A lot of students struggle year in year out to pass Jamb exams. The mention of the word JAMB alone gives some students the jitters because they believe that it’s an examination that is difficult....
After years of facing
criticism for its labor practices, Foxconn is working to solve the
problem. Will living conditions be completely revamped, and employees
paid fairly? Don’t be ridiculous! Instead, Foxconn wants to replace
those pesky workers with ten thousand robots. These robots alone could
manufacture hundreds of millions of iPhones every year — potentially
eliminating the need for most of the workforce. This rollout of
“Foxbots” might solve Foxconn’s current PR problem, but will it create a bigger uproar when thousands of workers lose their jobs to robots?
At
a shareholder’s meeting held recently, Foxconn’s Terry Gou explained
that these so-called “Foxbots” are almost ready for prime time. These
machines will be installed in at least one large-scale factory in the
near future, and we can most assuredly expect more to come once the
kinks have been worked out. Interestingly, Chinese site IT Home is
reporting that Apple — the company most associated with Foxconn — will
be the first company to use these new robots. If that’s true, maybe that rumored 4.7-inch iPhone 6 we’ve heard so much about will be assembled exclusively by robots.
Apparently, each of these
machines cost between $20,000 and $25,000, and they’ll be able to pump
out 30,000 units in a year’s time. After doing some back-of-the-envelope
calculations, it seems that 10,000 of these devices could churn out
over 820,000 devices in a single day. With numbers like that, it’s no
surprise that Foxconn is looking to automate its assembly line.
Of course, this doesn’t spell the immediate end of factory labor. In 2011, we were told that Foxconn would have upwards of a million robots in its factories
by 2014, but we’ve yet to see any official headcount. Since Foxconn
isn’t bragging about its total number of robots, it’s safe to assume
that those early estimates were overly optimistic. As it stands, Foxconn
employs well over a million people in factories all over the world, and
it’s just not practical to fire all of those people just yet. The human
touch is still needed in many aspects of production, but how long is
that going to last? The fields of robotics and artificial intelligence
are growing incredibly fast, and it seems inevitable that number of
factory jobs will slowly dwindle to nothing over the next few decades.
It’s
not all bad news, though. Robotic labor will most certainly reduce
cost, increase efficiency, and prevent exposure to unsafe working
conditions. Electronics will be even more affordable as robots take over
more jobs, and you won’t have to worry about supporting the sketchy labor practices found abroad. Unfortunately, that will likely come at the cost of millions of jobs across the entire industry.
First robots stole our jobs
here on Earth — and now Google and NASA want to do the same to our
astronauts. Later this week, Google and NASA will launch some Tango
smartphone-powered SPHERES robots to the International Space Station. As
their name suggests, SPHERES are spherical robots that will float
through the halls of the ISS, powered by small CO2 thrusters, performing
chores that would normally be carried out by astronauts. Tango,
Google’s sensor-laden prototype depth-sensing smartphone, will be the
brain of each robot. In the future, the SPHERES robots could even
perform risky tasks outside the ISS in the deep, dark, never-ending
expanse.
On July 11, an Orbital Sciences unmanned Cygnus spacecraft will
launch atop an Antares rocket. Orbital Sciences, like SpaceX, has a
commercial contract with NASA to ferry supplies to and from the ISS.
Cygnus, like SpaceX’s Dragon, will carry a bunch of goodies for the
astronauts aboard the ISS — including a handful of SPHERES.
In
true science-loves-backronyms-a-bit-too-much style, SPHERES stands
for Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental
Satellites. As you can see in the photos throughout this story, each
robot is about the size of a bowling ball, with two protrusions for a
CO2 canister and the Tango smartphone.
NASA has sent SPHERES to the ISS before, but all they could really do
was move around with their small CO2 thruster. With the addition of a
Tango “brain” the hope is that the robots will actually be able to
assist astronauts on some tasks, or even completely carry out some
mundane chores, freeing up astronauts to work on other things.
In
recent years there has been a marked shift towards the use of
off-the-shelf hardware in space (and military) applications. This is
partly due to tighter budgets (a $1,000 digital camera is a damn sight
cheaper than the tens-of-thousands you would spend on a bespoke camera),
and partly because modern technology is just really darn good. “We
wanted to add communication, a camera, increase the processing
capability, accelerometers and other sensors [to the SPHERES]. As we
were scratching our heads thinking about what to do, we realized the
answer was in our hands,” Chris Provencher, SPHERES project manager told
Reuters. “Let’s just use smartphones.”
