automation

Smart assistants today let us do many things with our voice or sometimes a tap or two but the things they allow are often dictated by product manufactures and service providers only. Long before these home automation platforms came to be, IFTTT, short for "If This Then That", democratized connecting web services or even smart appliances together. It always has had one hard limit but now you can go beyond IFTTT's simple operation. That is if you're willing to pay the literal price.

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Android is technically and legally a more open platform and yet it is ironically way behind in having a user-friendly automation framework. There is the powerful but often complex Tasker whose existence is threatened with every new Android release and security policy. Google itself may be working on such automation features built into Android 10 itself. But while it might now be rolling out to Pixel phones at large, it's still pretty limited in its functionality.

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Cadillac's Super Cruise system is gaining the ability to automatically change lanes, with the latest iteration of the driver-assistance tech no longer demanding total human intervention for overtaking. Super Cruise is a relative rarity in the advanced cruise control space, offering a hands-off system unlike most rivals. However early-adopters are unlikely to be pleased with this new update.

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Android is an open platform but much of its functionality is still hidden behind superuser (root) access and sometimes esoteric commands. The latter, which can sometimes be used to enable or control features only available to rooted devices, often requires connecting the phone to a computer every time you need to issue the ADB command. The next release of Tasker will thankfully have a fix for that, making it even easier to perform advanced actions without having to root your phone.

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iOS' Shortcuts, born from the former third-party Workflow app, has seen a lot of positive coverage because of how it empowers iPhone and iPad users to somewhat go beyond the limitations of the platform. Just because Android is more open, however, doesn't mean it's trivial to do things that you want that the OS doesn't provide. That's where Tasker, THE Android automation framework, comes in and its most recent stable release, version 5.9, almost gives you superpowers to control your phone at a tap of an icon.

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The latest from MIT's Biomimetic Robotics Lab is a demonstration of the advancements made in the Mini Cheetah. This is not to be mistaken for the non-mini Cheetah as developed by Boston Dynamics. While the Boston Dynamics Cheetah is a relatively large and exceedingly FAST robot, the MIT Mini Cheetah is best known for its backflip! And other super-impressive feats of far more affordable four-legged robot action than what B.D. is doing at the moment.

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iOS users are now rejoicing over the power that the new Shortcuts, formerly Workflow, is bringing to their iPhones and iPads but Android has long had an automation framework that enabled a lot more. Granted, Tasker might not have the most colorful UI but what it lacks in looks it makes up in power. Android's premier automator is about to get more powerful thanks to the addition of support for listening to Logcat Events.

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Our smartphones have become truly powerful and, at least to some extent, also smarter. They still, however, aren't smart enough to truly adjust and adapt to our needs and habits, let alone suggest some actions that will take out repetitive things we waste precious seconds on. That's one of the selling points of smart assistants like Google Assistant and it seems that Google is bringing a very small pinch of that to some Pixel phones via a rudimentary "Rules" feature in Android 10.

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A user by the name of "Droogie" (Joseph Tartaro) decided he'd be clever and register a custom license plate with the word NULL. That means blank, empty, the end - it's not a word you hear people use all that often other than to say "null and void" - which, incidentally, was part of Tartaro's plan. He'd intended on getting 2 custom plates, one for himself, the other for his wife, one that said NULL, the other VOID.

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Don’t get too comfortable with your job right now. In a few years, machines and algorithms could very well be replacing human workers in many industries – and it is not just F&B and production lines. Left out of the usual talk of cabbies, factory workers and salesmen being replaced are jobs in finance, legal firms, healthcare and administrators who are also at risk.

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Automation on iOS has recently received a lot of publicity when Apple bought the popular automation platform Workflow and later relaunched it as Shortcuts. But while Workflow/Shortcuts is admittedly easier to get into for beginners, they are still severely limited by iOS itself. In contrast, Android users have long had greater control and, thanks to the latest version 5.7 release, Tasker offers even more ways for them to perform multiple actions with a single click or even speak in a more natural voice.

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This week the folks at Amazon are field testing Amazon Scout. This is a 6-wheeled autonomous robot (an automaton of sorts) made to deliver packages to Amazon customers. This robot is "fully-electric" and may one day replace all delivery people in the world, for lack of a reason to run out and get payed to do a job a robot would gladly do for free.

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