Then, in February 2014, Apple appointed Denise Young Smith to lead its worldwide human resources division. The pair are in charge of the future of two of Apple's most important assets: its chain of stores and its talent.
(It's also great to see Apple shaking up its previously male-dominated top ranks.)
Mike Del Ponte is the genius behind Soma, a sort of Warby Parker of water filters. In July 2013, it closed a $3.7 million round of seed funding led by Baseline Ventures and Forerunner Ventures.
Soma is targeting people who are tired of ugly Brita water filters and are passionate about sustainability. For every biodegradable water filter it sells, Soma donates money to charity.
After being told he had the worst startup in his Y Combinator batch, Taro Fukuyama had to figure out how to turn the company around. Six pivots later, he landed on AnyPerk. AnyPerk helps put startups on par with Google and Facebook when it comes to perks, offering discounts on things like movie tickets, lift tickets, cell phone plans, Lyft car-sharing rides, and car rentals.
Today, AnyPerk has 28 employees. Last March, the startup raised a $1.4 million seed round from Digital Garage, Ben Lewis, Michael Liou, CyberAgent and Shogo Kawada.
Apps have become an integral part of the mobile experience. We use them to check the weather, plan vacations, play games, and hail a cab, among many other tasks.
The following men and women played a crucial role in the development of these programs, whether by creating a crucial feature or starting an important trend.
Here are 11 of the most influential people working in apps today.
Matas is a user interface designer who was recruited by Apple to help refine software for the iPhone and iPad. His dazzling resume includes building the UI for Nest's Learning Thermostat, as well as Facebook's recent mobile app, called Paper.
Dong Nguyen
Projects: Flappy Bird
Nguyen was the developer behind the infamous and addicting Flappy Bird. After he pulled his game from the App Store, other developers began imitating this model of mobile gaming: create a simplistic character, have it fly through a number of basic obstacles, and watch the app climb the charts.
Sean Rad
Projects: Tinder
Rad is the founder of the popular mobile dating app Tinder. The use of swipes and cards to identify perfect matches has become an ideal format for displaying content on your phone. Other apps have adopted this same feature, such as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone's Jelly, and the recently launched Swell.
With the success of shows like True Detective and House of Cards, television continues to erase its reputation as film's kid brother.
It's no longer a step backwards for big screen stars to give TV a shot, and the 2014 pilot season proves just how willing movie types are to make the jump to the smaller screen.
1. Halle Berry
Show: Extant
The Pitch: After spending a year in space where she lived and conducted strange experiments, astronaut Molly Watts tries to resume a normal life with her family.
Network: CBS
Premiere: July 2
2. Katie Holmes
Show: TBA
The Pitch: Katie Holmes stars in a Dangerous Liaisons-seque high society drama.
Network: ABC
Premiere: TBA
3. Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, and Taylor Kitsch
Show: The Normal Heart
The Pitch: A gay activist attempts to raise HIV/AIDS awareness during the early 1980s.
Communicating information in the sciences, especially in a way that's fun and entertaining, is both a honed skill and a natural talent.
These 40 people have managed to perfect that voice and now serve as the esteemed "scientist social media wizards." They're astrophysicists, meteorologists, science reporters and more, and you're missing out if you're not following them online.
Col. Chris Hadfield is the hippest astronaut on the Web.
Who he is: A retired Canadian astronaut who became the first Canadian to walk in space.
Why you should follow: Though he's no longer going into orbit, he puts together stellar tweets that show he's still up to date on space things. He's amassed nearly 600,000 Facebook followers, many of them fans of his autobiography "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth."
Dr. Carin Bondar's web series about sexual behaviors in the Animal Kingdom amassed more than 12 million views on YouTube.
Who she is: A spunky biologist and population ecologist who blogs "SciVid."
Why you should follow: Her "Wild Sex" web series wrapped last year, but Bondar continues to create awesomely nerdy videos. She has a new series currently out called "Sex Bytes."
Example of media prowess: She filmed this parody of "Wrecking Ball" about evolution.
David Shiffman trumps your "Shark Week" obsession every day on Facebook and Twitter.
Who he is: A marine biologist promoting shark conservation in his blog "Southern Fried Science."
Why you should follow: For Shiffman, a Ph.D. student at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami, every week is "Shark Week." His witty, near-obsessive shark-related tweets and Facebook posts both entertain and advocate for a more sustainable ocean environment for sharks and other creatures alike.
When it comes to acting, success can be measured in a lot of different ways — awards, respect, critical acclaim, prolificacy — but what movie executives really care about is profitability.
