This $330,000 Kitchen robot will make you a tasty meal and even do the dishes

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A lot of people will think a robot won’t be able to manage its way around a kitchen. But not only is this feat achieved, by the looks of it, but the kitchen robot by a London-based robotics company will also outshine even those who like to call themselves an established cook.

You can’t beat a robot that promises to whip up a choice of up to 5,000 recipes at the press of a button? The Moley kitchen robot even cooks from scratch and even cleans up afterward without complaint.

Russian mathematician and computer scientist Mark Oleynik have together created this novel robot developed with the assistance of Tim Anderson, a culinary innovator and winner of the 2011 series of BBC MasterChef. The idea behind creating this not-so-cheap contraption is to get restaurant standard meals without its owner having to lift a finger or order a takeaway.

Still, this comfort and luxury will come for nothing less than nearly $3,31,800. People who find cooking fun and therapeutic will laugh at the sum that brings home the Moley kitchen robot and opt to buy a home, a supercar, or maybe even a yacht for that amount instead! Nicole Pisani and Andrew Clarke to create 30 dishes to show what the Moley Kitchen robot is capable of, with more recipes to be added each month. Kicking back and relaxing comes for a considerable price, and surprisingly, the Moley Kitchen robot has already received 1,205 qualified sales inquiries.

Continue reading… “This $330,000 Kitchen robot will make you a tasty meal and even do the dishes”

The world’s first DNA ‘tricorder’ in your pocket

by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

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Aspyn Palatnick holding the world’s first mobile genetics laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s 125th anniversary Open House. The combination of the new iPhone app, iGenomics, a DNA analyzer, and Oxford Nanopore’s USB-sized MinION, a DNA sequencer, make genome analysis portable and accessible. Credit: CSHL

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists developed the world’s first mobile genome sequence analyzer, a new iPhone app called iGenomics. By pairing an iPhone with a handheld DNA sequencer, users can create a mobile genetics laboratory, reminiscent of the “tricorder” featured in Star Trek. The iGenomics app runs entirely on the iOS device, reducing the need for laptops or large equipment in the field, which is useful for pandemic and ecology workers. Aspyn Palatnick programmed iGenomics in CSHL Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Schatz’s laboratory, over a period of eight years, starting when he was a 14-year-old high school intern.

The iPhone app was developed to complement the tiny DNA sequencing devices being made by Oxford Nanopore. Palatnick, now a software engineer at Facebook, was already experienced at building iPhone apps when joining the Schatz laboratory. He and Schatz realized that:

“As the sequencers continued to get even smaller, there were no technologies available to let you study that DNA on a mobile device. Most of the studying of DNA: aligning, analyzing, is done on large server clusters or high-end laptops.”

Schatz recognized that scientists studying pandemics were “flying in suitcases full of Nanopores and laptops and other servers to do that analysis in the remote fields.” iGenomics helps by making genome studies more portable, accessible, and affordable.

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The 10 Biggest Business Trends For 2021 Everyone Must Be Ready For

Bernard Marr

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While there are many who can’t wait to bid adieu to 2020, there’s no doubt the coronavirus pandemic and the ways businesses had to adjust to ensure their survival changed the trajectory of what 2021 will look like and what businesses should do to get ready for the upcoming year. As a futurist, I help companies understand the latest trends and technologies and offer guidance on how to prepare their businesses for them. Here are the top 10 trends that will drive every business in 2021. I believe every business around the world needs to be ready for these trends.

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Factory-farmed salmon: does it make sense to grow fish in indoor tanks?

Mark Kurlansky

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US inland farms offer an alternative to diminishing wild Atlantic stocks, but the price tag is bigger carbon emissions

The state of Maine once had one of North America’s great wild Atlantic salmon runs, now destroyed by polluting paper, textile, and saw mills and the construction of hundreds of dams. 

It was replaced with open-pen salmon farming, but that created new problems. Now a new kind of salmon farming – inland rather than offshore – is supposed to solve all those problems and more, providing jobs and putting an end to escaped fish polluting the remaining wild stocks.

One of these land-based salmon farms is planned for Bucksport, a down-on-its-luck industrial town of 5,000 people on the estuary of the Penobscot, a struggling wild salmon river. Another is intended for Belfast, population 6,700, further south on scenic Penobscot Bay. As in much of coastal Maine, in the north-eastern corner of the US, this historic town has become a haven for affluent incomers, who buy summer homes and attract shops and boutiques.

Until 2014, Bucksport was home to the Verso paper mill. When it closed about 500 people lost their jobs, and the town was left with an ugly, smoke-stacked industrial site. Like most paper mills, it was extremely polluting. The fish farm, part of a Maine company called Whole Oceans, has been welcomed, the local view being that it would be less polluting than a paper mill and might also replace some of the lost jobs. “I’m not sure we could do any better than what we’re doing. If there was [something], I don’t know what it would be,” says town manager Sue Lessard.

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One in three motorists cannot afford even the cheapest electric car, warn experts in blow to Government plans to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2030

By Tom Payne

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A third of motorists are unable to afford even the cheapest electric car, experts warn
  • Figure equivalent to ten million households, shows ordinary family will struggle
  • Middle-earning households may not be able to afford cheapest electric cars
  • Analysis shows drivers need to be spending at least £2,100 on their current car  

The figure – equivalent to ten million households – highlights how many ordinary families will struggle to finance the switch from petrol and diesel cars being pushed by ministers.

