2019 – Page 89 – Impact Lab

Microsoft and Kroger to create data-driven connected grocery stores

January 17, 2019

Microsoft and Kroger are taking a leaf out of Amazon’s book by building futuristic “connected” grocery stores.

As part of a pilot project, Kroger, the largest supermarket in the U.S. by revenue, and Microsoft have transformed two retail stores, one near each of their respective headquarters — in Monroe, Ohio and Redmond, Washington — using technology powered by connected sensors and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

The first fruit of the partnership is a digital shelving system, which was actually announced last year and is in the process of rolling out to dozens of Kroger stores across the U.S. Called EDGE (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment), it bypasses paper price tags for digital shelf displays that can be changed in real time from anywhere, and it also can display promotions, dietary information, and more.

But the test stores are where Kroger and Microsoft are taking things to the next level. In addition to EDGE shelving, the system will include a new guided shopping experience, personalized ads, and something the partners are calling “pick-to-light.”

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Cinema, Film, Great New Product, Video

Forget 8K, the Insta360 Titan records 11K that can still play back on smartphones

January 17, 2019

Insta360, the company behind cameras like the Insta360 One X, is aiming to redefine cinematic 360 with 11K footage captured by larger Micro Four Thirds sensors. On Monday, January 7, Insta360 unveiled the Titan, a cinematic 360 camera that the company says is the first standalone 360 camera to shoot in 11K. The Titan also uses the largest sensors for a standalone 360, Insta360 says, with eight Micro Four Thirds sensors.

The Titan, designed as a high-end cinematic virtual reality camera, captures 11K at 30 fps in the 360 format or 10K at 30 fps in the 3D format necessary for VR. The camera can also drop the resolution for faster frame rates, including 8K at 60 fps and 5.3K at 120 fps. Insta360 says the Micro Four Thirds sensors are essential to capturing a cinematic quality, since many use smaller sensors like the ones inside smartphones and action cameras.

Continue reading… “Forget 8K, the Insta360 Titan records 11K that can still play back on smartphones”

China, Elon Musk, Tesla

Tesla CEO Musk breaks ground at Shanghai Gigafactory to launch China push

January 17, 2019

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) broke ground on Monday for its Shanghai Gigafactory where it plans to begin making its Model 3 electric vehicles (EV) by year-end, a first step in localizing production in the world’s largest auto market.

At a ceremony at the site of the plant on the outskirts of Shanghai, Chief Executive Elon Musk joined the city’s mayor and other local government officials to formally begin construction of a factory that Tesla has said will cost around $2 billion.

“We think with the resources here we can build the Shanghai Gigafactory in record time and we’re looking forward to hopefully having some initial production of the Model 3 towards the end of this year and achieving volume production next year,” Musk said at the event.

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Agriculture, cutting edge, Engineering, Farming, Food

Scientists engineer shortcut for photosynthetic glitch, boost crop growth by 40 percent

January 16, 2019

Aerial view of the 2017 field trials where scientists studied how well their plants modified to shortcut photorespiration performed beside unmodified plants in real-world conditions. They found that plants engineered with a synthetic shortcut are about 40 percent more productive. Credit: James Baltz/College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

Plants convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis; however, most crops on the planet are plagued by a photosynthetic glitch, and to deal with it, evolved an energy-expensive process called photorespiration that drastically suppresses their yield potential. Researchers from the University of Illinois and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report in the journal Science that crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.

“We could feed up to 200 million additional people with the calories lost to photorespiration in the Midwestern U.S. each year,” said principal investigator Donald Ort, the Robert Emerson Professor of Plant Science and Crop Sciences at Illinois’ Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. “Reclaiming even a portion of these calories across the world would go a long way to meeting the 21st Century’s rapidly expanding food demands—driven by population growth and more affluent high-calorie diets.”

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2019 CES, Alternative Transportation, Automobiles, Aviation, Transportation, Uber

Flying cars could take off as soon as 2023

January 16, 2019

The Bell Nexus hybrid electric air taxi concept is on display at the Bell booth at CES International

From a one-person flying car to a luxurious five seater, companies are racing to launch the first flying car.

LAS VEGAS — While CES attendees are still quite a few years away from being able to hop in a flying car and travel to the annual technology show, several concepts displayed at the 2019 event this week provided a glimpse of what the future could look like.

That starts with hailing an Uber copter — possibly as soon as the mid 2020s. At CES, Textron’s Bell division, a partner in the Uber Elevate flying car initiative, showed off its new air taxi concept called the Nexus.

While it may fly, make no mistake, the Nexus looks more like a car than an airplane. The concept uses six tilted fans to aid in takeoffs and landings, which are powered by a hybrid-electric propulsion system. Inside the vehicle, four passengers and a pilot can see their flight path projected onto a screen.

Uber has said it’s planning to roll out its air vehicles by 2023 in certain cities, targeting the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Los Angeles as its first domestic markets.