Which actor is going to sell the most tickets? Well, using the stats from Box Office Mojo, we can answer that.
As of 2011, 252.78 million people in China were migrant workers. That number will increase by more than 240 million migrants by 2025, putting the total urban population at nearly 1 billion people. Many of these urban-dwelling migrant workers are young people who leave their country homes to work in the big city.
Swiss photographers Stéphanie Borcard & Nicolas Métraux of BM Photo recently documented this migrant phenomenon through the lens of young Chinese hairdressers in the city of Chengdu. The city, while lesser known than Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, is quickly becoming an economic powerhouse in the country. After taking portraits of the hairdressers, the duo asked their subjects to allow them to photograph their homes. Though cramped and lacking privacy by Western standards, the dorms, apartments, and roomsexemplified the living conditions of other young migrants in China.
To begin the project, Borcard and Métraux walked the streets of Chengdu for 8 hours a day, walking into every hair salon they encountered to scout potential subjects and ask the owner if they could photograph.
The hairdressers are very easy to pick out in a crowd in China because of their style. Their outlandish fashions are not common, except among these hair stylists and karaoke bar operators.
After photographing their subjects, they came back a week later with a translator, who further explained the concept of the project. The translator was key to getting the hairdressers to agree to let them photograph their homes. In Chinese culture, it is not common to allow strangers into your home.
Most hairdressers live in accommodations provided by the owner of the hair salon, often in the same apartment as the boss. Sometimes there are as many as 10 or 15 people living in the same apartment, dorm-style. “Privacy is nonexistent,” Métraux said.
At the back of most of the hair salons was a door that lead to an apartment building where the boss and hairdressers live. “It was like Alice-in-Wonderland to go from the glitzy hair salons through a door into a whole other world,” Borcard said. Yang Hao (pictured) lives in the same apartment as his boss and sends money home regularly, despite rarely seeing his family.
These two hairdressers must share a bed, which is in the entry hall to their boss’s apartment.
Yang Wei works at the Romantic Space Salon and lives with his wife in a small apartment. They are expecting their first child in a few months. The hairdressing job isn't all it's cracked up to be. A few months after working at the Flower Vine Image Design Salon, Xin Zeng quit his job to work nights at a local gay bar. Like many migrants, Zeng shuffles through numerous jobs to make ends meet.
Starting and maintaining a small business takes an exceptional amount of work, and time is a precious commodity. That's why most successful entrepreneurs have developed a few tricks along the way to increase their productivity and effectiveness.
We asked entrepreneurs across industries to share their favorite productivity hacks, from useful organization apps to clever tricks for cutting down meeting times.
These simple habits have proven to enhance their focus, organization, and happiness, all of which fuel their success.
Beth Doane, founder of Raintees, lets all calls go to voicemail.
In 2008, Doane created Raintees, an apparel line that plants a tree in an endangered rainforest for every shirt sold and donates school supplies to a child in need for every tote bag sold.
Leading a growing company requires her full focus. Doane lets all of her non-scheduled calls go to voicemail, or else she would never get anything done, she says.
"I tend to return calls at the end of the day, and if someone really needs to reach me I have my assistant's info on my voicemail and let her decide if it's really an 'important' call."
Eric Casaburi, founder and CEO of Retro Fitness, multitasks by combining a "brainless" activity with a "brain-required" activity.
Casaburi founded the first Retro Fitness in 2004 as an affordable gym for fitness buffs of all intensity levels. His franchise now has locations across the country and continues to grow.
He thinks multi-tasking is key for productivity, but only if it combines a mindless task with one that requires focus.
"For example, you could exercise on a treadmill, while taking a conference call (something that I do frequently)," he says. "Yes you will be winded, but I assure you it won't affect your thinking and communication skills. In fact, there are studies that show the brain neurons fire off at a higher rate while active!"
Jamie Wong, founder and CEO of Vayable, schedules three non-work-related activities a week that nothing can interfere with.
Vayable is a San Francisco-based travel firm that connects travelers with locals who serve as tour guides. Its network includes over 600 destinations around the world.
Wong says that she's found schedules and daily plans regularly get broken, so she started keeping three things in her life that she sticks to no matter what. She commits to one activity in each of the categories "Create,""Love," and "Grow." Right now, for example, she's learning how to play songs on her guitar (Create), keeping Thursday and Saturday nights reserved for friends (Love), and taking boxing lessons (Grow).
