Governors from Michigan to North Carolina and the Obama administration have a solution for some of the U.S. manufacturing sector’s woes: German-style apprenticeship programs.
The sky’s the limit for 3D printing solar panels
Solar cell printers.
We’ve come a long way from the solar-powered calculator to waiting to see when innovators are going to give us solar-powered smartphones, where most of our calculators are these days. While the average energy consumer is busy worrying about such everyday concerns, scientists at the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC) are wondering how to power entire buildings, and pretty much the whole planet, as the technology they are creating will be easily transferred inexpensively to developing and third-world areas, thanks to 3D printing and design. (Video)
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Top 10 ways connected devices will impact every business
The IoT will affect all types of organizations.
The number of mobile-connected devices this year will exceed the world’s population. Most organizations will have to respond in some way to the rise of connected devices in order to survive the next decade. As connected products, connected logistics, and connected phones become ubiquitous, they create value for users and risks for companies.
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Let algorithms make real-time decisions for your company
Operational analytics not only predict what the next best action is, but also cause the action to happen without human intervention.
In the future, just having predictive models that suggest what might be done won’t be enough to stay ahead of the competition. Instead, smart organizations are driving analytics to an even deeper level within business processes—to make real-time operational decisions, on a daily basis.
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The ‘sharing economy’ – sharing isn’t free and price gouging isn’t mean
Uber implements “dynamic pricing,” which some customers see as price gouging.
There is plenty of press these days on the pros and cons of the so-called “sharing economy.” Consider the diverse takes last week from MIT Technology Review, the New York Times, and the Kansas City Star.
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A drivable car that was 3D printed in 44 hours
Strati 3D printed car
Local Motors 3D printed a plastic car called the Strati in front of thousands of attendees at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago.
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Seven Reasons Why the Value of Human Life is Increasing Exponentially
Futurist Thomas Frey: What’s the value of a human life?
For some of you this is a very disconcerting question because it attempts to put a dollar value on a person, something we value in far different ways.
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Reprogrammed cells could fight ‘untreatable’ diseases in the future
Loring (front row, center) with the Loring Lab Group at the Center for Regenerative Medicine.
Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Scripps Research Institute, and her colleagues transplanted a set of cells into the spinal cords of mice that had lost use of their hind limbs to multiple sclerosis. Within a week, as the experimentalists had expected, the mice rejected the cells. But after another week, the mice began to walk.
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How digital technologies are changing the physical world
Our physical world is now technology-enabled by the digitization of everything.
Ted Hall, CEO of ShopBot Tools, which designs and manufactures digital fabrication tools priced for individuals and smaller manufacturing shops, says “complexity is cheap now, and quality is almost free.”
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Biodesign will have an impact on the future of cities
The Genetic Barcelona Project plans to inject jellyfish genes into trees to make them glow, creating a sustainable alternative to streetlights.
In the morning, you get out of bed and open the curtains. The grey light of dawn is mingling with the glow of the trees, which have been injected with luminescent jellyfish genes. (Video)
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Angel Investing: Rise of women investors fuels businesses run by women
Amy Norman and Stella Ma started pitching investors on their San Francisco-based startup, Little Passports, in 2009. Both women had young children and Norman was pregnant. The overwhelming majority of the investors they met with were men who wanted to know “if we were running this as a ‘lifestyle company,’” Ma recalls. Investors passed and word got around Silicon Valley that “there’s no way women like this could grow a company fast enough” to satisfy venture capitalists, Norman says.
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Could ‘solid’ light compute previously unsolvable problems?
Princeton University researchers have begun crystallizing light as part of an effort to answer fundamental questions about the physics of matter. The researchers are not shining light through crystal – they are transforming light intocrystal.
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