Cognitive Computing. Retired US drone operator tells of the turmoil he feels after killing by remote control. Sorry, but this video is not currently available. To access our premium content,please subscribe or log in. It's quick and easy. Aan unmanned US Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night. Source: AP Airman First Class Brandon Bryant in a GQ promotional image.
Source: Supplied "I WATCHED him die. The former US air force drone controller told GQ how he is haunted by the horror of killing people thousands of miles away as he sat in safety in a US command bunker. Airman First Class Brandon Bryant, who spoke out in a bid to raise public awareness, describes a string of disturbing incidents - including being told to cover up his fears that a child had been killed, after photo checks showed the blurry body could have been a dog. He tells of one incident in detail - beginning when he took over control of a MQ-1B Predator drone's weapons systems as it circled quietly miles above the Afghan countryside.
IR mode: Check. Laser designator: Check. Bright. Dirty. Combat Robots Not Being Withdrawn From Iraq Says Company, Human Masters Safe. Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate. Why Monsanto Just Spent $1 Billion To Buy A Climate Data Company. The Climate Corporation is a San Francisco startup founded to supply farmers with better weather and agricultural predictions in a world where the climate is changing and increasingly unpredictable.
Monsanto is a Missouri-based agriculture biotechnology behemoth that is loathed by many environmentalists for its emphasis on pesticides and genetically modified crops. These are unlikely partners. But last week, Monsanto announced that it is purchasing the Climate Corporation for nearly $1 billion--a move that will see the vast information reserves of the two companies merged into an incredibly powerful big-data repository.
Monsanto isn't blind to a future wracked by climate change. "As we look at the world adding another couple billion people in the next 25 to 30 years ... farmers around the world will have to meet production challenges with some constraints," says Kerry Preete, Monsanto’s executive vice president of strategy. Climate Corporation has plenty of data to share. Monsanto buys big data weather company to boost yields and profit. Monsanto Buys Climate Corp For $930 Million. Monsanto Buys Weather Big Data Company Climate Corporation For Around $1.1B. Today’s big acquisition is a huge agritech exit: Biotech company Monsanto has bought Climate Corporation for approximately $1.1 billion.
While the Monsanto press release says $930 million, we’re hearing from investors that the actual price is past the $1 billion mark, because part of the all-cash deal will be paid out over time as an employee retention plan. Climate Corporation is backed by Founders Fund, Khosla, Google Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures and Atomico. The company uses machine learning to predict the weather and other essential elements for agribusiness. Monsanto focuses on providing seeds, biotechnology traits and crop production products for farmers around the world. This is a pretty cunning move. And Monsanto is positioning this acquisition as part of a longer-term recovery plan, hoping that Climate Corporation’s climate change monitoring technology will help Monsanto manage future risk better.
Additional reporting by Ingrid Lunden. Monsanto Buys The Climate Corporation, Brings Big Data to Agriculture. October 4, 2013 Monsanto has bought the Climate Corporation for about $930 million in an effort to help farmers use big data to produce more crops while using fewer natural resources, the agribusiness company says. The Climate Corporation’s technology platform uses hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic data modeling and high-resolution weather simulations to help farmers predict crop yields. Data science is “agriculture’s next major growth frontier” and represents a potential opportunity of $20 billion beyond Monsanto’s core focus, the company says. Monsanto and the Climate Corporation estimate the majority of farmers have an untapped yield opportunity of up to 30 bushels to 50 bushels in their corn fields, and they say that advancements in data science can help farmers achieve that additional value for the farm.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of Monsanto’s 2014 fiscal year. Photo Credit: Monsanto. The $1 billion weather app: why Monsanto is betting the farm on smarter forecasts. To look at Monsanto’s product pages, you’d think the company’s business is in selling two closely related commodities: agricultural seeds and weed killers.
But that would be like saying that Verizon sells people data and phone calls. What these companies are truly engaged in is an effort to make themselves indispensable to their target market’s daily activities. Now Monsanto is stepping up that campaign by expanding into the high-tech world of big data with its $930 million acquisition of The Climate Corporation. It’s not that Monsanto is unfamiliar with the cutting edge of technology — as its long list of patents will attest — but so far most of the company’s energies have been spent on altering, enhancing, and otherwise rearranging the basic ingredients that go into land farming.
With Climate Corp’s expertise in hyper-local weather prediction and big data analytics, Monsanto looks set to become a fully fledged services company as well. Yes, of course there's a mobile app. Monsanto to Buy Climate Corp. for $930 Million. Climate Corp. Updates Crop Insurance via High Tech. Louis Wischmeier oversees 5,300 acres of farmland near Columbus, Ind., and spends much of the winter trying to find the perfect “prescriptions,” as he puts it, for his fields. A large, soft-spoken man, Wischmeier pores over weather data, takes soil moisture readings, and studies the latest news on seed hybrids with the aim of maximizing crop yields. Over the past few years that meticulous planning has been undermined by unusual weather.
