Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Will this fruit-picking robot transform agriculture? Creating a machine that can perform the delicate work of picking an apple is tricky – and farmworkers say it could be a benefit by Jyoti Madhusoodanan Sat 28 May 2022 05.30 EDT Robots can do a lot. They build cars in factories. They sort goods in Amazon warehouses. Robotic dogs can, allegedly and a little creepily, make us safer by patrolling our streets. But there are some things robots still cannot do – things that sound quite basic in comparison. Like picking an apple from a tree. “It’s a simple thing” for humans, says robotics researcher Joe Davidson. “You and I, we could close our eyes, reach into the tree. We could feel around, touch it, and say ‘hey, that’s an apple and the stem’s up here’. Pull, twist. We could do all that without even looking.” Creating a robotic implement that can simply pick an apple and drop it into a bin without damaging it is a multimillion-dollar effort that has been decades in the making. Teams aroun...

  Chili’s restaurants using robot servers to make jobs easier for workers   By  Stephanie Giang-Paunon Published   May 26, 2022 9:48PM A robot may be greeting you at the door during your next visit to  Chili’s Grill & Bar.   Addressing his company’s partnership with Bear Robotics, Brinker International SVP of Innovation Wade Allen told Fox News Digital that the focus of  Rita the Robot  is to make jobs "easier" for workers, and stressed that working in a  restaurant  is "harder than ever before." "Two years ago, when we started this process, we had this vision of ‘how do we make it just easier for people to want to work in a restaurant?'" Allen said. "Some of the biggest… most difficult tasks [are] carrying heavy dishes back and forth to the kitchen… walking back and forth a thousand steps, an hour… or more… That's huge volumes." CHIPOTLE TESTS TORTILLA CHIP-MAKING ROBOTS TO COMBAT LABOR SHORTAGE Allen added that if a...

Inside the race to master supersonic air travel Pranshu Verma – May 28, 2022 When British Airways flew its supersonic Concorde jet for the last time nearly 20 years ago, the era of shuttling between New York and London in under four hours while indulging in champagne, caviar and lobster seemed to be gone forever. Now, however, plane-makers and airlines are trying to revive that dream, and pouring millions into efforts to build better, cleaner and more cost-effective jets that can fly at supersonic speeds, meaning faster than the speed of sound. They are hoping to succeed by 2029, when travelers could fly business class between New York and London in just over three hours — all for $5,000 to $10,000 round-trip. But the race comes at a crucial moment. Airline revenue was decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, putting pressure on companies to find more revenue sources as they slowly recover . As climate change accelerates, carriers are facing pressure to expand their operations while kee...

US Air Taxi Service Inches Closer To Commercial Flight After FAA Nod    BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2022 - 04:55 AM   Several years ago, flying air taxis were a distant sci-fi future. But with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarding Joby Aviation a flight certification on Thursday, it will allow the California-based company to begin on-demand commercial air taxi operations. Joby  announced  it had received a Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate from the FAA, "allowing it to begin on-demand commercial air taxi operations."  Joby received the certification ahead of schedule, with completion of the process originally expected in the second half of 2022. The five-stage process included the submission of more than 850 pages of manuals for approval and required Joby's initial cadre of pilots to demonstrate mastery of the company's procedures and training under FAA observation. The Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate is one of three FAA approva...

  Stellantis CEO Warns Of Impending EV Battery Shortage As 'Greenification' Hits Snag    BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2022 - 05:20 PM   The latest sign the rapid transition to a green economy could soon hit a snag is a warning from the world's fourth-largest carmaker about an approaching electric vehicle (EV) battery shortage.  Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares expects a shortage of EV batteries by 2024-25, according to  CNBC . He then said the adoption of EVs by 2027-28 will slow due to a lack of raw materials for vehicles.  "The speed at which we are trying to move all together for the right reason, which is fixing the global warming issue, is so high that the supply chain and the production capacities have no time to adjust," Tavares said.  President Biden's ambitious target of 50% EV sale shares in the U.S. by 2030 could hit a brick wall unless domestic supply chains are strengthened and raw materials for battery-making are adequ...

