OpenKnit
3D printing is one of those new things that gets hyped all the damn time. Retail UPS stores carrying pay-per-use printers, MakerBots in every school, a “new brick in the Great Wall,” and guns, guns, guns, to name a few examples. (Video)
Continue reading… “We will be 3D printing our clothes in 10 years: Ray Kurzweil”
Elon Musk
Elon Musk, the wealthy and polarizing founder of PayPal, Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), is on a hot streak when it comes to spaceflight. He’s raiding revenue streams from Nasa and the US military to fund a private manned space program. His main weapon: low prices, with SpaceX offering satellite launches at about one-fifth the price of competitors at just over $60m a pop.
Continue reading… “If we fund Elon Musk instead of NASA, we can send humans back to space”
When will the driverless car become reality?
We know that driverless cars are the future. What we don’t know for sure, however, is when that future will arrive. The most recent entrant into this exciting field is Cruise Automation, a startup based in San Francisco.
Drones could cover certain stories for media outlets much more effectively than humans.
Drones are useful in multiple ways: from delivering packages to acting as lifeguards to being spies for the military to providing Internet coverage. Now media outlets are looking at the use of drones for their reporting, especially since drones can get into areas that people, or helicopters, cannot. This summer, CNN and Georgia tech are teaming up to research the usage of drones for news coverage.
Continue reading… “CNN and Georgia Tech are teaming up to explore using drones for news coverage”
Airbnb doesn’t need to build or own inventory, it facilitates access to existing assets, such as spare rooms, holiday houses, entire islands or treehouses.
At the annual Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals conference (HITEC) in Los Angeles, Rachel Botsman, Founder of Collaborative Labs, talked about how the collaborative economy will transform the hospitality ecosystem. She was talking to a group whose sector was getting hit hard and fast by the ideas she was going to share. How do hoteliers really feel about Airbnb?
Continue reading… “How the collaborative economy will change the way we travel”
You can see how it “absorbs” a metal cylinder.
A new nano-material recently invented does the seemingly impossible: It hides things from touch. Just a thin layer of this amazing polymer will hide anything under it from being perceived by your sense of touch.
DaVinci Coders in Louisville, Colorado
Coding schools provide an intriguing and relatively new option for providing talent in emerging technologies. People from all walks of life are given an intensive series of classes in programming, generally over the course of several weeks to six months. The schools provide a solid foundation of software development skills.
Continue reading… “Coding schools may solve the tech talent shortage”
Google Drive for Work will cost $10 per month and come with unlimited storage.
Google just announced a new product that will offer business users unlimited storage for a set monthly fee per user. This brings huge implications for Dropbox, Box, Hightail, and other companies that charge to store files online.
Continue reading… “Google announces Google Drive for Work with unlimited storage for businesses”
Poor kids don’t receive as much guidance in a library as affluent kids do.
“The Badlands” is the local name for the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kennsington. The neighborhood is pockmarked with empty lots and burned-out row houses, the area has an unemployment rate of 29 percent and a poverty rate of 90 percent. The neighborhood of Chestnut Hill is just a few miles to the northwest of Kennsington but seems to belong to a different universe. In Chestnut Hill, educated professionals shop the boutiques along Germantown Avenue and return home to gracious stone and brick houses, the average price of which hovers above $400,000.
Futurist Thomas Frey: In 2002, Roger Ver was honing his entrepreneurial skills by selling products on eBay. It was in the aftermath of the Twin Towers disaster when one of his products called “Pest Control Report 2000” hit the radar of Homeland Security and he was charged and convicted of selling 14 pounds of explosives without a license.
The discovery includes stiff plastics and flexible gels that can mend themselves if torn.
A collection of new plastics that are recyclable and adaptable have been developed by researchers – and the discovery began with a laboratory mistake. They include strong, stiff plastics and flexible gels that can mend themselves if torn.
Continue reading… “New recyclable plastics discovered ‘by accident’”
Materials science may be a big help in healing broken bones.
How do medical researchers best cultivate certain kinds of cells and spur them to function in the body? The details are still being worked out. Materials science may be a big help, according to University of Rochester researchers.
Continue reading… “Capsules of stem cells placed on injured bones works to heal the bones”