You could one day attend meetings with someone elses body via human Uber

You could one day attend meetings with someone elses body via human UberYou could one day attend meetings with someone elses body via human UberInstead of video conferencing into the meeting, we could one day be using other human bodies to physically represent us in the office while we work from home - A world of human stand-ins. Thats the future a new product envisions.AtMIT Tech Reviews EmTech conference in Singapore this week, Sony-affiliated virtual reality researcher junior Rekimoto demonstrated his invention - Chameleon Mask, or human Uber - that allows you to have someone wear a screen displaying your face on their face, so you can attend events remotely.This product allows you to Skype into a meeting on aelendher humans bodyAccording to bentzer instructions from Rekimotos lab, your doppelgnger is not only supposed to wear your face, they should also be instructed to act like youA surrogate user wears a mask-shaped display that shows a remote users live face, and a voice ch annel transmits a remote users voice. A surrogate user mimics a remote user by following the remote users directions.In his co-authored paper on the human-human communication mask, Rekimoto suggests using a surrogate who is your equivalent height, body type and gender in addition to someone familiar with the rest of the people in the room, like a colleague.What makes this invention different than just using an iPad?Telepresence robots are not new inventions for the workplace. The Double, which essentially acts like an iPad on a Segway, is already being used in offices to give remote workers face time with clients and colleagues. But Rekimoto argues that the Chameleon Mask can accomplish mora by being humanlike. Unlike other telepresence devices, a Chameleon Mask is at human height and will not run into as many technical difficulties that an iPad on wheels might encounter.But when your colleague starts waving their hands in the meeting the way you do, will everyone else be fooled, or will they be creeped out? According to Rekimoto, his telepresence invention is surprisingly natural. In a pilot field test, researchers found that unsuspecting bystanders would treat the person in a Chameleon Mask as human They seemed to believe that the remote user was in front of them. Thus, the surrogate was not only physically present but also created a sense that the director was there. To put it to the test, researchers recruited a23-year-old female student to be the human surrogateof a 28-year-old woman who needed to go to a local city center to get a request form, but was unable to travel there. In the human surrogates interaction with a city officer, the bemused officer treated the person wearing a display mask as human, but ultimately asked her to take off the mask in an interesting exchangeOfficer You are the right person. But would you take o? your mask, please? Person talking through the surrogate Sorry, I cant. This body isnt mine. I cant go there, so I let my agent v isit the city office. Officer sie werden erlauben? You are not the person on this ID?The officer said he could not give the surrogate the certification form needed, but acknowledged that rules for in-person certification could change in the future.This could be a new job in the gig economyWhile there are still hurdles to overcome, surrogates who could be doing this kind of work said they were up for the challenge. In the future, the gig economy may mean strapping on other peoples faces for cash. That was the sentiment the surrogate who ran the city center errand felt I may consider becoming someones surrogate as a part-time job. I felt that my work helped someone else.

The New Science of Targeting Job Candidates

The New Science of Targeting Job CandidatesThe New Science of Targeting Job CandidatesThe New Science of Targeting Job Candidates M. Cantrell and David SmithMarketers have been deftly dissecting consumer populations for decades. Theyve pegged us as suburban moms, clothes-conscious teens, techno-geeks and then tailor their messages accordingly.Many companies are now applying this time-tested principle to job candidates with astounding results. Targeting job candidates improves the chances of finding qualified job candidates for the position by applying the same principles as a targeted marketing campaign.These new rules mean that employers must understand the characteristics of their eignung employees not just by skill platzset but by key concepts and candidate soft skills that are too often ignored, such as interests, generation, potential value to the business, personality, motivations, work habits, ideal job characteristics, cultural values, willingness to travel, location desir es and career aspirations.Segmenting Early in the Recruitment CycleToday, companies can collect a vast and rich array of information about an individual as part of social media recruitment before theyve ever met the candidate. As we describe in our new book, Workforce of One Revolutionizing Talent Management through Customization (Harvard Business Press, 2010), organizations can achieve significant business benefits by treating each individual as a workforce of one in other words, by offering each employee a highly-customized employment experience.Research from our book reveals how organizations can segment potential employees on any number of variables. Here are just a few business examples to considerTalent source. Just as with product advertising, PG delivers targeted recruiting messages to potential MBA candidates when they are most receptive at Christmas vacation, for instance, when students are less busy with academic work and starting to think about the January intern season .Personality, work habits, or cognitive capabilities. Capital One segments job candidates based on online tests that assess math and verbal reasoning skills, work habits and leadership skills. Results are coupled with interviews and possibly even exercises (such as creating a business case) and then rated as to how well the candidate might perform at Capital One.Ratings and quality of employee referrals. Other companies are tapping web-based talent profiles of pre-screened people who are available for work. Candidates are segmented based on ratings of their work and quality of referrals from others ( la Amazon and Facebook) as well as their test scores and experience. The data is used to match them with particular job skills.Life stage or generation. Companies often reach out to different generations (Gen Y employees, Boomers, etc.) in an age-appropriate format. To reach Millenials, for example, they are encouraging job candidates to speak freely with company employees on Facebook. One company went so far as to offer intern-made rap videos about office life. Organizations are also offering everything from customized benefits, performance feedback and more, all tailored to the needs and interests of each generation.Underutilized talent pools. Companies find bright and able people who are off the beaten track by catering to them in new and innovative ways, providing them with a leg up in a competitive talent market. JetBlue Airways, for example, caters to stay-at-home moms to staff its entire reservations department, enabling them to take reservations while caring for their households.Cultural values.In a global economy of global recruitment, many organizations are finding they need finely-crafted talent strategies that match companys cultural values. In Ireland, for example, many people enjoy cycling, so Google Ireland targets job candidates by offering them a cycling plan in which the company contributes toward the cost of a bicycle.Interests, motivations, or career aspirations. In an Intel pilot, potential candidates are segmented based on work preferences, creating a better fit between the candidates passions and the needs of the company. Similarly, Travelers crafts targeted communications based on an individuals aspirations and skills.The Rise of Candidate Relationship DatabasesTo house all this information, companies are increasingly turning to candidate relationship databases that work much like customer relationship databases. This allows companies to gather information on an unlimited number of variables that rarely come to light in interviews or in static resumes. The database can then be mined to create customized and meaningful communications between a corporation and their pool of potential hires. It can also keep track of subsequent interactions that build meaningful relationships with candidates over time.By using sophisticated segmentation techniques, relationship databases can keep candidates interested and engaged until s uch time as you need them.Author BiosSusan M. Cantrell is a Research Fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance. David Smith is the Managing Director of the Accenture Talent Organization Performance practice.

