Daily Archives: September 2, 2021

Promising premieres, girl groups and aggravating academia – The Jerusalem Post

Posted: September 2, 2021 at 2:06 pm

September will feature the premieres of several high-profile series. Scenes from a Marriage, a remake of the famous Ingmar Bergman television series, which was created by Hagai Levi (who made BeTipul and The Affair), stars Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac and will start running in Israel on September 13 on Cellcom TV, Yes VOD, Hot HBO, Hot VOD and Next TV, and on Yes TV Drama and Sting TV on October 5. HBO will not allow any reviews yet, but I can say that this version, which Levi created at the behest of the Bergman family, is very different from the Swedish miniseries that inspired it.

The compulsively watchable American Crime Story series has tackled the O.J. Simpson case and the murder of Gianni Versace, and its third season, called Impeachment, will focus on the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton scandal. It will be shown here starting on September 29 at 9 p.m. on Yes TV Drama and on Yes VOD, although it will begin airing on September 7 in the US. Lewinsky herself was a producer on the series and it features Beanie Feldstein as Lewinsky, Clive Owen as Bill Clinton and, in a particularly inspired piece of casting, Edie Falco, best known for playing Carmela Soprano, as Hillary Clinton.

If you miss the mixture of silly and smart humor on 30 Rock and who doesnt? you will want to check out Girls5eva, a new comedy series on which 30 Rocks Tina Fey was one of the producers. It will be shown on Yes VOD starting on September 2 and Yes TV Comedy on September 4 at 7:05 p.m., and on Hot 3 at 10:15 p.m. from September 2 and on Hot VOD and Next TV.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

It is about four women who were in a girl group that had one hit decades ago and who reunite when that song is sampled (used in the background) by a hip-hop star. Most of the jokes are about how dumb the group was in its heyday and how much they have or have not changed since then.

They are played by Sara Bareilles, a real singer who has had more than one hit but who is best known for Love Song; Busy Philipps (Cougar Town); Paula Pell, a comedy writer who played Paula Hornberger on 30 Rock; and Rene Elise Goldberry, a Tony-Award winning Broadway actress and singer who played Geneva Pine, an aggressive prosecutor, on The Good Wife.

Philippss character, a materialistic airhead who auditions to be on a Real Housewives series, is a bit too easy a target to be funny, but Goldberry is the standout as Wickie, who barely makes a living but has an Instagram account that suggests that she is still living the high life and hanging out with celebrities such as the Dalai Lama. It makes fun of many aspects of pop music, as well as various trends and excesses of contemporary life, such as the phenomenon of precocious, lonely only children of older parents, and there are quite a few musical numbers in each episode. The characters are appealing and its fun.

NETFLIXS THE CHAIR, about Ji-Yoon Kim, a newly appointed chairperson of the English department at a small, liberal-arts college, stars Sandra Oh of Greys Anatomy in the lead role. A single mother who lives with her elderly Korean-speaking father, she has to pick up the pieces when her colleague and friend, Bill (Jay Duplass), goes on one bender after another following his wifes death.

The personal stories are a little predictable, but the series has the most energy and passion when it is skewering both political correctness on campus and the entitlement of the traditional older professors. The old guard are pitted against their younger, trendier colleagues in a Darwinian struggle for dwindling resources, and Kim finds herself in the middle. Someone involved with writing the show has clearly spent a lot of time on campus recently and it has paid off in some really incisive humor about the absurdities of campus life. The excellent supporting cast features Bob Balaban (Gosford Park, Seinfeld), David Morse (Treme, 12 Monkeys) and Holland Taylor (Two and a Half Men).

See the original post:

Promising premieres, girl groups and aggravating academia - The Jerusalem Post

Posted in Political Correctness | Comments Off on Promising premieres, girl groups and aggravating academia – The Jerusalem Post

Chris Rufo and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Afghanistan Take – The Bulwark

Posted: at 2:06 pm

There has been no shortage of bad takes on the crisis in Afghanistan, from both sides of the political aisle. But one that stood out last Thursday, even as reports came in of a deadly attack in Kabul on U.S. troops and Afghan civilians, was this contribution from Manhattan Institute fellow and anti-wokeness crusader Christopher Rufo blaming the collapse of the American mission on too much woke ideology:

