2019 – Page 27 – Impact Lab

Battery, Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News

Graphene sponge helps lithium sulphur batteries reach new potential

September 19, 2019

An illustration of the Chalmers design for a lithium sulfur battery. The highly porous quality of the graphene aerogel allows for high enough soaking of sulfur to make the catholyte concept worthwhile. Credit: Yen Strandqvist/Chalmers University of Technology

To meet the demands of an electric future, new battery technologies will be essential. One option is lithium sulphur batteries, which offer a theoretical energy density more than five times that of lithium ion batteries. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, recently unveiled a promising breakthrough for this type of battery, using a catholyte with the help of a graphene sponge.

The researchers’ novel idea is a porous, sponge-like aerogel made of reduced graphene oxide that acts as a free-standing electrode in the battery cell and allows for better and higher utilisation of sulphur.

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Entertainment, Music, Science & Technology News

Concerts are more expensive than ever, and fans keep paying up

September 19, 2019

One fan saw Pink 11 times — she started saving five years ago

Soaring ticket prices leave concert goers with no choice.

It’s not your imagination: Concert ticket prices are going through the roof.

And not just for the super wealthy who pay thousands of dollars to see the best acts from the front row. Fans of all types are paying more to see their favorite musicians.

The average price of a ticket to the 100 most popular tours in North America has almost quadrupled over the past two decades, from $25.81 in 1996 to $91.86 through the first half of this year, according to researcher Pollstar. Along with pro sports and Broadway shows, concert prices have far outpaced inflation.

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Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Doctors have put human livers in suspended animation

September 18, 2019

Supercooling organs could save the lives of people on transplant waiting lists.

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China, Human Behavior, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Why millions of Chinese men are staying single

September 18, 2019

The gender gap is a big problem in the Middle Kingdom – and its ‘leftover men’ are going to great lengths to find a wife.

In China, there is a name for unmarried men over 30. Shengnan, meaning “leftover men” have yet to find a wife – and in a country with a growing gender gap, that’s a big problem.

By 2020, it’s estimated there will be 30 million more men than women looking for a partner

China has many millions more men than women, a hangover of the country’s one-child policy, which was overturned in 2015, though its effects will last decades more. The gender imbalance is making it hard for many men to find a partner – and the gap is likely to widen. By 2020, it’s estimated there will be 30 million more men than women looking for a partner. In his book, The Demographic Future, American political economist Nicholas Eberstadt cites projections that by 2030, more than a quarter of Chinese men in their 30s will not have married.

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Energy, Environment, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

An electromagnetic health crisis

September 18, 2019

If living beings have always been exposed to natural electromagnetic fields, and their bodies produce electric currents as well, why is there a growing concern about the human-made electromagnetic fields?

Exposure to the electromagnetic field is not a new phenomenon for living beings. While living beings have always been exposed to natural electromagnetic fields, the growing sources, applications, and impact of human-made electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) on humans and the environment are creating more questions than answers.

This is extraordinarily complex to evaluate when all living beings are technically electromagnetic, and every thought and emotion is a measurable frequency as well. Moreover, even in the absence of external electric fields, there is a presence of tiny electrical currents in living beings due to the numerous chemical reactions that occur as part of the healthy living bodily functions. According to a WHO report, the heart is electrically active and nerves relay signals by transmitting electrical impulses. Furthermore, since all human body systems are regulated by EMF signals, it is essential to evaluate not only how the biologically active human-made electric and magnetic fields impact humans, but also how it impacts all living beings at the cellular level.

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Artificial Intelligence, Crime, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

An artificial-intelligence first: Voice-mimicking software reportedly used in a major theft

September 17, 2019

A fake video featuring former president Barack Obama. A new worry: fake voice recordings that can be used to persuade people that they’re being asked to do something by an authority. (AP/AP)

Thieves used voice-mimicking software to imitate a company executive’s speech and dupe his subordinate into sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to a secret account, the company’s insurer said, in a remarkable case that some researchers are calling one of the world’s first publicly reported artificial-intelligence heists.

The managing director of a British energy company, believing his boss was on the phone, followed orders one Friday afternoon in March to wire more than $240,000 to an account in Hungary, said representatives from the French insurance giant Euler Hermes, which declined to name the company.

The request was “rather strange,” the director noted later in an email, but the voice was so lifelike that he felt he had no choice but to comply. The insurer, whose case was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, provided new details on the theft to The Washington Post on Wednesday, including an email from the employee tricked by what the insurer is referring to internally as “the false Johannes.”

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Artificial Intelligence, Children, Google, Parenting, Science & Technology News

Google files patent for using A.I. to track a baby’s body and eye movements

September 17, 2019

In a patent application published this week, Google indicated it’s looking into how artificial intelligence can be used to watch for abnormal behavior in babies.

