Cashier is the second largest occupation in America, with more than 3 million people holding the job in 2013. It soon might be a job of the past, though, as Microsoft is working on technology that would automate checkout lines in order to help businesses compete with Amazon, Reuters reports.
Earlier this year, Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar grocery store, which introduced cashier-free shopping. Customers scan a smartphone app linked to a credit card when they pass through a turnstile to get into the store, then cameras and weight sensors on shelves determine what they buy. To help keep other businesses competitive as Amazon expands, Microsoft is testing its own system that would track what people add to their carts, while also attempting to keep the technology inexpensive enough that grocery stores and other retailers can afford to use it.
"This is the future of checking out for convenience and grocery stores," Gene Munster, the head of research at Loup Ventures, told Reuters. Loop Ventures estimates the automated checkout market in the United States is worth some $50 billion. Jeva Lange
The popular pro-Trump Reddit community The_Donald has been quarantined due to posts that reportedly encouraged violence.
Reddit users who visit The_Donald, the subreddit for Trump supporters that currently has more than 750,000 users, will now first be presented with a warning message saying the community has been "restricted due to significant issues with reporting and addressing violations of the Reddit Content Policy," including "threats of violence against police and public officials." The subreddit has not been banned, and clicking "continue" will bring up the regular page.
According to Reddit's policies, while quarantined, The_Donald will not appear in the site's search or recommendations, and it will not generate revenue.
An announcement on the page from a Reddit moderator details the decision, saying there has been "repeated rule-breaking behavior" in the community and telling the subreddit's moderators there has been an "overreliance" on Reddit admins to remove content encouraging or inciting violence. The violent content in question reportedly concerned police and public officials in Oregon; Media Matters had recently detailed such posts in an article.
The admin goes on to tell the community's moderators that they must "unambiguously communicate to your subscribers that violent content is unacceptable." This post attracted thousands of comments from users of The_Donald, who expressed outrage at the decision and suggested it was made for political reasons.
The_Donald is considered to be one of the biggest online hubs of Trump supporters, and the president himself visited the subreddit to take questions in 2016. He has also at times posted content that originated from The_Donald on his official Twitter account. Brendan Morrow
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humankind's first steps on the moon, they weren't just taking a stroll. They also collected 48 samples of lunar rocks, bringing them back home so that scientists could examine them ... eventually.
Now, 50 years after the first men walked on the moon, scientists are finally getting their hands on the original samples collected on Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972. The lunar samples have been kept in a locked vault at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Fox News reports, waiting for the wonders that 21st-century scientific technology will be able to learn from them.
That was a pretty wise move on the part of NASA officials back in the 70s, said Ryan Zeigler, a sample curator for NASA's Apollo missions. "We can do more with a milligram than we could do with a gram back then," so we can still conserve most of the sample material gathered decades ago. The samples being sent out now range from the weight of a paper clip to so small "you can barely measure it," Zeigler said.
In total, 842 pounds worth of lunar samples were collected on the Apollo missions, collected by 12 astronauts — the only 12 people who have ever walked on the moon. But NASA's new plan will soon expand that number: By 2024, it aims to send more people to the moon's surface.
Until that happens, these moon rocks are the most tangible link we have with our closest satellite. And now, "a new generation of scientists will help advance our understanding of our lunar neighbor and prepare for the next era of exploration of the moon and beyond," said Thomas Zurbuchen, an administrator at NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Read more at Fox News. Shivani Ishwar
Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have united in hopes of defeating the final boss that is President Trump's proposed China tariffs.
In a joint letter submitted to the Office of the United States Trade Representative's general counsel, the video game companies speak in opposition to Trump's proposed tariffs, which they say would have an "enormous impact" and bring about "undue economic harm." Trump previously imposed a 25 percent tariff on $250 billion of Chinese imports and has threatened to impose tariffs on $300 billion more, per The New York Times. Video game consoles would be affected, and 96 percent of the consoles imported into the United States last year were manufactured in China, the letter says.
The companies say that these tariffs would "add significant costs that would depress sales of video game consoles" and that a price increase of 25 percent "will likely put a new video game console out of reach for many American families who we expect to be in the market for a console this holiday season." Consumers will pay $840 million more than they normally would, the letter says, adding that console sales going down would "unquestionably" lead to a decline in video game sales as well.
On that note, the companies warn that the tariffs will also harm game developers, accessory companies, and retailers and that, therefore, the "ripple effect of harm could be dramatic."
Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have asked the United States to remove video game consoles from its list of products that would be affected by the tariffs. Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and hold trade talks this weekend, and he said on Wednesday that should the trade talks fail, "we'll do less business with them."
For the first time in three decades, deaths from drug overdose look like they're going to fall instead of rise.
Back in 1990, drug overdoses claimed 8,400 lives in the U.S.; and for every year afterward, the number of deaths has risen, especially in recent years, as the epidemic of opioid addiction takes a heavy toll on parts of the country. While the official total for overdose deaths in 2018 hasn't been confirmed yet, provisional data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention suggests that we might finally be in for a change. The CDC's data from Nov. 2017 to Nov. 2018 counted about 69,100 deaths from drug overdose, compared to 72,300 from Nov. 2016 to Nov. 2017.
But this isn't a sign that the worst is over, The Wall Street Journal explained. While health officials are eager to see any evidence that progress is being made in the fight against overdose deaths, "we shouldn't say oh, we've won," said Robert Anderson, a CDC official.
"The opioid crisis is in early remission, yet at high risk of relapse," said Jim Hall, an epidemiologist at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. But even if this doesn't mean we're out of the worst of the opioid epidemic, these numbers could be a sign that some of our methods for combating overdose deaths are working. In large part, broadened access to naloxone, a drug that can reverse the worse effects of overdose, has been shown to save lives that would otherwise be lost to drug overdose.
The picture is still bleak — overdose deaths are still much higher than "in the peak of the crack-cocaine crisis decades ago," The Wall Street Journal reports. But it's possible that our current methods will help to turn the tide. Shivani Ishwar