The World Economic Forum today announced its list of 56 companies selected as Technology Pioneers, and this year’s class demonstrates the growing embrace of artificial intelligence and machine learning across a broad range of sectors.
Of those selected, at least 20 companies say they are using AI or machine learning in some fashion to tackle challenges in fields such as advertising technology, smart cities, cleantech, supply chain, manufacturing, cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles, and drones.
The 3D-printed structure can for the first time grow human hair follicles entirely in a laboratory dish
An exciting breakthrough from Columbia University researchers demonstrates a new way to grow human hair follicles using 3D printed molds. This is the first time human hair follicle cells have been grown completely in lab conditions, opening up a potentially unlimited source of hair follicles for future hair restoration surgical procedures.
Over the last few decades hair transplantation surgery has rapidly evolved, becoming more sophisticated and successful, however the process has still fundamentally relied on hair follicles being redistributed from one part of the body to another. Growing human hair follicles in laboratory conditions has proved challenging for researchers, ultimately limiting the efficacy of hair restoration surgery, especially in patients without hair already present that can be grafted.
This new breakthrough brings together a couple of recent innovations. First, the researchers created a unique plastic mold using 3D printers. The moulds are designed to resemble a natural micro-environment stimulating hair follicle growth through tiny extensions just half a millimeter wide.
Continue reading… “Baldness breakthrough uses 3D-printed “hair farms” to grow new hair follicles”
Construction companies are developing an AI system that predicts worksite injuries—an example of the growing use of workplace surveillance.
A construction site is a dangerous place to work, with a fatal accident rate five times higher than that of any other industry.
Now a number of big construction companies are testing technology that could save lives, and money, by predicting when accidents will happen.
Continue reading… “Artificial intelligence sees construction site accidents before they happen”
Earth’s oceans have seen better days. They’re inundated with plastic waste, both whole single-use plastics and tons of plastic microparticles that find their way back into our food and drinking water. Their water temperatures are rising due to climate change, causing coral bleaching and other harmful phenomena. Overfishing has depleted multiple marine species.
Organizations and individuals around the world have leaped to action to try to reverse some of the damage human activity has caused the oceans. The Ocean Cleanup is using a two-kilometer-long screen to collect plastic waste. Origin Materials aims to make a new type of plastic that’s sustainable and renewable. The 5 Gyres Institute’s mission is to end plastic pollution, which it calls a global health crisis
Last week another effort joined the ranks: a purpose-built artificial reef in Sydney Harbor. The result of a three-year partnership between the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the Sydney Opera House, and the government of New South Wales, the reef was made by Reef Design Lab and consists of eight one-meter-tall pods, each containing three steel and concrete hexagonal structures. Half the units also have triangular tiles extending from the hexagons’ cores.
Continue reading… “This cool artificial reef was just deployed in Sydney Harbor”
The road of the future is likely to become the brain and nerve center of an autonomous-driving revolution.
The road to China’s autonomous-driving future is paved with solar panels, mapping sensors and electric-battery rechargers as the nation tests an “intelligent highway” that could speed the transformation of the global transportation industry.
The technologies will be embedded underneath transparent concrete used to build a 1,080-meter-long (3,540-foot-long) stretch of road in the eastern city of Jinan. About 45,000 vehicles barrel over the section every day, and the solar panels inside generate enough electricity to power highway lights and 800 homes, according to builder Qilu Transportation Development Group Co.
Continue reading… “China’s built a road so smart it will be able to charge your car”
We’ve already seen a 3D printer construct a house. Now we can watch one build a whole neighborhood.
On Thursday, housing nonprofit New Story shared a video that shows how it plans to build what it calls the “world’s first 3D-printed community” — a futuristic application of 3D-printing technology that could bring affordable housing to the places that need it most.
Continue reading… “Watch a 3D printed neighborhood spring up from nothing”
This week, Denver, CO became the first city in the United States to decriminalize psilocybin, a compound with hallucinogenic properties that occurs in some mushrooms — a move that could signal new frontiers both in the country’s evolving relationship with mind-altering substances and in the medical community’s accelerating exploration of psychedelics.
“Because psilocybin has such tremendous medical potential, there’s no reason individuals should be criminalized for using something that grows naturally,” said Kevin Matthews, the director of the campaign to legalize psilocybin in Denver, in an interview with the New York Times.
