2018 – Page 14 – Impact Lab

China, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Games, Latest Trend

Inside the ‘World Cup of E-sports’

November 11, 2018

The League of Legends World Championship Finals in Incheon, South Korea, on Nov. 3.

Two squads battled it out at a 50,000-seat stadium in the South Korean city of Incheon. Photography by Jean Chung

This weekend, legends were created in South Korea, the birthplace of esports.

Watched by tens of millions of people each year, the world championship finals of League of Legends this year featured two squads battling it out at a 50,000-seat stadium in the South Korean city of Incheon.

Continue reading… “Inside the ‘World Cup of E-sports’”

cutting edge, Ecological Products, Green Friendly, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Can mushrooms be the platform we build the future on?

November 11, 2018

Ecovative thinks it can use mycelia, the hair-like network of cells that grows in mushrooms, to help build everything from lab-grown meat to 3D-printed organs to biofabricated leather.

Can mushrooms be the platform we build the future on?

When the first bioreactor-grown “clean meat” shows up in restaurants–perhaps by the end of this year–it’s likely to come in the form of ground meat rather than a fully formed chicken wings or sirloin steak. While it’s possible to grow animal cells in a factory, it’s harder to grow full animal parts. One solution may come from fungi: Mycelia, the hair-like network of cells that grows in mushrooms, can create a scaffold to grow a realistic cut of meat.

Continue reading… “Can mushrooms be the platform we build the future on?”

China, government, Space

China plans to launch an ‘artificial moon’ to light up the night skies

November 10, 2018

The night skies might soon have company: Chinese scientists are planning to launch an artificial moon into orbit by 2020 to illuminate city streets after dark.

Scientists are hoping to hang the man-made moon above the city of Chengdu, the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan province, according to a report in Chinese state media. The imitation celestial body — essentially an illuminated satellite — will bear a reflective coating to cast sunlight back to Earth, where it will supplement streetlights at night.

Continue reading… “China plans to launch an ‘artificial moon’ to light up the night skies”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Breakthrough Thinking, Human Behavior, Intelligence, Science & Technology News

Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever

November 10, 2018

Your family and friends will be able to interact with a digital “you” that doles out advice—even when you’re gone.

Hossein Rahnama knows a CEO of a major financial company who wants to live on after he’s dead, and Rahnama thinks he can help him do it.

Rahnama is creating a digital avatar for the CEO that they both hope could serve as a virtual “consultant” when the actual CEO is gone. Some future company executive deciding whether to accept an acquisition bid might pull out her cell phone, open a chat window, and pose the question to the late CEO. The digital avatar, created by an artificial-intelligence platform that analyzes personal data and correspondence, might detect that the CEO had a bad relationship with the acquiring company’s execs. “I’m not a fan of that company’s leadership,” the avatar might say, and the screen would go red to indicate disapproval.

Continue reading… “Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever”

Agriculture, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics

AI is already changing the agriculture landscape – starting with strawberries

November 10, 2018

Meet Agrobot, an autonomous robotic harvester that’s poised to revolutionize the agriculture industry. Agrobot works with the world’s leading farmers to automate berry harvesting through the power of artificial intelligence.

Agrobot uses deep learning to determine when to pick fruit at its ripest. Up to 24 robotic arms grip and cut the fruit from its stem to meet the farmer’s quality standards. Agrobot uses a 3D sensing scanner with short-range integrated color and infrared depth sensors to capture the details and identify when fruit is ready for the picking.

Continue reading… “AI is already changing the agriculture landscape – starting with strawberries”

Engineering, Inventions, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

‘Human brain’ supercomputer with 1 million processors switched on for first time

November 9, 2018

The world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer designed and built to work in the same way a human brain does has been fitted with its landmark one-millionth processor core and is being switched on for the first time.

The newly formed million-processor-core Spiking Neural Network Architecture (SpiNNaker) machine is capable of completing more than 200 million million actions per second, with each of its chips having 100 million moving parts.

