• Toyota’s robot butler prototype hangs from the ceiling like a bat
• Amazon’s palm reading starts at the grocery store, but it could be so much bigger
• Meet Curly, the Curling Robot That Beats the Pros
• South Korea plans to launch 6G trials in 2026
• The Boss Says It’s OK to Take a Break From Zoom. Why Are You Still on Video Calls?”…Employers are trying ‘quiet days’ to dial back the time remote workers spend on meetings; ‘Focused Wednesday Afternoons’…” (WSJ)
• Amazon’s Alexa Boss on What Users Are Asking During Covid-19 (WSJ)
  • WSJ: As people stay home, which consumer habits evolved the fastest?
  • Ms. Reid: Meditation skills! We’ve seen an increase in things around cooking and recipes. You’re seeing people use reminders and timers to help them with home schooling.
• Tesla delivers 139,300 vehicles in Q3, beating expectations
• What Robots Can Do for Retail
• New Brain-Computer Interface Transforms Thoughts to Images
• Ford announces $1.8 billion investment to produce ‘fully battery electric vehicles’ in Canada
• 35 Thoughts About Mario on Super Mario’s 35th Anniversary
• Palantir Shares Go Up in Wall Street Debut
• Astronauts to Vote in Space

Step interaction with ARKit using LiDAR and body segmentation #xr #augmentedreality #arkit #lidar #bodysegmentation #interface pic.twitter.com/QG3eVqj3FT

— Adam Varga (@dmvrg) September 23, 2020

• Amazon’s Luna game streaming service is powered by Windows and Nvidia GPUs
• Microsoft’s new Xbox app will let you stream Xbox One games to your iPhone
• Here’s everything Amazon announced at its latest hardware event
• The eSIM maker powering Xiaomi’s IoT devices raises $15M
• Google to Increase Push for Apps to Give Cut of In-App Purchases
• E-commerce platform Whitebox raises $18M
• Microsoft is releasing a non-subscription Office suite in 2021
• OSIRIS-REx will attempt its first asteroid sample collection next month
• Twitter to start testing voice DMs
• Google expands its Flutter development kit to Windows apps
• Apple CEO Impressed by Remote Work, Sees Permanent Changes
• Generation Work-From-Home May Never Recover
• “…More than 150 million Americans have access to Amazon Prime, which promises a two-day turnaround on millions of items that can be dispatched to your home with literally one click…”

• US airlines reveal profitability of frequent flyer programmes (FT)
• Boston Dynamics delivers plan for logistics robots as early as next year
• Hulu tests its co-viewing feature ‘Watch Party’ with ad-supported viewers
• X1 Card is a credit card based on your income, not your credit score
• Supercell’s CEO talks about its majority owner Tencent, finding its next hit and more
• Sony’s PlayStation 5 arrives November 12, priced at $500
• Amazon Music Joins Podcasting Fray (WSJ)
• Why Nvidia is spending $40 billion on Arm
• Traders set to don virtual reality headsets in their home offices (FT)
• The complexity of fire“…The simplest hydrocarbon combustion produces hundreds of different intermediates and byproducts…”
• Startup Is Growing Sushi-Grade Salmon From Cells in a Lab
• How the brain creates the experience of time
• Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras
• How Target gets you to spend money
• PlayStation 5 launches Nov. 12 for $499.99

• The Long-Term Stock Exchange goes live
• Japanese convenience store chain begins testing remote controlled robot staff in Tokyo
• How Retailers Can Capture $5 Trillion of Shifting Demand
• CNCF Cloud Native Interactive Landscape
• Leadership’s role in fixing the analytics models that COVID-19 broke
• German tank problem
• Electric car costs to remain higher than traditional engines (FT)
• With no iPhone to launch, Apple turns to accessories and wearables (FT)“…For every 100 iPhones sold, Apple ships 49 pairs of AirPods and 14 Apple Watches, according to estimates from Canalys…”
• Microsoft sets sights on ‘auto connectivity’ (FT)
• Inside TikTok’s killer algorithm
• SF drone footage during the #BayAreaFires
• NASA wants to buy moon dirt from private companies
• Man vs. machine: Pentagon plans 2024 dogfight between human pilot, artificial intelligence
• Mastercard to Help Central Banks Test Their Own Digital Currencies
• Willo, a freemium video interview SaaS, scores ~$320K during the remote work boom
• Amazon launches Alexa Print, a way to print lists, recipes, games and educational content using your voice

• Tech Decoupling: China’s Race to End Its Reliance on the U.S. (WSJ)
• Rocket Lab secretly launched its very first satellite, ‘First Light’
• Apple won’t force developers to let users opt out of tracking until next year
• Privacy Implications of Accelerometer Data
• Myst AI claims its AI energy prediction technology boosts utilities’ reliability
• SpaceX launches 12th Starlink mission, says users getting 100Mbps downloads
• ‘The Mandalorian’ launches its second season on Oct. 30
• Tesla CEO met VW CEO during Germany visit: source
• The Winamp Skin Museum
• Feeling Safe in the Home of the Future: A product life-cycle approach to improve the trustworthiness of smart home products and services
• The Future of Media: A New Framework for Valuing Content
• US Inflation Calculator (from 1913 to 2020)
• Tencent: The Ultimate Outsider
• Airlines Invent Wild Ways to Make Money with Borders Closed
• These students figured out their tests were graded by AI — and the easy way to cheat
• America Is Running Low on a Crucial Resource for COVID-19 Vaccines
• Cheap Chinese exercise bikes are beating US tariffs
• Generation Work-From-Home May Never Recover
• Kenji Ekuan, Who Gave Soy Sauce Its Graceful Curves, Dies at 85“…It took him three years and 100 prototypes to come up with a final design for his dispenser, which combined a gracefully curving form with an innovative, dripless spout…”
• Amazon’s Biggest Leap Was Boring
• Uniqlo’s parent firm, Fast Retailing, is now the world’s third-largest clothing company, after Inditex (which owns Zara) and H&M

