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This is Change Log — my weekly observations and links on the intersection of tech, commerce, health, culture and markets.
Apple refreshed most of its product line last week by adding rose gold finishes, but the big story was a crazy, big new iPad. Apple now innovates by painting things pink and supersizing. What a mess… Recent stock market volatility has caused many investors fitful nights but not legendary investor Warren Buffet. He’s losing no sleep whatsoever… A new survey by Wristly asked Apple Watch early adopters how they use their expensive wearables. Checking the time and fitness activity is hot. Using the device as a next-generation communication center, not so much. So much for the tech illuminati… Facebook is updating its business pages and fine tuning its push to sign-up local small businesses. No wonder Yelp (YELP) shares are down 70% in the past year. … Comedy Central is developing original content for Snapchat. They should start by remaking ‘Mission Impossible’ (because the messages self destruct)… GPS navigation company TomTom unveiled a smartwatch at the big IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin last week. Given its looks, they should probably stick with navigation… A noted genetic researcher claims the chances are high most of us have look-alikes or ‘doppelgangers’ because ‘there is only so much genetic diversity to go around’. Just a thought, but gene editing is probably not going to increase the supply unless diversity means Orphan Black... Self-driving trucks are great news for consumers as long as they are not also truck drivers… A tech journalist looked at a smartphone screen with 4K resolution and wasn’t impressed. When the machines rise up – and they will -- one wonders if they will be impressed with us.
The Guardian: History is dotted with a long line of milestone discoveries that are widely recognized as turning points in science. The advent of a powerful technique for editing the genome – called CRISPR-Cas9 – is certain to go down as one of those defining moments. Even though the technique was developed only three years ago, progress has been rapid. This has led to much excitement, in the scientific community and beyond, about its potential to transform the research landscape, our understanding of disease and even how we treat it. But there have also been concerns about the future applications of this technology – even before the revelation this year that Chinese researchers had used the technique for the first time to edit the DNA of non-viable human embryos. Read
Do Not Disturb: How Your Next Car Will Prevent Distracted Driving
Car and Driver: We hear a lot about the dangers of distracted driving, but having a phone conversation while driving on a rural freeway is clearly less of a problem than dialing a colleague while turning left onto a busy six-lane avenue. What if your car could limit distractions when road conditions were genuinely demanding? This is the idea behind workload management, an area of intense research among most automakers. It starts with determining when the driver’s workload is piling up. One way is to measure the driver’s heart rate and respiration using sensors on the steering wheel and seatbelt. Although accurately measuring these parameters is difficult, Steven Feit, chief engineer for infotainment research at Honda R&D Americas, says, “We can capitalize on the knowledge that the amount and speed of respiration is different for cognitive load and anxiety.” Read
Study Of CEOs Reveals Alarming CyberSecurity Trends
Inc: A study of CEOs recently released by KPMG revealed some alarming trends about cyber security preparedness. The report, entitled, Global CEO Outlook 2015, included information garnered from over a thousand CEOs of companies with at least $500M in revenue in ten major economies around the world. While the executives generally expressed confidence about their respective businesses' abilities to flourish over the next three years, about two thirds of CEOs expressed some level of concern regarding their firms ability to keep their offerings as "relevant" three years from now as they are today, and almost three quarters of the CEOs expressed concern about keeping current with new technologies in a rapidly changing world. Read
Peter Thiel Backs Biotech ‘Unicorn’ Fighting Cancer Stem Cells
MIT Technology Review: In 2002, Scott Dylla, a skinny postdoc with a Minnesota accent, answered a Craigslist ad for a room for rent in Palo Alto. Although he couldn’t afford to move in with Brian Slingerland, then an up-and-coming technology banker at Credit Suisse, the two got to talking. Two of Slingerland’s aunts had died of cancer. One, only a year after she retired. The other of lung cancer. She’d always smoked Kents. “Will we be able to cure cancer?” Slingerland wanted to know. “Yes. By targeting stem cells,” ventured Dylla, who was starting a position at a lab at Stanford University to investigate the question. Read
Hitachi Hires Artificially Intelligent Bosses For Warehouses
Popular Science: Say hello to your new artificial intelligence overlord -- er, boss. At Hitachi, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, workers have started to take orders from artificial intelligence programs meant to increase productivity in the workplace. Hitachi has deployed the AI in an unspecified number of warehouses, where it issues work orders and instructions to employees. The computer analyzes employees' previous approaches to problems, and if an employee uses a new way to accomplish a job more efficiently, that technique is analyzed and used later on. This idea of kaizen, or constant improvement, is an often-repeated theme in Hitachi’s announcement of the AI system. Read
This Korean Lab Has Nearly Perfected Dog Cloning, And That’s Just The Start
Tech Insider: Every Friday, Junichi Fukuda leaves his apartment in Tokyo at 2:30 p.m. to make the 4:10 p.m. flight to Seoul's Gimpo International Airport. From there he heads to a biotech lab at the edge of the city, where he picks up a bouncy black pug by the name of Momotan. He takes the 5-month-old puppy to an apartment he has rented nearby and spends the rest of the weekend playing with her. On Monday morning, he drops her off and begins the eight-hour commute back home. Fukuda, 55, has been doing this since May and will continue until November, when his puppy will be old enough to pass through Japanese customs and come home. Read