2018 – Page 41 – Impact Lab

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Big Problems, Economy, Employment

How artificial intelligence could kill capitalism

July 17, 2018

If you believe the hype, then Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to change the world in dramatic ways soon. Nay-sayers claim it will lead to, at best, rising unemployment and civil unrest, and at worst, the eradication of humanity. Advocates, on the other hand, are telling us to look forward to a future of leisure and creativity as robots take care of the drudgery and routine.

A third camp – probably the largest – are happy to admit that the forces of change which are at work are too complicated to predict and, for the moment, everything is up in the air. Previous large-scale changes to the way we work (past industrial revolutions) may have been disruptive in the short-term. However, in the long term what happened was a transfer of labor from countryside to cities, and no lasting downfall of society.

However, as author Calum Chace points out in his latest book ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Two Singularities’ this time there’s one big difference. Previous industrial revolutions involved replacing human mechanical skills with tools and machinery. This time it’s our mental functions which are being replaced – particularly our ability to make predictions and decisions. This is something which has never happened before in human history, and no one exactly knows what to expect.

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Current Events, Entertainment, Games

The first Fortnite World Cup with $100 million in prize money is happening in 2019

July 16, 2018

Qualifiers start later this year, and anyone can participate.

Epic Games announced more details about its e-sports plans for Fortnite, revealing today during its live celebrity-streamer ProAm tournament in Los Angeles during E3 that the competitions will all be part of what’s called the Fortnite World Cup. The prize pool, first announced earlier this year, will be $100 million. It will be spread out over a number of different “organized events, online events, and major organized competitions all over the world,” reads the developer’s blog post.

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Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Inventions, Medicine

CERN chip enables first 3D color X-ray images of the human body

July 16, 2018

Using CERN technology, Mars Bioimaging has created the first 3D, color X-ray images of the human body.

Medical X-ray scans have long been stuck in the black-and-white, silent-movie era. Sure, the contrast helps doctors spot breaks and fractures in bones, but more detail could help pinpoint other problems. Now, a company from New Zealand has developed a bioimaging scanner that can produce full color, three dimensional images of bones, lipids, and soft tissue, thanks to a sensor chip developed at CERN for use in the Large Hadron Collider.

Mars Bioimaging, the company behind the new scanner, describes the leap as similar to that of black-and-white to color photography. In traditional CT scans, X-rays are beamed through tissue and their intensity is measured on the other side. Since denser materials like bone attenuate (weaken the energy) of X-rays more than soft tissue does, their shape becomes clear as a flat, monochrome image.

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Big Problems, communication, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior

Endangered Languages: Why do they face extinction?

July 16, 2018

Portrait of a Warrior Asmat tribe in traditional headdress.

By definition, endangered languages are those that are facing extinction in the future. Several languages are not being used and are replaced by languages that are widely spoken in various countries and regions. If the trends are not reversed, the next century will see a few more of them becoming extinct.

Many older languages only have very few speakers since they are no longer taught or learned by younger people. When the last speakers of endangered languages die, the languages die with them, unless there are efforts to revive the language.

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Alternative Transportation, Aviation, Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Flying trains could be coming your way

July 15, 2018

French firm has designed an airplane with removable wings.

It’s presenting plane to Boeing, Asia to cut Europe dependence.

It sounds like something Q, the tech guy in James Bond movies, would create: A plane that lands on a runway, shrugs its wings off, turns into a train and rolls on to rails to drop you off at your local station.

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Analysis, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior

The history of a city, as told through its trash

July 14, 2018

Today’s garbage is tomorrow’s archaeology.

Humans have been tossing stuff into rivers for thousands of years, whether it’s trash, wished-upon coins, lost items, or dramatically dumped, once-significant objects. That makes the river bed into a microcosm of human history and the development of cities–and a rich source for archaeologists.

A 15-year project to excavate two locations in Amsterdam’s river Amstel, one in the city center and one at the river’s mouth, is currently reaching its conclusion. Prompted by a complex civil engineering project–a north-south metro line that goes underneath the river–archaeologists got the go-ahead to dig two immense holes, each about 100 feet deep, and excavate whatever they could. The fruits of the project, called Below the Surface, are now online, with an interactive photo catalog designed by Netherlands-based firm Fabrique showcasing 20,000 objects uncovered beneath the project. The items range from 1980s cell phones, contemporary ID cards, and a plastic camera film case, to centuries-old coins, pottery, and fishhooks. And that’s just a small fraction of the 700,000 items they found in these two small cross-sections of the riverbed.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Human Behavior

Which 7 countries hold half the world’s population?