• Amazon is delivering nearly two-thirds of its own packages as e-commerce continues pandemic boom
• Picking Locks with Audio Technology
• Kafka Summit 2020 Videos
• LG is releasing a ‘wearable air purifier’
• Amazon debuts Halo smart health subscription service and Halo Band wearable activity tracker
• SpaceX will launch Masten’s first lander to the moon in 2022
• Spotify is developing a ‘virtual events’ feature
• iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 betas bypass Google Search on iPhones and iPads with Spotlight Search…Apple posting Search Jobs
• The End of the Oil Age Is Upon Us…A new report suggests that over the next 30 years, at least 80 percent of the oil industry will be wiped out
• Microsoft Flight Simulator players are flying into Hurricane Laura
• TV watching and online streaming surge during lockdown in UK
• A Good Life Doesn’t Mean an Easy One…A new study finds that for many, ‘psychological richness’ is more valuable than simple happiness (WSJ)
• Bill Gates’ nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom…The 345-megawatt plants would be cooled by liquid sodium and cost about $1 billion each.
• What Travel Will Look Like After Coronavirus
• The Pandemic Will Change American Retail Forever
• “…The cost of batteries has long been the biggest obstacle to making electric cars affordable for the masses. As a result, electric vehicles still carry a hefty price premium compared with gas engine cars. McKinsey & Co. estimates that premium at $12,000 on average…” (WSJ)
• Cities will transform and survive the pandemic (FT)

• DARPA Progress With ‘Ocean Of Things’ All-Seeing Eye On The High Seas
• Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree…Google’s new certificate program takes only six months to complete and will be a fraction of the cost of college
• Google Pixel Buds tap AI to alert users to sirens, crying babies, and barking dogs
• Airbnb has confidentially filed to go public
• China is building a GitHub alternative called Gitee
• The machine-learning model finds SARS-COV-2 growing more infectious
• With Ultralight Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Electric Airplanes Could Finally Take Off

…Oxis Energy’s design promises outstanding energy density, manufacturability, and safety
• AI player creates strikingly realistic virtual tennis matches based on real players
• Panasonic’s new home cubicle is a disheartening glimpse at our work-from-home future
• Apple quietly acquired Israel’s Camerai, formerly Tipit, a specialist in AR and camera tech
• Nvidia CEO: We are expecting a really large second half for gaming
• Sweden records highest death tally in 150 years in the first half of 2020
• Apple Reaches $2 Trillion
• Jack Ma’s Ant Group Produces $3.5 Billion Profit in Six Months as IPO Looms (WSJ)…Alipay, with more than 1bn users across more than 40 countries…(FT)
• 7 Digital Twin Use Cases
• Google Maps is getting a lot more detail
• Human Capital as an Asset (World Economic Forum)
• “…The company added 175,000 warehouse workers in March and April, 125,000 of which it said in May it would keep permanently. Amazon said this week it is in the process of adding 3,500 corporate workers at offices in New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Detroit and Dallas…”

• Personal training sessions come to ClassPass
• SpaceX is manufacturing 120 Starlink internet satellites per month
• UK enters recession after GDP plunged by a record 20.4% in the second quarter
• Digital mortgage company Habito completes £35M Series C
• The next-gen Xbox will ship in November
• Android is now the world’s largest earthquake detection network
• Amazon launches Braket quantum computing service in general availability
• Dropbox launches password manager, computer backup, and secure ‘vaults’ out of beta
• Amazon launches online pharmacy in India
• “Remote Work Is Reshaping San Francisco, as Tech Workers Flee and Rents Fall…The social-media giant, which has 52,000 employees, expects to shift to a substantially remote workforce over the coming decade, and is now recruiting a director of remote work…”
• Apple sued by Fortnite maker after kicking the game out of App Store for payment policy violations
• Scribd acquires presentation-sharing service SlideShare from LinkedIn
• Apple Readies Subscription Bundles to Boost Digital Services
• Peloton shares slip premarket on news Apple is planning exercise video subscription service
• SpaceX Starlink speeds revealed as beta users get downloads of 11 to 60Mbps

A 107-page safety manual details everything from infrared temperature scanners to vacuum-sealed meals that awaits the cast and crew of “Jurassic World: Dominion,” one of the first major Hollywood films to restart production since the coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/JGYqdj1BDg

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 13, 2020

• mmhmm, the virtual presentation software from Phil Libin, launches its Beta 2
• Microsoft signals renewed interest in Windows with latest reshuffle
• Have I Been Pwned — which tells you if passwords were breached — is going open source
• Facebook will let employees work from home until July 2021
• The U.S. Military Is Building Voice-Controlled War Robots
• AI on the high seas: Digital transformation is revolutionizing global shipping
• US reaches $1B deal for doses of potential Johnson & Johnson vaccine
• Scientists develop a new way to deliver drugs through the skin
• Microsoft integrates Android apps into Windows 10 with new Your Phone update
• TikTok Could Become Microsoft’s Deal of the Decade
• The AR/VR Ecosystem – Are We There Yet?

"Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market and less than 4% of retail in the U.S" $AMZN pic.twitter.com/ZbJSzFVDH6

— Craig Bujnowski (@craigbuj) July 29, 2020