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  Anthropology in Practice Supportive. Curious. Unafraid. These are some of the words that advertising agencies use to describe their company culture. But do any of these words actually connect them with what culture actually is? This article is part of the Workplace Anthropology series. Perusing the top ten of Ad Age’s 2017 agency list, there is one common theme in how advertising agencies describe their company culture: collaborative. There are plenty of supporting words that carefully surround “collaborative,” such as passion, insightful, supportive, entrepreneurial, borderless, and unafraid, but you would be correct in arguing that these descriptors are more relevant to the people these companies hope (will) work for them, rather than being indicative of a culture itself. Culture statements, which tend to reside on About Us and Career pages online, sit comfortably under the recruitment banner. In our current pursuit of work/life balance, a company’s cultur...

Google’s Home   digital assistant has been      Google’s Home  digital assistant has been compared to  Amazon’s Alexa  a lot over the last few months, and now it’s getting the ability to  order things through voice commands , just like Alexa can. Of course, Home is still a Google product, so instead of buying things through Amazon Prime, orders go through Google Express instead. And while Google Express typically has a  membership fee or per-delivery charge , Google is waiving those costs for purchases made with Home through April 30th. The update should be rolling out today — Home users simply need to  add a payment method  in the Google Home app, and then they can place orders simply by asking Google Assistant. Since the service is run through Google Express, products are limited to  stores that are partnered  with Google already, and of course, you’ll need to live in an area where Google’s  same-day delivery serv...

Rob Price   Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.AP Mark Zuckerberg's wildly ambitious plan to treat and cure all diseases has made a step forward with the announcement that it is funding dozens of scientists over the next five years. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organisation run by the Facebook cofounder and pediatrician Priscilla Chan, his wife.  Launched with a $3 billion (£2.4 billion) cheque book in September 2016 , its aim is to help "cure all disease" by the end of the twenty-first century, with a focus on investing in long-term scientific research that wouldn't necessarily pay off straight away. Part of the CZI is the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a medical research organisation — and on Wednesday,  the Biohub announced it is providing $50 million (£40 million) in funding to researchers, TechCrunch reports . The cash is going to 47 different people, to fund their research for the next five years with up to $1.5 million (£1.2 million...

WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU Never fear: Windows 10 Cloud might not be as locked down as we thought, and you might be able to install your desktop applications after all. Microsoft’s Windows 10 is a robust operating system that can do just about anything. Usually that’s a strength, but while Windows 10 competes well against Google’s Chrome OS platform on features and overall power, it’s at a disadvantage in terms of cost and manageability. That’s why Microsoft is releasing the Windows 10 Cloud edition, which essentially enables locking down the OS to allow apps to be installed only from the Windows 10 Store. At least, that’s how it works in theory and with the current preview build, but there’s a way to bypass that limitation for the technically astute, as  Windows Central reports . More:   An early build of Windows 10 Cloud has leaked, proving the new OS is no myth By limiting Windows 10 Cloud to only Windows Store apps, Microsoft coul...

A London museum is surveying five centuries of robotic developments to learn about the societies they come from. London’s Science Museum is exhibiting some 100 robot models, ranging from a 15th century automaton to cutting-edge humanoids that are capable of expressing emotions. Organizers of the show called “Robots” consider it a chance to both depict and tackle misconceptions and fears of robots while studying their evolution through time. The robots are either borrowed, purchased or donated from personal collections and only 16 of them are fully functional. But curators expect something beyond operational machines from their show. “Robots” will go on until September the 3rd. However, more sensitive items such as a 244 year-old working swan will be featured for a limited time to maintain their upkeep.

WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU The Super Bowl ad for Google Home showed off the device's keen sense of hearing and attention to the "OK Google" wake word. Right around the time New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady orchestrated the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, Google officially introduced the world to its  Amazon Echo -competing home servant,  Google Home . A  one-minute advertisement  showing off the different ways in which people have the ability to interact with Home, the spot featured — over and over again, mind you — people uttering its popular wake word, “OK Google.” Due in part to the wake word’s prominent feature, Google Home users all over the country say their devices acted a bit erratic during the ad, responding to the commercial’s commands. At least it’s reassuring to know the Home as a keen ear for its wake word, right? Though the gaffe didn’t cause any serious harm to an...

Artificial intelligence has made history by beating humans in poker for the first time, the last remaining game in which humans had managed to maintain the upper hand. Libratus, an AI built by Carnegie Mellon University racked up over $1.7 million worth of chips against four of the top professional poker players in the world in a 20-day marathon poker tournament that ended on Tuesday in Philadelphia. While machines have beaten humans over the last two decade in chess, checkers, and most recently in the ancient game of Go, Libratus' victory is significant because poker is an imperfect information game -- similar to the real world where not all problems are laid out and the difficulty in figuring out human behavior is one of the main reasons why it was considered immune to machines. "The best AI's ability to do strategic reasoning with imperfect information has now surpassed that of the best humans," said Tuomas Sandholm, professor of computer science at CMU who crea...

SpaceX's final version of the Falcon 9 rocket, which Elon Musk aims to launch before the end of the year, will fix a potential problem with cracks in its turbopumps, the company said on Thursday. Its statement followed a report that the U.S. Government Accountability Office will flag turbine wheel cracks in the rocket's turbopumps as a safety issue. NASA, the U.S. space agency, and the Air Force are among SpaceX's customers. The GAO’s preliminary findings were reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. In an email to Reuters, SpaceX said it has "qualified our engines to be robust to turbine wheel cracks. However, we are modifying the design to avoid them altogether,” said spokesman John Taylor. In addition to flying cargo to the International Space Station, SpaceX has NASA contracts to begin flying astronauts to the orbiting research laboratory as early as 2018. "SpaceX has established a plan in partnership with NASA to qualify engines for manned spacefl...