"I’ve discovered that few things are more powerful in personal growth than sports," she says. "I block off Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings now for boxing training. Not only is it an amazing workout, but the mental and physical discipline it requires is a great exercise and metaphor for achieving anything outside of my comfort zone... I find that boxing, like many sports, is always a powerful metaphor for life and business, and I am able to draw on its power throughout the week."
"The large operator does not, as a rule, go into a campaign unless he sees in prospect a movement of from 10 to 50 points. Livermore once told me he never touched anything unless there were at least 10 points in it according to his calculations."
So writes Richard Wyckoff, the legendary trader who in the 1930s wrote a manifesto that gained him a cult following on Wall Street.
His 1931 book, "The Richard D. Wyckoff Method of Trading and Investing in Stocks – A Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique," is out of print and somewhat difficult to find these days (not impossible), but even in 2014, hedge fund managers still swear by it.
One of the key takeaways from the book is that if you want to succeed, you have to learn to recognize the professionals and understand what they are doing. That's what those who follow Wyckoff do — they watch the large operators.
Wyckoff walks us through the process of how a large operator will manipulate a stock up or down — so that next time one sees it unfolding on the screen before his or her own eyes, he or she can react accordingly.
This, you could say, is real technical analysis ...
First, some context: trading is a lot like any other merchandising business, and liquidity is important
Wyckoff writes, "When you have learned to take a wholly impartial viewpoint, unbiased by news, gossip, opinions and your own prejudices, you will realize that the stock market is like any other merchandising business.
"Those who understand it buy only when prices are low with the idea of selling when they are high; and they operate only in the stocks or commodities which they can move best so they may secure the highest possible rate of turnover of inventories."
Source: Wyckoff (1937)
It takes a while for a pro to accumulate a position in advance of a big move – buying too many shares at once would cause the price to rise too quickly
"The preparation of an important move in the market takes a considerable time. A large operator or investor acting singly cannot often, in a single day's session, buy 25,000 to 100,000 shares of stock without putting the price up too much. Instead, he takes days, weeks or months in which to accumulate his line in one or many stocks."
Source: Wyckoff (1937)
Instead, here's how he sets it up: first, he'll "shake out" the little guys by forcing the stock lower in order to get a better price
"He prefers to do this while the market is weak, dull, inactive and depressed. To the extent that they are able, he, and the other interests with whom he works, bring about the very conditions which are most favorable for accumulation of stocks at low prices...
"When he wishes to accumulate a line, he raids the market for that stock, makes it look very weak, and gives it the appearance of heavy liquidation by sending in selling orders through a great number of brokers."
Why it's bad: He's still young. But $13 million guaranteed to a third wide receiver with modest numbers is a lot, especially for a team with as many holes as the Lions.
Why it's bad: The Raiders have money to burn, but so do the Jets. There's a reason New York didn't match the ridiculous $30 million price that Oakland offered.
This isn’t the first time that whole swaths of the labor market have gone extinct: The Industrial Revolution did away with gigs that your great-great-grandparents might have had that sound preposterous to us today.
Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s occupational classification list from 1850 and some research of our own, we found several bizarre-sounding occupations that are now totally extinct.
Additional reporting by Vivian Giang.
"Computer" used to be somebody's title. Before electronics took over, these workers — usually women — would convert figures and crunch other numbers by hand.
Factory workers needed a little entertainment, so a lector read news and literature aloud to them.
Before everyone had refrigerators, milk quickly went bad. So you'd need it delivered regularly by your milkman. With home refrigeration, this profession disappeared.
It's a common for people in the acting, modeling and music industries to feel pressure to maintain a young appearance. Actors and actresses over 30 and 40 complain they cannot get roles. Now, all that anxiety is coming to Silicon Valley.
In The New Republic, Noam Scheiber illustrates just how severely ageism plagues parts of the tech business in California.
"Silicon Valley has become one of the most ageist places in America," Scheiber writes.
Dr. Seth Matarasso, a plastic surgeon that administers Botox treatments in the Bay Area, told Scheiber that he frequently treats middle-aged Silicon Valley workers, saying the following:
It's really morphed into, 'Hey, I'm forty years old and I have to get in front of a board of fresh-faced kids. I can't look like I have a wife and two-point-five kids and mortgage.
But what's more troubling is the fact that even younger workers are approaching Matarasso for cosmetic youth-preserving procedures. According to Scheiber, Matarasso turned away a 26-year-old seeking hair transplants.
