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Archive for the ‘business’ category: Page 289

Dec 3, 2015

Google makes ‘largest purchase’ of renewable energy to power data centers: 842 MW across 3 countries

Posted by in categories: business, finance, sustainability

Google says it wants to power 100% of its operations from renewable energy.


Google has announced a slew of renewable energy projects, as it moves to meet its commitment to power 100 percent of its business from green energy sources.

In what it calls the “largest, and most diverse, purchase of renewable energy ever made by a non-utility company,” Google said it has added 842 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy to its data centers, which nearly doubles the amount of clean energy it has already bought. Most of the renewable energy has been purchased for locations in the U.S., but Google said it has added more than 150 megawatts from a solar plant in Chile and a wind farm in Sweden.

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Dec 2, 2015

A Big Win for Cheap, Clean Energy — By Bill Gates | The Gates Notes

Posted by in categories: business, energy, environmental, innovation, science

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Nov 30, 2015

Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone With Hybrid Design — By Drew Olanoff & Frederic Lardinois | TechCrunch

Posted by in categories: business, drones

“Amazon delivered a lovely update on its ‘Prime Air’ project today — almost exactly two years after it showed the first iteration of its drone.”

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Nov 27, 2015

Stuart Russell on Why Moral Philosophy Will Be Big Business in Tech

Posted by in categories: business, ethics, robotics/AI

Russell also signed the letter, but he says his view is less apocalyptic. He says that, until now, the field of artificial intelligence has been singularly focused on giving robots the ability to make “high-quality” decisions.

“At the moment, we don’t know how to give the robot what you might call human values,” he says.

But Russell believes that as this problem becomes clearer, it’s only natural that people will start to focus their energy on solving it.

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Nov 27, 2015

Microsoft Stock Analysis

Posted by in categories: business, quantum physics, supercomputing

It seems evident that Microsoft is joining other top tech companies in betting on quantum computing with a clear business strategy in mind: to become the market leader in software development platforms for quantum computing. If quantum computers become the next supercomputing revolution in 2025, Microsoft stock will take a quantum leap.

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Nov 27, 2015

Driverless cars could spell the end for domestic flights

Posted by in categories: business, robotics/AI, transportation

Self-driving cars could disrupt the airline and hotel industries within 20 years as people sleep in their vehicles on the road, according to a senior strategist at Audi.

Short-haul travel will be transformed and the hassle of getting to and from airports eliminated, said Sven Schuwirth, vice president of brand strategy and digital business at the German car brand.

Business travellers will be able to avoid taking domestic flights to meetings and will sleep and work in their cars en route instead of checking into city-centre hotels, he said.

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Nov 25, 2015

‘Go’ Is the Game Machines Can’t Beat. Google’s Artificial Intelligence Whiz Hints That His Will — By Mark Bergen | Re/code

Posted by in categories: business, computing, innovation, machine learning, neuroscience, robotics/AI

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“When the world’s smartest researchers train computers to become smarter, they like to use games. Go, the two-player board game born in China more than two millennia ago, remains the nut that machines still can’t crack.”

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Nov 24, 2015

China to build world’s biggest animal cloning factory in Tianjin

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business

Tianjin is building the world’s largest animal cloning factory, aiming to produce one million cattle embryos annually, state media reported yesterday.

According to a Xinhua, mainland scientists have signed a deal to establish a 200 million yuan (HK$242 million) commercial animal cloning centre in the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, a government-sponsored business development park.

Its main building was already under construction and due to be completed by June next year, the report said. Among the animals it will clone are sniffer and pet dogs, high-grade beef cattle, racehorses and “non-human primates”. These animals will be used for commercial services and improving breeds.

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Nov 23, 2015

Google Glass Successor Dumps Some Glass — By Jessica E. Lessin | The Information

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, business, wearables

Tony Fadell, founder and chief executive officer of Nest Labs Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, July 29, 2015. Nest Labs Inc. designs and manufactures wifi enabled learning and programmable devices such as thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras for the home. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg  *** Local Caption *** Tony Fadell

“We’ve learned that Google’s revamped Google Glass project, dubbed Project Aura, is working on a wearable with a screen—and at least one without.”

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Nov 20, 2015

Medical robots – the future of surgery?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, robotics/AI

For some people the idea of being operated on by a robot might sound horrifying, particularly if there isn’t even a doctor in the room to check that everything is running smoothly. Surgery is in any case a risky business that few would undertake willingly if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and it seems unlikely that the spectacle of an enormous machine with mechanical arms attached to surgical scalpels would reassure anyone about having to undergo an operation. However, the use of robotic surgery has spread rapidly in recent years and for some types of operations it is becoming the standard. While there is a lot of controversy surrounding the topic, many doctors see surgical robots as a vital tool to provide better medical care and lower the risks associated with surgery.

History of robotic surgery

The roots of robotic surgery go back to the mid-1980s, when a robotic surgical arm was first used to perform a neurosurgical biopsy. Two years later, the first robot-assisted laparoscopic (i.e. keyhole) operation was conducted, a cholecystectomy. The following years saw continued advances in the area of robotic surgery, which was used for a growing range of surgical procedures. One of the earliest robotic surgical systems to enter into general use was the ROBODOC system, which came on the market in the early 1990s and allowed surgeons conducting hip replacements to mill the femur with more precision that would have been conventionally possible.

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