Impact Lab – Page 361 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

This Hybrid Boat-plane Could Transform the Way We Travel Between Major Coastal Cities

September 12, 2021

The vehicle could take you from New York to Boston in as little as two hours.

As lawmakers take steps toward improving the infrastructure of roads and railways across the U.S., Regent, a Boston-based startup, has set its eyes on another target: the sea.

According to CNN Travel, the company hopes to turn sea lanes along the east and west coasts into high-speed transportation corridors, cutting commutes in half between some of the biggest and busiest metropolises in the U.S. Still in its early stages, Regent already has the backing of some of Silicon Valley’s biggest investors who have pledged to help fund the endeavor.

Imagine skipping long lines at the airport or avoiding gridlock on the highway and still making the journey between New York and Boston in two hours. Or, consider decreasing the usually two-hour trip between Los Angeles and San Diego to just 50 minutes. Regent’s seagliders could make that possible.

NASA

NASA is testing electric air taxis with Joby Aviation

September 12, 2021

The first eVTOL company to join the space agency’s national campaign to validate new technology

By Andrew J. Hawkins

NASA kicked off test flights of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft — colloquially referred to as “flying cars” — with Joby Aviation, the Northern California company that recently went public. The test flights are part of a national campaign by NASA to observe these experimental aircraft in action and gather data.

Joby, which was founded in 2009, is the first eVTOL company to participate in NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign. The test flights commenced Monday, August 30th, at the company’s airfield in Big Sur, California, and will run through September 10th, the agency said.

Agriculture

This farming robot zaps weeds with precision lasers

September 12, 2021

A new robot from Carbon Robotics can kill 100,000 weeds in an hour while keeping a farm organic.

Earlier this year, on a farm in southern New Mexico, a new kind of worker spent each day traveling slowly up and down the rows and rows of crops. On board, its 12 high-res cameras pointed at the ground, sending data to an artificial intelligence system that can nearly instantly identify plants. When the system detects a weed, a laser flashes, killing it.

“I think this will be the biggest revolution in weed killers in agriculture,” says James Johnson, the fourth-generation farmer who runs the farm that tested the robot and has two production models on order for delivery this fall. The tech is now poised to expand thanks to a startup called Carbon Robotics, which announced today that it has secured a $27 million Series B financing round.

AI

Researchers Pioneer Optical Technology That Can Slash the Energy Required by AI

September 12, 2021

Aug. 30, 2021 — Optical technology is used for transmitting, storing, displaying and identifying data. It provides the processing speed that data centers need by offering efficient means for communication and analysis operations. The technology comes at a time when the massive scale of today’s datasets is straining the capacity of digital and electronic computers to compile them and extract key information. The research community has a strong interest in optical-based information processing for performing the high-speed calculations necessary in machine learning tasks.

“Light transmits information without any physical interference from cables. That’s the core advantage of optical technology when it comes to transferring data,” says Demetri Psaltis, head of EPFL’s Optics Laboratory within the School of Engineering. “To take artificial intelligence as an example, many AI programs require accelerators to carry out rapid calculations using minimal power. For now, while optical technology could theoretically meet that need, it has not yet reached the applied stage – despite a half-century of research. That’s because optical computing and decision-making do not yet save either time or energy.”

City Planning

NEOM is on track to be the world’s first “sustainable” city. Here’s what we know.

September 11, 2021

By Tim Wenger

For followers of tech blogs, sustainable design, and futuristic thinking, the term “NEOM” and “The Line” are by now familiar. Outside those circles, NEOM is not yet a household name. The term signifies a new, futuristic plan for a city, built to the highest standards of sustainability and convenience. It’s forward-thinking, controversial, and in the broad history of cities, is far beyond the scope of anything that has been done before.

NEOM, an acronym for “new future,” is garnering increased publicity due to its concept as the ultimate “smart city.” But if you’re like most of us, even if you’ve heard the term, you may not fully grasp what NEOM is all about. Let’s cover the basics of what NEOM is, where NEOM is, and when NEOM will be complete.

drones

Drone Highways In The Sky Could Be On The Horizon

September 11, 2021

Set in 2062, “The Jetsons'” whimsical world of flying cars and robot housekeepers captivated young viewers with a high-tech future. But Hanna-Barbera got it wrong: At least part of that future may be four decades early.

