Impact Lab – Page 352 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Robotics

Mexico is one of the latest countries to join the space industry, with an ambitious project. Together with Airbus, the Mexican Space Agency (AEM) and local startup Dereum Labs are launching a groundbreaking Mexican In-Situ Resources Utilization (ISRU) Program for lunar extraction. 7 photos

“In a few years, the industries that today are not related to space will be doing business on the Moon, Mars and beyond” said the CEO of Dereum Labs, Carlos Mariscal. In order to get there, we must be able to sustain long-term living on the moon. If other new projects focus on developing “gas stations” in space, this innovative Mexican initiative takes thing even further.

What if we could obtain resources such as oxygen, water and fuel right there, on the moon, instead of having to transport them from the Earth? Through advanced technologies, they could be extracted from the moon’s surface layer, known as regolith. The demonstration concept of this new program is an end-to-end process that goes from regolith identification, to extraction of resources.

Robots

PizzaHQ’s Founders Are Building a Robot-Powered Pizza Chain of the Future

October 7, 2021

by Michael Wolf

Darryl Dueltgen and Jason Udrija had a choice: Expand their successful New Jersey pizza restaurant brand called Pizza Love, or start a tech-powered pizza concept that could change the pizza industry.

They decided to start a revolution.

“We’ve put a lot of time into building a labor-reduced, tech-driven concept that we believe will revolutionize the pizza industry,” said Udrija, who cofounded PizzaHQ alongside partners Dueltgen and Matt Bassil.

According to Udrija, PizzaHQ will utilize robotics and other technology to create a more affordable pizza (“almost a 50% lower price point”) while using the same recipe and high-quality ingredients of the pies made at their dine-in restaurant.

“Our POS will directly inject the customer order into the Picnic system,” said Udrija. “The Picnic conveyer feeds straight into our ovens and then gets cut and boxed before pick up for delivery.”

Once the pizza is boxed, it’s loaded into delivery vans and distributed to heated pickup lockers around Totowa, New Jersey, a borough about thirty minutes north of Newark. Customers will be able to track their delivery and will scan a QR code to pick up the pizza waiting for them in a locker. Third party delivery partners like UberEats will also be able to pick up orders from the pickup lockers and deliver to customers.

Blockchain

Blockchain will transform government services, and that’s just the beginning

October 6, 2021

Governments will not only use blockchain for fundamental services such as identity and voting but as a framework for economic growth.

Governments are tasked with bringing fair and efficient services to the public. Unfortunately, providing transparency and accountability often results in a reduction in efficiency and effectiveness or vice versa. Governments are usually forced to choose to improve one at the cost of the other. On rare occasions, technology comes along that enables governments to improve fairness and efficiency.

The move from paper-based record keeping to computer databases was one such technology. The internet was another. Blockchain is the next. Like the internet before it, blockchain will not only improve how the public interacts with government services, it will have broad economic and social implications.

Google

Google Launches Voice Payment for Gas and Reveals Honda Integration Deal in Flurry of Upgrades

October 6, 2021

By ERIC HAL SCHWARTZ

Drivers using Android Auto can ask Google Assistant to pay for the fuel at tens of thousands of gas stations around the United States. The voice payment option is one of a swath of new features and updates to Google’s vehicular AI. The upgrades came with the news that Honda will build Google into its cars starting in 2022 as part of a new partnership.

Healthcare

Wireless E-Tattoo for Pneumonia Aims to Transform Patient Monitoring

October 6, 2021

Pneumonia has emerged as a life-threatening complication of COVID-19, accounting for nearly half of all patients who have died from the novel coronavirus in the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic. Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, pneumonia was responsible for more than 43,000 deaths in 2019.

Monitoring pneumonia remains a challenge because it manifests itself differently in almost every patient and can develop in any patient infected by coronavirus. The Georgia Institute of Technology is part of a team of engineers, data scientists, and medical clinicians led by the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin that has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation’s ASCENT program. The purpose of this project is to develop a wearable device for patients with pneumonia, allowing medical personnel to track their progress remotely and use data to predict how their condition may change.

This project combines state-of-the-art technology across wearable devices, integrated circuits and machine learning. And the larger goal is to develop ways to safely monitor patients remotely and maintain high-quality care, wherever they are.

City Planning

Could Utopian Telosa Be the Future of Cities?

October 5, 2021

by Laura Agadoni

Real estate has long been the go-to investment for those looking to build long-term wealth for generations.

If you find yourself imagining what it would be like to build a city, you might play SimCity or other video games like it. But if you’re a billionaire, you don’t have to just pretend; you could actually do it.

In fact, the new thing for the modern-day titans of industry seems to be city planning — Bill Gates plans to build a 24,000-acre smart city in a remote part of Arizona, and Jeffrey Berns, a cryptocurrency millionaire, is planning a city on 67,000 acres in the Nevada desert.

The latest announcement comes from billionaire Marc Lore, former Walmart CEO and creator of Jet.com, (the sale of which made him a billionaire). Lore is planning a city of his own, likely in another desert locale, or in Lore’s words, a place “where the land [is] worth nothing, or very little.”

Besides building a futuristic city, Lore’s other plans to keep him busy after his Walmart retirement include advising start-ups and working on a reality TV show.

