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Why Amazon’s Use of Self-Driving Technology Would Be a Game Changer

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Why Amazon's Use of Self-Driving Technology Would Be a Game Changer

Self-driving vehicles have yet to hit the road in a major way, but Amazon already is exploring the technology’s potential to change how your packages are delivered.

Amazon is the nation’s largest online retailer, and its decisions not only turn heads but influence the entire retail and shipping industries, analysts say. That means any foray into the self-driving arena – whether as a developer or customer – could have a significant effect on the technology’s adoption.

Amazon has assigned a dozen employees to determine how it can use the technology as part of its business, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. It’s unclear what shape Amazon’s efforts will take or how far along they might be, although the company has no plans to create its own vehicles, according to the report.

Nevertheless, the Amazon group offers an early indication that big companies are preparing for the technology’s impact.

Transportation experts anticipate that self-driving cars will fundamentally alter the way people get around and the way companies ship goods, changes that stand to disrupt entire industries and leave millions of professional drivers without jobs. The forthcoming shift has attracted the money and attention of the biggest names in the technology and automotive industries, including Apple, Uber, Google, Ford, General Motors and Tesla, among others.

In particular, the technology could make long-haul shipping cheaper and faster because, unlike human drivers, machines do not command a salary or require down time. That would be important to Amazon, whose shipping costs continue to climb as the company sells more products and ships them faster, according to its annual report. Amazon even invested in its own fleet of trucks in December 2015 to give the company greater control over distribution.

If Amazon adopts self-driving technology, it may push others to do the same.

“When Amazon sneezes, everyone wakes up,” said Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group, a transportation and logistics advisory firm.

The company said it shipped more than 1 billion items during the 2016 holiday season.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined a request for an interview, citing a “long-standing practice of not commenting on rumors and speculation.” The company’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post.

Amazon has become something of a pioneer in home delivery, in part by setting the standard for how quickly purchases arrive on your doorstep. The company has begun using aerial drones in an effort to deliver goods more quickly, completing its first successful flight to a customer in the United Kingdom in December. Like self-driving vehicles, drones will need to overcome regulatory hurdles before they’re widely deployed.

In its warehouses, Amazon has used thousands of robots that pull items from shelves and pack them. Last summer, Deutsche Bank analysts found the robots reduced the time to fulfill an order from more than an hour to 15 minutes, according to business news site Quartz. They also saved Amazon about $22 million per warehouse. Amazon acquired Kiva, the company that makes the robots, in 2012 for $775 million.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Education

New grammar schools would benefit just six areas, says study

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Pupil

There are only six areas in England where parents want new grammar schools and creating them would benefit the wider school population, a study says.

The Education Policy Institute modelled the impact of government plans to expand selective schools by looking at how 32,844 districts would be affected.

The think tank applied the government’s conditions for allowing new schools.

The government called the study a crude attempt to second-guess the results of its consultation on new schools.

The researchers began by constructing a set of tests mirroring the conditions for new grammars set out in the government’s White Paper, Schools that Work for Everyone.

These were that they:

  • should not be to the detriment of pupils who miss out
  • need to be in areas where there are sufficient numbers of pupils who could attend
  • should not undermine existing high-performing schools
  • are only in areas where parents want them

They found that broader education levels would be harmed if new selective schools were created in areas where more than half of highly attaining pupils could access grammar school places.

This “no detriment” principle knocked out just under 30% of areas.

They then excluded any area that did not have at least 150 pupils with high prior attainment who lived within a reasonable travelling distance.

This disqualified a further 1% of areas.

The researchers then excluded areas which already had high-performing non-selective schools, whose fortunes could be harmed by the introduction of new grammar schools.

This left just under a fifth of areas.

When these areas were cross-referenced with the 37 local authority areas which expressed strong support for new grammars in a recent YouGov poll, just six areas remained.

These were Solihull, Essex, North Yorkshire, Dorset, Northamptonshire and North Somerset, all of which have fewer disadvantaged pupils than the national average.

The study added that expansion principles would be met only in parts of each local authority area.

“We therefore conclude that it will be difficult for the government to identify areas for grammar school expansion that will avoid damage to pupils who do not access the new selective places, where there is public demand for new selective places and high disadvantage,” the researchers said.

‘Complete mess’

The EPI’s chairman, David Laws, said his organisation’s analysis showed that the provision of additional grammar school places in England would be unlikely to be an effective strategy to boost social mobility.

“The additional analysis that we have now published highlights further significant challenges which face the government if ministers decide to press on with these proposals.”

Labour’s shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said the report “joins the mountains of evidence that proves a return to grammar schools will not improve education for all, but will actively make things worse”.

Ms Rayner said the grammar proposals were “a distraction” to cover up problems created over the past six years: “a teacher shortage crisis, thousands of children in super-sized classes, school budget cuts and not enough good school places”.

The National Union of Teachers called the plans “a complete mess”.

“It is simply not possible to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils while also increasing the number of selective schools,” said NUT general secretary Kevin Courtney.

The Association of School and College Leaders also believes that expanding grammars will damage rather than improve poor children’s prospects.

“The attainment gap between poor children and other pupils is one of the biggest challenges we face in the education system, but more selection is simply not the solution,” said ASCL’s interim general secretary, Malcolm Trobe.

And in a letter to Education Secretary Justine Greening, 33 head teachers from Kent call for the county’s selective education system to be abandoned.

The heads, all from non-selective schools, say selection “serves to erode self-confidence, to limit aspirations and develop a culture of ‘second best’ that good leaders in non-selective schools then spend time undoing so that they can unlock the students’ true potential”.