No longer the stuff of science fiction, highways in the sky are a very real proposition. Already, four states have test-run legislation that restricts drones to aerial corridors. Drone companies, states, and the Federal Aviation Administration are working to regulate the national airspace, and many industry advocacy groups, regulators, and operators see a drone “highway” model as the way forward. But they face a sizable and vocal opposition.

“I think people still think of drones as that Jetsonian future and don’t understand how close we are to really scaling them,” Casie Ocaña, marketing director for drone infrastructure company Airspace Link, told Modern Shipper.

AI

Google’s New AI Photo Upscaling Tech is Jaw-Dropping

September 11, 2021

Photo enhancing in movies and TV shows is often ridiculed for being unbelievable, but research in real photo enhancing is actually creeping more and more into the realm of science fiction. Just take a look at Google’s latest AI photo upscaling tech.

In a post titled “High Fidelity Image Generation Using Diffusion Models” published on the Google AI Blog (and spotted by DPR), Google researchers in the company’s Brain Team share about new breakthroughs they’ve made in image super-resolution.

In image super-resolution, a machine learning model is trained to turn a low-res photo into a detailed high-res photo, and potential applications of this range from restoring old family photos to improving medical imaging.

Medical Breakthrough

New gene therapies may soon treat dozens of rare diseases, but million-dollar price tags will put them out of reach for many

September 10, 2021

Zolgensma – which treats spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disease that damages nerve cells, leading to muscle decay – is currently the most expensive drug in the world. A one-time treatment of the life-saving drug for a young child costs US$2.1 million.

While Zolgensma’s exorbitant price is an outlier today, by the end of the decade there’ll be dozens of cell and gene therapies, costing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for a single dose. The Food and Drug Administration predicts that by 2025 it will be approving 10 to 20 cell and gene therapies every year.

I’m a biotechnology and policy expert focused on improving access to cell and gene therapies. While these forthcoming treatments have the potential to save many lives and ease much suffering, health care systems around the world aren’t equipped to handle them. Creative new payment systems will be necessary to ensure everyone has equal access to these therapies.

Robots

FedEx testing autonomous delivery robot on Richardson streets

September 10, 2021

The robot called Roxo is designed to make last minute deliveries, minus the delivery person.

By Teri Webster

An autonomous delivery vehicle recently rolled down the streets of Richardson during a trial run for FedEx.

The prototype called “Roxo” recently made mock deliveries to homes in a neighborhood near Berkner High School, according to an announcement by the city.

FedEx worked with the Richardson police and fire departments, city engineers and the Marlborough Square Home Owners Association to ensure the testing ran smoothly.

Stem cells

Scientists Use Nanotechnology To Detect Bone-Healing Stem Cells

September 10, 2021

Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a new way of using nanomaterials to identify and enrich skeletal stem cells — a discovery which could eventually lead to new treatments for major bone fractures and the repair of lost or damaged bone.

Working together, a team of physicists, chemists, and tissue engineering experts used specially designed gold nanoparticles to ‘seek out’ specific human bone stem cells — creating a fluorescent glow to reveal their presence among other types of cells and allow them to be isolated or ‘enriched’.

The researchers concluded their new technique is simpler and quicker than other methods and up to 50-500 times more effective at enriching stem cells.

The study, led by Professor of Musculoskeletal Science, Richard Oreffo and Professor Antonios Kanaras of the Quantum, Light and Matter Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy, is published in ACS Nano — an internationally recognized multidisciplinary journal.

Robots

Simbe’s robots will be deployed across midwestern grocery chain, Schnucks

September 9, 2021

By Brian Heater

St. Louis-based grocery chain Schnucks (one of those “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good” situations, one imagines) announced this week that it will be deploying technology from Simbe Robotics across its 111 U.S. locations.

The deal comes a year and a half into a global pandemic that has substantially increased interest in automation, particularly around essential businesses — a qualifier that certainly applies to grocery stores.

Simbe’s mobile robots provide inventory scanning, offering a constantly updating picture of what’s on the store shelves and what needs to be restocked. Anyone who’s ever worked retail can almost certainly tell you that doing inventory is one of the biggest headaches in the industry, often requiring hours-long shutdowns or overnight marathons to complete.

drones

SolarXOne: fully electric, solar-powered autonomous drone

September 9, 2021

By Bruce Crumley

French company XSun specializes in solar-powered drones – and has produced a pretty impressive craft, indeed. Its SolarXOne fixed-wing aircraft not only soaks up and stores the sun rays that power it, but also packs onboard tech that allows it to make its own decisions during flights.