One neednt be a fan of Robin DiAngelo, the diversity guru and White Fragility author whom even progressives mock these days, or of other woke efforts to be skeptical of Rufos glib explanation. For one thing, while the Biden administration certainly bears major responsibility for the Afghanistan debacle, it was the unwoke Trump administration that set the withdrawal of American troops in motion and entered peace talks with the Taliban. (Of course, one could always argue that the withdrawal would have been handled much better if Donald Trump were still Presidenta perfect and beautiful exit, no doubt.) For another, there is absolutely no evidence that wokeness in the military had anything to do with the American failure in Afghanistan. And, finally, the gender programs on which the United States spent close to $800 million between 2002 and 2019 had very little to do with woke feminism or gender studies.

But Rufos entry in the Worst Tweets on Afghanistan sweepstakes was par for the course for the documentary filmmaker-turned-activist, who gave a candid explanation of his strategy against the woke left a few months ago:

To Rufos detractors, this is a self-incriminating admission of dishonesty and bad faiththe Twitter equivalent of the movie scene in which the villain explains his dastardly plan. Rufo himself has defended these comments to the Washington Post as a description of normal political tactics. Either way, the comments provide useful context for the tweets about our woke defeat in Afghanistan: This is Rufo trying to annex an Afghanistan exit widely seen as a fiasco into the general category of postmodern progressive racial and gender politics.

Unlike many critics, I think Rufo makes some perfectly valid points about wokeness and even critical race theory. (He vastly overuses CRT as a catch-all term for various progressive ideasapparently as a deliberate branding tacticbut critical race theory and its offshoots actually do have more linkage to these ideas than many of Rufos detractors admit.) He first caught my attention last year with genuinely alarming and fairly well-documented reports about the excesses of anti-racism training in schools and workplaces, including organizations funded with taxpayer money. One such find was a Seattle city government program where white staffers were herded into race-segregated struggle sessions requiring them not only to examine how they and their families benefit from the system of white supremacy but to recall and reflect on a recent incident in which they may have caused harm to a person/people of color at work. Another was a school exercise in San Cupertino, California in which third graders had to map their identities and state which aspects were privileged and which oppressed. (The program was tried in the classroom only once and was suspended due to parental outcry.)

Unfortunately for those of us who believe these cultural insanities do need to be exposed, Rufo is an extremely flawed messenger. He has done impressive work getting internal documents from whistleblowers, but his reporting is often compromised by exaggeration and cherry-picking. Thus, he has claimed that white male employees in a 2019 seminar at Sandia Labs (a government-funded nuclear-technology research center in New Mexico) had to write letters of apology to women and people of color. Yet of the ten worksheets photographed by Rufos source and posted on his site, only one had an explicit Im sorry, while a couple of others had vaguely apologetic statements about white privilege. (Other messages included We should have mutual agreement that it is OK if we disagree with each other.) More recently, Rufo announced in a Twitter scoop that one author of Californias proposed ethnic studies curriculum had called for a countergenocide against white Christians in a book the curriculum repeatedly cites. Yet a look at the sources, including Rufos own City Journal article on the story, makes it obvious that the book used countergenocide to mean resistance to the genocide of native populations by white Christians, not genocide in response to genocide. There are plenty of good reasons to criticize the curriculum, but Rufo turns valid complaints into breathless hyperbole and white genocide innuendo.

There is also the fact that in the fall of 2020, when he first gained visibility, Rufo overtly and aggressively hitched his activist wagon to Donald Trump. After Rufo appeared on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show in September 2020 to discuss critical race theory in government-funded diversity training and urged Trump to ban the practice, Trump promptly issued an executive order doing just that. He delivered, Rufo exulted on Twitter, praising Trumps order as the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history. Rufo also brushed aside critics who were sympathetic to the goal but skeptical of the strategy (such as myself) as snobs who would rather write another thinkpiece explaining why wokism is bad than wield actual power. After Trumps defeat, Rufo channeled his quest for power into advocacy of anti-CRT state laws. Yet a number of strong critics of woke ideologyincluding the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a leader in the fight against progressive censorship in academiahave decried these laws as likely to infringe on free expression and the exchange of ideas.

