Science, Technology & Health: August 2012 Archives
Manufacturing is very labor intensive which is why countries with low labor costs (e.g., China) have come to dominate global manufacturing. But what will happen as machines displace more and more humans? The cost of human labor will shrink as a proportion of the total cost of manufacturing.
At a sister factory here in the Dutch countryside, 128 robot arms do the same work with yoga-like flexibility. Video cameras guide them through feats well beyond the capability of the most dexterous human.One robot arm endlessly forms three perfect bends in two connector wires and slips them into holes almost too small for the eye to see. The arms work so fast that they must be enclosed in glass cages to prevent the people supervising them from being injured. And they do it all without a coffee break -- three shifts a day, 365 days a year.
All told, the factory here has several dozen workers per shift, about a tenth as many as the plant in the Chinese city of Zhuhai.
This is the future. A new wave of robots, far more adept than those now commonly used by automakers and other heavy manufacturers, are replacing workers around the world in both manufacturing and distribution. Factories like the one here in the Netherlands are a striking counterpoint to those used by Apple and other consumer electronics giants, which employ hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers.
Those millions of low-skilled jobs will be eliminated very rapidly, and China will quickly lose its manufacturing advantage.
Foxconn has not disclosed how many workers will be displaced or when. But its chairman, Terry Gou, has publicly endorsed a growing use of robots. Speaking of his more than one million employees worldwide, he said in January, according to the official Xinhua news agency: "As human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache."
The cost to manufacture with robots will not be significantly cheaper in China than in the United States, and America's relative stability and lack of corruption will make it very tempting to build more here. This will lead to massive unemployment and social unrest in China, which the country may not survive.
I love the term "wormhole" to describe the kind of persistent videoconferencing that I think will really be a game-changer for business.
Some firms are buying enhanced videoconferencing systems that allow remote workers to join meetings and share notes, data or sketches with ease, imbuing conference calls with Hollywood-style lighting and sound.Others are installing video screens dubbed "wormholes" or virtual windows, so that far-off teams appear to be working side-by-side. Firms are also installing meeting areas with seating configured in a horseshoe shape so that workers attending via videoconference appear to be sitting in the same room.
I think the key capabilities that would enable a real office "feel" would be:
- Persistent connection. The system needs to be on all the time and facing your coworkers. If they're not there, then you can glance up from your desk and see that. You don't need to schedule a call or turn the system on to interact, it's always on.
- Reduced latency. Video chatting now is awkward because of the >500ms latency. That's got to get <100ms for it to feel natural. This can be achieved with modern technology, but may require some dedicated systems. (I.e., you may not want to send your packets over the general internet.)
- Wide-angle cameras and displays. You don't want the system to feel like a collection of 1-on-1 discussions (like the Tandbergs are now). You want the interactions to be many-on-many. If you've got three systems connected, you need to position the screens and cameras so that when A talks to B, it appears to C as if A is looking towards B. This kind of "facing" algorithm will be hard to extend to 4+ systems.
This kind of thing blows me away. Powerful, flexible telepresence will transform the way we work, go to school, and go on vacation. Our kids will interact with the world more virtually than we have... they'll probably be jealous of all the travel we do now, but they'll have different vistas open to them than.
Imagine being able to rent-a-robot at your favorite vacation destination for 1% the cost of going there yourself? Sure, an iPad interface is primitive, but the controls will become more immersive over time.
(HT: Engadget.)
Radiologist Paul Hsieh describes just a few of the ways that Obamacare's regulations will strangle medical innovation.
The first prong is through new taxes. Recently, the Cook Medical company announced that it was canceling plans to open new factories because of the impending ObamaCare tax on medical device manufacturers scheduled to take effect in 2013. The 2.3% tax on total sales (not profits) will cost Cook $20 million dollars a year. As a result, the company will not be opening five plants that would have employed up to 300 people each. ...The second prong of the war on innovation is through regulations. The Wall Street Journal recently reported how a single FDA scientist, Dr. Robert Smith, blocked approval of digital mammography machines for several years last decade. Breast cancer specialists like Dr. Etta Pisano stated that Smith had imposed "obstacles to approval that were unreasonable." This was especially frustrating for Pisano, who had co-authored a 42,760-patient study in the 2005 New England Journal of Medicine that demonstrated the reliability of digital mammography and showed that it was "'significantly better' than film in finding cancer in women under 50 and those before or during menopause."
Was Smith "just doing his job"?
It would be bad enough if Smith had been a rogue, overzealous regulator. But it's even worse if Smith is correct, because that means Smith represents how the system is supposed to work.
Great article... but when did Forbes.com get so cluttered and busy? Ugh, the site looks horrible. Added insult: I can't find a way to view a single-page printable version of the article. If there's a way to do it, it's lost in the visual chaos.
Here's a fascinating account of a live social engineering capture-the-flag game in front of an audience at the Defcon hacker conference.
Finally, Darnell directed the manager to an external website to fill out a survey to prep for the upcoming visit. The manager dutifully plugged the address into his browser. His computer blocked the connection, but Darnell wasn't fazed. He said he'd call the IT department and have it unlocked.The manager didn't think that was a concern. "Sounds good," he answered. "I'll try again in a few hours."
After thanking the manager for his help, Darnell made plans to follow up the next day. The manager promised to send Darnell over a list of good hotels in the area.
Then "Gary Darnell" hung up and stepped out of the soundproof booth he had been in for the last 20 minutes.
"All flags! All flags!" he announced, throwing his arms up in a V-for-Victory symbol.
His audience of some 100 spectators at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas burst into applause. They had been listening to both sides of the call through a loudspeaker broadcast.
I would have loved to see it live. Be on your guard.
This hacking story demonstrates why you have to use multifactor authentication to secure your critical accounts. It's almost certain that your email provider and your bank support it, and those are generally your most important accounts. Please take security seriously.
And make offline backups of your important data.
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell on video games morphing from entertainment to value delivery.
"We think the future is very different [from] successes we've had in the past. When you are playing a game, you are trying to think about creating value for other players, so the line between content player and creator is really fuzzy. We have a kid in Kansas making $150,000 a year making [virtual] hats. But that's just a starting point."That causes us to have conversations with Adobe, and we say the next version of Photoshop should look like a free-to-play game, and they say, 'We have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds really bad.' And, then we say, 'No, no, no. We think you are going to increase the value being created to your users, and you will create a market for their goods on a worldwide basis.' But that takes a longer sell.
"This isn't about videogames; it's about thinking about goods and services in a digital world."
Newell is exactly right. Many business systems of the future will be based on the technology and psychology of today's games.