July 14, 2018

People at a water park in China, which is home to the world’s largest population. Half of the world’s population lives in just seven countries. (VCG via Getty Images)

As of this month, the world’s population is 7.63 billion, according to the United Nations, which celebrates World Population Day today. More than half of all people around the globe (3.97 billion) live in just seven countries, according to the UN’s estimates. China has the world’s largest population (1.42 billion), followed by India (1.35 billion). The next five most populous nations – the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria – together have fewer people than India.

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Driverless vehicles, Food, Shopping

Kroger to bring driverless cars to grocery delivery

July 14, 2018

Kroger is partnering with autonomous car company Nuro to introduce driverless cars to its grocery delivery.

Kroger has made a number of investments toward expanding its digital and online delivery business.

“Last mile delivery” is one of the hardest feats in the delivery of fresh food.

Kroger announced plans Thursday to partner with driverless car company Nuro to deliver groceries using its autonomous vehicles.

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Amazon.com, Space, Space Flight, Tourism

The race to get tourists to suborbital space is heating up

July 14, 2018

SPACE: FINAL FRONTIER or ultimate tourist destination? Possibly both—provided you have the cash.

Already, you can buy tickets for (as-yet-unscheduled) flights aboard SpaceShipTwo, the crew vehicle developed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. And at a NewSpace conference in Seattle last month, Blue Origin—helmed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—announced that it has plans to sell tickets to wannabe space tourists as early as next year.

Both companies have solid plans to cash in on human space travel (and then, of course, there’s SpaceX, which will focus first on shuttling astronauts to and from the space station). Branson has said that Virgin Galactic is in a race with itself, not other companies, to achieve safe human space flight. But with Blue Origin aiming to start selling tickets next year, both companies could be competing for business sooner rather than later.

Continue reading… “The race to get tourists to suborbital space is heating up”

Artificial Intelligence, cutting edge, Engineering, IBM, new technology

The AI revolution has spawned a new chips arms race

July 13, 2018

There’s no x86 in the AI chip market yet—”People see a gold rush; there’s no doubt.”

A lot has changed since 1918. But whether it’s a literal (like the City of London School athletics’ U12 event) or figurative (AI chip development) race, participants still very much want to win.

For years, the semiconductor world seemed to have settled into a quiet balance: Intel vanquished virtually all of the RISC processors in the server world, save IBM’s POWER line. Elsewhere AMD had self-destructed, making it pretty much an x86 world. And Nvidia, a late starter in the GPU space, previously mowed down all of it many competitors in the 1990s. Suddenly only ATI, now a part of AMD, remained. It boasted just half of Nvidia’s prior market share.

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Automation, Automobiles, China, Electric Automobile

A Chinese electric car startup is trying to take on Tesla by making its cars more like an iPhone

July 13, 2018

The Chinese electric vehicle startup Byton is developing three vehicles, the first of which will hit the market in 2019.

The company has prioritized interior features, like touchscreens and adjustable seats, over traditional performance metrics, like range and acceleration, in part because it assumes autonomous driving technology will become available to consumers in the next few years.

Byton president and co-founder Daniel Kirchert told Business Insider that Byton will sell a car with Level 4 autonomy — which means the car can handle all driving functions in certain scenarios — by the end of 2020.

Continue reading… “A Chinese electric car startup is trying to take on Tesla by making its cars more like an iPhone”

Electric Vehicles, Entertainment, Great New Product

You don’t even need waves to ride this electric hydrofoil surfboard

July 13, 2018

One of the biggest trends in surfing over the past few years has been the adoption of hydrofoil surfboards by some of the sports biggest names. Adding a hydrofoil to the bottom of the board creates lift and more speed, turning even ordinary waves into something that is a lot more fun and interesting to ride. But a new surfboard could eliminate the need for waves altogether, thanks to an onboard electric motor that generates all the thrust riders need.

The Fliteboard looks a lot like other hydrofoil surfboards already on the market, with one important distinction. Attached to the bottom of the foil is a small propeller that is engaged when riders fire up the built-in electric motor. When turned on, the Fliteboard is capable of reaching speeds of nearly 25 mph, while the removable battery pack — dubbed the “Flite Cell” — can give the board a range of up to 15.5 miles on a single charge. The engineers who designed the Fliteboard say that the battery is so powerful that it can actually keep the board moving for as much as an hour, depending on water conditions and the weight of the surfer.

Continue reading… “You don’t even need waves to ride this electric hydrofoil surfboard”