Impact Lab – Page 351 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Robots

This year, as hurricanes race into the warming coastal waters of the U.S., an array of seagoing robots will be waiting for them.

The torpedo-shaped machines will be positioned in what amounts to no man’s land, places where no ships or humans might survive and where space satellites can’t gauge the potency of storm action.

But for the stubby-winged and narwhal-horned “Slocum ocean glider,” this is the world it was made for.

The mini-armada is one way scientists are trying to better understand how the howling storms are changing as warming oceans amplify their intensity and extend their inland reach.

The robots’ work appears as blips of new data on computer screens, put there by a growing navy of autonomous vehicles waiting for hurricanes in the choppy water, or cruising just beneath it.

“We have gliders that have gone through two or three hurricanes already,” explained Gustavo Goni, a lead scientist at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, which is run by NOAA.

Electric Vehicles

An e-Bus Starts Testing World’s First Wireless Electric Road, in Breakthrough Project

October 29, 2021

by Otilia Drăgan

After the 80-ton electric truck that was tested on 0.9 miles (1.4 km) of the ElectReon electrified roadway, a fully-electric bus was successfully launched as part of the groundbreaking SmartRoad Gotland Project. 8 photos

Several countries are promoting a carbon-neutral future by supporting electric vehicles, but Sweden, which is always one step ahead when it comes to innovations, is taking things even further, by introducing electric highways. It plans to have 1,240 miles (2,000 km) of electric highways by 2030, and become emissions-free by 2045.

To achieve these goals, the Swedish Transport Administration is funding four electric road demonstration projects implemented by several partners, in Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Israel. ElectrReon plays a leading part, as the provider of the in-road wireless EV charging technology.

SmartRoad Gotland is the world’s first wireless electric inter-city road system, designed to be tested by an electric heavy-duty truck and an electric bus. The project’s electric road is 0,9-mile (1.4 km) long, located on the route between the airport and the center of Visby, on Gotland island, in Sweden.

Science & Technology News, Wearables

Sentons launches smaller sensors that can turn any surface into virtual controls

October 28, 2021

Sentons has launched a new low-power and small sensor with an accompanying gesture engine to be used in wearables (including glasses, earbuds, watches, and fitness trackers) to create virtual controls to navigate apps and features on the devices themselves.

The SDSwave processor (model SNT8255) and gesture engine unlock a customizable, ergonomic user experience, while eliminating UX design restrictions that come from the limited real estate and tiny surfaces found on the displays of wearables. As an example, it can embed a force sensor in wireless earbuds.

“Wearable makers haven’t been able to deliver streamlined, sleek wearable devices with natural user interfaces because of the constraints that come with limited space,” Sentons CEO Jess Lee. “Moreover, traditional touch technologies not only respond to touch but also to water, making them impractical for use on wearables that are often outdoors and exposed to the elements. We’re excited to finally bring a solution to market that allows device designers to make use of even the tiniest surface to make it touch and force interactive. This outdoor and water-immune interactivity unlocks new user experiences and capabilities for wearables, something the industry has never seen before.”

drones

Wing to launch store-based drone delivery in Dallas-Fort Worth

October 28, 2021

By Bruce Crumley

Leading global drone delivery company Wing is undertaking more innovation of its operational model by introducing store-prepared orders in new service to the Dallas-Fort Worth area – its biggest urban market to date.

Owned by Google holding company Alphabet, Wing is launching its new, retail-based drone delivery method as ideally adapted to serving the dense population cities it hopes to expand to in the US and around the world. The first version of that will operate in the Frisco and Little Elm areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, using a container-housed command center located at Walgreens store Wing is partnering with. Serving as an operational mini-hangar, the unit can be brought to virtually any business wanting to fly goods to waiting customers, and house the Wing drones, pilots, and navigation equipment to provide that transportation.

The new model will involve designated Walgreen employees processing client orders and load those packages onto the delivery drones. Once the payload box holding goods is secured, Wing pilots take over, flying the drones to client addresses for delivery. The system is designed to allow expanded operation and UAV take off and landing from adjacent parking lots, surrounding open spaces, or even from rooftops.

Energy, Science & Technology News

Autonomous Flying Wind Turbines Can Generate Energy at Nearly Half the Cost

October 29, 2021

Kitekraft’s flying turbine during flight tests.

By Chris Young

Sustainable energy is taking flight.

German startup Kitekraft is developing flying wind turbines that require 10 times less materials to develop than traditional wind turbines. The company just announced successful flight tests, which it describes as a “major milestone towards our first 100kW product.”

On its website, Kitekraft explains that the reduced requirement for materials for its flying turbine — which uses a tether instead of a huge tower — means it can reduce the costs of its energy to almost half of that produced by traditional wind farms at megawatt scale. Its carbon footprint is also lower than that of standard wind turbines, the company says, partially due to the fact that large wind turbine towers are typically transported by road.

Education

Futurati Podcast Ep 57: Victoria Ransom on entrepreneurship and the future of education.

October 29, 2021

By Thomas Frey and Trent Fowler

Watch on Youtube

Listen on the Futurati Podcast website

Victoria is a powerhouse serial entrepreneur who sold a growing company to Google in 2012, then spent the next few years thinking about how to have a large, positive impact on the world.

Around this time she was considering how she wanted to educate her children, so she was also spending a lot of energy researching different models for education and issues with existing approaches.

She wanted something holistic, in which a child is a key partner in the exciting process of learning, and was taught skills like communication along with the standard mathematics, science, and the like.

Though there were schools that offered what most of what she was looking for, they all had the same issue: they couldn’t scale.
This is the problem she and her husband set out to solve.