Heavy rains fell during the brief five-day planting windows, then scorching temperatures cracked seeds and suffocated crops. “Sometimes we have to replant two or three times to get a crop up and started,” Wischmeier says. He refuses to utter the words “global warming” or to complain, saying only that “the excessive weather events seem to have a huge impact on our success.”
To fight back, last year Wischmeier turned to a surprising place: Silicon Valley. Historically, farmers have relied on crop insurance sold by the federal government. FieldScripts. Overview Corn yield varies across a field. Even in a good year, there are above- and below-average sections of a field. Varying the seeding rate across the different sections of the field may increase yield potential for farmers. FieldScripts℠ integrates innovations in seed science, agronomy, data analysis, precision agriculture equipment and service to provide farmers with hybrid matches and a variable rate planting prescription to improve corn yield opportunity. FieldScripts will be the first offering from Monsanto’s Integrated Farming Systems research platform. FieldScripts is planned to launch in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota in 2014. To support a successful launch, FieldScripts is currently in the Ground Breakers® on-farm trial program in those states.
FieldScripts will be offered via certified seed dealers. Product concept Yield variation is caused by more than soil type alone, and plant population density plays a major role in that variation. Product Delivery FieldScript Q&A. Banks’ role in funding under threat. Research shows that the higher costs of deposits, advent of technology to assist emerging financiers and stricter regulation of banks will reshape the financial services’ landscape. Photo: Michele Mossop John Kehoe, Andrew Cornell and James Eyers The traditional role of Australian banks to fund mortgages, business and infrastructure is under threat from new regulation, the growing superannuation pool and emerging technology.
These changing dynamics in the $5 trillion financial sector over the next decade are set to make banks less profitable and it will require new funding sources to finance the nation’s economic activity. The upheaval of Australia’s financing is the subject of a major study by the Australian Centre for Financial Studies, Funding Australia’s Future, launched today in partnership with The Australian Financial Review. GFC obscured shift in traditional banking Global wholesale funding still high. Www.pottinger.com/uploads/1/9/5/1/19512909/faf_stage_one_summary.pdf. Plan needed to weather future financial storms. Comment Christopher Joye Australia was lucky that the epicentre of the global financial crisis was 12,000 kilometres away in America’s sub-prime belt.
We were able to avoid the worst of this one-in-75-year catastrophe principally because of providence, although policymakers claim otherwise. In contrast to developed world peers, Australia’s financial system did not need to invest overseas to maintain internal growth in the years preceding the GFC. While this tune has since changed, history teaches us that it pays to keep banking businesses, which are laden with solvency risks when transforming at-call savings into long-term loans, as simple as possible. This includes sticking to your geographic knitting.
Prior to 2007, a buoyant local economy, underpinned by rapid population growth and a mining investment boom, meant banks could profitably focus on domestic enterprise. Before the last election Treasury advised Swan he should consider a financial system inquiry. Vigilance is the price of strong economies. NEO BANKS Millions of consumers soon won’t need a bank account.
Traditionally, if you wanted to move money around, save cash, pay a bill, purchase something at a store, or otherwise have some sort of systemic access to your cash as you moved around – you needed a “bank”. In fact, you couldn’t do any of these things in the past without a bank. Despite the fact you might have opted to just use cash and stay ‘off the grid’, at some point to do a significant transaction you needed a ‘bank’. These days, it’s getting harder and harder to be cash only, but fortunately there are multiple options that allow an un(der)banked individual to participate in the global economy without a real bank. Here are a couple examples of thriving alternatives to banks that provide the utility of banking: Checking/Current Account Debit Cards and Gift Cards, Western Union Account, Cash, PayPal Account, Prepaid Telephone Account, Apple Store Account, Starbucks Card, etc $3Bn in deposits, 2m transactions per week - Starbucks 'bank'?
Personal Loans and High-Yield Savings Conclusions. TROV Stock-taking the economy. Challenger Brands & Disruptive Ideas: Learning From The NeoBanks. Marketers at banks and credit unions need to take heed. Ignoring players like Moven, Simple and and GoBank is a big mistake that could leave you behind the eight ball. By Jim Marous, SVP/Corporate Development at New Control Since the beginning of the year, I have been part of the beta tests for new industry players Simple, GoBank and Moven. While each of these new players have different features and benefits, they differ from traditional banks significantly more than they differ from each other. They are what could be called NeoBanks — those offering retail banking services but without physical locations (what Ron Shevlin originally termed “NeoChecking”).
