Robots + CBD + Space + 4IR + Personal IPOs

Walmart is rolling out the robots: WSJ reports, retailer to expand use of machines to scan shelves and scrub floors as it seeks to keep labor costs down.

Droids > Drones

In New York, confusion reigns in the emerging CBD edibles business: Reuters reports, the New York City crackdown highlights the inconsistencies that have emerged in federal, state and local rules governing CBD, bewildering the small but growing number of businesses selling edibles in New York and other states.

Blamed for climate change, oil companies invest in carbon removal: NYT reports, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and BHP have invested in a start-up developing technology to take carbon out of the atmosphere.

@SpaceAngels: The Q1 2019 Space Investment Quarterly is now live! In the first quarter alone, $1.7B of equity capital was invested into Space companies, nearly double the amount deployed in Q4 2018. Download the entire report here: http://bit.ly/Q12019SIQ 

Peter Layton: Prototype warfare in the fourth industrial age: A new industrial process is rapidly emerging.  This fourth industrial revolution (4IR) based on hyper-connectivity brings with it both continual – indeed relentless – innovation and the possibility of practical large-scale prototype warfare. The interweaving of the second and third industrial revolutions is creating the fourth. This new deep integration allows a continuous and cyclical flow of information and actions between the physical and digital worlds. http://bit.ly/2UHTFxt

College grads sell stakes in themselves to Wall Street: Bloomberg reports, instead of taking out loans, students can agree to hand over part of their future earnings in return for investment.

It's the age of the Personal IPO.

Detroit is calling

Will you be there?

Plastic + Google + Alcohol + Amazon

Wrapped in plastic is not fantastic, Canadians say: CBC reports, the vast majority of Canadians are concerned about plastic waste, believe individuals and businesses have a responsibility to reduce it and feel strongly that not enough is being done by government to address the issue, a new poll suggests

"Right now, just 11 percent of plastic used in Canada is recycled. The polling suggests that about three-quarters of Canadians accept that it's their responsibility to reduce plastic, but less than half said they knew of places they could shop for products with little plastic packaging."

Google scraps ethics council for artificial intelligence: FT reports, Google's AI ethics board has bitten the dust just one week after its formation. It was a chaotic few days, with thousands of Googlers and others decrying its inclusion of drone company chief Dyen Gibbens and Kay Coles James, head of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. One of the key AI ethics problems is to do with algorithmic bias, and James is an opponent of LGBTQ rights, so people thought she was a pretty terrible fit for the role. One board member resigned and others squirmed, and eventually, Google pulled the plug.

Bloomberg: Americans drank less alcohol in 2018 for the third straight year

1. Americans are drinking less.

2. When they do drink, it's higher-end stuff.

3. And they want to try something lower-cal (but refreshing).

Average price of brand-name drugs more than 18 times higher than generics: A new report on changes in generic drug pricing from AARP’s Public Policy Institute finds that brand-name drugs in 2017 were, on average, more than 18 times the price of their generic counterparts. The average annual cost for a generic drug taken regularly was $365, but the price for the brand-name equivalent was close to $6,800. 

Amazon is positioning Alexa, its artificial-intelligence assistant, to track consumers’ prescriptions and relay personal health information.