Initially NASA’s SPHERES team
just used normal smartphones from Best Buy, but they didn’t have the
necessary capabilities to move around smoothly and unaided. Now,
however, they’ve moved to Google’s Tango smartphone, which has a
Kinect-like sensor on the back that can quickly and accurately create a
3D map of its surroundings. Google and NASA have already tested the
smart, Tango-equipped SPHERES aboard a zero-g test flight — and now it’s
time to actually ship three of them up to the ISS.
As these early
SPHERES aren’t equipped with tools, they will mostly just fly around
the ISS, testing out their software. The eventual goal is to have a
fleet of bowling ball robots flying around in formation, fixing things,
docking to things (and moving them around), and autonomously looking for
things (a mislaid spanner, lost satellites, etc.) This would free up
astronauts to do other, more important things — and if SPHERES can also
perform EVAs (extra-vehicular activity, space walks), then the risk of
being an astronaut would be significantly reduced.
If you're tired of
boring links, text and images on your Blogger sidebar, surprise site
visitors with a video. YouTube, the online video sharing site, allows
users to grab the HTML video code from any video and embed it on a Web
page. By adding an HTML gadget to your blog, you can paste YouTube video
code into the gadget and insert the gadget into your sidebar.
If you're tired of
boring links, text and images on your Blogger sidebar, surprise site
visitors with a video. YouTube, the online video sharing site, allows
users to grab the HTML video code from any video and embed it on a Web
page. By adding an HTML gadget to your blog, you can paste YouTube video
code into the gadget and insert the gadget into your sidebar.
If you're tired of boring links, text and images on your Blogger sidebar, surprise site visitors with a video. YouTube, the online video sharing site, allows users to grab the HTML video code from any video and embed it on a Web page. By adding an HTML gadget to your blog, you can paste YouTube video code into the gadget and insert the gadget into your sidebar.
Instructions
1
Open your browser and navigate to YouTube.com. Choose from a list of recommended videos or do a search for a specific video. Click the video and it begins to play. Click "Pause" to pause the video.
2 Click the "Share" button beneath the video, then click "Embed." A text box containing HTML code appears. Click the text box to highlight the text, then right-click the highlighted text and click "Copy." Windows copies the HTML to the system clipboard.
3 Visit your Blogger account page. This page contains a list of your current blogs. Each blog name appears in a separate section. Each section contains a "Design" link associated with that blog.
4 Click the "Design" link in one of the sections. The "Add and Arrange Page Elements" page opens.
5 Click the "Add a Gadget" link located on the sidebar to open the "Add a Gadget" window. Click "HTML/JavaScript" and the "Configure HTML/JavaScript" pop-up window opens. This window contains a "Title" text box and a "Content" text box.
6
Type a title for your video in the "Title" text box, then right-click anywhere inside the "Content" text box.
7
Click "Paste" to paste the HTML you copied from the YouTube site. Click "Save," then click "Preview." Your blog opens in a preview tab or window and displays the YouTube video in the sidebar.
Maybe you’ve heard: Apple
CarPlay and Google Android Auto will replicate the richness of your
smartphone onto the car’s big LCD display, with appropriate safeguards
such as no videos while moving. If that’s what you heard, adjust your
enthusiasm downward. What you’ll see at year’s end on the first CarPlay
cars is a nice step forward — but it’s a baby step forward.
Here’s
what we know about Apple CarPlay after seeing demos on several brands
including Hyundai (main photo). Volvo and Mercedes-Benz. You can make
calls, check contacts, and play music with CarPlay. But — headslap — you
can do that now without CarPlay. With CarPlay, you can use the phone
for navigation, but only one vendor’s app works: Apple’s not Google’s,
nor anybody’s else’s. You can send and receive text messages but in the
car with CarPlay engaged, you’ll only hear the texts, not see them.
Talk to Siri, not your car’s voice recognition
On
the Apple CarPlay side, the news is not altogether bad. Apple’s Siri
will provide voice control to manage CarPlay, not your car’s awful voice
recognition. Most users, probably all users, will prefer Siri to what
comes with the car for voice recognition.