Continue reading… “Flying cars could take off as soon as 2023”

Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Wearables

The world’s first “artificial pancreas” already hit the market in 2017

January 18, 2019

Good news for people with type 1 diabetes. In case you missed it, the first “artificial pancreas” was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is now ready for prime time.

Innovative medical technology company Medtronic’s MiniMed 670G is the first device to combine an automated glucose monitor and an insulin pump. It administers an accurate amount of insulin as needed and will also automatically shut off insulin release when a drop in sugar levels is detected. This minimizes the risks of taking too much or too little insulin, both of which can have fatal consequences.

Medtronic describes the MiniMed 670G as “the first hybrid closed loop system in the world.” The device only requires patients to input mealtime carbohydrates and calibrate the sensors periodically, allowing them to live life more freely. It also helps them sleep well through the night and wake up with healthy glucose levels.

Continue reading… “The world’s first “artificial pancreas” already hit the market in 2017″

Human Behavior, Latest Trend, Parenting

Only two US states are making enough babies to maintain their populations

January 15, 2019

But some demographers think it’s a good thing.

Populations of humans around the world are generally on the rise, but the United States is an exception. The US birth rate is at a historic low, and on Thursday, the CDC reported that the fertility rate has plunged in tandem with it. As it stands, there are only two states in the country where there are enough babies being born to keep the population steady.

“There are likely a number of factors behind the drop, including the decline in the birth rates to women under 30 years of age over that last 10 years, particularly the decline in birth rates for teens.”

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2019 CES, Automation, Robotics, Robots, Shopping

Robot dogs are the weirdest package delivery system we’ve seen

January 15, 2019

A mailman’s fever dream at CES 2019

Germany automotive firm Continental is best know for its tires, but at CES 2019 the company is demonstrating something a little different: package delivery by robot dog.

As part of its research into the future of mobility, Continental has partnered with robotics company ANYbotics (a spin off from ETH Zurich) to imagine the future of package delivery. In a staged demonstration on the CES show floor, the firm showed how one of ANYbotics’ four-legged robots could jump out the back of a self-driving delivery truck and carry a package right up to someone’s front door.

In the demo, the ANYMal robot could be seen slowly picking its way over debris in the garden before ringing the fake doorbell with one if its limbs. It then tips the package off its back onto the porch and performs a little victory dance as a bonus.

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Aviation, Blockchain, Business

What Honeywell’s Ecommerce platform means for blockchain in aviation

January 15, 2019

Honeywell recently announced the launch of its online buying and selling platform for new and used aircraft parts. Not only are online transactions in this space extremely rare, but Honeywell is also doing something even more uncommon: using blockchain technology. According to Lisa Butters, who leads the Honeywell Aerospace venture, “Currently, less than 2.5 percent of all transactions in this space are done online.” She continues: “We are the first marketplace to enable customized seller storefronts, and we are the first to leverage blockchain technology to build trust between the buyer and seller.”

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IBM, quantum computing

IBM unveils its first commercial quantum computer

January 14, 2019

IBM Q System One

At CES, IBM today announced its first commercial quantum computer for use outside of the lab. The 20-qubit system combines into a single package the quantum and classical computing parts it takes to use a machine like this for research and business applications. That package, the IBM Q system, is still huge, of course, but it includes everything a company would need to get started with its quantum computing experiments, including all the machinery necessary to cool the quantum computing hardware. While IBM describes it as the first fully integrated universal quantum computing system designed for scientific and commercial use, it’s worth stressing that a 20-qubit machine is nowhere near powerful enough for most of the commercial applications that people envision for a quantum computer with more qubits — and qubits that are useful for more than 100 microseconds. It’s no surprise then, that IBM stresses that this is a first attempt and that the systems are “designed to one day tackle problems that are currently seen as too complex and exponential in nature for classical systems to handle.” Right now, we’re not quite there yet, but the company also notes that these systems are upgradable (and easy to maintain).

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China, Electric Automobile, Green Friendly, Transportation

Giving up gas: China’s Shenzhen switches to electric taxis

January 14, 2019

SHENZHEN, China (AP) — One of China’s major cities has reached an environmental milestone: an almost entirely electric-powered taxi fleet.

The high-tech hub of Shenzhen in southern China announced at the start of this year that 99 percent of the 21,689 taxis operating in the city were electric. Last year, it still had 7,500 gasoline-powered taxis on the roads. A few can still be found, but electric ones far outnumber them.

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Automation, Business, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

CANVAS Technology unveils world’s first completely autonomous self-driving cart

January 14, 2019

Autonomous cars are still a long way away from replacing human drivers on the road. But make no mistake: Intelligent, highly adaptable self-driving robots are here — and CANVAS Technology is leading the way.

CANVAS has been on our radar for a while. The Boulder-based robotics company launched in stealth mode more than two years ago, leaving us guessing at the work being done behind the scenes. It wasn’t until last September that the company finally revealed its mission: to build the world’s first completely autonomous, self-driving industrial cart.

Today, CANVAS unveiled its long-awaited brainchild and gave us a glimpse inside the complex and fascinating evolution of its technology.

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