Monday, June 6th, 2016

Time	Event
3:30a	Siemens Now Commands An Army Of Spider Robots An anonymous reader quotes this article about Siemens' army of autonomous spider robots -- each one the size of a microwave, communicating with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to create "a collaborative mind": It's expensive to build an automated factory, and even more pricey to repurpose one. German manufacturing giant Siemens wants that to change, and they've developed an army of robot spiders to make it happen. Utilizing what Siemens calls "mobile manufacturing", researchers in Princeton, New Jersey have built prototype spider-bots that work together to 3D print structures and parts in real time. Siemens hopes to build even larger spider robots than can weld cars. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
5:25p	Nest's Time At Alphabet: A 'Virtually Unlimited Budget' With No Results Ron Amadeo, reporting for Ars Technica (edited and condensed): Nest CEO Tony Fadell wasn't officially "fired" from Nest, but it certainly feels like it. In just the last few months, Nest has had to deal with reports of an "employee exodus," a string of public insults from Dropcam co-founder and departing Nest employee Greg Duffy, news that even Google supposedly didn't want to work with Nest on a joint project, and fallout from the company's decision to remotely disable Nest's deprecated Revolv devices. [...] It's hard to argue with the decision to "transition" Fadell away from Nest. When Google bought Nest in January 2014, the expectation was that a big infusion of Google's resources and money would supercharge Nest. Nest grew from 280 employees around the time of the Google acquisition to 1200 employees today. In Nest's first year as "a Google company," it used Google's resources to acquire webcam maker Dropcam for $555 million, and it paid an unknown amount for the smart home hub company Revolv. Duffy said Nest was given a "virtually unlimited budget" inside Alphabet. In return for all this investment, Nest delivered very little. Two-and-a-half years under Google/Alphabet, a quadrupling of the employee headcount, and half-a-billion dollars in acquisitions yielded minor yearly updates and a rebranded device. That's all. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
6:05p	Man Sued For $30K Over $40 Printer He Sold On Craigslist An anonymous reader cites an article on USA Today: Selling a used, black-and-white printer through Craigslist seemed simple and straightforward to Doug Costello. It wasn't. What the 66-year-old Massachusetts man didn't know then is that he would spend the next 6 and a half years embroiled in a complicated and confusing legal dispute in Indiana over that printer, which, according to its buyer, was broken. He would find himself liable for about $30,000 in damages. He would pay a lawyer at least $12,000 in his battle to escape the legal mess. And it all started with a piece of hardware he sold online for about $40 in 2009. With shipping and other costs, the total was less than $75, according to court records.Gersh Zavodnik, the printer's buyer, has been described as "prolific, abusive litigant" who has brought dozens of lawsuits against individuals and businesses. He often asks for "astronomical" damages. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
10:13p	Future Phones May Use Vacuum Tube Chips As Silicon Hits Moore's Law Extremes An anonymous reader writes: A team of researchers want to replace transistors with vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes are nothing new, however the ones in development at Caltech's Nanofabrication Group are a million times smaller than the ones in use 100 years ago. "Computer technologies seem to work in cycles," Alan Huang, a former electrical engineer for Bell Laboratories, told the New York Times. "Some of the same algorithms that were developed for the last generation can sometimes be used for the next generation." Dr. Axel Scherer, head of the Nanofabrication Group, said to the New York Times on Sunday, "Ten years ago, silicon transistors could meet all our demands. In the next decade, that will no longer be true." He argues silicon transistors can only take us so far. Vacuum tubes, for comparison, use tiny metal tubes that can control the flow of electricity. They're especially intriguing to researchers as they can provide a better solution to silicon transistors as they can consume less power and take-up a much smaller footprint. The report mentions they have the potential to bring an end to Moore's Law, even if silicon transistors show no signs of disappearing. For example, Lockheed Martin published new cooling methods in March that could help cool chips with tiny drops of water. With that said, Boeing has invested in researching vacuum tube chips. They may appear in the aviation industry before 2020, but it's unlikely we'll see Caltech's research appear in smartphones anytime soon. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
11:40p	GE Considers Scrapping The Annual Raise A user shares a report that details General Electric's rethinking of the annual raise. Bloomberg reports: "GE executives are reviewing whether annual updates to compensation are the best response to the achievements and needs of employees. The company may also scrap the longstanding and much-imitated system of rating staff on a five-point scale. Decisions on both issues may come within the next several months, spokesperson Valerie Van den Keybus said by phone." "We uncovered an opportunity to improve the way we reward people for their contributions," GE's head of executive development, Janice Semper, said in an e-mailed response to questions. It will involve "being flexible and re-thinking how we define rewards, acknowledging that employees and managers are already thinking beyond annual compensation in this space." In response to this news, ErichTheRed writes: First it was "stack ranking," the process where GE fires the bottom-rated 20% of the workforce every year. Now, a new HR trend may be brewing at GE that is destined to be copied by MBAs everywhere if it takes hold. Personally, in terms of cargo-cult HR trends, I'd take Google's open office nightmare over this one. What do you think this would do to employment stability if widely enacted? I can definitely see banks rethinking 30 year mortgages, for example... Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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