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Submission + - Google Thinks the Insurance Industry May Be Ripe for Disruption

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The insurance industry is a fat target with $481 billion in premiums in 2013 and agents’ commissions of about $50 billion. Now Conor Dougherty writes in the NYT that the boring but lucrative trade has been attracting big names, among them Google which has formed a partnership with Comparenow, an American auto insurance comparison site that will give Google access to insurers in Comparenow’s network. “A lot of people are waking up to the fact that it’s a massive industry, it’s old-fashioned, they still use human agents and the commissions are pretty big,” says Jennifer Fitzgerald. “It’s ripe for — I hate to use the word — disruption.” It may seem like an odd match for Google, whose projects include driverless cars, delivery drones and a pill to detect cancer, but the key to insurance is having lots of data about people’s backgrounds and habits, which is perhaps the company’s greatest strength. “They have a ton of data on where people drive, how people drive,” says Jon McNeill. “It’s the holy grail of being able to price auto insurance correctly.”

Robert P. Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, says rumors of the insurance agent’s death have been greatly exaggerated. “Even if they go through Google or another portal, they still end up at an insurance agency or company at some point,” says Hartwig. “I think the agency model has a lot more consistency than many people give it credit for.” But people in the industry and Silicon Valley say it is only a matter of time before online agencies attack the armies of intermediaries that are the backbone of the trade and Google could present formidable competition for other insurance sellers. As many as two-thirds of insurance customers say they would consider purchasing insurance products from organizations other than insurers, including 23 percent who would consider buying from online service providers such as Google and Amazon. Google Compare auto insurance site has already been operating in Britain for two years as a search engine for auto insurance prices. “There are 40,000 agencies in the US," says Ellen Carney, "and you could absolutely imagine them shrinking by a quarter."

Submission + - Sysadmin becoming director ? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What is a guy to do when a sysadmin with no people skills or management skills become a director of a department? He clearly states that he doesn't care about people who are under him and he only cares about the technological solutions. However those solutions are only valid when coming from him, because he thinks he's smarter then everyone. He is a micromanages, lacks project management skills, does not know how to people manage, and tackles minor challenges himself like getting dells openmanage rpm to work vs setting departmental goals, change policies, or delegating task. He focuses so much on tools that he understands, so much so, that he tries to get the problem to fit around the tools he likes to use.

As a person who must report to this person, how does one deal with a manager who doesn't like you and doesn't value your opinions? Would it be easier to just walk away? And why on earth would anyone promote a sys admin to management?

Submission + - Japanese Nobel laureate blasts his country's treatment of inventors (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Japanese Nobel winner who helped invent blue LEDs, then abandoned Japan for the U.S. because his country's culture and patent law did not favor him as an inventor, has blasted Japan in an interview for considering further legislation that would do more harm to inventors.

In the early 2000s, Nakamura had a falling out with his employer and, it seemed, all of Japan. Relying on a clause in Japan's patent law, article 35, that assigns patents to individual inventors, he took the unprecedented step of suing his former employer for a share of the profits his invention was generating. He eventually agreed to a court-mediated $8 million settlement, moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and became an American citizen. During this period he bitterly complained about Japan's treatment of inventors, the country's educational system and its legal procedures.

..."Before my lawsuit, [Nakamura said] the typical compensation fee [to inventors for assigning patents rights] was a special bonus of about $10,000. But after my litigation, all companies changed [their approach]. The best companies pay a few percent of the royalties or licensing fee [to the inventors]. One big pharmaceutical company pays $10 million or $20 million. The problem is now the Japanese government wants to eliminate patent law article 35 and give all patent rights to the company. If the Japanese government changes the patent law it means basically there would no compensation [for inventors]. In that case I recommend that Japanese employees go abroad."

There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes in the law in the 1970s and 1990s has made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individual who might actually create the work.

Submission + - : NSA Hack of North Korea is How Obama Was Convinced NK Was Behind Sony Hack (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Mike Lape
Mike Lape writes: The evidence gathered by the “early warning radar” of software painstakingly hidden to monitor North Korea’s activities proved critical in persuading President Obama to accuse the government of Kim Jong-un of ordering the Sony attack, according to the officials and experts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the classified N.S.A. operation.

Submission + - Why will no one answer the obvious, massive question about TTIP? (monbiot.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: When a government proposes to abandon one of the fundamental principles of justice, there had better be a powerful reason. Equality before the law is not ditched lightly. Surely? Well read this and judge for yourself.

The UK government, like that of the US and 13 other EU members(1), wants to set up a separate judicial system, exclusively for the use of corporations. While the rest of us must take our chances in the courts, corporations across the EU and US will be allowed to sue governments before a tribunal of corporate lawyers. They will be able to challenge the laws they don’t like, and seek massive compensation if these are deemed to affect their “future anticipated profits”.

I’m talking about the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its provisions for “investor state dispute settlement”. If this sounds incomprehensible, that’s mission accomplished: public understanding is lethal to this attempted corporate coup.