Stem cells

Building Stronger Anti-Cancer Therapies With Stem Cells

October 27, 2021

Cancer therapies have seen great development over the decades. Radiotherapies and chemotherapies have saved countless lives, but the latest arsenal, adoptive cell therapies (ACT), has stirred most excitement. In ACT, cells are processed to enhance their anti-cancer immune effects and injected into the patient. A new study by CiRA Professor Shin Kaneko and colleagues shows how iPS cell technology can produce some of the most potent anti-cancer immune cells for ACT yet.

T cells are the primary cells used in ACT, as they are the immune cells in the body most capable of killing cancer. However, current strategies using T cells have several, limiting the number of patients who can benefit from ACT. The Kaneko lab is exploring iPS cell technology as a solution.

“We have to process the T cells before injecting them into the patient. This processing affects the quality. If we first process the cells as iPS cells and then differentiate them into T cells, we can avoid many of these problems,” he said.

Augmented Reality

This smart white cane works like a self-driving car

October 27, 2021

By Stanford University

A new, affordable smart cane guides people with visual impairments safely and efficiently through their environments, say researchers.

Most know the white cane as a simple but crucial tool that assists people with visual impairments in making their way through the world.

Using tools from autonomous vehicles, the research team built the augmented cane, which helps people detect and identify obstacles, move easily around those objects, and follow routes both indoors and out.

The augmented cane is not the first smart cane.

Research sensor canes can be heavy and expensive—weighing up to 50 pounds with a cost of around $6,000. Currently available sensor canes are technologically limited, only detecting objects right in front of the user.

The new cane sports cutting-edge sensors, weighs only three pounds, can be built at home from off-the-shelf parts, and free, open-source software, and costs $400.

Alternative Transportation

Israeli startup AIR unveils flying vehicle to be used ‘like cars’

October 27, 2021

A rendition of the AIR ONE, a two-seater electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle

By Nick Carey

LONDON (Reuters) – Israeli startup AIR on Tuesday unveiled its first “easy-to-operate” electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it aims to sell directly to consumers predominantly in the United States starting in 2024.

AIR has been working with the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) for two years and expects to obtain certification by the end of 2023 for the AIR ONE, a two-seater, 970 kg (2,138 lb) eVTOL, which will have a flight range of 110 miles (177 km), Chief Executive Rani Plaut told Reuters.

AIR raised seed funding of under $10 million last year and has been running unmanned tests of its vehicle. It is building prototype models and expects to sell its eVTOLs for around the same price as an expensive car, Plaut said, without providing more precise details.

An increasing number of investors and aviation companies have piled into the hot but yet-to-be-approved urban air mobility space and the number of eVTOL startups has proliferated.

Space Flight

A 3D-printed Rocket is Heading to Space in 2022, May Help Humans in Their Quest to Mars

October 27, 2021

Once its 3D printing technology is perfected, the startup intends to make it available for the bases and colonies that could one day be established on the planet Mars. (Credits: Relativity Space©, Relativity Space Terran 1 Terran R)

The 3D printing platform can print metal parts up to three meters in diameter and seven meters high. The 3D printer in question is equipped with an impressive robotic arm capable of printing these huge parts in a few days.

In a major first, American startup Relativity Space is working on two different models of entirely 3D-printed rockets! Currently in the testing phase, Terran 1 is scheduled to be launched into space in early 2022. Relativity Space’s ambition is to set up a fast and autonomous 3D production system that could one day even help humans in their missions on Mars. Faced with tough, established competitors such as SpaceX (a NASA partner) and Blue Origin, Relativity Space plans to set itself apart with its ability to build fully 3D-printed modules. The startup is betting on a radically simplified production chain, capable of building a rocket with 100 times fewer parts than the competition, and in just 60 days.

Space

NASA is trying to build a Wi-Fi network on the Moon!

October 27, 2021

By Kaitlyn Kubrick

In addition to the Artemis project, which NASA introduced last year, it will shed light on today’s problems with the Wi-Fi it will create on the Moon.

The Artemis program, introduced by NASAlast year, aims to land a human on the Moonfor the first time since 1972. Another detail about this exciting operation has emerged. According to the study, which we have just learned to be developed, NASA aims to fluctuate Wi-Fi signals on the Moon for many purposes.

AI

AI quickly identifies genetic causes of disease in newborns

October 25, 2021

By Julie Kiefer
An artificial intelligence-based technology rapidly diagnoses rare disorders in critically ill children with high accuracy, according to a report by scientists from University of Utah Health and Fabric Genomics, collaborators on a study led by Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. The benchmark finding, published in Genomic Medicine, foreshadows the next phase of medicine, where technology helps clinicians quickly determine the root cause of disease so they can give patients the right treatment sooner.

“This study is an exciting milestone demonstrating how rapid insights from AI-powered decision support technologies have the potential to significantly improve patient care,” says Mark Yandell, co-corresponding author on the paper. Yandell is a professor of human genetics and Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair at U of U Health, and a founding scientific advisor to Fabric Genomics.

Worldwide, about 7 million infants are born with serious genetic disorders each year. For these children, life usually begins in intensive care. A handful of NICUs in the U.S., including at U of U Health,are now searching for genetic causes of disease by reading, or sequencing, the 3 billion DNA letters that make up the human genome. While it takes hours to sequence the whole genome, it can take days or weeks of computational and manual analysis to diagnose the illness.

For some infants, that is not fast enough, Yandell says. Understanding the cause of the newborn’s illness is critical for effective treatment. Arriving at a diagnosis within the first 24 to 48 hours after birth gives these patients the best chance to improve their condition. Knowing that speed and accuracy are essential, Yandell’s group worked with Fabric to develop the new Fabric GEM algorithm, which incorporates AI to find DNA errors that lead to disease.