Home Technology – Page 4

Bill Gates, Ecological Products, Home Technology

How Bill Gates aims to save $233 billion by reinventing the toilet

November 14, 2018

Gates Foundation spent $200 million funding toilet research

LIXIL is among companies drawn to potential $6 billion market

Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he’s betting big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a half million lives and deliver $200 billion-plus in savings.

The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent $200 million over seven years funding sanitation research, showcased some 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertilizer.

Continue reading… “How Bill Gates aims to save $233 billion by reinventing the toilet”

Energy, Home Technology, Housing, Solar Energy, Solar Power

The future of construction may be concrete that generates its own electricity

November 8, 2018

We need buildings in which to live, but crafting those buildings is making it harder to live on this planet. As much as 10% of global carbon emissions come from the production of concrete. One ton of CO2 is generated by making one ton of cement, which is made from limestone and a few other things heated to an extremely high temperature.

But what if concrete could generate its own energy? The era of photovoltaic concrete may be getting closer. Photovoltaics, which work by converting light to energy via semiconducting, are starting to migrate from solar panels into the building materials themselves.

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Culture, Healthcare, Home Technology, Robots

Culturally sensitive robots are here to care for the elderly

October 2, 2018

Humans are living longer, healthier lives. That’s great, but there’s a downside — the growing elderly population requires an entire industry of (expensive) caregivers, and we’ll likely need even more of them in the future.

Care robots might be able to do some of that work. Researchers suspect robots could help elderly people with everything from staying active to remembering their medications. Now researchers in Europe and Japan are working to make sure those robots don’t offend the people they’re supposed to take care of — they’re making what they say are the world’s first robots with a sense of cultural norms.

Continue reading… “Culturally sensitive robots are here to care for the elderly”

3D Printer, Automation, cutting edge, Home Technology

Research team develops the world’s first-ever 4-D printing for ceramics

September 2, 2018

A research team at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has achieved a groundbreaking advancement in materials research by successfully developing the world’s first 4-D printing for ceramics, which are mechanically robust and can have complex shapes. This could turn a new page in the structural application of ceramics.

Ceramic has a high melting point, so it is difficult to use conventional laser printing to make ceramics. The existing 3-D-printed ceramic precursors, which are usually difficult to deform, also hinder the production of ceramics with complex shapes. To overcome these challenges, the CityU team has developed a novel “ceramic ink,” which is a mixture of polymers and ceramic nanoparticles. The 3-D-printed ceramic precursors printed with this novel ink are soft and can be stretched three times beyond their initial length. These flexible and stretchable ceramic precursors allow complex shapes, such as origami folding. With proper heat treatment, ceramics with complex shapes can be made.

Continue reading… “Research team develops the world’s first-ever 4-D printing for ceramics”

3D Printer, Big Problems, Engineering, Green Friendly, Home Technology

Can 3D printed homes solve the urban housing crisis?

July 4, 2018

Building houses is massively wasteful. During the construction process, building projects accumulate giant piles of garbage from off-cuts of lumber and drywall to pallets that carry materials and the packaging they come in. And once operating, homes consume huge amounts of energy.

“It turns out if you triage the world and you ask where are all these ecological health issues coming from, you get a surprising answer,” Jason Ballard, co-founder and president of ICON, says. “It’s not the gas guzzling SUVs and private jets; it’s buildings, especially homes. They are the number one consumer of energy by sector and the number two user of water.”

Continue reading… “Can 3D printed homes solve the urban housing crisis?”

Great New Product, Home Technology, Wearables

Bose’s new $250 Sleepbuds play soothing sounds instead of music

June 22, 2018

Is quality sleep worth that much cash?

After a couple years of development and early prototype testing through an Indiegogo campaign, Bose is commercially releasing its noise-masking Sleepbuds. They go on sale tomorrow, June 21st, for $250 from Amazon, Best Buy, Bose, and other retailers. The Sleepbuds are truly wireless earbuds designed to stay in your ears overnight. As you go to sleep, they play audio tracks that drown out typical evening disturbances like street noise, loud neighbors, or a snoring partner.