For apps on your phone
that aren’t CarPlay certified, you may be able to access them through
Siri Eyes Free. Eyes Free exists already on some pre-CarPlay cars and is
part of CarPlay. This gives you voice-only queries (meaning iPhone
typing is not permitted) through the car’s microphone and you receive
voice-only responses played through the car’s speakers. To access Siri
Eyes Free, the driver typically taps and holds the car’s voice control
button — long hold or double tap for Siri Eyes Free, single tap for the
car’s voice input – and then ask the question. If the app is Eyes Free
compatible, if your phone is in cellular range, and if you speak to
Siri’s satisfaction, you should get a workable response except when Siri
is busy right now, sorry.
As we noted in the Apple CarPlay backgrounder
earlier in the year, this is the technology originally called iOS in
the Car. Apple lost the dorky name, but Google — for now — is sticking
with Google Android Auto. Score round one to Apple.
The car’s
existing voice recognition remains a tool for communicating with the
car’s entire infotainment system when you’re not using CarPlay. For
CarPlay, you also can use the center stack controls, the touchscreen,
and a cockpit control wheel (BMW iDrive and its followers). As Apple
says, “If it controls your screen, it controls CarPlay.” For both
CarPlay and Eyes Free, when the phone is plugged in and either
are running, the phone cannot be accessed directly.
Lockdown: Why CarPlay and Siri may annoy and disappoint
Here’s
why you may feel Apple and your automaker gave you a half-full glass.
Every iOS app has to be Apple-approved and a CarPlay app has to be
approved again. That’s a big task, and for now a small list of approved
apps. It currently includes music, phone and contacts, maps (Apple’s),
texting (sort of, see below), and typically a switcher app that takes
you back to the car’s native infotainment system. For now, there are a
half-dozen available non-Apple apps: Beats Music (an Apple app now),
iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, and Podcasts. Notice the lack of Pandora
and Google Maps.
With texting, the driver or passenger uses Siri
to compose the text. Siri parses the voice input, plays it back in
Siri’s voice, and if you approve it, sends it as a text to the
recipient. You just hope “who’re” doesn’t go through as “hoer” or worse.
A colleague recently had “parked” translated to a client as “porked.”
The reply comes back to you as a voice text message while the phone is
connected and stored on your iPhone as well, viewable once you
disconnect. Most demos I saw got the sample text messages right, but not
all. You correct the message by re-recording it. The potential for
frustration may be high.
A handful of automakers, mostly the
prestige German brands, currently display on-screen texts and snippets
of e-mail you can see at a glance. But that’s when you’re outside
CarPlay. Viewable text messages via CarPlay are most likely to work — if
Apple buys in — on cars with dual-view LCD displays where the driver
sees one view and the passenger sees a different view. Mercedes and
Lexus have that.
All this only works if your phone is within
range. Siri processes your voice in the cloud. That’s where an
integrated car telematics modem with a rooftop antenna would have better
range.
No automaker yet has announced a way that would give the
passenger more permissions than the driver. Intel and Ford developed a
prototype gesture tracking system, Mobii, that could tell if the passenger was the one doing input.
CarPlay
requires current iPhones — iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, and iPhone 5 — with
Lightning connectors. If everyone turns their phones over every 24
months (the sealed battery is shot anyway), that should be minor. Merely
annoying. If you’re investing $30,000-plus in a CarPlay car, you can
spring for a new phone at the same time.
CarPlay requires a car
with an LCD display and a CarPlay head unit. That means you need a new
car. Even new models announced and shipped since CarPlay’s spring
announcement may not work until later production. For instance, the
2015 Hyundai Sonata,
on sale since June and our Editors’ Choice among affordable midsize
cars, will not be CarPlay compatible with early
production. Mercedes-Benz will have limited backwards compatibility for
previously built cars.
If you have CarPlay navigation, you may not
need the automaker’s navigation. For now, most every new car navigation
system is part of a package with other features you may want, such as
premium audio, a sunroof, or leather seats. BMW, a CarPlay supporter,
sells navigation separately, but it’s far cheaper in a package, and
BMW’s navigation is so good you ought to buy it, especially when you’re
in for fifty grand already on the car.
The good stuff
Apple
CarPlay does several things well. Most of all, you’ll probably be more
comfortable with Siri as your voice input system. It’s a technology you
know, use, and mostly like, except when it gets your clearly spoken
request hopelessly garbled.
The CarPlay buttons are big and easy
to tap. With an existing LCD display, who hasn’t tried to pick line one
on the display of choices on a bumpy road and hit line two by mistake,
so you end up being sent to 3500 West Market Street instead of East several miles away?
Automakers
have flexibility in design, even if they’re looking for more freedom.
