South Korea is seeking to develop a train-like public transport concept that is almost as fast as the speed of sound up 1,000 km / h, the Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI) said Tuesday. The state-run institute will join forces with other research groups and Hanyang University to build the near-supersonic “train”, which would be able to travel from Seoul to Busan in half an hour.
A company is planning to build the world’s first floating city in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The government of French Polynesia has signed an agreement with a US firm and they hope construction work will begin in 2019. The Seasteading Institute has spent the past five years trying to work out how to build “permanent, innovative communities floating at sea”.
Thirty years ago, it was a big deal when schools got their first computers. Today, it’s a big deal when students get their own laptops. According to Futurist Thomas Frey, in 14 years it’ll be a big deal when students learn from robot teachers over the internet. It’s not just because the technology will be that sophisticated, Frey says, but because the company responsible for it will be the largest of its kind.
NOTE: Visit FuturistSpeaker.com to learn more about DaVinci Institute’s senior futurist Thomas Frey.
Three-dimensional printers have brought major advances to every corner of manufacturing: Scientists have used the process to engineer human tissue, print a rubber material to make drones less dangerous to people on the ground, and create a lightweight material that’s 10 times stronger than steel and just 1/20th its density.
Continue reading… “What’s the next big thing in 3-D printing? Shapeshifting Materials”
Last March, we heard a crazy rumor that someone was starting a single-marque Tesla racing series alled Electric GT. Then, in November, we saw the first working prototype of the Model S P85+ race car. At the UK’s Autosport International Show on Friday, Electric GT officially unveiled the first racing-spec Tesla with a live demonstration of the new P100D version.
Continue reading… “Tesla race car does 0-60 in 2.1 seconds”
Last September, we wrote about the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Germany and their R&D on metamaterials, hacking the internal structures of materials to create simple, non-powered machines. By experimenting with various microstructural designs, researchers were able to 3D print simple machines that can deform to create some form of actuation, allowing the 3D printing of switches, latches, door handles, and the like.
The first day of the Brains vs. AI poker tournament is in the books, and the Libratus bot from Carnegie Mellon University emerged as the clear winner, collecting $81,716 to the humans $7,228. Both the players and Libratus’ creators cautioned that it was still too early to make a judgement call about who might win the 20-day tournament. But it’s clear that this year’s AI has made some major improvements on the 2015 system, Claudico, which ended up losing to humanity.
Continue reading… “AI is crushing humanity at poker”
In a sound-proofed hangar on an RAF airbase just north of Cambridge, UK, Chris Mitchell and his colleagues are busy using sledgehammers to teach their computers a lesson. The team has gathered thousands of window panes and doors, all of different shapes and sizes, which they then smash, one by one, recording the distinctive shattering sound of each type of glass. Sometimes they swing sledgehammers or garden spades, sometimes they throw bricks. “We completely underestimated the mess it would make,” says Mitchell. “And how tiring it would be.”
Continue reading… “Here’s why an AI firm is smashing windows”
Singapore’s shipping ports are already among the busiest and most efficient in the world. Now the city-state is exploring a new way to make them run even better: convoys of driverless trucks operating between terminals. The idea is that a lead truck will be driven by a human, with the follower vehicles being automated.
Continue reading… “Self-driving trucks to haul cargo between shipping terminals in Singapore”
2016 was a banner year for artificial intelligence. Alpha Go’s victory over Lee Sedol was perhaps one of the most important, but we saw advancements in self-driving cars, the continued embrace of bots and personal assistants for retail, adoption and competition around in-house assistants like Amazon Echo, along with frequent, sometimes weekly, breakthroughs on the academic side, mainly relating to machine learning. With the biggest tech companies in the world–Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others–devoting more and more resources to AI, the momentum is going to increase.
Continue reading… “9 Predictions for AI in 2017”
Imagine that you could have superhero vision, seeing in not only what we know as the visible spectrum, but using wavelengths that allow you to see through fog, and detect black ice. Or imagine a Star Trek-like medical tricorder that could take a tiny bit of body fluid and determine what was ailing you.
BMW unveiled a concept for the interior of driverless cars on Wednesday at a press conference in Las Vegas at CES. The concept, dubbed the BMWi Inside Future, showcases how BMW envisions its autonomous vehicles may look when they start to hit the market. The interior concept is centered on connectivity and includes a panoramic display that can be operated just like a touchscreen — except physical contact isn’t necessary.
Continue reading… “BMW unveils futuristic concept for the interior of its driverless cars”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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