Technology

Authored by John Naughton, op-ed via The Guardian,

If our supersmart tech leaders knew a bit more about history or philosophy we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now...

Since being founded in 1992 with funding from DARPA, robotics company Boston Dynamics has unveiled one nightmarish robotic creation after another. But the company outdid itself this week when it introduced the latest iteration of its ‘Atlas’ robot.

The company caused a stir after publishing a video on YouTube showing the hulking humanoid robot jumping across platforms of varying heights and even perform backflips on command - some of the most advanced capabilities demonstrated by any bipedal robot.

Just days ahead of this weekend's Guangzhou Auto Show, Volkswagen has announced plans to invest $12 billion dollars into efforts to build coal-fueled electric vehicles in China.  According the Wall Street Journal, VW plans to produce 400,000 EVs by 2020 and introduce 5 new all-electric models each year through 2025.

Volkswagen AG and its Chinese partners will jointly invest nearly $12 billion by 2025 in developing electric cars for the local market, VW’s China chief executive said.

 

Famed cable and media investor John Malone, a man who repeatedly manages to cobble together some of the most complicated, and profitable, financial transactions in the world, appeared on CNBC this morning with a message for anyone in the "B2C business"...Amazon is going to use their scale to destroy you.  Speaking with CNBC's David Faber, Malone hilariously described Amazon as a "Death Star moving into striking range of every industry on the planet."

We all know the story behind Fisker, it was one of the world’s first plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in 2008, and even had a legal spat between Tesla, but shortly after in 2012 the company crashed and burned in bankruptcy. Last year, Henrik Fisker decided to relaunch his brand. He thought that one failure wasn’t enough—-just like Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets.