Category Archives: Business

Virtual Assistants

Why you’ll fire Siri and do the job yourself:

I spoke to ObEN co-founder and CEO Nikhil Jain this week. He told me ObEN’s technology generates a 3D, computer-generated representation of the user’s face with a single selfie.

ObEN also learns to copy your voice. Once it’s got your voice down, it can do things with your voice that you cannot — speak Chinese, for example, or sing.

That “personality” is based not only on how you speak, but on what you know as well. It’s even possible to add knowledge manually.

Hard to imagine anything going wrong with that.

America In Space

Keith Cowing is pessimistic.

I’m not. NASA isn’t able to lead, but America will continue to.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of which…

Falcon Heavy On The Pad

Launch now NET Jnuary 15th, with static engine test on Saturday. That will be impressive by itself, even without a lift off. If it’s successful, chances of a successful launch go way up. I suspect the biggest uncertainty is plume interaction between the cores, and that will resolve it.

Limiting State And Local Tax Deductions

Yes, it is a big f**king deal.

We accelerated our property tax payment to get it in this year, before the limit hits next year. This will cost us, but I hope it has the effect of finally reining in the tax-hungry politicians in Sacramento. It might even make it a useful campaign issue to get a few more Republicans into the legislature.

[Wednesday-morning update]

States trying to come up with new schemes to get around the limits.

Anything except actually reducing spending.