The system would consist of eye tracking and motion detection and could alert a parent if anything is out of the ordinary.

Google’s hefty investment in artificial intelligence might be making its way to the crib.

According to a patent application filed last year and published on Thursday, Google is researching technology that could track a baby’s eyes, movements and sounds using “intelligent” audio and video. If the behavior seems abnormal, the cloud-based system would notify parents on their device.

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Artificial Intelligence, Business, Crime, Science & Technology News

Thieves are now using AI deepfakes to trick companies into sending them money

September 17, 2019

So AI crimes are a thing now

It seems like every few days there’s another example of a convincing deepfake going viral or another free, easy-to-use piece of software (some even made for mobile) that can generate convincing video or audio that’s designed to trick someone into believing a piece of virtual artifice is real. But according to The Wall Street Journal, there may soon be serious financial and legal ramifications to the proliferation of deepfake technology.

The publication reported last week that a UK energy company’s chief executive was tricked into wiring €200,000 (or about $220,000 USD) to a Hungarian supplier because he believed his boss was instructing him to do so. But the energy company’s insurance firm, Euler Hermes Group SA, told the WSJ that a clever AI-equipped fraudster was using deepfake software to mimic the voice of the executive and demand his underling pay him within the hour.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cutting edge, Science & Technology News

A breakthrough for A.I. technology: Passing an 8th-grade science test

September 16, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO — Four years ago, more than 700 computer scientists competed in a contest to build artificial intelligence that could pass an eighth-grade science test. There was $80,000 in prize money on the line.

They all flunked. Even the most sophisticated system couldn’t do better than 60 percent on the test. A.I. couldn’t match the language and logic skills that students are expected to have when they enter high school.

But on Wednesday, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a prominent lab in Seattle, unveiled a new system that passed the test with room to spare. It correctly answered more than 90 percent of the questions on an eighth-grade science test and more than 80 percent on a 12th-grade exam.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Big Problems, Employment, IBM, Science & Technology News

120 million workers will need to be retrained due to AI, says IBM study

September 16, 2019

The skills gap is widening between people and AI.

But many CEOs tell IBM they don’t have the resources needed to close the skills gap brought on by emerging technologies.

Artificial Intelligence is apparently ready to get to work. Over the next three years, as many as 120 million workers from the world’s 12 largest economies may need to be retrained because of advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, according to a study released Friday by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. However, less than half of CEOs surveyed by IBM said they had the resources needed to close the skills gap brought on by these new technologies.

“Organizations are facing mounting concerns over the widening skills gap and tightened labor markets with the potential to impact their futures as well as worldwide economies,” said Amy Wright, a managing partner for IBM Talent & Transformation, in a release. “Yet while executives recognize severity of the problem, half of those surveyed admit that they do not have any skills development strategies in place to address their largest gaps.”

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Aviation, drones, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Bell’s new, self-flying cargo drone hauls a heavy load

September 16, 2019

The all-electric APT 70 can tote up to 70 pounds, cruise at 75 mph, and cover 35 miles with a fully charged battery.

Bell aims to begin beyond-visual-line-of sight tests for the APT 70 next year, on the road to starting commercial service in the early 2020s.

They say things are bigger in Texas, and it seems that goes for drones as well as pickup trucks and cowboy hats. At least, if Fort Worth-based Bell’s new, autonomous cargo carrier is any indicator.

The four-motor, vertical-lift electric UAV is one of the largest commercial cargo drone projects to reach the skies. It stands nearly 6 feet tall and 9 feet wide on the ground (it rests on its tail before transitioning to horizontal flight after liftoff). It weighs 300 pounds and can carry an additional 70 pounds of cargo, slung in an aerodynamic pod between its two wings. That all-important stat gives it the name APT 70, the letters standing for “autonomous pod transport.” It first started flying in December via remote control, and in the past three weeks began fully autonomous flight, Bell announced this week.

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Analysis, Future, Science & Technology News

We still don’t understand why time only flows forward

September 15, 2019

The history of the Universe and the arrow of time, which always flows forward in the same direction and at the same rate for any observer.(NASA / GSFC)

The past is gone, the future not yet here, only the present is now. But why does it always flow the way it does for us?

Every moment that passes finds us traveling from the past to the present and into the future, with time always flowing in the same direction. At no point does it ever appear to either stand still or reverse; the “arrow of time” always points forwards for us. But if we look at the laws of physics — from Newton to Einstein, from Maxwell to Bohr, from Dirac to Feynman — they appear to be time-symmetric. In other words, the equations that govern reality don’t have a preference for which way time flows. The solutions that describe the behavior of any system obeying the laws of physics, as we understand them, are just as valid for time flowing into the past as they are for time flowing into the future. Yet we know from experience that time only flows one way: forwards. So where does the arrow of time come from?

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