Submission + - Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Everyone who is part of an organization — a company, a nonprofit, a condo board — has experienced the pathologies that can occur when human beings try to work together in groups. Now the NYT reports on recent research on why some groups, like some people, are reliably smarter than others. In one study, researchers grouped 697 volunteer participants into teams of two to five members. Each team worked together to complete a series of short tasks, which were selected to represent the varied kinds of problems that groups are called upon to solve in the real world. One task involved logical analysis, another brainstorming; others emphasized coordination, planning and moral reasoning. Teams with higher average I.Q.s didn’t score much higher on collective intelligence tasks than did teams with lower average I.Q.s. Nor did teams with more extroverted people, or teams whose members reported feeling more motivated to contribute to their group’s success. Instead, the smartest teams were distinguished by three characteristics (PDF). First, their members contributed more equally to the team’s discussions, rather than letting one or two people dominate the group. Second, their members scored higher on a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes, which measures how well people can read complex emotional states from images of faces with only the eyes visible. Finally, teams with more women outperformed teams with more men. It appeared that it was not “diversity” (having equal numbers of men and women) that mattered for a team’s intelligence, but simply having more women. This last effect, however, was partly explained by the fact that women, on average, were better at “mindreading” than men.

Interestingly enough, a second study has now replicated the these findings for teams that worked together online communicating purely by typing messages into a browser . "Emotion-reading mattered just as much for the online teams whose members could not see one another as for the teams that worked face to face. What makes teams smart must be not just the ability to read facial expressions, but a more general ability, known as “Theory of Mind,” to consider and keep track of what other people feel, know and believe."

Submission + - State of the Union: Obama to seek tax raises on wealthy

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: President Obama is to use Tuesday's State of the Union speech to call for tax increases on the wealthy to help the middle class, officials say. The proposals would raise $320 billion (£211 billion) over a decade, to fund benefits such as tax credits. The speech is the centerpiece of the US political diary and may shape both Mr Obama's legacy and the 2016 election. But the president faces resistance to his proposals, with Republicans controlling both Houses of Congress. With the US economy growing, President Obama will stress that it is time for ordinary US families to feel the benefits. According to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the plans include: Closing a loophole allowing the wealthiest Americans to pass on certain assets tax free, Raising capital gains tax on the richest earners from 23.8% to 28%, New fees on US financial firms with more than $50 billion (£33 billion) in assets. The revenues would raise more than enough to fund the proposed benefits for the middle class, according to the officials.

Submission + - Future farms may move indoor (fool.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A farming model that can produce 100 times what a farm produces in the same amount of space may revolutionize agriculture as we know it

In a 25,000 square foot building in Japan, indoor farming company Mirai has built a farm producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day. Not only is the production staggering, but the farm uses 40% less power, 80% less food waste, and 99% less water than outdoor fields while improving yields from around 50%-90%

What's fascinating about this technology isn't where it is today, but where it could be in 10 or 20 years. This technology could be automated, powered by solar energy, and could even produce high value plants used in medicines, just as an example

The medical and pharmaceutical industries often find valuable plant extracts in remote parts of the world. These plants could be produced indoors in a controlled environment, improving supply

Synthetic biology could also open a world of possibilities for indoor farming. Designer plants could be used to fill industry needs the way algae are beginning to be used to create specialty chemicals today

An indoor farm that can create 10,000 heads of lettuce per day is impressive, but it's just scratching the surface of what indoor farming could do. Biological engineering combined with automated growing could feed the world at a lower cost with higher quality and also produce products for a variety an ancillary industries. This could be the future of farming and could be on a dinner table near you before you know it

Submission + - Useful algorithms and theories for researching AI?

Submitted by Crows_of_Murder
Crows_of_Murder writes: I've recently developed an interest in artificial intelligence. It quickly became apparent that much of the information out there is nested within mathematics and theory. The problem is that its difficult to decipher which algorithms are still relevant to the most recent advancements in AI. Creating a strong foundation of understanding has proven to be unwieldy simply because many sources of information assume you know "the basics". I'd like to develop a list of core information and I could use some help. Thoughts?

Comment How can movie makers be so ignorant? (Score 1) 98

NO ONE shown in the trailer seemed like anyone I've known who had technical knowledge. They ALL seemed like people who have made being cute the most important thing and maybe only thing in their lives.

Also, what about EXPLOSIONS is supposed to make someone want to see a movie? Is the intention to recommend the movie to those who feel attracted to violence?

Comment Software doesn't have a "lifespan". (Score 1) 629

by Futurepower(R) (#48836743) Attached to: Google Throws Microsoft Under Bus, Then Won't Patch Android Flaw
"Windows XP's lifespan wasn't short."

Software doesn't have a "lifespan". It works the same as it always did, with the same hardware.

Businesses doing the same work every day don't need new hardware or software if the equipment they have now is serving them well.

It wasn't until Service Pack 2 was released on August 10, 2004 that many of the very serious problems in Windows XP were fixed. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 might be considered to be a different version of the Windows XP operating system, it was so different from the initial Windows XP version. See the Microsoft article, List of fixes included in Windows XP Service Pack 2. There were 828 fixes.

See the article, Microsoft Windows XP "end of life": Conflict of interest.

Submission + - Google Search Will Be Your Next Brain (medium.com)

Submitted by Steven Levy
Steven Levy writes: A deep dive into Google's AI effort. In 2006, Geoffrey Hinton made a breakthrough in neural nets that launched Deep Learning. Google is all-in, hiring Hinton, have its ace scientist Jeff Dean build the Google Brain, and buying the neuroscience-based general AI company DeepMind for $400. Here's how the push for scary-smart search work, from mouths of the key subjects.

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