Impact Lab – Page 418 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Science & Technology News, Virtual Reality

Audi’s New Virtual Office Program Sure Looks Like the Second Coming of Second Life

January 28, 2021

IT’S LIKE A EUROPEAN OEM SIMULATOR, IF YOU WORK AT AUDI AND ARE INTO THAT SORT OF THING.

Audi likes to pride itself on innovation—few car companies don’t—and in these trying, socially distant times, that can mean effectively developing a system where employees recreate themselves as The Sims and wander around a virtual office.

If that seems bleak (and it does, there’s no way around it) then it’s not intended that way. Audi Spaces was built by Audi Akademie to create more natural and spontaneous interaction, allowing employees to be in a virtual office together in some capacity without the direct intensity of a video call.

Employment, Science & Technology News

8 fields seeing real growth in remote jobs: Some pay more than $75,000 per year

January 28, 2021

By Gili Malinsky

SENIOR TAX ACCOUNTANTS MAKE AS MUCH AS $78,000, ACCORDING TO INDEED.

2020 brought a lot of changes to the workplace as employers worldwide tried to grapple with the social distancing and health protocols of the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 4 in 10 (43%) HR professionals saw remote-work flexibility to be the top change within organizations, according to an October-November 2020 Monster survey of 3,100 recruitment and HR professionals from around the world. That priority is reflected in the array of positions now increasingly offered as remote jobs.

Jobs board FlexJobs recently highlighted career categories where remote job listings have grown by more than 25% since March 2020. Read on for eight career categories with growing remote work opportunities according to the site, including popular job titles and their average annual salaries, organized from highest to lowest growth.

Electric Vehicles, Science & Technology News

EV Startups Rivian and Cruise Raise a Staggering $4.7 Billion in New Funding

January 27, 2021

The electric vehicle race is heating up.

By MARTIN LERMA

Tesla may be king of the electric vehicle, but billions are being pumped into the category to (finally) give it some serious competition.

Earlier this week, two of the newest players in the EV race got a serious boost. Amazon- and Ford-backed Rivian revealed that it has raised $2.65 billion in new investments. Meanwhile, GM’s Cruise imprint signed a long-term strategic partnership with Microsoft, for which the tech giant helped raise $2 billion, according to a statement. This financial injection is reflective of the increasing interest from the public in the once niche segment of the automotive industry.

With its latest capital courtesy of T. Rowe Price, California-based Rivian has raised a healthy $8 billion since the start of 2019, which puts current valuation at $27.6 billion, according to Reuters.

Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

New gene therapy to delay ageing, extend lifespan

January 27, 2021

Scientists in Beijing have developed a new gene therapy which can reverse some of the effects of ageing in mice and extend their lifespans, findings which may one day contribute to similar treatment for humans.

The method, detailed in a paper in the Science Translational Medicine journal earlier this month, involves inactivating a gene called kat7 which the scientists found to be a key contributor to cellular ageing.

The specific therapy they used and the results were a world first, said co-supervisor of the project Professor Qu Jing, 40, a specialist in ageing and regenerative medicine from the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

“These mice show after 6-8 months overall improved appearance and grip strength and most importantly they have extended lifespan for about 25 per cent,” Qu said.

The team of biologists from different CAS departments used the CRISPR/Cas9 method to screen thousands of genes for those which were particularly strong drivers of cellular senescence, the term used to describe cellular ageing.

Blockchain, Science & Technology News

BMW, Ford back development of vehicle ‘birth certificates’ built on the blockchain

January 27, 2021

The solution will track a car throughout its sales history, clamping down on mileage tampering and fraud.

By Charlie Osborne

BMW, Ford, and major technology companies have indicated their support for a new blockchain project to assign “birth certificates” to vehicles.
Announced on Tuesday, the initiative is focused on developing technologies able to track a car from its manufacture and beyond, including when the vehicle has changed hands, its maintenance history, and records of mileage and any past damage.

The developer of the system, the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), says that this could stop second-hand sellers from misleading buyers, could wipe out the use of tools including roll-back odometers, and could “better track and protect vehicles’ true identities.”

Automobiles, Science & Technology News

Nissan’s New Pod Concept Turns Remote Working into a Dream

January 26, 2021

By Fabienne Lang

The company unveiled its office van concept that lets you work from anywhere.

Remote working just became a lot cooler thanks to Nissan. The Japanese car company unveiled its NV350 van on YouTube last week, and it’s been specially refurbished to house a remote office pod.

With remote working becoming part of regular life lately, Nissan has smartly jumped on the bandwagon to offer an alternative for those who can’t stand working from home — or who simply want a change of scenery.

The van allows people to work from anywhere, but it’s sadly only a concept at this stage.

