Futurist Thomas Frey: Let’s first start off with a different question. “Who controls the bread supply in London?”
This was the opening question that Jonas Eliasson started with in his TED talk titled “How to solve traffic jams.”
WNBA referees debut live high-definition ‘Ref Cam’
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_rVJ4pHcKY[/youtube]
Wearing a cloud computer like Google Glass on your face can be important for capturing moments in life from a first-person perspective. Now the WNBA, the female division of the National Basketball Association (NBA), has decided to deploy its own version first-person camera to referees for live games.
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Visions of the future of flying at the TEDGlobal conference
The concept plane designed by Airbus.
Although, it may not seem like the best way to fly, an aircraft with a lace-like structure is one of a range of radical ideas about how we may travel in the future.
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Scientists discover new human body part
Dua’s layer, a new layer of the human cornea.
A new discovery to the human anatomy is just 15 microns thick, but it will make eye surgery safer and simpler. Harminder Dua, a professor at the University of Nottingham, recently found a new layer in the human cornea, and he’s calling it Dua’s layer.
The astounding athletic power of quadcopters: Raffaello D’Andrea
Raffaello D’Andrea, in a robot lab at TEDGlobal, demos his flying quadcopters: robots that think like athletes, solving physical problems with algorithms that help them learn. In a series of nifty demos, D’Andrea show drones that play catch, balance and make decisions together — and watch out for an I-want-this-now demo of Kinect-controlled quads.
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95% of people don’t wash their hands correctly: Study
Handwashing is the most effective thing one can do to reduce the spread of infectious disease.
When consulting the CDC’s official guide to handwashing you might be surprised to learn that they don’t distinguish between using warm or cold water.They say what is important is that you use soap, that you scrub well (including the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails) for at least 20 seconds, and that you dry your hands afterwards. The CDC also officially recommends humming the “Happy Birthday” song twice through for an accurate measure of time.
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Why thinking about buying something makes us happier than buying it
Buying objects rather than experiences tends to disappoint.
Over and over again, the idea that you can’t buy happiness has been exposed as a myth. Richer countries are happier than poor countries. Richer people within richer countries are happier, too. The evidence is unequivocal: Money makes you happy. You just have to know what to do with it.
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Silk Pavillion: ‘3D printed’ structures created from silkworms
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/67177328[/vimeo]
We think of 3-D printers as desktop machines. But Silk Pavillion, a new, stunning piece of architecture by the Mediated Matter Group at MIT Media Lab brings all of those assumptions into question.
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Going to college is worth it even if you drop out
For people who graduate with a bachelor’s degree, higher education is overwhelmingly a smart investment. But what about students who drop out? As it turns out, less than 60 percent of Americans actually complete a B.A. within six years of starting. Do they reap a benefit?
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The RoboRoach: Control a living cockroach with your smartphone
RoboRoach
The minds behind Backyard Brains, a neurological education and outreach company, are bringing the first commercially available cyborgs to the general public. They landed on Kickstarter Monday, and they’re wooing support from Internet backers worldwide. (Videos)
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How new technology is destroying jobs
Baxter is a robot meant to work with people in small manufacturing facilities.
Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.
How will stoned drivers be regulated by police?
If a blood screen detects five or more nanograms of THC er milliliter of blood in a person’s bloodstream, that individual is considered legally under the influence of drugs.
Late last year Colorado and Washington state each passed ballot measures legalizing marijuana for recreational use. While one legal challenge was resolved another was just beginning. Before, marijuana was simply prohibited. Now it has to be regulated. With their new legal standards for possession and use, Colorado and Washington now have to draw hard lines on a rather hazy landscape, creating legal standards not just for for taxation and licensing, but also some far more nebulous questions, like how much marijuana is reasonable for a single person to possess, and even what constitutes legal intoxication. Meanwhile, forty-eight other states are watching closely to see exactly how they do it.
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