Robots

Remote assessment of health by robots from anywhere in the world

October 5, 2021

by University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Intelligent sensing and tele-presence robotic technology, enabling health practitioners to remotely assess a person’s physical and cognitive health from anywhere in the world, is being pioneered in research co-led at the University of Strathclyde.

The technology could aid cost-effective diagnosis, more regular monitoring and health assessments alongside assistance, especially for people living with conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive impairments.

The system was demonstrated for the first time to the UK Government Minister, Iain Stewart during a visit to the construction site of the National Robotarium, hosted at Heriot-Watt University, which is co-leading the research with Strathclyde.

Dr. Mario Parra Rodriguez, a senior lecturer in Strathclyde’s School of Psychological Sciences & Health, said: “The experience of inhabiting a distant robot through which I can remotely guide, assess, and support vulnerable adults affected by devastating conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, grants me confidence that challenges we are currently experiencing to mitigate the impact of such diseases will soon be overcome through revolutionary technologies.”

Agriculture

Shanghai’s unmanned farm pilot starts harvest

October 5, 2021

Xinhua

A variety of unmanned vehicles, instead of farmers, are busy harvesting rice ears in a field in the outskirts of Shanghai.

This 300 mu (20 hectares) rice field in Waigang Township, Jiading District, is Shanghai’s first unmanned farm pilot.

Agricultural vehicles equipped with China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) shuttle between a warehouse and the field, automatically avoiding obstacles in their way to carry out harvesting.

Shanghai piloted the farm in 2020 using unmanned agricultural machinery for plowing, sowing, field management and harvesting.

Space Flight

Humans Could Reach Mars In One Month In This 200,000 Kmph Nuclear Rocket

October 5, 2021

Ad Astra Rocket Company

By Bharat Sharma

Every journey in space is extremely dangerous. Longer journeys have higher scope of mechanical failures and encountering other space hazardsThe pilot step towards minimising risks to human lives is by minimising the travel time and that’s exactly what this company is trying to doCalled “Ad Astra Rocket Company”, this Costra Rica-based rocket maker completed a record 88-hour long test of its Vasimr VX-200SS plasma rocket. Conducted at a facility near Houston in Texas, the test set a world record in terms of high-power endurance in

Planning to move to Mars when it’s feasible? Worry not, a rocket company is currently testing nuclear rockets that will cut down travel time to Mars to just one month. Current rockets take about seven months to reach Mars after covering 480 million kilometres (300 million

miles).

Cancer

Cancer Treatment: New Software Uses Artificial Intelligence to Grow, Treat Virtual Tumors

October 5, 2021

Image from scanning electron microscope, which shows selenium nanoparticles, ejected during femtosecond laser ablation of bulk selenium target in distilled water. This image captured the melted “tails” of nanoparticles, which emerge during their ejection from the bulk target.

EVONANO, a multidisciplinary project, brings together experts in artificial intelligence, computer science, microfluidics, modeling, and medicine to offer a novel method for cancer treatment research. The new software enables scientists to grow virtual tumors and use artificial intelligence (AI) to design nanoparticles to treat them.

According to Phys.org, growing and treating virtual tumors has become an essential step in developing new therapies for cancer as it allows scientists to optimize the design of nanoparticle-based drugs before testing them in the laboratory and on the patients.

Nanotechnology

Scientists Developing Versatile ‘Nano Couriers’ for Future Medicine

October 5, 2021

Scientists from the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (NRNU MEPhI), as part of an international team, have created a nanoprobe for pinpoint drug delivery to affected body tissues.

According to the researchers, this development aims to create a universal means of targeted drug delivery for the effective treatment of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and several other pathologies. The research paper was published in the journal Nanomaterials. Targeted drug delivery to specific tissues and cells is one of the most pressing areas in the treatment of focal diseases, including heart and vascular pathologies, cancer, tuberculosis, both types of diabetes, and other maladies, said the MEPhI scientists.

This approach can be implemented through the use of nanoprobes, special structures capable of carrying a drug and special molecules to “target” the pathology centre. Each probe has to be compact, around tens of nanometres in size, with strictly defined physicochemical properties and as little toxicity as possible.

Space Flight

Futuristic Solar Electric Thrusters Makes NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Go

October 3, 2021

Futuristic electric thrusters emitting a cool blue glow will guide the Psyche spacecraft through deep space to a metal-rich asteroid.

By JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory work to integrate Hall thrusters into the agency’s Psyche spacecraft in July 2021. One of the thrusters is visible on the side of the spacecraft underneath a red protective cover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When it comes time for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft to power itself through deep space, it’ll be more brain than brawn that does the work. Once the stuff of science fiction, the efficient and quiet power of electric propulsion will provide the force that propels the Psyche spacecraft all the way to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The orbiter’s target: a metal-rich asteroid also called Psyche.

The spacecraft will launch in August 2022 and travel about 1.5 billion miles (2.4 billion kilometers) over three and a half years to get to the asteroid, which scientists believe may be part of the core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early rocky planet. Once in orbit, the mission team will use the payload of science instruments to investigate what this unique target can reveal about the formation of rocky planets like Earth.