Americans surveyed believe that the next fifty years we’ll see the custom creation of transplantable organs, and computer-developed art, music and novels rivaling human talent.
Over the past 50 years, Americans have witnessed the first man walk on the moon, the birth of the Internet and cellphones, large and small and large again. What will the future of technology and science hold in the next 50 years?
Continue reading… “Here’s what Americans think technology will look like in 50 years”
Governor Perry wants public universities to craft four-year degrees costing no more than $10,000 in tuition, fees, and books.
Bill Ayers did not have in mind any endeavors of conservative Texas governor Rick Perry when he observed that “every revolution is impossible until it happens, and then, looking backwards, every revolution appears inevitable.” But Perry may have launched a revolution of his own with his 2011 state of the state address. Perry challenged Texas’s public universities to craft four-year degrees costing no more than $10,000 in tuition, fees, and books, and to achieve the necessary cost reductions by teaching students online and awarding degrees based on competency.
Continue reading… “The ‘impossible’ $10K degree marches on in Texas”
A space elevator is just the thing that is needed to open up the high frontier of space.
A working space elevator is still not a reality as of yet. But some of the most intelligent and imaginative minds on Earth have been looking into the logistics of building such a space elevator. Rich DeVaul, head of Google X’s Rapid Evaluation team, has confirmed for the first time ever that Google’s super hush-hush R&D lab actually tried to design one.
Continue reading… “Google X really did try to design a space elevator”
Interest in Titan Aerospace and others is not just about the “next billion” Internet users.
Last month it seemed as if Facebook would acquire the long-range solar-powered drone maker Titan Aerospace and use its technology to deliver Internet to remote areas of the world. It was ostensibly a hedge against Google’s balloon-driven Project Loon and the possibility that Google, rather than Facebook, would connect the “next billion” Internet users.
Continue reading… “Facebook and Google are drooling over drone companies”
A closeup of a titanium lattice ball manufactured using a 3D printing process.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has identified ten ways to transform how space missions put together in their investigation of the potential of additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing.
Continue reading… “Top 10 ways 3D printing could change space”
Students learning to 3D model in Budapest, Hungary
There’s a lot of talk about The Maker Movement in Silicon Valley. Over 195,000 people attended Maker Faire events around the world last year alone. Makers are tech-savvy tinkerers. They build robots, program light installations and hack everything from code to IKEA furniture. From Boston to Beirut, community-based makerspaces are popping up in libraries, schools, shipping containers and buses as part of a revolution that has people returning to their workshops and building with their hands.
Continue reading… “The Changemakers are the future of education”
Blockade of p25 generation in the brain of an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model mitigates amyloid plaque buildup.
Symptoms of Alzheimer’s in mice have been reversed by limiting a certain protein in the brain, according to a report by neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.
Continue reading… “Neuroscientists reverse symptoms of Alzheimer’s in mice”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, has predicted that we will reach a technological singularity by 2045, and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge is betting on 2029, a date that is ironically on the hundredth anniversary of the greatest stock market collapse in human history.
Continue reading… “The Singularity and Our Collision Path with the Future”
Here’s a speed test conducted at a coffee shop in Seoul using its free WiFi.
South Korea is a connected country. There’s free WiFi just about anywhere you go, even at the airport. And if you travel a lot, you know free WiFi at an airport is nearly impossible to come by. Not only is there free WiFi everywhere, but that Internet is much, much faster than what you typically get in the U.S.
Continue reading… “South Korea’s internet speeds blow away the rest of the world”
Dowling College main administrative and faculty offices building.
On Long Island, New York’s south shore on the Dowling College campus, a fleet of unused shuttle buses sits in an otherwise empty parking lot. A dormitory is shuttered, as are a cafeteria, bookstore and some classrooms in the main academic building.
Ninety percent of the news could be written by computers by 2030.
Software is writing news stories with increasing frequency. In a recent example, an LA Times writer-bot wrote and posted a snippet about an earthquake three minutes after the event. The LA Times claims they were first to publish anything on the quake, and outside the USGS, they probably were.
Continue reading… “Robots are writing more news than you think”
SpoonRocket
There are dozens of services operating in and around San Francisco like – Homejoy for cleaning, BloomThat for flowers, Postmates for courier service, SpoonRocket a gourmet meal-delivery service, and on and on. Most of them provide cheap, convenient amenities at the tap of a smartphone app. Few of them are profitable on a corporate level. And together, they’ve formed the backbone of a strange urban economy: one in which massive venture-capital injections allow money-losing start-ups to flourish, while providing services that no traditional, unsubsidized business can match. It’s an economy built on patience, and the hope that someday, after the land grab is over and the dust has settled, a better business model will emerge.
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.