Monsanto is using a genetic technology that can feed plants through vase water for anti-aging technology for flowers . The St. Louis biotech company, known for its transgenic corn and soybeans, and for being the target of anti-GMO campaigners, disclosed in a patent application that it’s now testing a new way of stopping roses, carnations, and petunias from wilting.
Around the world, users are logging in to messaging apps to chat with friends and to connect with brands, browse merchandise, and watch content. What were once simple services for exchanging messages, pictures, videos, and GIFs have evolved into expansive ecosystems with their own developers, apps, and APIs.
Long Beach, California-based WE Labs recently opened its second coworking space in the historic Packard Building. Behind it is an empty lot, next door is an auto body shop, down the street are swanky new apartments, and a block away is the light rail. It looks like a textbook gentrification setting, but WE Labs’s clients differ from what you’d expect at mainstream, big-city coworking spaces like those in the WeWork empire. They include a bookkeeper, a mental health services nonprofit, painters, and a roller derby-themed fashion designer. Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. – 6p.m. access is $175 per month—on the low side for coworking space in the L.A. area.
NOTE: If you’re thinking about joining a coworking community, check out the fascinating tech startup scene happening at the DaVinci Institute in Westminster, Colorado.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Elon Musk should be blushing. On top of the increased competition from big auto manufacturers, there are now many venture-backed startups that are kicking tires within the electric vehicle industry. According to Tracxn, a startup intelligence platform, some of Tesla’s rivals include Faraday Future, NextEV, and Atieva.
Moxi Group, an unknown company in Chongqing China, passed these images of a magical, flexible bracelet smartphone around to the financial news press a couple days ago. However, here’s the fine print: Moxi actually claims to be working on a black-and-white version of this concept, with a color version “by 2018.”
3D printing technology will revolutionize architecture in the near-future and allow designers to literally click-and-print complex buildings at a lower cost and faster speed than traditional construction methods allow. Another step forward in the field comes via Dubai, where what’s hailed as the world’s first 3D-printed office was recently completed.
US and South Korean scientists discovered catalyst materials that could make it possible to create lithium-air (Li-Air) batteries that can potentially store five times more power than lithium-ion (Li-On) batteries do today. Lithium-air batteries work by taking oxygen from the air and then using it in chemical reactions that will produce electricity, rather than storing an oxidiser internally like lithium-ion batteries.
Most of us have found ourselves in the awkward situation of trying to communicate in a foreign language. Sometimes it’s funny, embarrassing or downright disastrous. Thanks to a new translation device that easily fits into your ear, the days of struggling to speak the local lingo might soon be a thing of the past.
The Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, will have a special guest taking selfies and playing “Simon Says” with visitors, courtesy of the Hoboken-based Stevens Institute of Technology. The LSC recently approached the school about 3D printing an interactive and educational robot for a new exhibition. Together, they settled on 3D printing the open sourced InMoov robot project created by French designer and sculptor Gael Langevin, and created what could be the fastest 3D printed full-upper-torso robot ever.
All futurists agree that consumer electronics of the future will be flexible, wearable and packed with sensors and antennas to perform a wide range of biomedical functions. This sound great, but unfortunately today’s production techniques are suitable for little more than flat, bulky and rigid devices.
Futurists are accustomed to launching headfirst into some very complex subjects, but even the most high-minded and enthusiastic of prognosticators may take a pass when it comes to dealing with the future of sleep. That’s no cop out, it’s just that we humans — those in the developed world at least — maintain such a complicated relationship with sleep.