To reach this point, it has taken £15million in funding, 20 years in conception and over 10 years in construction, with the initial build starting way back in 2006. The project was initially funded by the EPSRC and is now supported by the European Human Brain Project. It is being switched on for the first time on Friday, 2 November.

Continue reading… “‘Human brain’ supercomputer with 1 million processors switched on for first time”

Automation, Drone, drones

Micro-drones with winches can open doors and lift 40 times their own weight

November 9, 2018

Micro-drones are nifty little things: small, fast, and agile. But they’re not the strongest machines around, and are barely capable of exerting more force than a small mouse head-butting your ankle. Until now. Scientists from Stanford University and EPFL in Switzerland have created a micro-drone with a built-in winch that’s capable of lifting up to 40 times its own weight and performing simple mechanical tasks like opening a door.

The key to the design is the use of interchangeable adhesives on the drone’s base: microspines for digging into rough materials like stucco, carpet, or rubble, and ridged silicone (inspired by the morphology of gecko feet) for grabbing onto glass. Both microspines and silicone ridges only cling to surfaces in one direction, meaning they can be easily detached. With these in place, the micro-drones can pull well above their 100-gram weight, exerting 40 newtons of force or enough to lift four kilograms (about eight pounds).

Continue reading… “Micro-drones with winches can open doors and lift 40 times their own weight”

Alternative Transportation, Business, Ecological Products, Electric Vehicles, Transportation

GM is getting into the electric bike business

November 8, 2018

General Motors said it plans to bring two new electric bikes to market next year — one folding and one compact — as the automaker makes a broader push into electrification and other ideas that try to move beyond its traditional business model of producing and selling gas-power vehicles.

The automaker didn’t have a lot of information to share about the e-bikes or its ultimate plans. For instance, Hannah Parish, director of General Motors Urban Mobility Solutions, wouldn’t say if GM plans to launch a bike-sharing service as a result of these two new products. “I can’t say anything is on or off the table at this point,” she added.

Continue reading… “GM is getting into the electric bike business”

Energy, Home Technology, Housing, Solar Energy, Solar Power

The future of construction may be concrete that generates its own electricity

November 8, 2018

We need buildings in which to live, but crafting those buildings is making it harder to live on this planet. As much as 10% of global carbon emissions come from the production of concrete. One ton of CO2 is generated by making one ton of cement, which is made from limestone and a few other things heated to an extremely high temperature.

But what if concrete could generate its own energy? The era of photovoltaic concrete may be getting closer. Photovoltaics, which work by converting light to energy via semiconducting, are starting to migrate from solar panels into the building materials themselves.

Continue reading… “The future of construction may be concrete that generates its own electricity”

Engineering, Inventions, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Scientists create a rare fifth form of matter in space for the first time ever

November 8, 2018

For a few minutes on Jan. 23, 2017, the coldest spot in the known universe was a tiny microchip hovering 150 miles over Kiruna, Sweden.

The chip was small — about the size of a postage stamp — and loaded with thousands of tightly-packed rubidium-87 atoms. Scientists launched that chip into space aboard an unpiloted, 40-foot-long (12 meters) rocket, then bombarded it with lasers until the atoms inside it cooled to minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius) — a fraction of a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature in nature.

Continue reading… “Scientists create a rare fifth form of matter in space for the first time ever”

Analysis, Genetics, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

What researchers with the world’s longest running study of human aging know for sure

November 7, 2018

What is aging? That’s the question the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sought to answer in 1958 when it launched the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA)—now the world’s longest-running study of human aging.

Some 3,200 men and women have played a critical role in advancing our understanding of what it means to get older. And these particular volunteers made a lifelong commitment to participate in the research. In over six decades of work, BLSA researchers say they are certain of just two things: Aging is not synonymous with disease. And we all age differently.

Continue reading… “What researchers with the world’s longest running study of human aging know for sure”