Amelia, the bland beauty human face of robotics

The inescapable message to everyone about robotics seems to be – Say Hello to Amelia, the First Cognitive Agent Who Understands Like a Human. That is, courtesy of IPsoft – robotics now has a human face.

Amelia , your IT helpdesk adviser is ‘blandly pretty and dressed in a crisp white shirt and black jacket. She is oddly pliant and unthreatening,’ according to Tim Adler in Business Technology (Feb 2015).

She is in fact, a face of the future. Not just at your IT helpdesk, but at your hotel , airport or health centre reception, supermarket checkout, call centre, retailer, classroom …

This onscreen android is the future of robotics, the human face of the outsourcing that is coming. Read more…

Should the penny and the two penny piece be scrapped?

Welcome to the MBF Debate: Should the UK Continue to spend a penny or is it time to scrap the penny?

As the national question hots up, this concerns you – has the time really come for the UK to scrap the penny and the two penny coin, or hang on to them?

Several commentators noted when Poundland confirmed it was taking over the 99p Stores – how far will customers accept a penny rise on everything at the former cheaper rivals.

Long gone are the days of literally spending a penny at public toilets or buying penny sweets. Society is increasingly cashless and inflation eats away at their value in the long run and many young people simply throw them away. Read more…

Anti-social behaviour is not new, it’s just gone online, necessitating internet asbos

Recent news has been full of internet asbos (anti-social behaviour orders). The issue has stirred up a lot of feeling for and against the idea.

Abuse and nuisance are not new, but their online versions are particularly vile.

So, yes, it’s probably time to hit the trolls who stir up racially-aggravated hatred by slapping internet asbos on them. These are the same kind of anti-social behaviour orders that currently aim to keep sex offenders offline.

They are modelled on the personal restriction orders given to people for continued activity that stirs up discontent between neighbours, terrorises neighbourhoods or engaging in activities deemed unacceptable by courts.

This new way of hitting particularly anti-Jewish hostility has been recommended by the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism, which also found that ‘Hitler’ and ‘holocaust’ were among the top 35 keywords used on social media last summer. Read more…

Where is your use of time heading you?

If you’re time poor as most of us are … read on.

We all cope with limited time in different ways.

MBF web developer Dan Williams says that his way of concentrating is ‘to zone out other people and conversations. I usually put my headphones on, so I can’t overhear other peoples, potentially interesting conversations.’

He is far more effective that way.

At MailBigFile we are concerned to save people time. Time is money. Loss of it is also frustrating and counter-productive. Read more…

We can’t bury our heads in the sand, disruptive technologies wont go away

It’s widely accepted that disruptive technologies (Amazon of publishing; Netflix of television, Airbnb of hotels and Uber of taxis) are good things.

They stir competition, kill off old industries, shake everyone about, reduce costs, increase customer convenience and make loads of money.

But what about all the people who once worked in those now disrupted industries? Are they just casualties of technological progress, collateral damage in the relentless war of internet advance?

The Internet Is Not the Answer is a challenging and some might say provocative book by Andrew Keen, published in January 2015 as the net marks 15 years of commercial existence that looks at net casualties, among other aspects. Read more…