Augmented Reality, Science & Technology News

Swiss Startup Reboots Virtual Meetings with Holograms

January 26, 2021

After almost a year of staring at each other’s living rooms or other spaces in virtual meetings due to the coronavirus pandemic, members of a Swiss startup have come up with a new idea: sending holographic emissaries to a virtual meeting space.

Blockchain, Science & Technology News

Mitsubishi and Tokyo Tech create blockchain system for P2P energy trading

January 26, 2021

Beginning in April, the electronics giant and university R&D team will evaluate and tweak the new trading system’s performance before commercialization.

By MARIE HUILLET

NEWS

Mitsubishi Electric has teamed up with researchers from the prestigious Japanese university, Tokyo Tech, to jointly design a blockchain-based trading system that can support more flexible, peer-to-peer energy trading.

Announced on Jan. 18, the new system is intended to support the efficient use of surplus electricity that is generated from renewable energy sources. In particular, it is hoped that the trading system can ensure that at any given moment, there will be the maximum available amount of surplus electricity accessible on the market for consumers.

Peer-to-peer energy trading set-ups allow consumers and prosumers to engage in direct trading as buyers and sellers. To make their new system less reliant on hardware-intensive, high-volume computations, Mitsubishi Electric and Tokyo Tech have customized their blockchain system in order to optimize matches and make clearing buy and sell orders more efficient.

According to the announcement, a distributed-optimization algorithm, which differs from most blockchain technologies, enables customer computers to share their trading goals and data and then to “optimally match buy and sell orders using minimal computations.” As well as requiring fewer computations, what Mitsubishi and Tokyo Tech call their “new mining method” can be executed on a micro-computing server. The four steps involved in the method are as follows:

Science & Technology News, Tesla

THE TESLA SEMI’S ECONOMICAL ADVANTAGE IS FRIGHTENINGLY UNDERESTIMATED

January 26, 2021

By Simon Alvarez

The Tesla Semi has its own fair share of critics, and even today, some notable voices such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates believe that the Class 8 all-electric truck is not feasible. When one looks at the currently available information about the upcoming vehicle, however, one would see that the Tesla Semi is vastly underestimated.

One of the key criticisms surrounding the Tesla Semi is its weight, which skeptics would claim is far too much to be economically viable. Tesla has not shared any specifics surrounding the Semi’s weight, though the company did note that the vehicle consumes less than 2 kWh per mile. As noted by the OBF in a YouTube video, this would translate to the Semi likely having a battery that’s roughly around 600 kWh to 1,000 kWh, depending on whether the vehicle features a 300 or 500-mile range.

Automobiles, Science & Technology News

The cloud-based car is arriving

January 25, 2021

By Joann Muller, author of Navigate

The notion of the car as a “computer on wheels” is moving past the realm of hype and closer to reality, which will transform the driving experience and improve road safety, too.

Why it matters: The arrival of long-promised technologies like 5G connectivity and new high-performance computers means cars will improve over time, instead of depreciating the minute they leave the dealer lot.

With software updates, buyers will be able to add features or services that weren’t available at the time of purchase or enhance their ride with customized apps.
And once 5G is widely deployed, cars will also be able to communicate with each other and with the surrounding ecosystem, providing situational awareness and helping to avoid collisions.

Batteries, Science & Technology News

Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Finally Takes Off in North America and Europe

January 25, 2021

Later this year, the Canadian firm Li-Cyclewill begin constructing a US $175 million plant in Rochester, N.Y., on the grounds of what used to be the Eastman Kodak complex. When completed, it will be the largest lithium-ion battery-recycling plant in North America.

The plant will have an eventual capacity of 25 metric kilotons of input material, recovering 95 percent or more of the cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other valuable elements through the company’s zero-wastewater, zero-emissions process. “We’ll be one of the largest domestic sources of nickel and lithium, as well as the only source of cobalt in the United States,” says Ajay Kochhar, Li-Cycle’s cofounder and CEO.

Founded in late 2016, the company is part of a booming industry focused on preventing tens of thousands of tons of lithium-ion batteries from entering landfills. Of the 180,000 metric tons of Li-ion batteries available for recycling worldwide in 2019, just a little over half were recycled. As lithium-ion battery production soars, so does interest in recycling.

Apple, Science & Technology News

iPhone Assembler Foxconn Sets Up Auto Arm as Apple Car Looms

January 25, 2021

By Debby Wu

Taiwanese company joins forces with Chinese carmaker Geely
Venture to offer production, advisory services to automakers

Apple Inc.’s Taiwanese manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Group is setting up a car venture, strengthening its automotive capabilities at a time when technology companies including its California ally are looking to expand in vehicles.