The US Army’s Next Rifle May Use Facial Recognition
By: Dan Robitzski June 3, 2019 Point And Shoot The U.S. Army wants guns that wait to fire until they see the whites of the enemy’s eyes. At least, it put out a call for contractors to develop next-generation rifles that come equipped with facial recognition and automatic targeting software, according to Military.com. The new […]
The wealth effect: The middle class and the changing politics of banking crises
By: Jeffrey Chwieroth, Andrew Walter June 3, 2019 Today, the politics of wealth is contentious in both democracies and non-democracies. It has helped to create both ‘millennial socialism’ and political populism (Alstadsæter et al. 2017, Ansell and Adler 2019, The Economist 2019). But wealth has been subtly reshaping politics and policy choices for decades. Our […]
This Tank-Like Machine Gun Robot Is Straight out Of “Terminator”
By: Dan Robitzski may 31, 2019 KillBot A new robotic tank called THeMIS could bring the remote-control capabilities of aerial drone warfare down to ground combat. The robot, which C4ISRNET reports was equipped with a 12.7mm machine gun and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher during a demo in Estonia last month, is reminiscent of those […]
Is technology key to improving global health and education, or just an expensive distraction?
By: Stefan Dercon Forum May 31, 2019 After decades of attempting to improve failing health and education systems in developing countries, the situation in many areas is still dire. In some sub-Saharan African countries, children achieve as little as 2.3 to 5 years of learning, despite typically spending 8 years in school. More than five […]
Half of job growth to be limited to London, inequality inquiry finds
By: Helen Pidd May 30, 2019 London and the south-east will see more than half of the UK’s future job growth if the government does not address the massive gulf between the capital and everywhere else, an independent inquiry into the UK’s deep–rooted inequalities has warned. Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service […]
Pension inequality at majority of FTSE 100 companies
By: Maria Espadinha May 29, 2019 The pension contribution rates of FTSE 100 chief executives are on average four times higher than those received by employees, research has found. After analysing FTSE 100 companies’ financial reports in 2018, pensions consultancy LCP found about half paid defined benefit pension contributions for their CEOs of 25 per […]
Margrethe Vestager fined Google and Apple billions, now she may lead Europe
By: Gian Volpicelli May 29, 2019 When I meet her, Margrethe Vestager is not one of the frontrunners for the presidency of the European Commission, yet. The European elections haven’t happened yet, and Vestager is still fully focused on enforcing antitrust law across the European Union. She’s very busy. And she has strong ideas about […]
Can think-tanks survive a post-fact world?
By: R.C. May 29, 2019 A HUNDRED years ago this week, diplomats and academics from the British and American delegations at the Versailles peace conference at the end of the first world war met for a dinner at the Hotel Majestic in Paris, a short stroll from the Arc de Triomphe. Their aim was to […]
Unsettling Sex Robot Looks Almost Exactly Like a Real Person
By: Futurism May 29, 2019 Some sex experts predict we’re headed toward a future in which “virtual” lovers replace human ones — and based on advances happening in the field of sex robots, it could eventually be hard to tell the difference. One company in particular, DS Doll Robotics, has cooked up incredibly lifelike robotic […]