'The Game is Over!' Google's DeepMind says it is close to achieving 'human-level' artificial intelligence – but it still needs to be scaled up  DeepMind expert suggests the hardest tasks to create a human-like AI are solved The London firm wants to build an 'AGI' that has the same intelligence as humans This week DeepMind unveiled a program capable of achieving over 600 tasks By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 07:34 EDT, 18 May 2022 | UPDATED: 10:06 EDT, 18 May 2022 DeepMind, a British company owned by Google , may be on the verge of achieving human-level artificial intelligence (AI). Nando de Freitas, a research scientist at DeepMind and machine learning professor at Oxford University , has said 'the game is over' in regards to solving the hardest challenges in the race to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI refers to a machine or program that has the ability to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human bein...

  Rubio Accuses Google Of Election Bias, Censoring Campaign Emails   Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times, May 22, 2022 Sen.  Marco Rubio  (R-Fla.) blamed Google for allegedly filtering his emails to supporters in the run-up to the midterms this fall, describing on May 21 his current situation as being in “purgatory.” The senator said that up to 90 percent of his campaign emails to supporters with a registered Gmail address never reach their inboxes but go to the spam folder. He said it comes after his  Democratic opponent  Rep.  Val Demings  (D-Fla.) announced a year ago she would run against him in the 2022 midterm elections. “Marco Rubio for Senate is in @Google purgatory. Since a Pelosi puppet announced she was running against me, they have sent 66% of my emails to REGISTERED SUPPORTERS with @gmail to spam,”  Rubio wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “And during the final weeks of finance quarters, it climbs to over 90%,”  th...

Prepare for arrival: Tech pioneer warns of alien invasion May 14, 2022 in  News ,  Tech   An alien species is headed for planet Earth and we have no reason to believe it will be friendly. Some experts predict it will get here within 30 years, while others insist it will arrive far sooner. Nobody knows what it will look like, but it will share two key traits with us humans – it will be  intelligent  and  self-aware .   No, this alien will not come from a distant planet – it will be born right here on Earth, hatched in a research lab at a major university or large corporation. I am referring to the first  artificial general intelligence  (AGI) that reaches (or exceeds)  human-level cognition . As I write these words, billions are being spent to bring this alien to life, as it would be viewed as one of the greatest technological achievements in human history. But unlike our other inventions, this one will have a mind of its own, li...

Former Tesla Engineer Aims To Build Next Generation Electric Battery Material Plant In The US By 2024 by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times  (emphasis ours), May 6, 2022 Sila Nanotechnologies, a battery startup founded in 2011 by a former Tesla engineer,  announced on May 3 plans for a new plant based in the United States that will mass-produce material for low-cost next-generation batteries with a longer range and is not dependent on manufacturing in China. “In a commitment to ensure America retains global leadership in the world’s transition to the new energy storage era, Sila, a next-generation battery materials company, today announced the purchase of a facility with more than 600,000 square feet of space located in Moses Lake, WA to be used to manufacture Sila’s breakthrough lithium-ion anode materials at automotive volumes and quality,” announced the company in a  May 3 press release . “ Powered with hydropower, the facility is located on 160-acres of land ...

10 Ways Information-Shapers Have Infiltrated Our Institutions   Authored by Sharyl Attkisson via The Epoch Times , May 5, 2022 Few matters are so important as the integrity of the information we receive and the recent degradation in its reliability. The recent leak of a Supreme Court draft related to the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case underscores how corrupted so many of our important institutions have become by those dedicated to shaping public opinion in a sometimes-dishonest way. Nearly every facet of our American institutions has been infiltrated by activists, corporate and political propagandists, and even criminals. Here are 10 key institutions that have been successfully infiltrated by information-shapers: 1. Corporations High-profile corporations increasingly do business, or withhold business, on the basis of political considerations in an effort to sway public opinion. Additionally, they take part in removing the ability of some people they disagree wit...