Technology

In the future you may have to convince a computer that you are telling the truth at airport security checkpoints. A robotic kiosk will ask travellers a series of questions and report those who pose a potential security risk to human authorities for further investigation. The virtual border agent can detect changes in physiology and behaviour during interviews with travellers. The system is called AVATAR and is currently being tested in U.S. and Canada. An SDSU professor is developing a robotic kiosk that could help detect travelers with sinister intentions.

If there is one company that wishes 2016 could be as quickly as possible put away in the history books, it was Apple: with the Apple watch now a confirmed dud, the iPhone 7 a bust relative to Apple's other offerings, demand for Apple's once brilliant creations waning, and the first recorded declines in both iPhone sales and earnings, 2016 was a year Tim Cook would love to never repeat. Alas, according to Japan's Nikkei, 2017 is set to begin with a whimper, not a bang, as Apple will trim production of its iPhones by at least 10% in the first quarter of 2017.

Submitted by Alice Salles via TheAntiMedia.org,

Technology has, for the better part of the last decade, changed our lives in significant and groundbreaking ways. But as technology continues to make great strides, helping us change the way we do business and live our lives, it is also employed by bureaucrats looking to keep an eye on everyone.

Management at the world’s largest hedge fund is to be automated and replaced with artificial intelligence. A computer software algorithm will decide the day-to-day management at Bridgewater Associates LP, the world’s largest hedge-fund firm. The global labour force is being replaced and managed by artificial intelligence and robotic automation. Various estimates suggest the American employment mill could shrink by 30% by the year 2025. The United Nations’ assessment is even grimmer. They project two-thirds of the human workforce will be replaced in the next decade.

It was some time back in 2009 when we first predicted that in a world in which central banks have taken away the "fun" from fundamental analysis (having effectively nationalized capital "markets"), that in the not too distant future quants - or "traders" whose only value added is to react rapidly after the news and/or be the fastest to chase any given momentum wave - would be paid far better than plain-vanilla fundamental analysts - those who use conventional financial analysis to make price forecasts, and whose work has traditionally highly prized by hedge funds yet are o