But it's not just about appearance. Older engineers in Silicon Valley are under pressure to compete with younger hackers, proving that they're skills aren't outdated and that they've still got quick and creative programming chops. As one 40-plus developer whose department largely consists of 20-something-year-olds told Scheiber:
People presume an older developer learned some trade skill five to ten years ago and has been coasting on it ever since.
There's also an assumption that because a worker is older, he or she won't fit in with the energetic startup culture of Silicon Valley. Consultant Freada Klein told Scheiber the following:
A number of times, people said or wrote in survey comments something like, 'We don't want anybody's parents in here.' 'It's too weird to have someone as old as my parents reporting to me.'
This type of ageism in the workplace is illegal, and has been for a long time. It is just as illegal to discriminate against someone over 40 as it is to discriminate against someone who is black or female. It's not clear, however, whether the tech world "gets" that.
The New Republic story is part of an ongoing discussion that's been present in the developer community for quite some time: What happens to older developers? In a rather lengthy Hacker News thread that surfaced earlier this month, numerous software developers voiced their concerns about what happens once they hit age 30.
One prominent concern, according to the discussion, is that companies will continue to hire younger, inexperienced workers willing to take on the same assignments for a cheaper salary.
The issue of ageism isn't exactly new to the developer community either—back in 2010 entrepreneur Vivvek Wadwha wrote that tech companies prefer to hire younger programmers with less experience.
Unlike many other fields, it's entirely possible for youngsters to become programming experts without years of formal work experience. As Marc Andreesson, the co-founder of Netscape and one of Silicon Valley's biggest venture capitalists told Schreiber:
"By the time they're twenty-two, they're already an expert. They've put in the ten thousand hours. But it doesn't happen in other fields ... You can't start designing bridges at age ten."
With the rapidly rising price of college tuition, many top students are realizing you don't need to pay an arm and a leg for a quality education, and that state schools are just as great.
We've included student quotes from Niche to illustrate the student intellect and academic caliber of each school.
#20 University of Florida — Gainesville, Florida
"I'm busy! But it's manageable. My program focuses on making connections among peers and professors, so we are a very close-knit bunch that provides each other with support whenever it's needed. Having the same classes with peers and professors allows close bonds to develop that will last a lifetime."
"This school is very rigorous and hard. However you know that you are getting an amazing education and are being taught by some of the best people. The workload is also tough but it's nothing you can't handle. As long as you keep on top of your work you will succeed."
#18 New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology — Socorro, New Mexico
"There are a lot of classes and opportunities for extra-curricular activities. There are also a lot of people and professors that are included in the real-world of your future occupation and you can ask them to help you or include you in their research."
#17 California Polytechnic State University — San Luis Obispo, California
"You literally learn by doing and it's the best. I actually remember the things I learn when I applied them in class and labs. It's awesome. Having to take GE's sucks, but it always does. Major courses are super awesome."
#16 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain — Urbana-Champain, Illinois
"There are many hard working students at University of Illinois. Since there are over 40,000 students, you'll find all sorts of people of your interest and similarities."
"Everyone here is very intelligent and extremely hard working. With all the hard work does come with a lot of fun ranging from fraternity events to football games to laying out on Bascom Hill, the people at this university are amazing to say the least."
#13 Truman State University — Kirksville, Missouri
"The academics at Truman definitely keep students busy but aren't unmanageable especially with a staff that is, for the most part, open and more than willing in aiding in student success."
#12 University of California, Davis — Davis, California
"My professors are all so knowledgeable and helpful and most TAs are really great and helpful as well. The curriculum are great. I always feel challenged."
#11 Michigan Technological University — Houghton, Michigan
"I love my professors — all of them seem dedicated to their job, as well as understanding. The workload is more than most schools, but the best isn't the easiest!"
#10 University of Maryland, Baltimore County — Baltimore, Maryland
"UMBC is a very good school with heavy emphasis on the sciences. Most students are either science majors or are science majors who want to be doctors. Obviously most students are very serious about their academics."
"Unlike most other undergrad programs, New College puts you in direct contact with your professors- who actively encourage you to visit them to talk about the classes and possible projects. If you have a dream, New College will work with you to make it happen."
"Mines is great on the academic side. The work load is difficult but reasonable. The professors are all very invested in your process of learning and provide plenty of help for your success. The curriculum is well known around the country for being one of the best in Engineering."
"I'm not exaggerating when I say the academics here are 'the best.' They truly push students to grow and push past limits they place on themselves. The environment is so conducive to learning and there are so many places to meet up with friends, lab partners, or members of a group project to get all your work done."
