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Planning to try and automate the entire store.

Walmart (WMT) has been quietly testing out autonomous floor scrubbers during the overnight shifts in five store locations near the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

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A spokesperson for Walmart told FOX Business that the move, which was first reported by LinkedIn, is a “very small proof of concept pilot that we are running” and that the company still has a lot more to learn about how this technology “might work best in our different retail locations.”

Continue reading “Walmart is ‘secretly’ testing self-driving floor scrubbers, signaling that more robots are coming” | >

The Pentagon is developing a new fleet of shadow bombers that possibly disappear on radar like those featured in Star Trek movies.

The unit of B-21 stealth bombers, a futuristic combat aircraft, are being created at a secret desert plant in Palmdale, California, after the company Northrop Grumman won the contract for their development two years ago, The Times reported.

The U.S. military has sanctioned the development of around 100 of the bat-like bombers for as much as $80 billion. The precise amount remains top secret.

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In a recent article, I began to unpack Rodney Brooks’ October 2017 essay “The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions.” Now I continue my analysis by looking into the faulty atheistic thinking that motivates the AI salvation preached by futurists such as Google’s Ray Kurzweil. Although Brooks does not address this worldview dimension, his critique of AI predictive sins provides a great opportunity for just that.

Brooks is a pioneer of robotic artificial intelligence (AI) and is MIT Panasonic Professor of Robotics Emeritus. He is also the founder and chief technology officer of Rethink Robotics, which makes cobots—robots designed to collaborate with humans in a shared industrial workspace.

Previously I discussed Brooks’ remark that “all the evidence that I see says we have no real idea yet how to build” the superintelligent devices that Kurzweil and like-minded singularity advocates imagine.

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Even very moderate activity levels can influence the risk of death, according to a new study led by the University of Buffalo. The study showed that there was a significant reduction of mortality risk in women over 65 who regularly engaged in light physical activites, such as household chores.

Yes, folding the laundry, ironing, vacuuming the house and other menial tasks might not seem the most glamorous of activities, but they may help you to live longer.

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In our view, to get the most from space-science programmes — in terms of impacts on research and reputation — government agencies and institutions need to choose, manage and assess missions in ways that optimize the scientific outputs. As heads of space-science agencies and institutes from around the world gather at a forum next week in Beijing to identify principles for maximizing returns on such missions, we call on them to put science first.

Put research goals first when prioritizing and managing national and international projects, urge Ji Wu and Roger Bonnet.

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