- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
We recently heard on the grapevine of the passing of another participant in the wider global cement industry, at the much-too-young age of 46. Whenever we hear news like this, which is all-too-frequently, we always loosen our collars and wonder at our own mortality. We will all die - that is a certainty - but we all hope to spend a reasonable amount of time on this Earth before we go, and to depart with dignity and without pain. Ideally, we will leave the planet a better place, through our actions, than when we first arrived. How many of us can say that?
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
Industry 4.0 was and still is a buzzword for a purported ‘revolution’ in industrial technology, based on artificial intelligence, machine connectedness and automation. Critically, reliable and accurate sensors are used to deliver information - like the senses deliver sensations to the brain. Industry 4.0 (also known as I4.0 or I4) involves cyber-physical systems, which exist in both the physical and virtual worlds, including cyber-twins of machines that can be interrogated and experimented-upon more easily than their real-world equivalents. The machines and computers work together by using transparent data that can be used in a number of systems.
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
I am currently in the process of moving house. While this is a stressful life event, there’s not normally much to report: Pick up the keys, move your stuff over, notify everyone of your new address and put the kettle on. The stress mainly happens before the actual move.
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
'The Good Life’ was a 1970s British sit-com with a simple premise.1 Fed up with his meaningless job designing plastic toys for the insides of cereal packets, Tom Good decides to quit on his 40th Birthday. Escaping the rat-race, he and his wife Barbara turn their suburban home into a small-holding in an attempt to become self-reliant. They only have themselves, the weather, their land, animals and whatever machinery they can cobble together. Of course, being a sit-com, they also have to navigate the rapidly-changing social landscape of 1970s Britain while knee high in pig manure. ‘Comedy’ then ensues, much of it derived from the ongoing love-hate relationship between the Goods and their materialistic neighbours Jerry and Margo.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
There are already many forms of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world today. Weak or narrow AI is a kind of machine-based expertise that is focused on a single or very narrow range of tasks. This is already very widely available. Siri and Alexa might be thought of as weak AI, although they are already sophisticated compared to achievements only a decade ago1: they combine speech recognition and natural language processing to ‘understand’ what you are asking them. They then have a set of capabilities that they can act upon (such as making a call, setting an alarm or ordering flowers for Mother’s Day on the internet, but not something in the real world such as making a cup of tea).