#5 University of California, Los Angeles — Los Angeles, California
"There are students from different backgrounds whom which I learn a lot from. There is a lot of reading but it's interesting and doable. There are also a lot of internship opportunities, as well as scholarship opportunities."
#4 University of Virginia — Charlottesville, Virginia
"The academics here are stellar. Brilliant, engaging, helpful professors are the norm. Though I don't have experience with faculty in every department, my first hand combined with what I've heard from friends points towards high quality across the board."
#2 University of California, Berkeley — Berkeley, California
"Berkeley is nationally ranked in almost every academic discipline. If you want great academics at a fraction of the cost of an Ivy, then look no further."
#1 College of William & Mary — Williamsburg, Virginia
"Studying at William and Mary is strongly emphasized. Everyone pushes themselves to work hard and get good grades. Those who go above and beyond are highly respected. We pride ourselves on our studying habits and our willingness to work hard to learn. We like to feel challenged."
The Boeing P-8 Poseidon is a multifunctional aircraft that was introduced into the U.S. Military in November 2013.
Replacing the P-3 Orion, the Poseidon is a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft.
Developed from the commercial Boeing 737NG series, the P-8 truly shines in its unrivaled surveillance capabilities. It was for this reason that the U.S. used Poseidons to help in the search for the missing Malaysia MH370 flight.
The P-8 Poseidon's effective ability to search relies upon multiple sensors in a top-down approach. Searches start with radar and then shift to the plane's advanced optics that can zoom down to the surface of the waves.
When the Poseidon discovers a possible target, the plane can drop as low as 300 feet. At that altitude, the plane's radar and cameras can scan for 16 miles on either side.
Much of the plane's surveillance capabilities come from the AN/APY-10 radar installed in its enlarged nose. This radar allows for the capability of imaging, detection, classification, and identification of ships, small vessels, and submarines.
Billy Joel is having an impossible time selling his beautiful Hamptons home. The Piano Man just reduced the price on it from $23.5 million to a mere $22.9 million, Curbed reports.
This isn't the first time Joel's Sagaponack house has been on the market. In 2009, the price was cut from $22.9 million to $16.75 million before it was relisted. The home resurfaced again last November.
The house includes a beachfront view, piano room, and a separate studio situated in the fifth most expensive zip code in the country.
If you think the novelty of theme bars has worn off, think again.
For some people, the bar experience isn't complete unless it includes pirates, mermaids, or circus characters.
From a bar that evokes a Mexican resort to a hangout that celebrates Christmas all year long, these 27 bars know how to transport you to another world.
Sometimes almost literally.
ATLANTA: Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium
Designed around the owner's invented tale of a runaway nun, "Church," as it's affectionately known, sports a full bar and ping pong table. Get there on a Wednesday night for church organ karaoke, or any other night to take your picture in the confessional photo booth.
As much as Church is a bar, it's also an art gallery. Owner Grant Henry lines the walls of Church with his works that are both available for admiring and purchase.
Of course Austin has a facial-hair-themed bar. In a city known for its hipster population, HandleBar welcomes folks with facial hair of all shapes and sizes (and for those who can't grow any, there's always the pick-a-mustache photo booth). Play a round of giant Jenga while drinking a beverage named after a famous mustachioed person.
Some bars forget to take their Christmas decorations down while others are just lazy. But Lala's leaves theirs up intentionally so that every day can be Christmas. Known for its stiff cocktails and friendly bartenders, Lala's is a fun, energetic environment to get your drink on and soak up the holiday spirit — no pun intended.
In his spare time, biochemist Linden Gledhill collaborates with artists, filmakers, and advertising professionals to create photos of everything from the growth of ice crystals to insects in flight.
For his latest project, Gledhill collected specimens of rare and beautiful butterflies from a company called Butterflies And Things. Then he put them under the microscope and used a set of high-powered lights to create abstract photos of their wings.
From the unusual patterns and shapes produced by the wings to the beautiful colors, it's hard to believe the photos are of something from nature.
"Its always a surprise when you look at the scales at such a high magnification, because you cannot predict the shapes and patterns from just looking at the wings," explains Gledhill.
Butterfly wings are made of very thin layers of a hardened protein called chitin, which is also what your fingernails and toenails are made of. On top of the layers of chitin are microscopic scales, which are the source of the stunning colors in Glendhill’s photos.
The scales on the wings are responsible for protecting and insulating butterflies and aiding in air flow along their wings during flight. The scales also aid in heat absorption — butterflies are cold-blooded, relying on external sources of heat for warmth.
