Emo Israel; White House's Israel; the 3 Parent IVF Flaw; Eternally Useless Humans; AI House; Tech You Can't Buy; NASA's Floating Prototype; and Not So Fast Auto-Car

Well I'm (almost) back after an intense week at work! Below are some articles that I've been collecting as time allowed over the last few days. Lord willing, I hope to be back to full capacity in the next day or so.

Israel

Doom and gloom – or a note of optimism for Israel's future? jpost

This metaphor [poor, weak and pathetic Samson] came to mind listening to Israeli cabinet ministers, MKs, diplomats and American Jewish leaders at Sunday’s Jerusalem Post Conference in New York as they depicted a very gloomy and dark portrayal of Israel and the challenges it faces.

Ross: White House took 'conscious decision to try to distance itself from Israel' jpost

Addressing The Jerusalem Post’s annual conference in New York, Ross, a veteran diplomat who has worked on peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians under the Reagan, H. W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations, said the White House has worked under the assumption that “Israel is more of a problem than it is a partner.”

Medical

A Flaw Has Been Detected in a Ground-Breaking Fertility Treatment gizmodo

Scientists say a groundbreaking [three-parent IVF] fertility treatment to correct potentially harmful genetic mutations has the potential to backfire, recreating the exact mutation the intervention was meant to fix. It’s a problem that could put an immediate halt to the pending practice—but a work-around may be possible.

AI

AI will create 'useless class' of human, predicts bestselling historian theguardian w!

The doomsday story of an evil AI has been told a thousand times. But our fate at the hand of clever cloggs robots may in fact be worse - to summon a class of eternally useless human beings.

The House That Learns: Bringing Artificial Intelligence Into The Home forbes

The device will attach to the ceiling of a room in a connected home. It will have an array of six cameras each covering 60 degrees to give it a 360 degree perspective of the room. The in-built computer can then be taught where objects are in the room, to recognize certain people and to respond to a range of motions and gestures.

Tech

Awesome Tech You Can’t Buy Yet: 3D printed violins, biometric wallets, and more digitaltrends

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion crowdfunding campaigns on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems.

Augmented Reality

NASA uses Microsoft’s HoloLens and ProtoSpace to build its next Mars rover in augmented reality geekwire v

The application lets JPL’s engineers size up how components fit together in the design of the 2020 Mars rover, which is currently under development at the lab in Pasadena, Calif. They can also take real-world hardware and compare it against the ghostly design that’s floating before their eyes.

Automated Vehicles

Consumers Remain Skeptical About Self-Driving Cars, Study Finds edmunds

Their report, based on a survey of 618 U.S drivers, found that 45.8 percent of respondents prefer no self-driving capability at all.