UPS wins round one of drone race
UPS is the first company to win approval of its fleet of drones from the FAA, receiving a Part 135 certification — the same as is required to run an airline. With this approval, UPS can fly as many drones as it likes in any locations, subject to FAA flight restrictions. UPS has been operating drones at Wakemed Hospital in Raleigh, NC, and now has the opportunity to expand its services. Wired
dis-rup-shun: UPS’ operations in Raleigh serve an important need for the conveyance of medicine, blood and equipment around a campus. Expect to see many campus applications for drones as currently the FAA requires flights to be within line of sight. Wide scale delivery, replacing courier trucks, is many years away as many obstacles, including buildings, power lines, trees, excessive noise and landing spots are challenges outside of a controlled campus. Expect to see UPS and other couriers vying to be the official drone providers of specific corporate and educational campuses, where a drone control tower can easily see most all parts of the campus.
Study shows that texting speed is close to keyboard typing speed
In a study conducted among 37,000 volunteers from 160 countries, by Aalto University, University of Cambridge, and ETH Zürich, it was determined that average typing speeds via text keypads are nearly as fast as speeds with a keyboard. The study also determined that average keyboard WPM speeds are decreasing and that two-thumb texting is faster than single finger entry. Gizmodo
dis-rup-shun: We must recall that the qwerty keyboard was invented to slow typists down, as mechanical typewriters were jamming when fast typists perfected speed of entry. We must also realize that today’s child learns to navigate a touch pad well before a keyboard, and well before any typing courses are taken, if those still exist. With smart speakers, reliance of full keyboards will be more about accommodating the habits of older generations, rather than defining an optimal way of tactile input. As voice entry becomes a standard for business communications, we can expect today’s qwerty keyboard to slowly fade from many devices in the coming 20 to 30 years. With the qwerty keyboard dictating the form factor of laptops today, expect the smart phone or tablet to completely replace the laptop when all of us are equally comfortable with touchpads and voice entry.
Tech facilitating dog-to-human communications
Georgia Tech’s FIDO project is a research project equipping working dogs with wearables that, when activated with the press of a nose, for example, warn of impending seizures, high or low insulin levels, the presence of explosives, an episode induced by autism, or other important things that working dogs know that their human handlers don’t. Wired
dis-rup-shun: Working dogs are already heavily utilized for many specialized situations. According to ShareAmerica, there are over 500,000 working dogs in the U.S. alone. According to Statista, there are nearly 90 million pet dogs in American households. So a talking wearable for a pet dog that might notify an owner that a dog needs to go outside has a total addressable market of several hundred million worldwide.
Tesla acquires DeepScale computer vision startup
DeepScale, a Silicon Valley computer vision startup, brings to Tesla needed talent to help outfit cars with the video processing power required to assure autonomous driving. Computer .ision requires heavy processing power, not convenient or cost effective for mass production in cars. DeepScale will help bring computer vision to low powered car processors. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: The acquisition reportedly fills a gap left when a computer vision team left Tesla over the summer — an increasing problem in a culture that has been reported to be unfriendly and chaotic. Tesla’s goal is to create and sell cars that can be driven by or without humans. It is unknown if the technology gap required for autonomous cars is greater or less than the legislative gap required to gain acceptance for driver-less cars, but the Federal Government has developed standards for self-driving vehicles. Read about it here.