The assembly-line process made famous by the Ford Motor Company that ushered in an era of mass production that enabled consumers across the globe to have the same products at the same time is about to change.

Assembly-line jobs used to be the backbone of the working class. But now robots are entering the picture more and more and Canon claims that it will have its digital-camera assembly line in Japan completely automated as soon as 2015, according to The Toronto Star. As it is now, jobs have been moving out of the country to China, India, and elsewhere in Asia due to the high price of labor expenditures.

Employees of Canon needn't be alarmed. “When machines become more sophisticated, human beings can be transferred to do new kinds of work,” said Jun Misumi, a spokesman for the company, commented to the Star.Continue reading...

AT&T has done such a thorough job of branding that consumers don’t think the company does much else beyond wireless telephony. Of course, that has never been true and the company is now aiming to continue its expansion into other areas.

The wireless service provider, according to Reuters, “is making a big investment in a nationwide wireless home monitoring service” with the hope that it could add another $1 billion in revenue to the corporation’s coffers.

Trials of the new service, called Digital Life, are planned for this year and will require customers to have sensors and cameras installed that will be linked to a central home system that then connects to AT&T’s monitoring system wirelessly.Continue reading...