Impact Lab – Page 508 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Elon Musk, Science & Technology News, Space Flight, SpaceX

SpaceX is about to launch a historic mission with actual people on board Crew Dragon

January 31, 2020

SpaceX is poised to launch its first astronauts into space this spring: Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

Their flight on the company’s Crew Dragon spaceship will mark the first time an American spacecraft has carried NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

Behnken and Hurley’s liftoff is expected to launch a new era of US spaceflight, since it will allow NASA to stop relying on Russian launch systems to get astronauts into space. It will probably also make the two astronauts the first to ever fly a commercial spacecraft.

“Bob and I were lucky enough to be selected together,” Hurley told The Atlantic in September. “As we get closer to launch, things in the last year have actually been pretty hectic. We’ve been spending increasing amounts of time in California, because that’s where most of the work is being done for Dragon.”

In preparation, they have run through emergency procedures, undergone extensive training the Crew Dragon’s mechanisms, worn their new spacesuits, and met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Continue reading… “SpaceX is about to launch a historic mission with actual people on board Crew Dragon”

Energy, Engineering, Environment, Science & Technology News

Rolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain

January 31, 2020

Artist’s concept of a Rolls-Royce SMR plantRolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce has announced that it plans to build, install, and operate up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain, with the first set to go online in nine years. In a BBC Radio 4 interview with business journalist Katie Prescott on January 24, 2020’s Today program, Paul Stein, chief technology officer for Rolls-Royce, said that the company is leading a consortium to produce factory-built modular nuclear reactors that can be delivered for assembly by ordinary lorries.

Currently, the world is undergoing a boom in nuclear power. According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 448 operating civilian reactors and another 53 under construction. However, almost all of these are being built in Eastern Europe and Asia, with China alone building more reactors than the entire Western world combined.

Part of the reason for this is political with every reactor program in Europe or North America facing implacable environmentalist opposition and part of it is the expense of building and operating large reactors in an energy economy now dominated by cheap natural gas. However, one technology trend that could reverse this stagnation is the development of small, modular nuclear reactors that could be mass-produced in factories, carted to the site by ordinary lorries, and then assembled to generate cheap carbon-free electricity.

Continue reading… “Rolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain”

Environment, Great New Product, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Igloo says goodbye to styrofoam coolers, releases biodegradable update

January 30, 2020

Styrofoam coolers are lightweight, cheap, and pretty good at keeping beverages cold.

They’re also pretty bad for the environment.

Styrofoam is Dow Chemical’s trademarked name for extruded polystyrene, and in addition to being conveniently disposable, it’s also a source of greenhouse gases, doesn’t degrade for centuries, and is highly flammable. Oh, and animals confuse it for food and could eat enough of it and die.

Igloo’s come up with a less destructive alternative made out of paraffin wax and recycled paper called RECOOL. The 16-quart cooler has a weight capacity of 75 pounds and is highly water resistant. Igloo says the RECOOL can keep ice cold for up to 12 hours and hold water for up to five days without leaking.

Continue reading… “Igloo says goodbye to styrofoam coolers, releases biodegradable update”

Automation, Aviation, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

Are we one step closer to pilotless commercial jets?

January 30, 2020

(CNN) — The concept of pilotless commercial jet flight has been bandied about for years.

But while the technology has been there, there’s been little concrete evidence to suggest autonomous flying could ever really get off the ground — until now.

Airbus has confirmed one of its test aircraft took off automatically at Toulouse-Blagnac airport in France last December.

The European aerospace company conducted a series of successful tests on autopilot last month, with two pilots on standby.

According to Airbus, the A350-1000 achieved eight automatic takeoffs over a period of four and a half hours.

“While completing alignment on the runway, waiting for clearance from air traffic control, we engaged the autopilot,” Airbus test pilot Captain Yann Beaufils explained in a statement.

“We moved the throttle levers to the takeoff setting and we monitored the aircraft. It started to move and accelerate automatically maintaining the runway center line, at the exact rotation speed as entered in the system.”

Continue reading… “Are we one step closer to pilotless commercial jets?”

AI, Automation, Employment, Science & Technology News

There’s a new obstacle to landing a job after college: Getting approved by AI

January 30, 2020

San Francisco (CNN)College career centers used to prepare students for job interviews by helping them learn how to dress appropriately or write a standout cover letter. These days, they’re also trying to brace students for a stark new reality: They may be vetted for jobs in part by artificial intelligence

At schools such as Duke University, Purdue University, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, career counselors are now working to find out which companies use AI and also speaking candidly with students about what, if anything, they can do to win over the algorithms. This shift in preparations comes as more businesses interested in filling internships and entry-level positions that may see a glut of applicants turn to outside companies such as HireVue to help them quickly conduct vast numbers of video interviews.

With HireVue, businesses can pose pre-determined questions — often recorded by a hiring manager — that candidates answer on camera through a laptop or smartphone. Increasingly, those videos are then pored over by algorithms analyzing details such as words and grammar, facial expressions and the tonality of the job applicant’s voice, trying to determine what kinds of attributes a person may have. Based on this analysis, the algorithms will conclude whether the candidate is tenacious, resilient, or good at working on a team, for instance.

Continue reading… “There’s a new obstacle to landing a job after college: Getting approved by AI”

3D Printer, Architecture, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Construction completed on largest 3D-printed building in the world

January 29, 2020

Largest 3D-printed municipality building in Dubai

At 31 feet tall and 6,900 square feet, a new building in Dubai is the largest 3D-printed building in the world — and the first two-story structure of its kind.

