Cortana: The spy in Windows 10 | Computerworld

Cortana: Smart, Cool But Creepy
Cortana: Smart, Cool But Creepy

Cortana, Windows 10’s built-in virtual assistant, is both really cool and really creepy.

Source: Cortana: The spy in Windows 10 | Computerworld

Expect more of this kind of article.  Behind the chrome skin of the shiny, new, smart personal assistants may not be anything more sinister than a land-grab for personal information, but gradually (creepingly), we seem to become more vulnerable to whatever they evolve into, whether that evolution is by design, or by mistake.

Smartphone App Drives Land Rover

Prefer  driving my Land Rover  the traditional way, although the smartphone option is sadly not likely with the limited electronics in a 97 300TDi.

My Landy
My Landy

But Jaguar Land Rover engineers have developed the remote driving app for the specific use-case of control over rough terrain, not  really for extracting your  vehicle from awkward parking.   I’d be surprised if more car makers didn’t have similar products in development.

Their Landy.

Source: A Smartphone App Turns a Land Rover Into a Giant RC Car

Cambrian Explosion: beware bony crawlers

 

 

Boney Crawler

According to Dag Kittlaus over at TechCrunch at last we’re heading for a Cambrian Explosion in AI led by personal assistants like Siri and Cortana.

The unlocking of AI ultimately allows this Cambrian Explosion to finally find the light of day and enables a dynamic new world to emerge. As your trusted assistant becomes more and more capable as thousands of developers join the marketplace, it brings scale and breadth to something that AI has aspired to for decades. It scales usefulness.

Scales usefulness?  That’s a lot of scales.

Of course Kittlaus has ambitions to bring us THE GLOBAL BRAIN but I feel there may be an additional interest in pushing this agenda.  I’m not saying he’s a drunk, but remember when he shared with us his wonderful vision for the usefulness of this technology.