Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

Feb 2, 2018  -  Dassault Systèmes has been ranked first by Corporate Knights in the 2018 Top 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World (Global 100) index.  The Corporate Knights Global 100 index is recognised globally as the gold standard for corporate sustainability analysis.

Feb 2, 2018  -  The completion of the Government’s 100 Day Plan today demonstrates its commitment to setting the direction for a stronger and fairer future for New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

• Arrival of the new oil tanker 'MT Kokako' on the NZ coast
• Clean meat' cultivated in fermentation tanks to share shopping aisles with traditional meat
• Faulty loos force u-turn on plane full with plumbers
• Xero says global connections can fill hole left by market exit
• UK singles out NZ as top priority for trade deals
• Allbirds shoe business growing as it highlights connection to NZ merino farmers
• 60 years ago America launched its first satellite into orbit
• Labour's 100 Day Plan completeLabour's 100 Day Plan complete 
• $150.8 million windfall for Kiwi probiotic developer
• Pacific Edge signs deal in Singapore

TAURANGA: February 1, 2018: Leading avocado export supply group AVOCO has welcomed this week’s announcement that New Zealand market access to China has been granted for the 2018-19 export season. AVOCO exports New Zealand avocados to various Asian markets under its AVANZA brand and the company has been preparing for access to China for some time. Preliminary planning has included the development of a market-specific brand name designed to be the exemplar brand from New Zealand for China.

Feb 01,  2018 -   Emirates, the world’s best airline according to TripAdvisor 2017, plans to launch a new, five times a week service from Dubai to Santiago International Airport (SCL) in Chile, starting on July 5, 2018.

Feb 01, 2018  -  Frequent travelers generally start to learn the ins and outs of arriving at the airport with only enough time to spare to make it to their gate – but accounting for long security lines can throw a wrench in even the best planned trip to the airport. To get around this, trip-organizing app TripIt has introduced a new feature that will tell users how long the waits are at airport security in select US airports.Skip the rush to security with a new app feature. Image by Jetta Productions/Getty Images

feb 1, 2018  -  Some of the top cutting-edge tech companies, academics and leading tech chief executives will unleash all the latest information and how AI (artificial intelligence) is impacting on New Zealanders’ lives at a major event in Auckland in March. AI Day 2018 in Auckland on March 28 will be the biggest AI event ever to be held in New Zealand. The conference is being organised by NewZealand.AI and the AI Forum NZ, which is part of the NZ Tech Alliance, bringing together 14 tech communities, over 500 organisations and more than 100,000 employees to help create a more prosperous New Zealand underpinned by technology. New Zealand’s trail-blazing AI event will showcase the major steps AI has made in recent times and is starting to have impacts across the country, AI Forum New Zealand executive director Ben Reid says. Some of the trail-blazing pioneers of AI at the event include Steven Guggenheimer, corporate vice president, AI business, at Microsoft; Dawie Olivier, chief information officer for Westpac NZ; Kathryn Hempstalk, head of data and insights at Trade Me; David Leach, chief executive at Qrious; Eduard Liebenberger, chief tech officer at Jade; Kurt Janssen, chief executive at Orbica; Mahmood Hikmet , data scientist, at Ohmio and Angie Judge, chief executive, at Dexibit. “This event is about building New Zealand's AI community and helping kiwi businesses better serve their customers with AI, as well as emphasising the benefits of AI for people and society” Reid says. “Last year saw an explosion of machine learning in production use - AI technologies have moved beyond experimentation and are now being leveraged for practical applications in every domain thinkable. “Real world applications of AI are everywhere and out in the open these days. From Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant on your smartphone to the intelligent computer vision that enables Amazon’s new cashier-less grocery stores, there are plenty of examples of AI making our lives easier and more productive. “In fact, most people use or interact with AI every day, but seldom recognise it. When AI is done well, it usually becomes invisible. No one actively thinks of Amazon product recommendations or Netflix's 'Recommended for you' list as Artificial Intelligence, yet machine learning algorithms power these systems. “There are exciting developments applying AI to environmental goals – for example the Cacophony Project is using AI to radically improve trapping and accelerate us towards a pest free New Zealand. "There are incredible opportunities at the intersection of AI with people and society - initiatives such as the international Partnership on AI and Microsoft's AI for Good programme are just some examples of how AI can be used to leave a lasting, positive impact on the world. “Investment in the right skills is important. Demand for data scientists will surpass demand for engineers. According to IBM, demand for data scientists will increase to 2.7 million by 2020. China has recently stated that AI related courses will be added into the curriculum of primary and secondary schools – what are we doing in New Zealand to keep up? “AI Day is an opportunity for leaders and innovators to come together and start engaging with AI now to secure a prosperous and thriving future for New Zealand.”

| A MakeLemonade release  ||  February 1, 2018   |||

A rather enlightening article posted on engineering.com by Roopinder Tara that has attracted a lot of interest. While the U.S. dawdles with much needed domestic infrastructure upgrades, China is already engaged in a project so massive that it will tilt the Earth in its favor. The trillion-dollar Belt Road Initiative (BRI) is a plan for a web of transportation routes (road, rail, shipping lanes, more—all leading to China) that will be created or expanded over the next 30-plus years. The BRI’s main purpose is to facilitate trade. China, the world’s leading producer of exports, no longer wants to rely on slow moving boats to move its goods out.