If Rufos crusading against wokeism and critical race theory at least has valid concerns behind the hyperbole, his typically grandiose Critical Afghanistan Theory tweets dont even have that distinction. Yes, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, angered conservative activists in June by defending anti-racist teaching in the U.S. military, including a seminar on white rage (with voluntary attendance) at West Pointand particularly by linking white rage to Trump supporters attack on Congress on January 6. This hardly means that U.S. military brass focused on white rage and wokeness while ignoring the looming crisis of Afghanistan. In March, Milley was somehow able to take time out of his busy schedule of Robin DiAngelo book clubs to make an impassioned plea for keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan at a National Security Council meeting.

Even more absurd is Rufos claimalso made by others on the right, including Carlsonthat the United States tried to export woke postmodernism to Afghanistan. For instance, the idea that now-former Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani is woke because he taught at Johns Hopkins University thirty years ago and did a TED talk (actually two TED talks: How to Rebuild a Broken State in 2005 and A Vision for the Future of Afghanistan in 2020) is simply bizarre.

But Rufos identification of U.S.-sponsored gender programs in Afghanistan with extreme and nonsensical woke ideology is especially insidiousas well as factually wrong. It is worth noting that the bulk of the money the United States spent on gender-focused projects in Afghanistan$627 million, out of a total $787.4 millionwas spent on programs addressing the needs of women and girls in 2003-2010, that is, mostly under the notoriously radical feminist Bush administration. Many of these programs had to do with such issues as maternal mortality, health care, and access to education for girls and young women. They certain didnt, as Carlson suggested in his segment, traffic in such flights of gender theory as the idea that men can become pregnant (that is, that biologically female transgender persons who identify as male should be regarded as pregnant men). While there were some educational programs intended to change attitudes toward male and female roles, such projects hardly amount to inane wokeism in a society where wife-beating and child marriage have been traditionally viewed as normal. Carlson has sneeringly (and approvingly) remarked that the people of Afghanistan dont think of masculinity as toxic, but its hard to think of a more toxic version of masculinity than the Taliban.

One can discuss whether American gender programs in Afghanistan alienated parts of the population by trying to do too much, too soon. (The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction suggested in a report that these programs could have been more attuned to the Afghan cultural context, but it does not mention any significant popular backlash.) But the notion that they had something to do with woke feminism or postmodernism is laughable. For what its worth, the Women, Peace, and Security Act codifying American gender-related programs in Afghanistan was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump in 2017.

It wasnt long ago that right-wing outlets such as Breitbart decried left-wing failure to condemn radical Islamist misogyny as a stark example of political correctness gone mad. Now, we have right-wing culture warriors like Carlson and Rufo scoring political points by suggesting that basic human rights for women in Afghanistan are a pernicious attempt to export woke postmodernist ideology.

The other day, after seeing a couple of Rufo exposs on what sounds like genuinely awful (even discounting for the usual hyperbole) social justice training at Verizon and Bank of America, I wondered if I was being too uncharitable to the guy. Then, he posted those ghoulish Afghanistan tweets exploiting a tragedy and attacking womens rights to promote his crusade. The question answered itself.

Here is the original post:

Chris Rufo and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Afghanistan Take - The Bulwark

Posted in Political Correctness | Comments Off on Chris Rufo and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Afghanistan Take – The Bulwark

H2 For You: Even Alabama football fans couldn’t have dreamed this scenario – Bama Maven

Posted: at 2:06 pm

Alabama's faithful haven't dealt with much adversity since coach Nick Saban arrived prior to the 2007 season. But for all the Crimson Tide's trophies and talent, there'd beenone stigma to its name, the one even Saban hadn't been able to rid the program of, the absence of a former player who'd sustained a starting quarterback gig in the NFL.

That's not really news, either, considering how often Alabama fans have been ribbed about it since Hall of Famers Joe Namath and Ken Stabler laced 'em up one last time in the pros.

What is news, though, is how quickly the dynamic has shifted, and how within two or three years the perception of the Alabama quarterback has changed dramatically, save for the same 'ol clich of, "But, but, look who they're throwing to."

Let's think about it. Let's really consider the likelihood, if only in 2017, of then-current Crimson Tide quarterbacks Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, and Mac Jones all starring in the crimson and white then being named starters in the NFL within 12 months of each other.

Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins arrived to Tuscaloosa with the most expectation, Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles arrived to Tuscaloosa with the most mystery, and Jones of the New England Patriots arrived to Tuscaloosa with the most, rather the least of anything relative to those two.

Yet here they are, after each having been announced the starting quarterback, the on-and-off field 'CEO' of their respective pro franchise.

And no disrespect to AJ McCarron or Greg McElory or John Parker Wilson or Jake Coker, partially because of the run-first, rigid schemes they operated, but pre-2017 was there ever a thought of Alabama football producing three starter-worthy quarterbacks to the NFL?

Um, no, nor did that thought coincide with the probability of all three, Jones, Hurts, and Tagovailoa, sharing the same locker room for two seasons.

Prior to, the most productive pro Alabama had produced at the position was Richard Todd of the New York Jets, from 1976-83, and that's back when bellbottoms were not only in-vogue but imperative to the audio experience of The Four Seasons.

More than anything, though, the development of those three is indicative of Alabama football's offensive evolution in its dynastic reign under Saban.It's the same Crimson Tide team, just one now that favors deep-bombed touchdowns through the air over hard licks in a cramped box of muscular defenders all in the name of winning more games, thanks to overall trends of the game.

And subsequently, its offensive-dominate ideological shift favors the development of its quarterbacks, the players pro teams formerly viewed as future-coach-types with as illuminated IQs as shortcomings for the sake of political correctness.

Those days are now gone and, as crazy as it sounds, even though three NFL starting quarterbacks from one college roster likely won't be duplicated, the rise and perception change of the position at Alabama is as stark to its previous plight as anything I've seen in sports.

Enjoy it, Crimson Tide-rs ... you've earned it.

Alabama's faithful haven't dealt with much adversity since coach Nick Saban arrived prior to the 2007 season. But for all the Crimson Tide's trophies and talent, there'd beenone stigma to its name, the one even Saban hadn't been able to rid the program of, the absence of a former player who'd sustained a starting quarterback gig in the NFL. Subscribe for full article

Already a FanNation Member?Log In

Read more:

H2 For You: Even Alabama football fans couldn't have dreamed this scenario - Bama Maven

Posted in Political Correctness | Comments Off on H2 For You: Even Alabama football fans couldn’t have dreamed this scenario – Bama Maven

These robotics and automation stocks could climb up to 68% in the next year – MarketWatch

Posted: at 2:06 pm

Investors looking for the best stock-market performance have been well-served for many years by focusing on companies using new technology to increase their sales quickly and steadily. The performance of the S&P 500 index has borne this out.

Below is a screen of 24 stocks held among five exchange-traded funds that focus on companies involved with robotics and automation booming technology for companies involved in many industries around the world.

For robotics and automation, here are five ETFs that take different approaches to playing innovation:

Heres some more information about the ETFs:

Heres a summary of total returns for the ETFs against the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY and the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ, which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index NDX :

All five of the automation and robotics ETFs have trailed the broad market this year. During 2020, ARKQ was a stellar performer in part because of its big bet on Tesla, which skyrocketed 743% for the year. ROBO has outperformed SPY for five years but underperformed QQQ for all periods.

The five ETFs together hold 251 stocks across 21 countries. Only two stocks Intuitive Surgical and Nvidia are held by all five. Only BOTZ doesnt own stocks in companies based in China.

China may be a special area of risk for years to come. Theres no way of knowing how much change will be brought about by Chinas regulatory crackdown affecting tech-related industries. Meanwhile, U.S. regulators actions as well as theconflictbetween U.S. and Chinese regulators over the availability of audit reports may affect investors holding shares of Chinese companies listed in the U.S.

Yet, as you will see, three Chinese tech giants held by some of these ETFs are highly regarded by Wall Street analysts.

For this screen, it is important to understand that in Wall Street parlance, there are two types of stock analyst. A buy-side analyst works for a money manager. A sell-side analyst works for a brokerage firm. They have different perspectives, and it might be best to rely on both, if possible. So the following screen starts by limiting the list to the 81 stocks held by at least two of the five ETFs described above.

Among those stocks, 70 are rated by at least five sell-side analysts polled by FactSet. Narrowing the list further, 24 of the 70 have at least 75% buy or equivalent ratings. Here they are, sorted by the 12-month upside potential implied by the consensus price targets.

