Lugh

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China operates the world's only commercial maglev train. It connects Shanghai Airport and the city center, and reaches top speeds of 430 km/h. China is also testing a near-vacuum-tube train which claims it may achieve speeds of up to 1,000 km/h in the future.

Interestingly this project aims to demonstrate 800 km/h later in 2025. That speed is almost as fast as the cruising speed of commercial airliners.

Will it need special rail tracks? This is the Japanese test maglev train passing people at 500 km/hr.

400 mph in 7 seconds: China’s maglev breaks speed barriers with new record

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

People overestimate how much an aging population will be a burden in decades to come, because they underestimate the impact of robots.

 

If you thought the idea of a 100% human-free Ship-Store logistics network was some far-off sci-fi future, think again. It's almost here.

Several ports around the world are almost fully automated with minimal human intervention. Shanghai, Busan (South Korea), and Rotterdam in particular. Fully self-driving trucks that can do highway journeys are a thing too. Now robots have mastered unloading the trucks. Warehouse operations are moving closer to being human-free too.

What's left for humans? Self-driving is still at Level 4, and Level 5 is some way off. That means robo-vehicles can master predetermined routes they are trained on. But more and more they will get trained on highway exit-warehouse and highway exit-store routes. Even with just Level 4 driving this could be almost fully automated.

This all brings closer the day topics like Universal Basic Income go mainstream.

The Holy Grail of Automation: Now a Robot Can Unload a Truck

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 3 weeks ago

At least they're being honest about it.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 3 weeks ago

A Swiss company is trying this, though using concrete instead of water. Wear and tear and moving parts are disadvantages though.

https://www.swiss.tech/news/giant-gravity-batteries-storage-renewable-energies

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I'd guess it's the quality of the ingredients that matter, not if its robot or human put together.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Here's it in action. The dough base is pre-made.

https://youtu.be/7eunAdUqGZA

It looks believable to me that this might be far faster than a human.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 4 weeks ago

The Meta Quest 3 is the one I've found most appealing. Using it as a virtual desktop or entertainment screen looks genuinely useful, though shame it still looks so ungainly.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Will these be the AR glasses that take off? This tech has been 'about to take off' for some years now.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 1 month ago

In fairness to them, if you are a government or economic body, trying to plan for these events, then you do need to get granular and look at things from specifics like demographics, age groups, gender and so on.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

To add to the confusion when you click on the link to the report, it talks about generative AI, so it is not talking about AI as a whole. One of the biggest categories of jobs that will disappear is driving jobs and delivery jobs, thanks to self-driving tech. I'm guessing that these jobs are overwhelmingly male dominated.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 1 month ago

There's good news too. It says the AI can persuade people who hold false beliefs. Maybe it can school people who've been led into delusion bubbles by misinformation?

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I thought voice might take off more, though Alexa and Siri are popular. Maybe it just isn't efficient enough for large amounts of information.

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