Kent has one of the widest gaps between the achievement of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students, say the heads.

“The very existence of a two-tier selective system is the biggest cause of this inequality,” they add.

‘Transformative impact’

But a spokeswoman for the DfE dismissed the findings, noting that its own consultation on removing the ban from grammar schools closes on Monday.

She said: “This report is a crude attempt to second-guess what that consultation will conclude.

“Independent organisations have recognised the transformative impact grammar schools can have on the lives of disadvantaged young people.

“Our consultation closes on 12 December and we look forward to considering all the responses.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Wilshaw: new wave of grammar schools would take country ‘backwards’

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Wilshaw attacks grammar schools

Ofsted chief inspector today stepped up his attack on government plans, warning that every new grammar school would create three secondary moderns.

Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has described the idea that a new wave of grammar schools would help the poor as “palpable tosh and nonsense”.

The Government is widely expected to announce plans to allow more schools to academically select in the coming weeks, with social mobility likely to be a key justification for the policy.

But in a speech this morning Sir Michael said: “I appreciate that many grammar schools do a fine job in equipping their students with an excellent education. But we all know that their record of admitting children from non-middle-class backgrounds is pretty woeful.”

The chief inspector highlighted the improvements of school standards in inner London and said: “If grammar schools are the great answer, why aren’t there more of them in London?”

He also pointed to the mix of the pupils in “the small number of London boroughs that have grammar schools”.

“The proportion of disadvantaged children in the four grammar schools in Bexley, for example, is around 9 per cent compared to 28 per cent in its non-selective schools. Similarly in Sutton, where five out of the 14 schools are grammar schools, the proportions are about 7 per cent compared to 25 per cent.

“The notion that the poor stand to benefit from the return of grammar schools strikes me as quite palpable tosh and nonsense – and is very clearly refuted by the London experience.”

His comments follow an interview on Saturday when Sir Michael also condemned the idea of more grammar schools.

Speaking to the Times, the chief inspector said: “I think we will go backwards if we return to a system where we only expect some kids to do well. Every time you create a grammar school you create three secondary moderns and no one is queueing up to go to a secondary modern.”

The government’s plans first emerged last month and have faced a storm of criticism from the education sector.

Sir Michael, who led two successful comprehensives in East London before taking up the job at Ofsted, went on: “If someone had opened up a grammar school next to Mossbourne Academy, I would have been absolutely furious as it would have taken away those youngsters who set the tone of the school. Youngsters learn from other youngsters and see their ambition; it percolates throughout the school.

“That is why we sent so many children to great universities. If the grammar schools had siphoned off those top 20 per cent, we would have floundered.”

“In Kent [which has selection] the gap in attainment between free-school-meals and non-free-school-meals pupils at key stage 4 is 34 points. If you go to inner London where there are no grammar schools, the gap is 14 points so it is socially divisive.”

Sir Michael used his Saturday interview to attack mixed-ability teaching, speaking out in favour of setting. “Mixed ability has also been a failure,” he said. “I don’t care what anyone says, it rarely works. It didn’t operate in the schools I led.”

He also revealed that:

  • He supported the recent resignation of Ofsted chair David Hoare, describing his comments about the Isle of Wight as a ‘Ratner moment’;
  • There was a growing problem with unregistered Islamic schools;
  • He voted remain in the recent EU referendum, praising the impact of immigration.                                         [Source:- tes]
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Education

Elizabeth Warren’s education plan would massively increase funding and her wealth tax would pay for it

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

GP: Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren Holds Town Hall In Norfolk, VA

Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday released an education plan that aims to quadruple public education funding with a focus on allocating more resources to lower-income students and increasing teacher pay.

Warren’s plan, which her campaign says would be paid for by her proposed 2% wealth tax on people whose net worth is more than $50 million, focuses on desegregation, affordability and expansion into programs for students with special needs.

A $450 billion infusion into the system over the next decade will encourage schools to use it in part to pay teachers a higher salary and close the educator pay gap, according to her campaign. The funding can also go toward paying for supplies and resources so teachers don’t have to pay extra out-of-pocket costs.

In its entirety, her education proposal calls for $800 billion more in funding, which would account for the remaining balance of the revenue she says her wealth tax will raise, The Wall Street Journal reported. She has also envisioned using the wealth tax’s proceeds to pay for tuition-free public college education, abolishing student debt and a universal child-care program.

Warren’s campaign estimates her wealth tax, which rises to 3% on net worth of $1 billion and above, will raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years.

Warren said her administration would cover up to 40% of any additional costs for educating students with disabilities, the amount that Congress originally intended for coverage when it first proposed this policy in 1975.

Other proposals include:

  • “Excellence grants” of $100 billion that will go toward expanding resources and activities for students, with the goal of “25,000 public schools transition[ing] to the community school framework by 2030.”
  • A $50 billion investment into school infrastructure, but there’s no indication of whether the money will be spread out over a period of time or given in one lump sum.
  • Housing grants of $10 billion to build parks and schools if cities and states eliminate restrictive zoning laws.
  • A $25 billion fund for health-care access and expanding service at existing clinics.

Warren also took a shot at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for not having a background in public education. The candidate said her Education secretary would in fact have such a background.

The plan from the Massachusetts senator also takes aim at charter schools. She would end federal funding for the expansion of charter schools and ban for-profit charters.

Warren’s plan has received support from teachers union the National Education Association.

[“source=cnbc”]

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