Of course, consensus price targets (and recommendations) can change, and a 12-month target period is short for a long-term trend:

The prices and price targets are in local currencies where the shares are listed. The three Chinese companies on the list Baidu Inc. BIDU, Alibaba Group Holding Inc. BABA and JD.com Inc. JD area all listed on U.S. exchanges as American Depositary Receipts.

You can click on the tickers for more about each company.

Despite being held by all five robotics and automation ETFs, Intuitive Surgical didnt make the list because only eight of the 19 sell-side analysts polled by FactSet rate the shares a buy or the equivalent. The stock closed at $1,053.56 on Aug. 30, having risen 29% for 2021, and was trading ahead of the consensus price target of $1,032.71.

This list is merely a starting point for further research about companies involved with the long-term industrial shift to robotics and automation. If you see any investments of potential interest, you should form your own opinion about a funds strategy, or a companys strategy, and whether or not it is likely to remain competitive over the next decade.

Dont miss: 30 stocks that shined in the pandemic are still poised for huge growth through 2024

Jeff Reeves: Forget short-term stock-market fads and just buy these 5 rocketing tech stocks

Link:

These robotics and automation stocks could climb up to 68% in the next year - MarketWatch

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on These robotics and automation stocks could climb up to 68% in the next year – MarketWatch

Robotics And Automation Providers See Huge Surge Thanks To EVs – InsideEVs

Posted: at 2:06 pm

This article comes to us courtesy ofEVANNEX, which makes and sells aftermarket Tesla accessories. The opinions expressed therein are not necessarily our own at InsideEVs, nor have we been paid byEVANNEXto publish these articles. We find the company's perspective as an aftermarket supplier of Tesla accessories interesting and are happy to share its content free of charge. Enjoy!

Posted onEVANNEX on September 02, 2021byCharles Morris

A gold rush attracts prospectors from near and far, and the invariable result is that some get rich quick, and some go home penniless. Theres one group that always does well, however: merchants who sell picks and shovels to the miners.

Above:FANUC Robot Assembly Demo for Elon Musk at Tesla(Flickr:Steve Jurvetson)

Electric vehicles are todays motherlode, and both legacy automakers and ambitious startups are investing massive sums in hopes of hitting pay dirt. Some of these will thrive (a certain California carmaker already has), and others will perish. At the moment, all are struggling with a shortage of semiconductors and other components, on top of a persistent pandemic. However, theres one industry segment thats doing very well indeed: factory equipment manufacturers that supply robots and other equipment for todays highly automated production processes. (EV journalists and suppliers of aftermarket accessories are also getting by, thank you.)

As Reuters reports, US manufacturing, in general, is enjoying a broad recovery from the corona crashnew orders rose from $362 million in April 2020 to almost $506 million in June 2021. The makers of robots and other factory automation technology have seen an even bigger surge, and demand is expected to keep climbing as a wave of new EVs goes into production over the next couple of years. Automakers have ordered manufacturing equipment for 37 EV models in North America alone, industry consultant Laurie Harbour told Reuters.

Im not sure its reached its climax yet. Theres still more to go, said Andrew Lloyd, Electromobility Segment Leader at Comau, a Stellantis-owned supplier of industrial robots. Over the next 18 to 24 months, theres going to be significant demand coming our way.

Automakers both old and new are putting money into EV factories. Automakers will invest over $37 billion in North American plants from 2019 to 2025, according to LMC Automotive, and a substantial amount of that is for EV-related projects.

This industry is the Wild, Wild West right now, John Kacsur, VP of Rockwell Automations automotive and tire segment, told Reuters. There is a mad race to get these new EV variants to market.

Theres still a pipeline with projects from new EV manufacturers, said Mathias Christen, a spokesman for paint shop equipment specialist Durr, which says its EV business grew by 65% last year. This is why we dont see the peak yet.

Manufacturing automation company Kuka (which suppliesrobots for Tesla, among others) says its order book swelled by 52% in the first half of 2021. We ran out of capacity for any additional work about a year and a half ago, Mike LaRose, CEO of Kukas auto group in the Americas, told Reuters. Everyones so busy, theres no floor space.

Automakers and battery builders need to order robots 18 months in advance, said Neil Dueweke, VP of Automotive at Fanuc America (also a Tesla supplier), which set a new sales record last year. We built a facility and have like 5,000 robots on shelves stacked 200 feet high, almost as far as the eye can see.