Butterflies use their colors to scare off potential predators. Because most colorful butterflies are filled with nasty toxins, predators know not to eat them. Their colors are also used for camouflage and mate attraction.
Below is a close-up of the Cithaerias pireta aurorina.Here's another close-up image: Graphium sarpedon, or Common Bluebottle, is a type of swallowtail butterfly. They are found in South and Southeast Asia. Chrysiridia Rhipheus, or the sunset moth, is a day-flying moth, known for its colorful, iridescent wings. It is most often found on Madagascar. Here is a further close-up of the sunset moth. The Comet moth (or Madagascan moon moth) is one of the world's largest silk-producing moths. It is native to the rainforests of Madagascar.Troides hypolitus, or Rippon's Birdwing, is a type of butterfly known for its massive wings and birdlike flight. It is found in the Australasia eco-zone.
That brings the total funding to $30 million from investors. Asia's richest man, Li-Ka Shing, is an investor. As is the world's richest man, Bill Gates. It also has investment from Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, Khosla Ventures, and the Founders Fund.
Today, the company announced that its egg-free mayo is being sold in Costco in Colorado. It also says that its mayo is the fastest-selling condiment in Whole Foods' history.
The man behind the company is 34-year-old Josh Tetrick. This is his first big company.
Prior to founding Hampton Creek, he was working for the U.N. in sub-Saharan Africa. He says he felt frustrated by his work because it was slow moving, and at times corrupt.
He was talking about his work with his best friend one day. His friend could hear his frustration. Together, they started talking about what Tetrick could do instead. Eventually, they ended up talking about the egg industry. From there, they landed on the idea of using plants to replace eggs.
Tetrick started reaching out to friends and friends of friends. Eventually he hooked up with some chefs to make a proof of concept. From there, he raised a seed round of funding. Then, he started hiring biochemists and food scientists. In a year and a half he had figured out how to make mayo and cookie dough that didn't need eggs.
When he went to raise $23 million last year, he used the following pitch deck. We got him on the phone to explain the deck, and run through the pitch that landed him millions.
Here's how a first-time entrepreneur got the richest men in the world to open their wallets.
This is the Hampton Creek logo.
Tetrick says he likes to use Amazon as a starting point to frame the discussion. At its core, Amazon is a technology company, even though it does a lot of non-technological stuff like logistics. At Hampton Creek's core, it's a technology company that is exploring a better way to make food.
This is a reminder of where we currently get eggs. Tetrick calls it an "antiquated technology." If he's presenting to tech investors, he says this is like a "horse and buggy whip."
Japan is one of the most robot-friendly countries in the world.
It already makes use of 250,000 robots across Japanese industry (more than any other country in the world) and expects this number to surpass 1 million by 2025, according to Time.
The technology is only improving. German robotics company KUKA pitted one of its robot arms against Timo Boll, ranked the eighth-greatest ping pong player in the world. The two faced off in a match with Boll ultimately winning. But the score is rather telling: while Boll won with 11 points, the robot still racked up an impressive 9 points against the human table tennis champion.
But when will robot "fashion" rise meet robot "function?" Science fiction and technology fans alike love to speculate over when robots will be indistinguishable from humanity — consider the Replicants of "Blade Runner" fame. Futurist Ray Kurzweil already predicts that robots will outsmart us in 15 years — how long until they "out-real" us as well?
It's a pretty tall order to make a realistic human face and body. Roboticists can get close, but they're not about to fool anyone, yet. As such, there's a shocking disparity between "expecting to register an object as a human" and "actually registering that object as a gross robot" called the "uncanny valley." As a robot becomes more human-like, it becomes more appealing. But once it gets "too human," it's repulsive (see the picture). If you push past that, to the point where the robot is indistinguishable from a real person, it becomes appealing again. We like things that look like us, but only if they completely succeed in doing so.
Japan's industrial robots and non-humanoid creations are already thriving — we'll meet some of them shortly. But we'll also take a look at the country's eerie robotic human analogs that foreshadow a future where it might not be so easy to tell them apart from "real" people.
This robot is called "Fukitorimushi," or "Wipe-Up Bug." It looks like an articulated pillow and moves in a squirmy motion across your floor to clean it with a polyester fiber pad.
This is the Mocoro, another cleaning robot that rolls across your floor like a neon tumbleweed for 15 minutes at a time. It's for putting an end to dust bunnies under the couch.
Meet the Yume Neko Smile cat robot by Sega. It's a rather scary, unnatural take on a cat.