New Florence. New Renaissance.

Holiday Trends during the pandemic from Google

"We’ve analyzed Google Maps data before and during the pandemic (for the purposes of this post, we analyzed data from March to October 2020) to see how people across the U.S. are getting ready for the holidays. Read on for top trends on how people are navigating, how they’re spending their time and what type of food they’re craving."

Google Blog

The year of the cold chain

At the start of the pandemic, it became clear very quickly that the cold chain was a priority.

Manufacturers and distributors committed to ensuring the food supply chain would continue working as an essential industry. The focus later expanded to figure out how the cold chain would also be used to successfully deliver a temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccine to billions across the globe, once a viable option was ready.

Supply Chain Dive

Video below of the massive logistical challenge around COVID-19 vaccine distribution

The pothole hunter

“Our waste vehicles are out and about every day, so we thought why not tap into this network to get the latest information on the status of our roads.

“By equipping waste trucks with videoing technology and using AI to identify potential issues, we’re able to collect up-to-date information and get to fixing our roads quicker”.

The program began in early 2019 with Council’s Asset Management team and ICT department working together with tech suppliers to fit a Council garbage truck with a consumer-grade dashcam, GPS and 4G modem.

Video footage captured by the camera is then transmitted to the cloud, where AI methods are used to identify potholes, cracking, line markings, and signs while also protecting privacy.

Moreton Bay Regional Council

https://fb.watch/23_jLTuOEC/

 

 

Japan, China and Maglev trains

On one side is Central Japan Railway Co.’s 9 trillion yen ($86 billion) maglev that’s expected to connect Tokyo and Osaka by 2037. On the other is China’s 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) on-again, off-again project that will run between Shanghai and the eastern port city of Ningbo. After several false starts, it’s now forecast to be completed by around 2035. Japan’s is more expensive largely because of the amount of excavation that will be required to tunnel through the mountainous countryside. If Japan and China are able to unveil their long-distance projects successfully by their due dates, it should give them a leg up when they look to export the next-generation technology, rail experts say.

Bloomberg

 

McKinsey's State of AI Survey

Overall, half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in at least one function.   And while AI adoption was about equal across regions last year, this year’s respondents working for companies with headquarters in Latin American countries and in other developing countries are much less likely than those elsewhere to report that their companies have embedded AI into a process or product in at least one function or business unit. By industry, respondents in the high-tech and telecom sectors    are again the most likely to report AI adoption, with the automotive and assembly sector falling just behind them (down from sharing the lead last year).

The business functions in which organizations adopt AI remain largely unchanged from the 2019 survey, with service operations, product or service development, and marketing and sales again taking the top spots.

McKinsey

 

Apple iPhone 12 teardown

No chance I am tearing down my new 12 Pro. It has Belkin Ultraglass to shield the screen and a clear case to protect the body. However, I am glad there are others who have torn theirs down.  

The teardown from Fomalhaut Techno Solutions shows a bill of materials of around $406. It shows the most expensive components of this iPhones models are undoubtedly the Qualcomm X55 5G modem which cost around $90 (estimated). After this, it’s the OLED display from Samsung. The estimated price for this Samsung OLED display is around $70. around $90. Deep in the report, we got the production cost for the A14 Bionic chipset is said to be around $40. 

The iFixit video shows the teardown of the phone with an updated 3 camera system that includes Lidar, a new flat-edged design, an updated processor and 5G network support.

AeroNabs

“Far more effective than wearable forms of personal protective equipment, we think of AeroNabs as a molecular form of PPE that could serve as an important stopgap until vaccines provide a more permanent solution to COVID-19,” said AeroNabs co-inventor Peter Walter, PhD, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. For those who cannot access or don’t respond to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, Walter added, AeroNabs could be a more permanent line of defense against COVID-19.

UC San Francisco

 

The Great Reboot

Arnobio Morelix, Inc.'s chief data scientist and chief innovation officer of San Fransisco-based Startup Genome, from his forthcoming book

"Over half of Fortune 500 companies were created in a recession, an impressive number. And even if you look at the Great Recession, we had over 50 unicorns created during that time. So there's a ton of opportunity during periods of adversity. In the present moment, this specially helps digital businesses.

There are a lot of new, tech-enabled markets and products that will dominate our daily lives in the future. For example, we're seeing new technological implementations these days that probably would have taken years to roll out without the the pandemic, including touchless and cashier-less transactions at stores, automated toll booths (a technology that existed for years but has just now been completely implemented in the Bay Area, for example), small family restaurants and stores with digital interfaces for ordering. (Don't expect to be given reusable menus at your favorite neighborhood cafe any time soon.)"

Inc

Digital autopsies

A medical examiner puts on a pair of augmented-reality goggles and brings up a computer simulated image of a body that appears to hover steps away. Nearby on a metal autopsy table lies the body of a person brought into the lab after a fatal shooting. Instead of cutting into the victim, the examiner slices through the 3-D image, mapping the bullet’s trajectory and determining the cause of death without making a single incision.

This is one vision of the virtual future of autopsies, based on interviews with forensic and digital health-care experts: Using digital reconstructions and machine-learning algorithms to diagnose the cause of death, identify a victim, and even triage battlefield or motor-vehicle injuries in live patients by analyzing images of victims who died in similar incidents. It would mark a step change for the field of forensic science, where the standard methods of autopsy have remained nearly unchanged for a century.

WSJ

 

New security jobs for the digital world

WSJ highlights 5 new jobs for the digital world

• Deepfake analyst
• Driverless-Car Security Specialist
• Implanted-Device Guardian
• Anti-Cheat Referee (for video games)
• Chief Digital Identity Officer

Video on Trend Micro's threat research