===

Written by:Charles Morris;Source:ReutersviaCarBuzz

Link:

Robotics And Automation Providers See Huge Surge Thanks To EVs - InsideEVs

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Robotics And Automation Providers See Huge Surge Thanks To EVs – InsideEVs

Quarky AI learning companion lets kids play with artificial intelligence and robotics – Gadget Flow

Posted: at 2:06 pm

Limited-time offer: get 51% OFF retail price!

day

hours

Made for children from 7 to 14 years old, the Quarky AI learning companion teaches STEM skills in a fun way. Your child can learn about artificial intelligence and robotics with this gadget. In fact, this futuristic companion does so many things. It can be a gesture-controlled robot, follow commands, recognize objects, plan paths, and more. It helps children learn advanced concepts in a fun, hands-on, and engaging way. Use it with the connected and interactive online courses and live sessions thatll help kids learn to code. With a very portable size, its easy to take Quarky with you anywhere. And pair it up with your smartphone, tablet, or laptop on the go. Whether youre new to coding or an expert at it, youll love Quarky and can use Blocks or Python with it. Moreover, the plug-and-play interface offers a hassle-free setup so you can get going.

Read more from the original source:

Quarky AI learning companion lets kids play with artificial intelligence and robotics - Gadget Flow

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Quarky AI learning companion lets kids play with artificial intelligence and robotics – Gadget Flow

The Factors Shaping The Future Of Work: ‘It’s Not Just Automation And Robotics’ – wgbh.org

Posted: at 2:06 pm

The pandemic has changed the way many of us work, but the changing landscape of how we do our jobs is nothing new, right? Whether it's self-checkout at the grocery store or a bomb-detecting robot, the way we work is always evolving. So, what does the future look like? That is the focus of a new GBH TV series called Future of Work, which taps a diverse range of experts and workers to address critical questions about the changing nature of technology, education, the remote workplace and inequality. Executive producer and series creator Denise Dilanni joined Aaron Schachter on Morning Edition to discuss the project. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Schachter: The opening credits series has some clips that made me laugh but ring true. Someone says robots are coming to take my job. And I wonder if that's the gist of the series I always wonder if I'm going to be replaced by Max Headroom.

Dilanni: It is not the gist of the series; it is one underlying question. The series really asks a lot of questions of the day. And one of them is, what is the role of robotics, automation and even more pressingly, artificial intelligence in terms of how we make our livings and the future proofing of the American worker? I think we've been worried about the killer robots or the rise of the killer robots for decades, if not if not a generation or more. And in fact, what we find is robots in the form of cobots actually are helping to enhance work in many, many cases. So I don't think you should worry too much about robots coming for your job and not just yet.

Schachter: You mentioned the word future proofing. Can you explain what that is?

Dilanni: What we do in the series is try to really explore what is changing work and it's not just automation and robotics. It's things like globalization and the rise and fall of trade unions and labor unions and the offshoring of jobs and the attempts to re-shore jobs. Hour one looks at all of those factors that are driving what we think of as the new industrial revolution.

What we learn from a lot of our experts in the series in the old days, you'd go to school for 12 or 16 years, you'd graduate and get a job and ultimately you would retire. And that model no longer works for most American workers. These days, you go to school, you work, then you retrain, you reskill, you work. More education, more skills, more upskilling, and you may never retire. In terms of future proofing for ourselves and our children and our children's children, what are the types of skills that we all need as workers and how [do we] future proof that set of skills so you will be employable?

Schachter: There must be some evolution of this, right? It's not like you train for one job and all of a sudden that job no longer exists. Isn't there some sort of time frame of evolution?

Dilanni: It depends on your work sector, your industry sector. I think there are jobs that are really being disrupted very quickly. In the series, we tell a couple of historical stories to set the stage. One of them is the idea that when automation came in, [the assumption was that] bank tellers lost their jobs because they were replaced by ATMs. Well, what happened? A lot of bank tellers did lose their jobs, but then banking expanded, changed and morphed with other technologies and other business practices. And now there are other kinds of jobs in banking. So, we try very hard not to look at this as a zero-sum game.

