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2 min read

v3.2_bonus: Make robots hairy again

A humanoid robot with a round yellow light around its head.
Atlas. Photo by Boston Dynamics

It’s time for another episode of Techin’ Eejits, and this time we’re using the term affectionately... at least in one case.

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Because who amongst us has not made an eejit of themselves at one point or another? It can happen to anyone. And it happened to Grimes during her set at Coachella, in front of a massive crowd. 😳

Famous for her love of mixing tech and music, Grimes suffered with technical difficulties throughout her set, eventually having to cut it short. But she came out better prepared for the second weekend of the festival and even poked fun at herself for the previous disaster.

You live, you learn... unless you’re a Big Tech company, apparently, because Amazon doesn’t seem to be learning from its own failed Just Walk Out experiment. While the company denies that its checkout-free in-store experience is more powered by humans watching video footage than advanced AI automation, it’s also not continuing to use it, but still attempting to sell it to other retailers. Good luck with that! 🍀

We’re on a theme this week of tech not working as desired so let’s keep it going with the Humane AI Pin!

The wearable gadget heralded as a harbinger of the smartphone’s doom has received its first reviews and... well...

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“The AI Pin is an interesting idea that is so thoroughly unfinished and so totally broken in so many unacceptable ways that I can’t think of anyone to whom I’d recommend spending the $699 for the device and the $24 monthly subscription.”

– David Pierce, The Verge
Headline from Engadget’s Cherlynn Low says: The Human AI Pin is the solution to none of technology’s problems

But there was another recent tech release that did impress us, and that’s the latest Atlas humanoid robot from Boston Dynamics. (What can we say, Jenny has a type!) 🤖

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! 👇

You can listen in for Elaine’s live reaction to this creepy shape-shifter and if you want to be even more creeped out, you can check out Eve Peyser’s proposal to cover this freak with hair to make it somehow less scary. Thanks for the nightmare fuel, Eve! 🙈

To remedy that, we also have some good news about AI being used to trigger early interventions to prevent homelessness in LA. A good news story! (Even better than no news.)

But if you enjoy a fright, when you’re done with this episode, we recommend you watch M3GAN, a good horror film (and not Malignant, a poor horror film).

And tell us if you’ve shopped in Decathlon and experienced the wonder of its magic scanners – we want to know! 📧 fortechssakepod@gmail.com

PS: Some bonus trivia: A 2016 report from the University of Leicester’s Department of Criminology found that installing self-service checkouts resulted in a 122% increase in shoplifting. (Well, strictly speaking, “lost revenue” went up by that margin – but we can all read between the lines!)

This fact is brought to you by the very fun trivia game, Shot In The Dark.