Not everybody believes that the Chinese economy is a huge bomb waiting to explode.
Key quote: “Debt is concentrated among state-owned firms, while the private firms that generate most of China’s new jobs and investment have already deleveraged.”
Read the whole thing.
It’s hard to name any tech company that doesn’t have their eyes trained towards a driverless future. Nvidia is using their graphics technology to help cars see and identify objects on and around the road.
It seems like a natural fit.
South Korea often provides a compelling glimpse as to what the rest of the world’s future could be like. Their incredible data infrastructure allows them to utilize technology in way that we can only dream about.
This article talks about their online spending habits. It will be interesting to see how closely Western markets follow their example
Ball bearings haven’t changed much since their development in the Renaissance. A new design that makes them greaseless and 10X more frictionless will change the way that they are used and maintained.
It’s hard to read anything on the Internet without stumbling across news about self driving technology. The latest concerns Uber. They are in a prime position to take advantage of this technology, but they aren’t sitting around, waiting for others to develop the technology. They recently went on a hiring binge at Carnegie Melon’s technology lab and took 50 of their best technologists in this field.
My guess is that they want to develop enough proprietary technology that they are not overshadowed by the bigger players in this game when the time comes.
Witness the future. LG has introduced a 55″ OLED “wallpaper” panel that is less than 1mm thick.
http://www.koreatimesus.com/lg-unveils-wallpaper-oled-panel/
I know I post a lot about robots. It’s going to have a huge impact on our industry, not to mention just about every other industry out there. This article in the NYT talks about not just how robots will take jobs from the most skilled worker, but how AI will take work from the highly educated who presumed themselves to be irreplaceable.
Just a little scary and eye-opening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/books/review/rise-of-the-robots-and-shadow-work.html?_r=3
Rare Earth Materials (REMs) are growing more important to manufacturing each year. Supplies, however are limited. On Earth. Is it practical to even consider going outside the earth for a different source? This info graphic makes a pretty convincing case:
Anyone doubt yet that 3D printers are starting to have a huge impact on manufacturing? GE used a 3D printer to build a jet engine, then pushed that engine to 33k RPM.
http://www.gereports.com/post/118394013625/these-engineers-3d-printed-a-mini-jet-engine-then
There’s been a blast of exciting news about auto-driving cars. We’ll begin with Google and throw in a few more just to give our readers a better scope of what’s happening:
http://globegadget.com/googles-self-driving-cars-hitting-the-streets-this-summer/
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-ceo-nissan-ready-autonomous.html
http://qz.com/403628/autonomous-cars-will-destroy-millions-of-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025/