10 Arguments For and Against Net Neutrality, Part 1

10 Arguments For and Against Net Neutrality, parte 1 10 Arguments For and Against Net Neutrality, Part 1 10 Arguments For and Against Net Neutrality, Part 1The world wide web was born free, without restrictions and regulierung. Then broadband providers starting exerting control through steps like slowing down video streams, especially with bandwidth hog Netflix dominating internet traffic.Users were upset at the slower video streams, and the government stepped in to take control of the internet from broadband providers.Net neutrality today is associated with a broad set of rules established in 2015 stopping broadband providers from blocking selected content, or slowing down internet speeds for customers. But those rules will be repealed starting April 23 by the Republican-dominated U.S. Federal Communications Commission.The worry is that a repeal will put control of the internet back in the hands of broadband providers. Opponents of net neutrality argue the internet should not be reg ulated as it will stall innovation and investment in next-generation technologies.The digital universe will double in size by 2020. Source International Data CorporationThe net neutrality debate today is mostly around video, but could pivot to IoT, which will increase its share of internet traffic in the future. The number of connected IoT devices is expected to reach 125 billion by 2030, according to IHS, and the repeal could impact companies involved in smart medical devices, autonomous cars, drones, connected factories and smart city projects. Here are five arguments for and five against the repeal that engineers need to know, especially in the context of IoT.FOR1) Prioritize IoT communications With the repeal, Internet providers will be able to be prioritize internet traffic. For example, communication between autonomous cars or life-saving medical devices could be prioritized and put on the fast lane, while non-essential traffic could be placed with regular internet communicati ons. This could also benefit other IoT-based services. Wearables, delivery drones, and driverless cars are among the killer apps that require a lot of real-time data and would benefit from preferential treatment in areas with strained network capacity, PwC wrote in a research report.2) More investment and new services Broadband providers have been reluctant to invest in infrastructure or develop innovative services since net neutrality regulations went into effect in 2015, says George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies. Broadband providers capital expenditure declined to $76 billion B in 2016 from the decade-high $78.4 billion in 2014, according to USTelecom.Telecom companies can recoup investments quicker by developing innovative premium services around security, artificial intelligence or even specialized IoT traffic like tracking. Beyond provisioning traffic, a lot of computing services for IoT like image recognition can be provided on the edge equipment of telecom and network providers. However, regulations and red tape could discourage those investments as the return will be slower, Ford says.3) Fast track factory and infrastructure upgrades Manufacturers are increasingly connected to the internet, and a robust telecom infrastructure is a must to keep factories up to date, Robyn Boerstling, vice president of infrastructure, innovation and human resources policy of National Association of Manufacturers, told ASME.Continued investment in networks, led by the private sector, allow for improvements and upgrades that keep economic growth moving in a positive direction and give the U.S. a competitive advantage. A regulatory regime that holds back the development and deployment of the latest manufacturing technology would be a step in the wrong direction, Boerstling says.4) Limited regulation The Internet evolved with time, first as a platform for people to communicate, then for e-commerce, and now a s a harbinger for emerging technologies like IoT, artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud. Companies like ATT which hasnt taken a stand on net neutrality has argued that regulations could stall development of new internet technologies.In the very near future, technological advances like self-driving cars, remote surgery and augmented reality will demand even greater performance from the internet, ATT says. Without predictable rules for how the internet works, it will be difficult to meet the demands of these new technology advances.The volume of data transfer will rise dramatically by 2020. Source International Data Corporation5) 5G development Government interference will hinder the development of 5G, which will drive autonomous cars, robots and haptic feedback-enabled drones, says networking equipment maker Ericsson in a filing with the FCC. Inflexible rules could undermine the diverse 5G use cases and innovation enabled by quality-of-service distinctions and the availabil ity of different levels of connectivity that could be made available as part of broadband Internet access offerings, Ericsson says. 5G is a melting pot of wireless technologies that will also allow sensors and machines to directly talk over long distances, and net neutralitys repeal could pave a path for companies to separate critical data traffic that may be important to factory safety, as an example.Find out why people are against the repeal in Part 2 of 10 Arguments For and Against Net Neutrality.