They don’t play music or any other audio from external devices. Period. So forget about streaming Spotify, audiobooks, or podcasts. Nor do the Sleepbuds utilize Bose’s incredible noise-cancelation tech that’s the magic ingredient in products like the popular QuietComfort headphones.

Continue reading… “Bose’s new $250 Sleepbuds play soothing sounds instead of music”

Amazon.com, Analysis, Automation, Home Technology, Wearables

Smart speakers are becoming so popular, more people will use them than wearable tech products this year

June 3, 2018

Smart speaker users will reach 76.5 million by 2020, according to the latest eMarketer forecast.

The average smart speaker user is still an older, millennial male, but the devices are gaining traction with younger, Gen X women with kids.

Amazon Echo is the most popular, but is losing share. Google Home will likely slow Echo’s growth.

Smart speaker adoption has been so strong, US adult users will surpass wearable users this year.

Continue reading… “Smart speakers are becoming so popular, more people will use them than wearable tech products this year”

Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Home Technology, Latest Trend

The Cult of Peloton: Reinventing the Fitness Industry, and Becoming a Microcultural Phenomenon

June 1, 2018

High-tech cycling platform creates a connected community.

At Peloton, Robin Arzon, vp, fitness programming, says classes are known as ‘shows’ and instructors as ‘talent.’

Until a month ago, I had never taken a spin class. While friends and colleagues made regular pilgrimages to boutique fitness studios like SoulCycle or Flywheel, the allure of sweating buckets and feverishly cycling en masse to the beat of Beyoncé as an all-too enthusiastic instructor shouts encouragement about “feeling the burn, baby!” eluded me.

Mostly, I prefer to exercise alone.

Continue reading… “The Cult of Peloton: Reinventing the Fitness Industry, and Becoming a Microcultural Phenomenon”

Amazon.com, App, Automation, Home Technology

Amazon rolls out new ways to monetize Alexa’s skills

May 13, 2018

All Alexa skills developers can now monetize their voice apps with in-skill purchases, Amazon announced last week.

The introduction of in-skill purchasing allows skills developers to sell premium digital content — such as subscription services or one-time purchases that augment a skill’s free offerings — within an Alexa skill.

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Amazon.com, China, Google, Home Technology, Science & Technology News

SoundHound has raised a big $100M round to take on Alexa and Google Assistant

May 8, 2018

As SoundHound looks to leverage its ten-plus years of experience and data to create a voice recognition tool that companies can bake into any platform, it’s raising another big $100 million round of funding to try to make its Houndify platform a third neutral option compared to Alexa and Google Assistant.

While Amazon works to get developers to adopt Alexa, SoundHound has been collecting data since it started as an early mobile app for the iPhone and Android devices. That’s given it more than a decade of data to work with as it tries to build a robust audio recognition engine and tie it into a system with dozens of different queries and options that it can tie to those sounds. The result was always a better SoundHound app, but it’s increasingly started to try to open up that technology to developers and show it’s more powerful (and accurate) than the rest of the voice assistants on the market — and get them to use it in their services.

Continue reading… “SoundHound has raised a big $100M round to take on Alexa and Google Assistant”

Amazon.com, Analysis, App, Automation, Home Technology

Anyone can now create Alexa skills in a matter of minutes

April 21, 2018

Amazon on Thursday unveiled “Alexa Skill Blueprints,” code-free templates that any Alexa owner, regardless of experience level, can use to create customized Alexa skills in a matter of minutes.

Amazon included over 20 templates across four categories — Fun & Games, At Home, Storyteller, and Learning & Knowledge — with plans to add more.

Continue reading… “Anyone can now create Alexa skills in a matter of minutes”

Amazon.com, Automation, Home Technology, Internet

Alexa Is a Revelation for the Blind

April 21, 2018

Legally blind since age 18, my father missed out on the first digital revolution.

“Is it ‘Electra?’” my father asks, leaning in close to the Amazon Echo my mother has just installed. Leaning in close is his trademark maneuver: Dad has been legally blind since age 18, the result of a horrible car crash in 1954. He has lived, mostly successfully, with limited vision for the 64 years since.

Continue reading… “Alexa Is a Revelation for the Blind”