Datadoodle

Home » city tech » Page 12

city tech

Don’t just sit there waiting for the bus, tutor a machine

by

I can’t help but think of the street person with a sign saying, “Will work for food” when I read about an experiment conducted at bus stops in Finland.

Vassilis Kostakos at the University of Oulu in Finland and colleagues put up four large LCD touchscreens in bus stops and other busy public areas. A sign invited passersby to touch — and to help train malaria-detecting software.

Was it worthwhile? Apparently it was.

They got 1200 answers over 25 days and found the accuracy of the results was comparable to those of paid workers on Mechanical Turk. Lone users were the most active, perhaps because they were free from peer pressure or distraction.

… Read the rest “Don’t just sit there waiting for the bus, tutor a machine”

Who pays for smart cities?

by

This post was originally published by TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) as a Flashpoint feature on January 12, 2018.

One recent sunny morning there was a traffic jam on Cottage Street, a narrow street within view of my house, aptly named for its width. Commuters heading toward the nearby bridge over San Francisco Bay found themselves inching forward after their “smart” navigation devices had sent them on a shortcut.

The trouble with “smart” tech is that it starts out stupid. Users and neighborhoods suffer inconvenience to train developers’ algorithms—which is one part of to a common question about smart cities: “Who pays?”… Read the rest “Who pays for smart cities?”

AI / Apple to acquire autonomous-dog startup DogGone / HomeKit’s “best friend”

by

Back when autonomous cars first scratched at reality’s doorstep, someone loaded six labradors into a self-driving Prius. It rolled down the freeway and became one of the best pranks of the day. But laugh no more. Datadoodle’s bloodhound reporters have caught wind of a so-far unannounced Apple acquisition that enables self-walking dogs.

DogGone, a secretive Oakland, CA startup, has done it. If DogGone’s trail leads to an actual product, it would be the greatest labor saving tool known to man. It’s certainly what dog owners have dreamed of.

DogGone founder Jake Tipperary said what you’d expect from a startup owner who just cashed in.… Read the rest “AI / Apple to acquire autonomous-dog startup DogGone / HomeKit’s “best friend””