What our experts say, and we talked to a couple of very important economists and thought leaders is, we will have jobs in the future, but we're not yet sure what jobs they might be.

Schachter: The production of the series started before the pandemic and continued right after everything was all shaken up. How did that change your focus as you were creating the series?

Dilanni: It was very challenging and daunting, although quite exciting. One thing we realized and you see throughout the three-hour series is that the pandemic was an accelerator of changes that already were afoot. For instance, before the pandemic, there was already a movement to separate work from the place of work. People were working, in many cases remotely, while the pandemic came like a hand grenade and blew that up. So instead of some few million people working remotely, we have 40 or 50 million white collar workers working remotely. It wasn't a new trend, but it was escalated profoundly by the pandemic. [Also,] a reliance on certain kinds of automation as people step back from certain kinds of work because the pandemic; certain companies began looking at other ways to accelerate adoption of automation.

Watch Future Of Work on GBH 2 at 10pm on Sept. 1, 8 and 15. Learn more about the series at Future of Work Panel Discussion on Sept. 8.

Continued here:

The Factors Shaping The Future Of Work: 'It's Not Just Automation And Robotics' - wgbh.org

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on The Factors Shaping The Future Of Work: ‘It’s Not Just Automation And Robotics’ – wgbh.org

Dexter’s Middle School Robotics Teams Prepare for the Third Year of Competition – thesuntimesnews.com

Posted: at 2:06 pm

By Audrey McMichael, Dreadbot Reporter

Our Dexter Dread Bolts and Dreadbytes now have two full seasons under their belts in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge.

In this rewarding activity, 7th and 8th-grade students are faced with a challenge where they compete with other Michigan teams to earn points. Teams compete at regional events in alliances consisting of two teams. Students have to be creative and sometimes think like engineers to design and build the robot their team uses in competition.

The challenge the teams faced last year was called Ultimate Goal. During the first 30 seconds of each short but intense match, robots were only permitted to use pre-programmed instructions prepared by the team; team members could only touch controllers after that time expired. Clever student-built robots worked to move swiveling pegs into the predetermined target zone and then placed rings on them. Rings were also used to score points by being shot by the robot into the goals on the far side of the field. The last part of the match (known as the end game) challenged robots to carry or place swiveling pegs back at the starting point or in specially designated portions of the playing field.

Even though the Covid-19 pandemic, the Dread Bolts and Dreadbytes continued to advance their knowledge in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) and made adjustments to keep everyone safe at this uncertain time. Students and mentors gathered on Zoom calls rather than in a build space and passed the robot from house to house. Team members said, Were thrilled to have a working robot and that we still learned a lot!

The Dread Bolts and Dreadbytes worked together with their teammates to create an outline of the different manipulators and parts the robot needed to complete the task such as chassis, loader, conveyor, and shooter. The students also divided their team members into roles and subteams that focused on tasks like build, software, and drive. While prototyping the bot and its manipulators, other students focused on brainstorming and strategizing. After prototyping, the students decided on a final idea and began building, wiring, and programming their competition robot.

As competition season approached, teams finished preparing their bot and packed everything needed for the matches. Competitions run throughout the day and are typically in a large school gym. Every team in the competition has its own stand/dugout and most teams have unique buttons you can collect as you meet other competitors. Although health precautions are still in place, these roboticists are now more excited than ever to work on the robot in person this year.

If you have any interest in joining (or know someone who should), the FIRST Robotics Challenge is for high school students (Dexter High School is home to team 3656, the Dreadbots), FIRST Tech Challenge team is for middle school students in the 7th and 8th grade, and FIRST Lego League has members from Kindergarten through 6th grade. Please email DexterDROIDProgram@gmail.com for further information regarding current and future teams along with volunteer opportunities for parents to be involved in the program.

Photo credits: Dexter Robotics Club

See the original post here:

Dexter's Middle School Robotics Teams Prepare for the Third Year of Competition - thesuntimesnews.com

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Dexter’s Middle School Robotics Teams Prepare for the Third Year of Competition – thesuntimesnews.com

Robots can trick us into thinking we are socially interacting and slow our reactions, scientists say – Euronews

Posted: at 2:06 pm

It has long been known that making eye contact with a robot can be an unsettling experience. Scientists even have a name for the queasy feeling: the "uncanny valley".