Continue reading… “One in three motorists cannot afford even the cheapest electric car, warn experts in blow to Government plans to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2030”

Chinese quantum computer completes 2.5-billion-year task in minutes

By Michael Irving

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A diagram of an optical circuit, where photons (red) are sent through a maze of beam splitters and mirrors and a quantum computer like Jiuzhang calculates the output

Researchers in China claim to have achieved quantum supremacy, the point where a quantum computer completes a task that would be virtually impossible for a classical computer to perform. The device, named Jiuzhang, reportedly conducted a calculation in 200 seconds that would take a regular supercomputer a staggering 2.5 billion years to complete.

Traditional computers process data as binary bits – either a zero or a one. Quantum computers, on the other hand, have a distinct advantage in that their bits can also be both a one and a zero at the same time. That raises the potential processing power exponentially, as two quantum bits (qubits) can be in four possible states, three qubits can be in eight states, and so on.

That means quantum computers can explore many possibilities simultaneously, while a classical computer would have to run through each option one after the other. Progress so far has seen quantum computers perform calculations much faster than traditional ones, but their ultimate test would be when they can do things that classical computers simply can’t. And that milestone has been dubbed “quantum supremacy.”

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City announces 3 winners in outdoor dining design challenge for winter

By Diane PathieuLeah Hope and ABC 7 Chicago Digital TeamThursday

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THE CITY HAS PICKED THREE WINNERS FROM OVER 600 SUBMISSIONS TO THEIR WINTER DINING CHALLENGE.CHICAGO (WLS) — THE CITY HAS PICKED THREE WINNERS FROM OVER 600 SUBMISSIONS TO THEIR WINTER DINING CHALLENGE.

THE TEAM OF JUDGES CHOSE THREE DESIGNS THAT “CAPTURE THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO WHILE PROVIDING FEASIBLE AND SAFE OPTIONS FOR CHICAGOANS TO ENJOY DINING OUT AS TEMPERATURES DROP,” ACCORDING TO A STATEMENT FROM THE CITY.

EACH WINNER WILL RECEIVE A $5,000 CASH PRIZE AND OPPORTUNITIES TO PILOT THEIR IDEA AT RESTAURANTS AND BARS IN THE CITY.

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Elon Musk would consider having Tesla acquire a legacy automaker

Kirsten Korosec

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SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk speaks in front of Crew Dragon cleanroom at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California on October 10, 2019.

SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk speaks in front of Crew Dragon cleanroom at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California on October 10, 2019.Elon Musk would consider leveraging Tesla’s mega $554 billion market cap to buy a legacy automaker, but only if it was on friendly terms, the billionaire entrepreneur said Tuesday in a wide-ranging interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.

Musk, who received an award Tuesday from the media giant, discussed his various interests and businesses, notably SpaceX and Tesla, both of which he leads.

Döpfner noted that Tesla’s valuation far exceeds the market cap of incumbent automakers like BMW, Daimler and VW, which along with others in the industry once dismissed Musk’s ability to make electric vehicles mainstream. When asked if it would be a serious option to buy one of the legacy automakers, Musk said it was possible, but only under certain conditions.

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Chinese photonic quantum computer demonstrates quantum supremacy

by Bob Yirka

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A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China has built and tested a photonic quantum computer that demonstrates quantum supremacy. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their computer, which they call Jiuzhang, and how well it performed while conducting Gaussian boson sampling.

Quantum computers have been in the news lately as scientists try to determine if they can meet expectations.

Quantum computers could vastly outperform conventional machines on certain tasks. The goal is to achieve what has come to be known as” quantum supremacy”—where a quantum computer can outperform conventional computers on at least one type of task.

Until now, only one computer has ever achieved this feat—Google’s Sycamore device. And because the field is still so new, researchers around the world are working on vastly different designs. Sycamore was based on qubits represented by superconducting materials. In this new effort, the team in China has developed a photon-based quantum computer capable of carrying out a single specific type of calculation—boson sampling.

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Here’s What Government Will Look Like in 2030

BY ZACH PATTON 

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Thirty experts, academics and big-picture thinkers on the biggest trends and issues that will shape state and local government over the next decade.

No one knows for certain what the future holds. But some people have a pretty good idea.

To get a sense of what the coming decade might mean for state and local governments, we asked more than two dozen futurists — including thought leaders, public officials, academics and tech experts — for their predictions on the trends that will have the greatest impact on the public sector over the next 10 years.

Their responses, condensed and edited here, provide a glimpse into what may happen in the years ahead.

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World’s First Never Charge Solar Electric Vehicle Aptera Goes Live – Again


By Elena Gorgan

Aptera Motors is making a massive comeback after more than one decade of struggling as a startup, following up on the promise made one year ago. The first pre-orders for the Aptera sEV (solar electric vehicle), the world’s first never charge three-wheeler with record-breaking range, are now live.

Aptera Motors has been around since 2008 and has started on this comeback journeyexactly one year ago, with new plans for the reborn solar-powered vehicle. Aptera is not a car, but a three-wheeler, which could be classified as a motorcycle or an autocycle). It features solar panels on the roof and a battery pack as a backup, for those who plan on using it for more than just the daily commute. 

It has a futuristic design, it’s nimble and comparatively small, but the makers promise it’s spacious enough for two adults and a trunk-load of cargo, reliable and safe in case of an impact, and also very fast. It sounds like your dream vehicle (albeit a three-wheeler) has arrived – and it’s open for pre-orders. 

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OpenSeed Meditation Pod creative escape gives you a calm space at work

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The OpenSeed Meditation Pod creative escape provides a room at work you didn’t know you needed: a place of calm.

More than just a space to retreat, this pod also integrates sound, meditation, essential oils, light, and technology. Sure, it’s nice to get away from the hustle and bustle for a moment and recharge, but that’s not all this is about.

In fact, because of all the integrations in this workspace escape, you’ll have access to higher states of awareness and creativity, which will improve your effectiveness.

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.