The robot, unemployment, and immigrants
Posted on 2/19/2018
By Roberto Savio*
ROME, Feb 19 2018 -Since a few days, Amazon has started Amazon Go. The idea is simple: a shop where you go in, take whatever you want from the shelves, and the cost goes automatically to a magnetic card that you carry. Going out, you swipe the card, which goes to your bank account or to a credit card, and that it is. No ques, no cashiers, fast and easy. The first shop, in Seattle, has a roaring success. Nobody is in charge with restocking the items. An automatic system does that. And soon two robots will replace the items on the shelves, now done by two employees. Even the cleaning of the floor is being done by a robot. The goal is to have a totally automatic shop, where no human can make mistakes, get ill, go on strike, take holidays, or bring into the work personal problems.
Makedonia Not a Rose by Any Other Name
Posted on 2/19/2018
by Nadia Batok*
Since 1991, when the former Yugoslavia collapsed, Makedonia – or Macedonia as it is generally known – and Greece have been engaged in a dispute over what the former should be called.
Makedonia is a historical and geographical region in the Balkans, administratively divided into the Republic of Makedonija (FYROM, the name by which it is recognised at the United Nations), Vardar Makedonia, the Greek region of Aegean Makedonia, and the Bulgarian region of Pirin Makedonia.