I Can’t Drive Level 5

I Can’t Drive Level 5
Number	2920
Broadcast Date	DECEMBER 9, 2016
Episode Length	48:33
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Justin Robert Young, Annalee Newitz, Len Peralta

Michigan legalizes self-driving car service, why Super Mario Run requires an internet connection and Annalee Newitz talks with Justin Robert Young and Tom Merritt about your reactions to the blending of online and offline life.

Guest

• Justin Robert Young
  • The Contender
  • StickersorDIAF.com
• Annalee Newitz
  • Ars Technica
• Len Peralta
  • All DTNS drawings
  • This episode's drawing

Top Stories

• Michigan just became the first state to pass comprehensive self-driving regulations

Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed four bills into law Friday creating the first comprehensive regulations for autonomous driving in any US state. Vehicle manufacturers will be allowed to operate on-demand networks of self-driving cars. Operators of such networks must take full liability for accidents in which the vehicles was autonomous and at fault. There is some debate over whether Google would qualify as a vehicle manufacturer. Google says the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recognizes it as a manufacturer of record but a Michigan Department of Transportation spokesperson said it sees Google as a manufacturer of automated vehicle technology and could become a motor vehicle manufacturer if it met Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

• 'Super Mario Run' apparently requires an always-on internet connection

Nintendo’s Super Mario Run for iOS comes out December 15th and you will need an active Internet connection to play it. Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto told Mashable the requirement is meant to prevent piracy.

• Samsung confirms it will render the US Note 7 useless with next update

Samsung will push an update to remaining US Galaxy Note 7s on December 19th to prevent charging and eliminate the ability to work as mobile devices. Samsung estimates 133,000 Note 7s are unaccounted for in the US. Note 7 owners can still return their phones or exchange them for other Samsung devices. Verizon announced it will not push the update to its customers. IN Europe an update on December 15th will reduce Note 7’s charge ability to 30%. In Canada Note 7s will have all wireless network functions disabled.

• Magic Leap is actually way behind, like we always suspected it was

The Information reports Magic Leap’s augmented reality technology is years away from completion. The Information also alleges that much of the product demo released last year was misleading. One of the videos was supposedly created by the Weta Workshop visual effects studio. Magic Leap promises to build its AR into everyday glasses but is having trouble making its fiber scanning display work. Magic Leap has raised has raised $1.4 billion in funding at a $4.5 billion valuation. Alibaba, Google and Andreesen Horowitz are among the investors. On Twitter Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz said everyone will get to test it when it ships, claimed the company is making mini-production test of its first system, and told people to stay tuned and believe.

• Facebook Lets You Create 'Frames' For Photos, Videos

Facebook is now letting users create frames, graphic overlays for photos and videos, representing places and events among other things. The feature seems similar to Snapchat’s geofilters. You can find the instructions to create a Facebook frame at facebook.com/fbcameraeffects/

• It's no Christmas No 1, but AI-generated song brings festive cheer to researchers

Researchers at the University of Toronto fed a neural network hundreds of hours of music until it could create listenable compositions with melody instruments and drums. Then the neural karaoke program was trained on a collection of pictures and captions to learn how words link to visual patterns and objects and create lyrics about the pictures. The network was then shown a picture of a Christmas Tree. It wrote a song about it which it then performed. Side note, the same program can also make a stick figure dance to music.

Discussion

• Op-ed: Stop pretending there’s a difference between “online” and “real life”

Tom,

I enjoyed the conversation regarding real and digital life, but a quick comment on the conversation regarding people's IRL actions and those online. I think you need to consider the goal or intension of people's actions. We do not proclaim our political beliefs or other opinions in public spaces because that is not our goal of being in a public space. We are shopping, socializing with friends, or other day-to-day actions and not likely to make public proclamations as we often do online. When we engage on social media or the Internet in general we have different intensions. The Internet in many ways has become the public forum of times gone bye. It is the space for exchanging public opinions, where equivalent action (public declaration) would cause more than a few odd stares in the middle of the mall or a restaurant. Just a few thoughts.


Regards,

Sent by Matt cowering at home trying to avoid CES invading my town in rainy Las Vegas

G'day Tom,

I've been saying for years that this is a false dichotomy. Maybe it's more obvious to me because I have depression and don't cope all that well with in-person interaction, and so I avoid it if I can, but 95 percent of my communication with the world is via the internet in some form.

Am I not really communicating? Is all of that communication imaginary? If not, then what is it? It's REAL.It's REAL LIFE.

The distinction - if people insist on making one - should be ""in person"" v ""online"" but even so, I think that's still just pointless (despite the obvious imposition of social norms, as you said). When the phone was invented, was talking on it not seen as ""real life""? Similar concept, although not as public.

cheers,

Sent by L. Mike Verdusco, Ph.D

Messages

Tom and company,
Hello! Just listened to Thursday’s show and you were talking about using iron to remove sepsis from the blood (which is REALLY cool!!!) and wondered about the hemoglobin. I am not the biomedical expert you were asking for but I am a college chemistry teacher so hopefully I can help. The short answer is that metallic iron, like in nails etc., can be attracted to a magnet, but that iron ions dissolved in solution, like in your hemoglobin, are not. So the hemoglobin would not be attracted to the magnet in the dialysis machine!

Wanna do a really cool iron experiment? Take a flake of iron fortified cereal (like Total) and float it on some water and then bring a strong neodymium magnet close and the cereal will follow the magnet! Why? The cereal companies but metallic iron on the cereal!?!?! But that is OK because your stomach acid is strong enough to convert the metallic iron to the iron ions you need in your body.

Thanks for the keeping us all up to date and thank you for including this type of technology story—good to balance the phones and Facebook with some science! ;) (OK, as a college chemistry teacher I am a bit biased)

Peace,

Sent by Douglas R. Mulford, Ph. D

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
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I Can’t Drive Level 5

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