Despite talk that RPA is over hyped, Sarah Burnett, a guru on automation technologies, says that it can cut process costs by 30%, but there is another benefit, not so obvious, and it lies with creating data we can trust. Source: Information Age Date: March 27th, 2019 Link: https://www.information-age.com/look-beyond-rpa-hype-123481025/ Discussion 1) What is Robotic Process Automation? 2) How… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Automation
The Imminent Evolution of ‘Augmentation’ in Accounting and Finance
Late last month, I was the keynote speaker at the Tax Executive Institute in San Mateo, CA. This was a gathering of global tax leaders from accounting firms and public companies coming together to discuss the impact of technology in tax and accounting professions. I asked several folks a simple question — how much of your time… Read more »
Facebook promised to fix political ads on its platform. It hasn’t
Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, pledged to fix how it handles political and issue ads in the wake of Russian meddling in 2016. But just days before the midterm elections, a key part of Facebook’s effort is broken, and it’s unclear if the company is doing anything to fix it. The company has touted new rules for political… Read more »
Robo pot: Aphria says automation key to low-cost cannabis production
On the eve of legalized recreational marijuana and concerns about supply shortage, one of Canada’s largest producers believes automated machines will be the key to producing more cannabis. Leamington-based Aphria currently has supply agreements with every province and Yukon, boasting about plans to produce roughly 20,000 kilograms of marijuana a month by spring. As they… Read more »
London Fashion Week 2018: Robots take over the runway
A catwalk show at London Fashion Week has divided opinions about the future of fashion. Source: BBC Trends Date: September 20, 2018 Link to video: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-45548805/london-fashion-week-2018-robots-take-over-the-runway Discussion 1) Whether or not this is just a gimmick, why does it matter that robots are featured in fashion? 2) The robots in this “fashion” show are no where near realistic. … Read more »
How talking machines are taking call center jobs
The biggest threat to jobs might not be physical robots, but intelligent software agents that can understand our questions and speak to us, integrating seamlessly with all the other programs we use at home and at work. And call centres are particularly at risk. Last week we learned that British retail giant Marks & Spencer… Read more »
Robot dogs are coming, but they may be destined for the unemployment line
SpotMini, the robotic dog and social media sensation, is looking for a job. Boston Dynamics, the company behind the cybernetic canine, excels at two things: designing cool robots, and making viral videos of them in action. SpotMini has racked up an impressive 30 million YouTube views in just a few years, and a photo of the robot strolling… Read more »
A Swiss weedkiller robot could curb our dependence on herbicides
Some $26 billion is spent on herbicides each year. These chemicals are often indiscriminately sprayed over entire fields of crops that have been genetically modified to resist the chemical onslaught. And it’s agrochemical giants like Bayer, DowDuPont, and Syngenta that usually create both the genetically modified seeds and the chemicals that are sprayed on them. The… Read more »
An AI System for Accomplishing Real-World Tasks Over the Phone
Google recently announced Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out “real world” tasks over the phone. The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like… Read more »
Will Robots Take My Job?
In 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne of Oxford University published a report titled “The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?”. The authors examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation, by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier. According… Read more »
Leading Titles
Introduction to Information Systems, 3rd Canadian Binder Ready Version Update Edition
R. Kelly Rainer, Casey G. Cegielski, Ingrid Splettstoesser-Hogeterp, Cristobal Sanchez-Rodriguez
ISBN: 978-1-119-13385-8
August 2015, © 2016
CDN $98.95; CDN $114.95