2020 – Page 82 – Impact Lab

Architecture, Batteries, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

These luxury prefabs are going fully off-grid

February 23, 2020

Dvele homes will now come with a new thermal enevelop, solar power, and a backup battery system

High-end prefab home builder Dvele just got a little more high-tech—and eco-conscious. The San Diego-based company, which is known for its luxury prefab designs, announced this week that it would start exclusively building fully self-powered homes going forward.

Since its founding in 2017, Dvele has branded itself as a sustainable option in the prefab space, but its new initiative takes it a step further with homes that run entirely on solar power and stored energy. Dvele’s models are similar to other eco-minded prefab homes in that a major focus is to limit the amount of wasted energy produced in the first place.

Continue reading… “These luxury prefabs are going fully off-grid”

Analysis, Co Working, Employment, Science & Technology News, Trending

The 2020 state of remote work

February 22, 2020

Top insights and data from one of the largest remote work reports.

When some people think of the workplace of the future, they envision futuristic-style holograms having a meeting or robots cooking lunch for everyone in the office.

Increasingly, though, the workplace of the future is looking more simple — people having the flexibility to work remotely from home with teammates all around the world.

With that in mind, the question is no longer “is remote work here to stay?” It seems like remote work might even be the new normal.

The real question now is “what trends are growing across the remote work landscape?”

So, we’re digging into the data.

Continue reading… “The 2020 state of remote work”

Business, Entertainment, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Roku predicts half of US homes will have cut the cord and dropped cable by 2024

February 21, 2020

Roku predicts that by 2024, half of all U.S. homes will have never had cable TV or will have canceled their subscription.

Roku sees this trend boosting its business, which it frames as being a “neutral partner at the center of the streaming ecosystem.”

Roku predicts that within four years, half of all U.S. homes will have never had cable TV or will have canceled their subscription, the company said in a letter to investors on Thursday released along with the company’s fourth quarter 2019 results.

The consumer shift from expensive cable TV packages to cheaper and more flexible “over-the-top” internet streaming services has been driving a wave of investment and competition in the media industry.

Continue reading… “Roku predicts half of US homes will have cut the cord and dropped cable by 2024”

Employment, Future, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

The future of work in technology

February 21, 2020

How technology leaders can reimagine technology work, the workforce, and the workplace

The future of work in technology, encompassing work, workforce, and workplace, is undergoing a transformation. How can technology and business leaders strategize, design, and collaborate to succeed in this journey?

EVOLVING strategic business imperatives, trends, and disrupters are driving a seismic shift in the way IT organizations operate. This report—part of a series exploring the merger of business and technology strategies and the reimagination of technology’s role in the business—aims to address fundamental questions about the future of work in technology:

How can organizations leverage technology to redesign current work outcomes to focus on exponential increases in productivity and cost efficiencies and redefine new work outcomes that extend beyond productivity and cost to value, meaning, and impact?

How will tomorrow’s technology workforce be different than today’s? How will jobs and roles change? What skills and capabilities will be needed?

Continue reading… “The future of work in technology”

Analysis, Human Behavior, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

Why aren’t more highly intelligent people rich?

February 20, 2020

A Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Says Another Factor Matters a Lot More

Intelligence is important, but intelligence without effort is sometimes wasted.

Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman likes to ask people how great a role innate intelligence plays in financial success. Like how much the difference between my income and yours, for example, is based on our relative IQs.

Most people say about 25 percent. Some go as high as 50 percent. (For a long time, I would gave guessed even more.)

But Heckman’s research reveals something else entirely. Innate intelligence plays, at best, a 1 to 2 percent role in a child’s future success.

Continue reading… “Why aren’t more highly intelligent people rich?”

AI, brain hacking, Games, military drones, Science & Technology News

US Army to study gamers’ brains to build AI military robots

February 23, 2020

A group of experts wants to study the brain waves and eye movements of people playing a video game in order to build an advanced AI that could coordinate the actions of military robots.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, awarded a team from the University of Buffalo’s Artificial Intelligence Institute a $316,000 grant for the study.

Although swarm robotics is inspired by many things, including ant colonies, researchers believe that humans have a lot of potential to improve AI learning systems. The study of 25 video game players will include real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, Stellaris and Company of Heroes.

Continue reading… “US Army to study gamers’ brains to build AI military robots”

brain hacking, Healthcare, Legalized marijuana, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Move over, pot: Psychedelic companies are about to go public

February 20, 2020

The first companies developing medical treatments from psychedelic drugs like LSD, ketamine and the active ingredient in magic mushrooms are gearing up to list on Canadian stock exchanges.

Mind Medicine Inc., which is undertaking clinical trials of psychedelic-based drugs, intends to list on Toronto’s NEO Exchange by the first week of March, said JR Rahn, the company’s co-founder and co-chief executive officer. A NEO spokesman confirmed the listing, which is pending final approvals.

The company plans to list via a reverse takeover under the ticker MMED. It’s not yet generating revenue and is targeting a valuation of approximately $50 million, Rahn said. MindMed counts former Canopy Growth Corp. co-CEO Bruce Linton as a director and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary as an investor.

