Retailers’ increasingly complex relationship with automated shopping — There’s a famous scene in the original Star Wars movie where the bartender tells Luke “We don’t serve their kind here”, pointing to his droids (top). In The Mandalorian, set about 10 years later, the bartender at the same location is a droid (bottom):

Everyday Transcription — what if voice stops being ephemeral? — Most recent emphasis on privacy in the Internet age has revolved around face recognition and protection of personal data. But revolutionary improvements in speech recognition mean we need to reconsider how we feel about this technology too. While it’s been possible to record voice for decades, it’s only recently that…

The vital role of simulators in creating and assessing self driving cars — I played Flight Simulator on a Commodore 64 when I was young. My plane crashed (a lot!) but it didn’t matter because it was just a simulator. The game tested my flying skills by arbitrarily changing the weather or having an instrument fail so I could learn how to react…

Driverless cars need all the sensors they can get — cost and style don’t matter (yet) — Self driving cars are not beautiful. I mean that purely aesthetically. Creating safe self driving cars will be a beautiful achievement, but the plethora of sensors protruding from otherwise sleek vehicles rankles with our expectations of smooth, clean car designs. …

Conflicted Disruptors — After Part 1 looked at potential changes to speed the arrival of Robocars and Part 2 looked at the autonomous vehicles we’ll see before driverless cars, Part 3 continued the series by looking at how the incumbents are preparing. …