gig economy

(or searching for work models for the 4th industrial revolution) A vast space, somewhat like a prison, with scattered security gates that monitor your movements as you enter and exit …

what are data and who do they belong to;

Data (and the generalized, universal data-ification) is the new “gold”, the new endless raw material of bio-informational capitalism. The 4th industrial revolution relies everywhere on data: on their collection, management …

Closed stores

Retail stores are closing as if they’ve been struck by an epidemic. In the USA, the world’s largest retail chain, Sears, announced it will shut more than 70 stores in …

about paradigm shift… again

Saying that capitalist relations of production and consumption are dominant, essentially across the entire planet by now, constitutes a truism. This is an obvious observation, at least for those who …

cern: the giant microscope

It is said that the large industrial exhibitions that moved through European and American cities from the middle of the 19th century onwards were, among other things (or perhaps primarily), …

from online to onlife: engineering everything

History and Machines Can we perceive the ongoing parade of modern technological applications and wonders as something beyond a mere sum of “good and bad human inventions”? Can we perceive …

Job stealing

How many clicks does it take to place an order on Amazon? Very few! With zero effort, online, a product from anywhere on the planet arrives right at the buyer’s …

the armed parade : robot, work, ideology

In our parts, the issue is not burning. High unemployment but limited (compared to other places) use of information technology and its derivatives in the secondary sector. Internationally, however, it …

MOOCs and adaptive learning

In July 2011, Sebastian Thrun, who among other things is a professor at Stanford, published a short video on YouTube, announcing that he and a colleague of his, Peter Norvig, …

Make way!

Autonomous cars? Yes! Autonomous trucks? Yes! (Read a related comment in b&g issue 3). Autonomous flying machines? Yes! Autonomous ships? Autonomous tankers, cargo, Ro-Ro or warships? Not yet, but it …

Sewing automata

Can a robotic machine (or a team of such machines) sew clothes? Anyone who has even an amateur relationship with sewing knows that fabrics have lots of whims. Sometimes two …