Now, thanks to researchers in Italy, we also know it's more than just a feeling.

A team at the Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa has shown how a robot's gaze can trick us into thinking we are socially interacting and slow our ability to make decisions.

"Gaze is an extremely important social signal that we employ on a day-to-day basis when interacting with others," said Professor Agnieszka Wykowska, lead author of the research published on Wednesday in the journal Science Robots.

"The question is whether the robot gaze will evoke very similar mechanisms in the human brain as another human's gaze would".

The team asked 40 volunteers to play a video game of "chicken" - where each player has to decide whether to allow a car to drive straight towards another car or to deviate to avoid a collision - against a humanoid robot sitting opposite them.

Between rounds, players had to look at the robot, which would sometimes look back and other times look away.

In each scenario, the scientists collected data on behaviour and neural activity via electroencephalography (EEG), which detects electrical activity in the brain.

"Our results show that, actually, the human brain processes the robot gaze as a social signal, and that signal has an impact on the way we're making decisions, on the strategies we deploy in the game and also on our responses," Wykowska said.

"The mutual gaze of the robot affected decisions by delaying them, so humans were much slower in making the decisions in the game".

The findings have implications on where and how humanoid robots are deployed in future.

"Once we understand when robots elicit social attunement, then we can decide in which sort of context this is desirable and beneficial for humans and in which context this should not occur," said Wykowska.

According to a report by the International Federation of Robotics, worldwide sales of professional service robots had already jumped 32 per cent to $11.2 billion (9.4 billion) between 2018 and 2019.

Original post:

Robots can trick us into thinking we are socially interacting and slow our reactions, scientists say - Euronews

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Robots can trick us into thinking we are socially interacting and slow our reactions, scientists say – Euronews

Latest Robots in Space Agencies to Know and Watch About – Analytics Insight

Posted: at 2:06 pm

Do you know? According to the latest report from 2020 to 2027, the global space robotics market is likely to surge at a growth rate of 5.2%. This is due to the growing demand for autonomous space robots that are not only cost-effective but are also capable of working even in any kind of conditions. As exploring outer space has always been an interesting area, many researchers across the globe are working on robots in space and their benefits. Lets explore the latest robots in space in this article.

Vyommitra is a humanoid robot made in India. This robot is designed for an ambitious project of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Gaganyaan mission. This first human spaceflight program is scheduled for 2022. This is one of the latest robots which can perform all crew procedures like environmental and life support systems monitoring.

This is going to be one of the robots in space that can mimic certain astronaut postures, which are essential during the launch. ISRO researchers are also working to make Vyommitra able to chat with fellow astronauts.

Deep Autonomy of Lunar Underground Structures (DAEDALUS) is designed and created by the European Space Agency which looks like a hamster ball that is equipped with a stereoscopic camera, a radiation dosimeter, temperature sensors, and 3D mapping LiDAR device.

Kibo is one of the latest robots which was developed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and launched the second Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (KRPC) in March. The goal of this challenge is to allow scientists on the ground to capture images and video remotely using a robot that can travel around in space autonomously and capture still and moving imagery.

Rosalind is developed by the Roscosmos agency in Russia in collaboration with the European Space Agency. This is one of the latest robots designed to navigate across Mars autonomously. This rover mission is scheduled for 2022 having two pairs of cameras (NavCam and LoCam) helping the rover prepare a 3D map of Mars terrain. The rover is also equipped with PanCam Optical Bench with two wide-angle cameras for good color resolution imaging.

Perseverance rover has been landed on Mars in July 2020 which has a sensitive microphone to record the sound of its movement over the hard martian surface. This rover has recorded the first bump of the robot with six wheels that beamed back to earth.

Perseverance Rover provides an easy way to conduct research with the help of a stereoscopic imaging system, a Raman spectrometer for mineralogy, microphones for sound recording and to process real-time data.

Change 5 is a robotic spacecraft that was launched by China. It is the first of its kind robots for asteroid mining in 2020. This robot has also collected rocks from the Moons surface. China is the third country after the US and Soviet Union to collect rocks from the moon.

Share This ArticleDo the sharing thingy

Follow this link:

Latest Robots in Space Agencies to Know and Watch About - Analytics Insight

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Latest Robots in Space Agencies to Know and Watch About – Analytics Insight