The new law passed by a narrow margin, according to the Times, of less than 2,000 votes. It doesn’t entirely legalize psilocybin-containing mushrooms, but it makes the prosecution of possession and cultivation of them an extremely low-priority offense.
Continue reading… “Denver becomes first U.S. city to decriminalize “Magic Mushrooms””
While the world watched in shock as part of Notre Dame cathedral burned, few realized the surprising roles machines played in the incident. Sadly, a possible computer glitch may have been responsible for the fire. But technology was also crucial to the recovery efforts. French firefighters used DJI drones to survey the blaze and assess their attack plan — something a Paris Fire Brigade spokesperson said was important in saving the historic building. And a water cannon-manned robot named Colossus also helped battle the raging fire.
When talking about dream future drone applications at a Techcrunch AI and robotics event held at UC Berkeley on Thursday, DJI head of U.S. research and development Arnaud Thiercelin shared his obsession with the idea of fighting fires with drones in what he refers to as an “aerial aqueduct.”
Continue reading… “DJI R&D had dreams of drones fighting fire by the thousands in ‘aerial aqueduct’”
A procedure called renal denervation resulted in medication-free blood pressure control in over a third of trial patients
A promising new study is documenting the long-term effects of a novel surgical procedure using ultrasound to reduce blood pressure in patients with hypertension. It’s hoped the one-off procedure, called renal denervation, could offer patients an alternative option to taking hypertension drugs.
Renal denervation has been in development for almost a decade, however inconsistent clinical trial results have slowed the progress of this novel surgical procedure. The treatment involves delivering ultrasound pulses to nerves in the walls of renal arteries. This procedure has been found to reduce blood pressure, particularly in cases where hypertension has not effectively responded to traditional medications.
Continue reading… “Positive trial results show ultrasound energy can treat high blood pressure”
Could this help reignite hydrogen as a renewable fuel?
Though hydrogen fuel eliminates tailpipe pollution, most hydrogen fuel is made from natural gas, a fossil fuel. It is possible to make it from a cleaner source: water. With electrodes in water, electricity can split the hydrogen from oxygen, giving you pure hydrogen. But until now, the processes have relied on purified freshwater, which is expensive. For the use of hydrogen fuel to scale up, we need a different source, one that’s cheaper and doesn’t use up water we could be drinking instead.
Now new research from Stanford scientists demonstrates a new method for making hydrogen fuel directly from ocean water. “Right now, the need for hydrogen is still relatively limited because the so-called hydrogen economy hasn’t taken off yet, although it’s in its early growing stage,” says Hongjie Dai, a chemistry professor at Stanford and coauthor of a new paper about the research. “You could imagine there would be more demand for hydrogen.”
Continue reading… “Scientists just found a new way to make fuel from seawater”
A vehicle and person recognition system for use by law enforcement is demonstrated at last year’s GPU Technology Conference in Washington, D.C., which highlights new uses for artificial intelligence and deep learning.
Experts say the rise of artificial intelligence will make most people better off over the next decade, but many have concerns about how advances in AI will affect what it means to be human, to be productive and to exercise free will.
Digital life is augmenting human capacities and disrupting eons-old human activities. Code-driven systems have spread to more than half of the world’s inhabitants in ambient information and connectivity, offering previously unimagined opportunities and unprecedented threats. As emerging algorithm-driven artificial intelligence (AI) continues to spread, will people be better off than they are today?
Some 979 technology pioneers, innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists answered this question in a canvassing of experts conducted in the summer of 2018.
Continue reading… “Artificial Intelligence and the future of humans”
The prototype heating/cooling system uses the remarkable properties of shape-memory nitinol metals for environmentally friendly cooling and heating
A German research team has prototyped an extraordinary heating/cooling system that stresses and unloads nickel-titanium “muscle wires” to create heated and cooled air at twice the efficiency of a heat pump or three times the efficiency of an air conditioner. Crucially, the device also uses no refrigerant gases, meaning it’s a much more environmentally friendly way to heat or cool a space.
The device is based on a peculiar property of certain shape-memory metal alloys that spring back into shape after being deformed. In some cases – particularly with nickel-titanium, also known as nitinol – these metals absorb significant amounts of heat when they’re bent out of shape, and then release that heat when they’re allowed to revert to their normal shape. The difference between the loaded wire and the released wire can be as much as 20° C (36° F).
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.