The most impressive part of the project? U.S. company Apis Cor built the structure using only three workers and one printer.

Proving that the printer could handle a harsh environment, Apis Cor did the printing outdoors where there was no temperature or humidity control.

However, there was a logistical issue the printer did have to tackle: The square foot area of the building was larger than the printing area of the stationary machine. To solve this technological obstacle, a crane moved the 3D printer around the site.

Continue reading… “Construction completed on largest 3D-printed building in the world”

Engineering, Robotics, Science & Technology News, Stem cells

Scientists build “first living robots” from frog stem cells

January 29, 2020

“It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”

A team of researchers have built what they claim to be the first living robots. The “xenobots,” they say, can move, pick up objects, and even heal themselves after being cut.

The team is hoping the biological machines could one day be used to clean up microplastics in the ocean or even deliver drugs inside the human body, The Guardian reports.

To build the robots, the team used living cells from frog embryos and assembled them into primitive beings.

“These are novel living machines,” research co-lead Joshua Bongard, robotics expert at the University of Vermont, said in a statement. “They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”

Continue reading… “Scientists build “first living robots” from frog stem cells”

Environment, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says over 300 companies have agreed to help plant one trillion trees

January 29, 2020

Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2020

KEY POINTS

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Thursday that over 300 companies have joined his latest initiative to plant 1 trillion trees by the end of the decade.
President Donald Trump announced U.S. government support for the initiative on Tuesday.
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg criticized the initiative in her keynote speech at the WEF on Tuesday for not doing enough to counter climate change.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, whose known for badgering tech executives to be more civic-minded, said Thursday that over 300 companies have joined his latest initiative to plant one trillion trees by the end of the decade.

“Nobody’s against trees,” he said in an interview with “Squawk on the Street” co-host Sara Eisen from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The tree is also a bipartisan issue.”

Continue reading… “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says over 300 companies have agreed to help plant one trillion trees”

AI, Amazon.com, communication, Science & Technology News

Amazon’s AI automatically dubs videos into other languages

January 28, 2020

Ever wish you could automatically dub foreign film dialogue into another tongue? Amazon is on the case. In a paper published this week on the preprint server Arxiv.org, researchers from the tech giant detailed a novel “speech-to-speech” pipeline that taps AI to align translated speech with original speech and fine-tune speech duration before adding background noise and reverberation. They say that it improves the perceived naturalness of dubbing and highlights the relative importance of each proposed step.

As the paper’s coauthors note, automatic dubbing involves transcribing speech to text and translating that text into another language before generating speech from the translated text. The challenge isn’t simply conveying the same content of the source audio, but matching the original timbre, emotion, duration, prosody (i.e., patterns of rhythm and sound), background noise, and reverberation.

Continue reading… “Amazon’s AI automatically dubs videos into other languages”

Clothing, Great New Product, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Levi’s found a way to make hemp feel like cotton, and it could have big implications for your wardrobe

January 28, 2020

Denim icon Levi Strauss & Co. debuted garments made from a soft hemp-cotton blend in March, and head of innovation Paul Dillinger said he expects 100% cottonized-hemp products in about five years.

Hemp uses significantly less water and chemicals than cotton during cultivation. Levi’s has found a way to soften hemp using far less water than was previously used.

Dillinger said the long-term goal is to incorporate sustainable cotton blends by using fibers such as hemp into all of its products.

With the legalization of hemp in the United States last December, the industry has been exploding: Reports and Data estimates it’ll be worth $13.03 billion by 2026. While you’ve probably noticed hemp-derived CBD products everywhere, hemp also has major implications for sustainable clothing and denim icon Levi Strauss & Co. has made significant progress in making this happen.

Continue reading… “Levi’s found a way to make hemp feel like cotton, and it could have big implications for your wardrobe”

Healthcare, Latest Trend, Medicine, Robotics, Science & Technology News

Will robots make doctors obsolete? Nothing could be further from the truth

January 28, 2020

“Doctor, will they replace you with a robot?”

The question takes me by surprise but I suppress my instinct to laugh.

His life has been marked by mental illness and cancer. The first diagnosis presented after a series of missed opportunities as he cycled through woeful visits that ignored his symptoms. Finally, one doctor listened and his life changed.

In retrospect, his cancer was just waiting to be found by the first person to seriously entertain the notion that mental illness often coexists with physical illness. Fortunately, the cancer was amenable to a cure.

Continue reading… “Will robots make doctors obsolete? Nothing could be further from the truth”

Employment, Futurist, Science & Technology News, Tom Frey

The future of jobs is already here

January 27, 2020

One of the great challenges of the business world is predicting which jobs will grow and which will disappear. Several companies and institutions are working to solve this great mystery, including the World Economic Forum (WEF), an international organisation that “involves society’s leaders of politics, business, culture and other spheres in shaping global, regional and industrial agendas.”At the end of 2018, this organisation published the Future of Jobs Report, which analysed the trends predicted for the 2018–2022 period in 20 economies and 12 different industrial sectors.

“The increased demand for new roles will compensate for the decreased demand for others,” noted Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF, in the preface to the forecast document. The German economist is optimistic about the predictions because, although five million jobs will disappear, another 133 million new ones will emerge.The technological revolution will change business models in all industries.

A phenomenon that the Davos World Forum has already dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution. High-speed mobile internet, artificial intelligence, big data analysis, cloud-storage of information, augmented and virtual reality, and others factors will spearhead the adoption of new technologies by businesses. They will also change the dynamics of work, the competences required of workers and the gender gap in industry.

Continue reading… “The future of jobs is already here”