: The Center Point solution provides for an easy-to-find center point, even if the object has moved away from the original position.

Hand Guiding:It is possible to move the robot by hand on all 6 axes or by locking the movement of any selected axes for precise positioning. This is an easy-to-use for guiding the robot in a fast and precise way.

Path Recording: Using the Path Recording function of the OptoForce Hand Guide Toolbar can create a program within minutes so that any complex path can be easily recorded.

Polishing (Plastic and Metal): With this solution, you can remove the parting lines of plastic objects fast and easy. OptoForces polishing application provides high quality polishing, even with forces under 10 Newtons.

Box Insertion:The Box Insertion solution helps to insert items; for example, inserting a battery inside an electronic device with speed, accuracy, and simplicity.

Pin in the Hole:With this solution, robots can precisely fit or insert mating parts with very high tolerances. This solution helps to find the hole and place any pin into it in a fast and precise manner.

Stacking/Destacking:A force controlled application enables the stacking and de-stacking of products without needing to know the exact thickness and the height of the stack.

Palletizing: The force controlled application also allows the robot to stack products onto pallets. This can be quite advantageous for items that are hard to work such as cardboard boxes.

Metal Part Sanding:Force controlled metal sanding gives the robot the ability to precisely remove excess material from the machined surface. In addition to saving time and cost, it also reduces the health impacts to machine operators.

OptoForce sensors are being used by various companies on numerous projects around the world. A few real-world examples of where the sensors are being used include: a plastic parting line removal; an obstacle detection for a major car manufacturing company; and a center point insertion application for a car part supplier, where the task of the robot is to insert a mirror, completely centered, onto a side mirror housing.

The 6-Axis Force/Torque Sensors are available in two models: Model HEX-E and Model HEX-H. The main difference between the two is that the HEX-E has higher precision, while the HEX-H has lower deformation.

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-E

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

1.7 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.3 mm

500%

Txy

10 Nm

( 2.5 )

500%

Tz

6.5 Nm

( 5 )

500%

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-H

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

0.6 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.25 mm

500%

Txy

20 Nm

( 2 )

300%

Tz

13 Nm

( 3.5 )

300%

The Advantages of OptoForce Force/Torque Sensors

OptoForces HEX-E and HEX-H are sold through a global network of distributors primarily to systems integrator companies. The HEX-E and HEX-H hardware and software helps to shorten the systems integration time, as users have less programming to do when using the sensors, as well as the significant time savings derived from automating precision-oriented tasks.

During the research and development of its sensors, OptoForce took great strides to advance the capability of its sensors in contrast to existing sensors on the market:

Robust and Durable: Businesses generally have found it quite frustrating in robotics that many sensors tend to be fragile, and easy-to-break. OptoForce sensors represent regardless of the application durability and robustness. On numerous occasions, customers have stated that they have broken multiple, highly valuable F/T sensors manufactured by others over the years because of overload and higher impact forces. However, OptoForce has developed a highly deformative property of silicone to ensure its sensors guarantee precise measurements all the way up to 200% overload. Even after total deformation during 600% overload, the silicone regains its original form and is able to measure forces with the same precision, without any hint of permanent damage. This is because these sensors were built to resist sudden shocks.

Resolution:OptoForces sensors possess much greater resolution than other competitive offerings with a 0.1N or 0.001Nm.

Pricing/Value: Leveraging modern technological advances, the company has built sensors and can offer businesses a strong price and value for money. Its low prices give access to highly precise force/torque sensors to the marketplace.

Compatibility: OptoForce sensors received Universal Robot + Certification to validate its suitability for a product environment. OptoForce hardware and software components allow users to extend their force/torque sensing capabilities for those using Universal Robots or KUKA robots.

A Variety of Solutions: Depending on the application, there is a wide range of uses for both the 3 and 6 axis OptoForce sensors.

About the Author

kos Dmtr is the CEO of OptoForce. kos leads all strategic initiatives at OptoForce in helping customers save production time and money by equipping their robots with a sense of touch to automate tasks. He can be reached at akos.domotor@optoforce.com.

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Providing Industrial Robots with Senses for Automation - R & D Magazine

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Audiologists, Emergency Managers and Occupational Therapists Face Low Risk from Automation – EHS Today

Posted: at 10:10 am

How likely are you to be replaced by a robot or a computer program? It depends, according to a new report,How Vulnerable Are American Communities to Automation, Trade and Urbanization? Workers in data entry, telemarketing and watch repair are most likely to be targeted by automation, while surgeons...not so much.

The study, prepared by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) and the Rural Policy Institutes Center for State Policy at Ball State University, found that the rise of automation and offshoring could extend such job losses beyond the factory floor.

Automation is likely to replace half of all low-skilled jobs, says CBER director Michael Hicks. More worrisome is that there is considerable concentration of job loss risks across labor markets, educational attainment and earnings. This accrues across industries and is more pronounced across urban regions, where economies have concentrated all net new employment in the United States for a generation.

The study also found that low risk of automation is associated with much higher wages, averaging about $80,000 a year. Occupations with the highest risk of automation have incomes of less than $40,000 annually.

The top automatable occupations, number of jobs and average annual salary includes data entry keyers, 216,000, $29,000; mathematical science occupations, 1,800, $66,210; telemarketers, 237,000, $23, 530; insurance underwriters, 103,000, $65,000; tax preparers, 90,400, $36,450; photographic process workers and processing machine operators, 28,800, $26,590; library technicians, 101,800, $34,750.

The leastautomatable occupations, number of jobs and average annual salary includes recreational therapists, 18,000, $45,890; emergency managers, 10,000, $67,330; first-line supervisors of mechanics, installers and repairers, 447,100, $63,010; mental health and substance abuse social workers, 117,000, $42,170; audiologists, 13,200, $74,890; orthotrists and prosthetists, 8,300, $64,430; health technologists and technicians, 102,200, $41,260; and hearing aid specialists, 5,900, $49,600.

