“Research is the transformation of money to knowledge. Innovation is the transformation of knowledge to money.”
– Dr. Hans Meixner
1. Meta Manufacturing
I generally dislike the term “meta” as it tends to ruin things I love. The “branch of philosophy” called “metaphysics” profoundly offends me. It’s philosophy with a slick marketing team that stands on the dark arts of false advertisement and fraud. Fortunately, the industrial metaverse is an exciting concept that has the potential to revolutionize the way companies innovate by creating a digital twin to test, optimize, and validate their production processes, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
2. Modest Comeback in Factory Jobs
Factory jobs in the United States are making a comeback – and has even surpassed the peak set during the previous business cycle for the first time since the late 1970s. This is the result of the slowing of globalization, as well as a shift in productivity, which may be due to a slowdown in the adoption of new technologies, a decline in competition, a rise in inequality, and the hangover from the Great Recession. Despite this growth, the sector is slowly shrinking and is currently at 8.4% payroll employment.
3. 5G-Enabled Students
UScellular has donated a private 5G network to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Connected Systems Institute, a research facility focused on the industrial Internet of Things. The 5G network will enable students, faculty, and industry partners to securely collaborate on developing and testing new solutions for smart manufacturing. UScellular is supporting the donation with technology from Ericsson and Rockwell Automation.
4. Augmented Reality Isn’t Dead Yet
And it’s bringing back the monocle! Technically, night vision and thermal scopes for tactical applications already have, but accessibility isn’t exactly there. Monocle is a pocket-sized AR device that clips on to reading glasses. It features a transparent body with a 640 x 400 pixel color OLED display, touch sensors, a 5-megapixel camera, 12MB memory, 8MB of flash storage, and access to the Brilliant App. Monocle is available for purchase for $349. This could be the next Raspberry Pi, so it’s worth looking into.
5. Bing Is Back
ChatGPT, the OpenAI platform, has been making waves. Microsoft is investing $10 billion for 49% of it. So, what does Microsoft want to do with its new toy? They want to bring back their failed web search engine, Bing! Here’s the kicker: Alphabet and their far superior search engine, Google, is on red alert and scrambling to make an AI of their own. I doubt an AI can compete; they dug their grave with censorship and political bias. I mean, Google became THE search engine because you could disable SafeSe- never mind.
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