The autonomous boats offer high maneuverability and precise control. They can be built using low-cost printer, making mass manufacturing more feasible.
MIT scientists have designed a fleet of 3D-printed, driverless boats that could ferry goods and people, helping clear up road congestion in waterway-rich cities such as Amsterdam, Bangkok and Venice – where canals run alongside and under bustling streets and bridges.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BOTS. How will the courts address free-expression rights for artificially intelligent communicators? This conversation is coming, and it may push the Supreme Court to do something it has avoided: define who is and is not a journalist.
For nearly half a century, the US legal system has lived a double life. On the one hand, the Supreme Court has held that journalists do not have greater or lesser rights than other citizens (see Branzburg v. Hayes). On the other, the lower courts have generally ignored or let stand numerous laws or privileges that provide journalists special protections. These include the qualified First Amendment–based reporter’s privilege in some federal jurisdictions and fee waivers in FOI statutes.
The city with the world’s tiniest and costliest living spaces may soon convert drainpipes into homes. The aim is to get young people on the property ladder – but how small is too small?
“Both indoors and out, life in Hong Kong can feel pretty suffocating at times,” says 39-year-old finance worker Wai Li, who rents a 200 sq ft (19 sq m) “nano flat” by herself in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan neighbourhood. Li’s living area is little more than the size of two standard Hong Kong parking spaces.
Continue reading… “Pipe dreams: can ‘nano apartments’ solve Hong Kong’s housing crisis?”
Congress and the Trump administration have yet to create a coherent policy response to a widely forecast social and economic tsunami resulting from automation, including the potential for decades of flat wages and joblessness. But cities and regions are starting to act on their own.
What’s happening: In Indianapolis, about 338,000 people are at high risk of automation taking their jobs, according to a new report. In Phoenix, the number is 650,000. In both cases, that’s 35% of the workforce. In northeastern Ohio, about 40,000 workers are at high risk.
Over the past decade, Thomas Frey has built an enormous following around the world based on his ability to develop accurate visions of the future and describe the opportunities ahead.
His keynote talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, First Data, Boeing, Capital One, Bell Canada, Visa, Ford Motor Company, Times of India, and many more.
In his interview with ‘The IoT Magazine’, he touches upon how he is contributing to the world as a futurist, whether machine intelligence will exceed human intelligence in coming times, future trends in IoT and how IoT will change our lives and also talks about his book ‘Epiphany Z’.
US women are having fewer and fewer babies. In some ways, it’s a sign of progress.
The number of births in the US dropped by 2 percent between 2016 and 2017, to 60.2 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, continuing a general downturn that started with the great recession of 2008. Getty Images/Ikon Images
American women are having so few babies these days that the fertility rate has hit a historic low, according to stunning provisional data just published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Continue reading… “The historically low birthrate, explained in 3 charts”
The Seattle giant believes selling you groceries is the key to selling you everything else.
At 9 a.m. on June 16, 2017, Whole Foods employees packed into the main level of the company’s Austin headquarters. Only an hour earlier Amazon had announced that it was acquiring the high-end natural grocer, and the corporate staffers were as shocked as the rest of the public. Amazon had been militant about leaks during the seven weeks that the two companies had been in negotiations, and the vast majority of those working inside the building had been unaware that the deal was afoot.
Continue reading… “How Amazon is using Whole Foods in a bid for total retail domination”
The first independent tests of the EmDrive suggest there’s a mundane explanation for the wildly controversial device.
Spaceflight is hard. Blasting heavy cargo, spacecraft, and maybe people to respectable speeds over interplanetary distances (not to mention the luxury of stopping at destinations) requires an amount of propellant too massive for current rockets to haul into the void.
That is, unless you have an engine that can generate thrust without fuel.
Continue reading… “NASA’s ‘impossible ‘ space engine tested-here are the results”
New study debunks myths claiming renewables can’t be integrated into electric grid.
The ongoing debate around whether it’s feasible to have an electric grid running on 100 percent renewable power in the coming decades often misses a key point: many countries and regions are already at or close to 100 percent now.
Continue reading… “A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s already happening”
American and Chinese consumers are head over heels for SUVs — a mutual love affair that seems likely to expand in the coming years into growing demand for electric SUVs, according to a new report.
Continue reading… “Most of us will be driving electric SUVs”
A Chinese high school in Hangzhou is using facial-recognition technology that scans students every 30 seconds.
The system is analyzing students’ emotions and actions in the classroom as well as replacing ID cards and wallets at the library and canteen.
Facial-recognition technology is widespread in China, where it is being used to predict crime.
The Chinese tech giant Alibaba is expanding aggressively into physical retail through investments in a variety of product categories to push its “New Retail” strategy of combining online and offline shopping.
Its most critical New Retail venture has been Hema Xiansheng, a futuristic supermarket launched in 2015 that offers free 30-minute delivery and payment using facial-recognition technology.
Deeply integrated with Alibaba’s technology and services, Hema provides a window into where Amazon may try to take Whole Foods in the future.
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.