“Our ambition is to be one of the first publicly listed neuro-pharmaceutical companies developing psychedelic medicines,” Rahn said in a phone interview.

Continue reading… “Move over, pot: Psychedelic companies are about to go public”

Environment, Health & Fitness, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News

What’s in your water? Researchers identify new toxic byproducts of disinfecting drinking water

February 20, 2020

When phenols, compounds that are commonly found in drinking water, mix with chlorine, hundreds of unknown, potentially toxic byproducts are formed.

Mixing drinking water with chlorine, the United States’ most common method of disinfecting drinking water, creates previously unidentified toxic byproducts, says Carsten Prasse from Johns Hopkins University and his collaborators from the University of California, Berkeley and Switzerland.

The researchers’ findings were published this past week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“There’s no doubt that chlorine is beneficial; chlorination has saved millions of lives worldwide from diseases such as typhoid and cholera since its arrival in the early 20th century,” says Prasse, an assistant professor of Environmental Health and Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and the paper’s lead author.

“But that process of killing potentially fatal bacteria and viruses comes with unintended consequences. The discovery of these previously unknown, highly toxic byproducts, raises the question how much chlorination is really necessary.”

Continue reading… “What’s in your water? Researchers identify new toxic byproducts of disinfecting drinking water”

Engineering, New Inventions, new technology, quantum computing, Science & Technology News

Engineers just built an impressively stable quantum silicon chip from artificial atoms

February 19, 2020

Newly created artificial atoms on a silicon chip could become the new basis for quantum computing.

Engineers in Australia have found a way to make these artificial atoms more stable, which in turn could produce more consistent quantum bits, or qubits – the basic units of information in a quantum system.

The research builds on previous work by the team, wherein they produced the very first qubits on a silicon chip, which could process information with over 99 percent accuracy. Now, they have found a way to minimise the error rate caused by imperfections in the silicon.

“What really excites us about our latest research is that artificial atoms with a higher number of electrons turn out to be much more robust qubits than previously thought possible, meaning they can be reliably used for calculations in quantum computers,” said quantum engineer Andrew Dzurak of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia.

“This is significant because qubits based on just one electron can be very unreliable.”

Continue reading… “Engineers just built an impressively stable quantum silicon chip from artificial atoms”

Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, new technology, Science & Technology News

Replacement blood vessels may be woven from bio-yarn

February 19, 2020

Blood vessels made from the yarn should reportedly be tolerated by all patients

When a damaged blood vessel has to be replaced, it’s important that the replacement be well-tolerated by the body. And while bioprinted blood vessels are one possibility, French scientists are now working on weaving the things out of collagen yarn.

Led by researcher Nicolas L’Heureux, a team at the Inserm institute – aka the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research – started by lab-cultivating human cells, which in turn produced extracellular matrix deposits that were high in collagen. The extracellular matrix is the three-dimensional network of macromolecules that surrounds the body’s cells, helping to keep those cells structurally and biochemically supported.

Sheets of the lab-grown matrix deposits were next cut into very thin fiber-like strips, forming the yarn. It can be woven, knitted or braided, and has already been used to create vascular grafts (implantable tubes for redirecting the flow of blood). Those grafts exhibited “burst pressure, suture retention strength and transmural permeability that surpassed clinical requirements.”

Continue reading… “Replacement blood vessels may be woven from bio-yarn”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Science & Technology News

Meet Ella: New Zealand Police unveil first artificial intelligence officer

February 19, 2020

The police have unveiled their first AI officer, with hopes she’ll soon be smiling and blinking out of screens in stations all around New Zealand.

Ella, the artificial intelligence cop at the centre of the police’s new digital services, was revealed at the police national headquarters in Wellington this morning.

Ella, which stands for Electronic Lifelike Assistant, is part of two new digital kiosks police have designed to help reduce queues in stations and to provide a modern way to connect with the public.

Continue reading… “Meet Ella: New Zealand Police unveil first artificial intelligence officer”

App, China, Healthcare, Science & Technology News

Chinese government rolls out coronavirus ‘close contact detector’ app

February 18, 2020

China has rolled out an app that lets people check whether they have been in close contact with someone infected by the coronavirus.

The “close contact detector,” as BBC puts it, notifies users if they have had exchanges with any individuals who have been confirmed or suspected of carrying the virus. All users need to do is scan a QR code with an app like Alipay or WeChat. People at risk are then advised to stay at home or inform local health authorities.

Once their phone number is linked, users are asked to fill in their name and ID number. The app can then be used to check the status of up to three ID numbers. The app, which was developed in cooperation by the government and the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, relies on data from from the health and transport authorities.

Although the invasiveness of the software certainly raises questions about the obtrusive surveillance practices within the country, experts believe citizens won’t see the new app as controversial, considering the extent of the epidemic.

Continue reading… “Chinese government rolls out coronavirus ‘close contact detector’ app”