Shevlin says that one day NeoBanks like these may very well be rivals at war. Marketers in the traditional banking space — retail banks and credit unions — need to take heed. Focus on Intuitive Design and Simplicity Opening an Account ( Read More: Online Account Opening Irks Customers, 1 in 4 Abandon the Process ) Tracking Spending. The Banks of Tomorrow: Think Google and Facebook | Wired Business. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired When you swipe your debit card at the grocery store, no one walks into a bank vault looking for a box with your name on it. If you’re among the 90 percent of Americans with a bank account, you’re not exactly storing a personal stack of bills under lock and key. Your money is data — a series of ones and zeros. Sometimes, you convert these numbers into greenbacks at a nearby ATM, but mostly, you just shuffle them in and out of your account, with things like electronic bill payments, direct deposits, debit card transactions, PayPal trades, and maybe — if you’re old school — the occasional paper check.
Banks provide other things too, including, well, a guarantee that your money is safe. ‘After being in the business of serving banks for the better part of a decade, this has got to be one of the worst industries on the planet for innovation’ — Joe Polverari What this means is banks will gradually disappear into the background of our financial lives. . — Josh Reich. What PerkStreet’s Demise Means For “Neobanks” | PYMNTS.com® Welcome to PYMNTS.com’s VC Voices: a weekly column where we bring you commentary from the best of the best around the world of payments investment.
Want to know what the biggest backers of our industry’s innovators and disrupters think? We give our VCs 500 words of unedited space to do with as they please, so you’ve come to the right place. For this post, we’re joined by Matt Harris, managing director at Bain Capital Ventures, who breaks down PerkStreet’s demise and what it means for other alternative banking players. By Matt Harris, Managing Director, Bain Capital Ventures This past week has seen a metric ton of vitriol poured on the management team of PerkStreet, an ambitious startup “neobank” that announced it was going under.
None of their customers will face losses on their deposits, nor necessarily interruption of service (most can continue as Bancorp customers), but their accumulated rewards (apparently around $1M) will not be honored. Banking in the developing world: The poor are different. TEDxConejo - Brett King - Bank 2.0: Modality Shift. Disruption in Banking - By Brett King, CEO & Founder, Moven. BANK-3.0_Preview.pdf. Putting Time In a Fractal Perspective | [ Strategic Risks ]
This starts with an illustration of the fractal nature of our physical world: compare a brain cell vs The Universe. Then the fractal nature of Time itself, represented as a series of growing timelines – each timeline contains all the previous timelines (colours help see which timelines are which). The timeline lengths are scaled to the amount of time they’re expressing. This was originally published on waitbutwhy.com: it’s so outstanding that I am re-posting to reference it. Amazing way to put time into perspective and to try to make sense of its effluxion… > A brain cell vs The Universe:(source: ) > The fractal nature of Time itself: (source: Network Cosmology : Scientific Reports. Structure of de Sitter causets De Sitter spacetime is the solution of Einstein's field equations for an empty universe with positive cosmological constant Λ. The (1+1)-dimensional de Sitter spacetime (the first ‘1’ stands for the space dimension; the second ‘1’—for time) can be visualized as a one-sheeted 2-dimensional hyperboloid embedded in a flat 3-dimensional Minkowski space (Fig. 2(a)).
The length of horizontal circles in Fig. 2(a), corresponding to the volume of space at a moment of time, grows exponentially with time t. Since causet nodes are distributed uniformly over spacetime, their number also grows exponentially with time, while as we show below, their degree decays exponentially, resulting in a power-law degree distribution in the causet.
Panel (a) shows the 1+1-dimensional de Sitter spacetime represented by the upper half of the outer one-sheeted hyperboloid in the 3-dimensional Minkowski space XY Z. Full size image (498 KB) where is where the last approximation holds for and . Why we play Moneyball rather than Powerball. 9 Business Selection Criteria. Premise Data wants to revitalize economic data, and Android plays a big role. A New Premise to Capture Prices Around the World. The Price Network - Derek Thompson. Accept Payments Online | Braintree. Braintree takes on PayPal for e-commerce payments in Australia - online payments, startups, mobile payments, mobile digital wallets, ecommerce, paypal, BrainTree. Braintree Seeks Online Payment Domination | Wired Business. Payments group Braintree comes to Australia with eyes on developers.
Using innovation to shift behavior from consumption to conservation | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. The Problems with Incubators, and How to Solve Them - Sramana Mitra. Results: already best in class in Europe, now also decidedly world-class. It's bad news all round if Airbnb bites the dust in New York. Nobel Prize Shows Both Wisdom and Madness of Crowds. Aussie company Zookal to launch drone delivery service.