The icons look the same across the cars, although the icon to return to
Hyundai’s non-CarPlay infotainment system looks different from the
Mercedes-Benz icon, for instance. Volvo, which has a vertical center
stack LCD, has modified CarPlay to look good that way (photo).
As
CarPlay evolves, more apps will be certified and you’ll have a richer
experience. You might be able to choose among several navigation apps
and virtually all the streaming music services. But it’s slim pickings
for now.
What about Google Android Auto?
Android Auto was announced last month. Just as CarPlay only works with iOS devices, Android Auto
only works with Android phones. It offers the same core features as
CarPlay: phone control and contacts, music control, text message
composing and playback. Android Auto will have web search.
Compatible
apps should include Google Maps, Google Play Music, MLB at Bat, Pandora
Radio, Spotify, Songza, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Joyride and TuneIn.
Although Google announced later than Apple, the expectation is that both
should arrive at the same time, in late 2014. Automakers say they’re
specifying radio head units that support both.
With just a couple of months
until the iPhone 6′s expected release date in September, a new video
strongly suggests that the device will have a 4.7-inch sapphire glass
display. The video apparently shows the front panel of an iPhone 6,
direct from the production line in China (sourced by Sonny Dickson, who
has a pretty good record with iPhone leaks and rumors). If this really
is the iPhone 6 sapphire glass front panel, prepare to be excited: This
thing is virtually indestructible, withstanding extreme scratch and
bend/torque tests.
The video, published by Markus Brownlee, shows a
4.7-inch iPhone 6 front panel. It is virtually identical to the iPhone
5S front, but scaled up by about 50%. The iPhone 6 screen aspect ratio
appears to be the same 16:9 as the iPhone 5S,
but presumably the resolution of the iPhone 6 will step up to 1920×1080
(or maybe even higher, if Apple wants to reclaim the pixels-per-inch
crown). The panel came from famed iPhone leaker Sonny Dickson, who
appears to be well connected with Apple’s Chinese production line.
But more importantly, look at
the abuse that Brownlee then foists upon the unsuspecting iPhone 6
sapphire glass screen. While it’s possible that he’s pulling his
punches, it really does look like he’s trying his hardest to scratch the
screen with a knife and keys. Likewise, when he steps on the screen and
tries to snap it by bending it back, I think he’s really trying.
Perhaps
rather importantly, though, Brownlee doesn’t perform any impact tests —
such as smashing the front panel with a large rock. While we know that sapphire is incredibly strong,
it is also quite brittle; so it should be great for avoiding scratches,
but a drop on a hard floor could shatter the screen into a million
pieces. Given how common phone dropping is, though, and the memories of
shattered iPhone 4 glass still seared into the memories of millions of
owners, I’m sure Apple has a solution in place. Maybe it’s a special
breed of sapphire, or more likely the sapphire is laminated with another
material to provide higher impact resistance.
If this really is the iPhone 6
front cover, it’s significant for a couple of major reasons. First,
with a display diagonal of at 4.7 inches, this would be a massive
departure from the iPhones of yore. In the iPhone’s seven-year history,
the screen size has only changed once before — and that was more of an
aspect ratio adjustment than anything else (woo, another row of icons!) A
4.7-inch screen, presumably with a 1920×1080 or 2560×1440 LCD display,
would put the iPhone 6 on a much more even footing with other
superphones from Samsung, HTC, and Nokia. A boule of synthetically created sapphire crystal Second,
it would be the first mass-market smartphone with a sapphire glass
front panel. Sapphire glass has been used in smaller applications
(wristwatches, the front element on the iPhone 5S’s rear camera), but it
has historically been too expensive to fashion an entire fascia out of
the stuff. With its exclusive partnership with sapphire glass maker GT Advanced Technologies,
and no doubt some beefy capital investment from Apple’s deep pockets,
it would appear that production costs have now reached a low enough
level to make a sapphire glass iPhone 6 viable.
Expect a lot more
iPhone 6 information to leak out over the next two months in the run-up
to its official September unveil and release. We wouldn’t be surprised
if the sapphire glass, 4.7-inch screen, and a much-increased display
resolution are the main extent of the iPhone 6′s new features. It will
be interesting to see how other mobile device makers, such as Samsung,
react (no one else seems to have the capacity to make large quantities
of sapphire glass), and how Corning reacts to this new threat (Gorilla
Glass has been mostly unchallenged for a few years now).
