Killer Cars And Robotic Teddy Bears

forbes.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – FEBRUARY 02: U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx (R) and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (L) get out of a Google self-driving car at the Google headquarters on February 2, 2015 in Mountain View, California. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx joined Google Chairman Eric Schmidt for a fireside chat where he unveiled Beyond Traffic, a new analysis from the U.S. Department of Transportation that anticipates the trends and choices facing our transportation system over the next three decades. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A Japanese startup has a novel implementation of virtual reality. Their gear will allow people to inhabit the body of a robotic Teddy Bear to communicate with loved ones over the Internet. Let’s hope the loved ones have not seen the film ‘Ted’, or worse, ‘Chuckie’… Mining conglomerate Rio Tinto is driving full speed ahead with its Internet of Things roadmap. The firm has had 53 fully autonomous driverless trucks in operation since 2008. Powered by more than 200 sensors and overseen by operators 1,000 miles away, these trucks have hauled an impressive 250 million tons of iron ore and logged 3 million miles. And trucks are just the beginning…  Tesla is going to dramatically restrict its magical Autopilot feature because, well, humans can be dumb. Case in point, three guys used Autopilot almost exclusively to drive a Telsa cross country, at times travelling near 90mph… Add manicurists to the victims of the robot revolution. Fingernails 2 Go wants to replace your manicurist with a kiosk vending machine that combines facial recognition, a heavily modified inkjet printer and very healthy measure of trust… Smartwatches have annoying small screens so why not build a smartwatch with the screen the size of a small tablet? That device, the Rufus Cuff, lets you easily make video calls, surf the web and even play games. The downside is you’ll have a tablet strapped to your wrist…

This is Change Log — my weekly observations and links on the intersection of tech, commerce, health, culture and markets.

Driverless Cars: Should driverless cars be programmed to kill a pedestrian if it means saving the life of the vehicle’s occupants? Read at Quartz here.

Cyber Security: The U.K. wants to ban the strong end-to-end encryption used on iPhones because spying is sometimes a good thing, they promise. Read at the Telegraph here.

Smart Cities: London wants to secure its position as the capital city of the world, not just the UK, so it is ramping-up its Internet of Things plans. Read at Raconteur here. And don’t miss this graphic.

Neuroscience: DARPA goes all ‘Bourne Identity’ with memory-boosting implant tests in humans. ‘I don’t send you to kill. I send you to be invisible. I send you because you don’t exist.’ Read at Nature here.

Robotics: A new Bank of America BAC +0.00% report suggests future robots will flip burgers, care for the elderly and steal as many as one-third of jobs in the U.K. Good thing we don’t live in the U.K. That would never happen in the states, right? Read at The Guardian here.

Machine Learning: Four years ago researchers built a central knowledge base for robots and now that database is yielding results as robots “share experiences” to learn faster. Read at Fast Company here.

Autonomous Cars: A startup called Next wants to disrupt self-driving cars by building train-like linkable glass boxes with four wheels, as shown above. Yes, they are glass boxes. I love this idea; it makes a lot of sense. Read at Wired here.