While drafters, computer programmers, data entry keyers, statisticians and mathematicians and film and video editors were considered the most offshorable occupations, the list of least offshorable occupations closely mimicked the list of least automatable occupations, with the edition of the 6,800 oral and maxillofacial surgeons who average an annual wage of $233,900.

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Domino turns the tables and simplifies Coding Automation – Automation World

Posted: at 10:10 am

Aside from providing information to consumers, codes also underpin supply chain logistics, and are increasingly becoming the link between physical products and the digital world of online information. However, in order for codes to function correctly, they need to be accurate, from the date and batch information on the individual product, to the information on the boxes, all the way to up to the data displayed on the pallet label. Its this level of precision that ensures the product gets to the right place at the right time. This is the foundation of Coding Automation.

Domino believes strongly in helping our customers continue to elevate their production, and a large part of this is to help minimize errors and recalls. Quite often the coding technologies on the line are not integrated into the production automation and thus require a manual intervention of some formresulting in the increase for potential errors. Domino, on a global scale, is investing heavily in not only the software and systems to support Coding Automation, but the experts to marry the technology with the software itself and the impact to the customer.

To start, Domino is pleased to show the latest video in their thought leadership series, featuring Adem Kulauzovic, Director of Coding Automation for Domino North America. Adem begins this brief video by simplifying what our understanding of IOT and Coding Automation actually means, followed then by the impact of NOT automation and some true to life examples of Coding Automation success stories.

We worked with a major beverage company, and when they do a line change, the primary coders that would print on the cans would print the accurate date. But when they went into a case, it was a different date because they had the wrong product. They had an over $40,000 recall to get them properly coded. What we (Domino) offered was an automation solution that allowed them to press the ingredient product that they wanted, and that it would deploy the correct message, not only at their primary coders, but their secondary and tertiary. They have no human intervention, failures and efficiency is practically at 100%.

We encourage you to visit Domino at Pack Expo Las Vegas where Mr Kulauzovic will be presenting on Coding Automation, as well as offering the chance to discuss your coding automation needs. Can you afford NOT to have your coding technology automated?

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Marcos jewels sale to push through even if PCGG is abolished – ABS-CBN News

Posted: at 10:09 am

MANILA - The possible abolition of a government agency tasked with recovering the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family will not affect its planned planned sale, a finance official said Thursday.

At least 3 jewelry collections of former first lady Imelda Marcos were valued at P1 billion at a re-appraisal by auction houses Christies and Sotheby's last February.

The jewels will be placed on the auction block once legal cases are resolved, finance undersecretary Grace Karen Singson said.

"I don't understand why everyone is panicking the cases are always handled by the OSG (Office of the Solicitor General), [while] the disposition must always be approved by DOF, so wala naman nagbago (nothing has changed)," she said.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said last week that he favored the abolition of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, saying it was no longer necessary.

Former President Benigno Aquino, whose mother, former president Corazon Aquino, constituted the PCGG, said on Tuesday that the agency's work was not done yet.

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Want to empower patients? Look to technology – MedCity News

Posted: at 10:08 am

From left: Ashley Reid, founder and CEO of Wellist; Dusty Donaldson, founder of LiveLung; Chuck Gershman, co-founder, president and COO of Kuveda; and moderator Howard Krein, CMO of StartUp Health

One thing is clear: There are a plethora ofstakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem. And in trying to bring everyone together, we often neglect to tie in the most important part of the equation: the patient.

In a panel at MedCity CONVERGE, a group of panelists touched on the significance of patient engagement, particularly in oncology care. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all three panelists have personal ties to cancer. KuvedaCOO Chuck Gershmans father was diagnosed with cancer, Wellist CEO Ashley Reids mother had breast cancer and LiveLung founder Dusty Donaldson is a lung cancer survivor.

Due in part to their experiences, they each formed their own organizations.

Gershman co-founded Kuveda, a company that utilizes analytics and genomics to create cancer treatment options unique to each patient. Reid founded Wellist, which works to ensure healthcare organizations are giving patients access to their nonclinical needs. And Donaldsons LiveLung seeks to spread awareness of and support patients with lung cancer.

While the startups go about it differently, they all share the same goal: to empower the patient.

Kuveda wants to do so through personalized medicine. This year, approximately 14 million people are going to be diagnosed with cancer globally, Gershman said. But only 200,000 to 300,000 of them are going to get access to precision medicine. The company wants to bridge that gap.

Wellist looks at patient engagement a little differently. It provides its clients (such UPMC Hillman Cancer Center) with analytics solutions and the tools to connect patients with supportive communities. We exist to be a one stop shop so patients and nurses can get connected to organizations like Dustys, Reid said.

LiveLung exists to advocate for patients and to end the stigma surrounding lung cancer. By working with cancer centers and nurse navigators, its primary mission is to serve the lung cancer population.

And for each of the companies, technology is one of the keydrivers of ensuring patients are engaged with their diagnosis and treatment options.

Gershman, whose organization is in the process of building a patient portal, neatly summarized the mindset of patients today: Its no longer the doctor is God.' Instead, theyre looking online to find information.

Donaldson agreed. Patients are Googling. Caregivers are Googling, she noted. The Internet is definitely a huge player. Websites not only serve as a tool for patients to find information, but also for survivors to share their stories and connect.

Whether through tech or other means, empowerment comes down to recognizing that each individual has different needs.

Patient engagement is really getting to the heart of the patient whos going through whatever theyre going through, Donaldson concluded.

Photo: Justin Lawrence

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