From programmable pills to power-generating boots, here are some of the most unusual technological innovations we covered this year.
We are all about emerging technologies here at Tech Review—including those that might never make it past the “emerging” stage. Here are some of the more recondite inventions we have covered this year, many of them plumbed from the arXiv, the pre-publication academic paper database.
Continue reading… “The 10 most intriguing inventions of 2018”
Algorithms are teasing apart the link between food and health to provide the first evidence that we really are what we eat.
Jean Brillat-Savarin was a 19th-century French lawyer famed for his writings on gastronomy. In his most famous work, he said: “Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.” Or “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”
This idea—that you are what you eat—has become increasingly popular. Since Brillat-Savarin’s time it has been used as the title of various cookbooks and health guides; for some it is a way of life.
Continue reading… “How data mining reveals the world’s healthiest cuisines”
For the past nine months, a U.S. company that is the world’s largest producer of lithium—a key ingredient in electric-car batteries—has been locked in battle with the Chilean government over pricing issues, production quotas, and environmental compliance. With no resolution in sight, the fight is sending tremors all the way up the electric vehicle supply chain that provides batteries to Tesla Inc., Nissan Motor Co., Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, and other car makers.
The drama is playing out in the northern reaches of Chile’s Andes Mountains amid the arid and austere Atacama Desert, a vast, high-altitude bowl surrounded by snow-capped volcanic peaks named after ancient gods of the indigenous people. The U.S. company, Albemarle Corp., has taken over a massive salt-flats mine, pumping scarce briny water through dried-out salt marshes and lagoons to extract the prized mineral. A dozen or so miles away, thick flocks of Andean flamingos feed peacefully in a lagoon teaming with tiny shrimp, as they have for countless millennia. But as mining activity surges, water tables are falling amid growing environmental concerns.
Continue reading… “Life-blood of Tesla batteries hits supply limits in Andean mine”
A poll shows the plain truth: The youth of today is much more willing to get behind the wheel (but not use the wheel) of a driverless car than any other age group.
In a poll featured on Statista and conducted by iAccenture and Harris Interactive of 21,000 respondents ages 14 and up, people were asked if they were willing to be passengers in a so-called self-driving vehicle—a.k.a. an autonomous car.
Continue reading… “Teens trust driverless cars: Older folks, not so much”
More recent designs closely resemble high-speed trains.
The Hyperloop One’s recent speed record of 308 kmh (192 mph) is an important step (however small) toward surpassing the first goal of the Hyperloop: to achieve quicker transit than other alternatives. But, while the hyperloop was initially designed to achieve 1,200 km/h (750 mph) with a chic micro-craft built for three passengers, it is developing into something quite different.
In his original outline, Musk illuminated some glaring problems at the conceptual stage of several other “high speed” rail systems — namely the high expense per mile, the cost of operation, and that other propositions were less safe than flying by two orders of magnitude.
No one thought the proposal would come so far a mere four years after Elon Musk released his initial plans for Hyperloop system. But with tubes 3.3 meters (11 feet) in diameter, the craft looks more like the cargo version from Musk’s original concept. Instead of a bobsled, we’re seeing something more like an ordinary train. Additionally, the thin concrete pylons planned for minimal terrestrial footprint will be significantly larger. Since this is more on the scale of a train or highway, the disruptive potential of compact tubes would seem, alas, reneged.
We think we want to be happy. Yet many of us are actually working toward some other end, according to cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics.
Kahneman contends that happiness and satisfaction are distinct. Happiness is a momentary experience that arises spontaneously and is fleeting. Meanwhile, satisfaction is a long-term feeling, built over time and based on achieving goals and building the kind of life you admire. On the Dec. 19 podcast “Conversations with Tyler,” hosted by economist Tyler Cowen, Kahneman explains that working toward one goal may undermine our ability to experience the other.
From bridges to cars, 3D printing proved this year that it’s still relevant and exciting.
The hype may have died down a little, but 3D printing was still creating waves in manufacturing in 2018. On the important-but-boring side, manufacturing companies are using the tech for things like weight reduction and cost savings. More interestingly, architects carried out a number of experiments that pushed the artistic limits of what 3D printing can do.
Here are some of the standout achievements and creations from 2018:
Continue reading… “6 of the most amazing things that were 3D-printed in 2018”
It was a game of Dots that pushed Erik Coelingh to rethink his entire approach to self-driving cars. Coelingh, Volvo’s head of safety and driver assist technologies, was in a simulator, iPad in hand, swiping this way and that as the “car” drove itself, when he hear an alert telling him to take the wheel. He found the timing less than opportune.
“They gave the message when I was close to getting a high score,” he says. Jolted away from the absorbing task, he had no idea of what was happening on the “road,” or how to handle it. “I just realized,” he says, “it’s not so easy to put the game away.”
The experience helped confirm a thesis Coelingh and Volvo had been testing: A car with any level of autonomy that relies upon a human to save the day in an emergency poses almost insurmountable engineering, design, and safety challenges, simply because humans are for the most part horrible backups. They are inattentive, easily distracted, and slow to respond. “That problem’s just too difficult,” Coelingh says.
And so Volvo, and a growing number of automakers, are taking you out of the equation entirely. Instead of developing autonomous vehicles that do their thing under most circumstances but rely upon you take the wheel in an emergency—something regulators call Level 3 autonomous capability—they’re going straight to full autonomy where you’re simply along the ride.
Continue reading… “The very human problem blocking the path to self-driving cars”
Self-driving cars are an inevitability and will unlock the potential for cars to transform beyond a simple means of transport.
In the not too distant future, drivers will find themselves with a great deal of free time in-car. Rather than having to focus on driving, time can be spent on working, being entertained, or simply relaxing.
In the near future, driving yourself will be about as popular as riding horses for transportation, according to Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk.
Continue reading… “The autonomous car is the next entertainment frontier”
Last year was dizzying, with exciting moments that were both good (the Central Park duck! Lena Dunham’s comeuppance!) and bad (tiny sunglasses! market volatility!). But if the experts who track social change are to be believed, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Next year promises even bigger surprises both in real life and online…
Continue reading… “19 trends we’ll be obsessing over in 2019”
The rural exodus has been triggered in Europe since the early decades of the second half of the twentieth century. Many people, especially the younger members of society, continue to migrate to the cities looking for job opportunities, better felicities, and higher wages than in the countryside. Over the years, the exodus to the vibrant urban centers together with the negative natural growth has led to an unstoppable dynamic of population decline in many EU territories, which in addition generate substantial gaps between regions of the same country. As a result, Europe must face today the scenario of demographic deserts threatening throughout the ‘old continent’.
The European Commission report on poverty in rural areas identified the exodus and aging problem, the remoteness, the lack of education facilities and the labor market issues (such a lower employment rates and seasonal work) as the four main factors to determine the risk of poverty and social exclusion. It is not a coincidence that these deficiencies are features of sparsely populated and underpopulated regions. According to a Joint Research Centre report, if the current economic and demographic trends continue, one would expect a growing number of regions to be classified as ‘less developed’.
Its AI could detect the development of a disease.
The strength of your grip can frequently be a good indicator of your health, and not just for clearly linked diseases like Parkinson’s — it can gauge your cognitive abilities and even your heart health. To that end, IBM has developed a fingernail sensor that can detect your grip strength and use AI to provide insights. The device uses an array of strain gauges to detect the deformation of your nail as you grab objects, with enough subtlety to detect tasks like opening a pill bottle, turning a key or even writing with your finger.
Continue reading… “IBM fingernail sensor tracks health through your grip”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.