[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7WR8MamHus[/youtube]
Quadcopter drones are built specifically for an easy takeoff and stable flight, but landing can be a tricky task. They generally need to land on flat ground or risk toppling over.
Continue reading… “Bird-inspired drone with robotic legs can perch on a branch”
To see the future, we have to be willing to take a good long look at what is happening in the talent acquisition world within the context of bigger picture trends. The mega trends that are shaping the future of how people do things on a global basis (i.e., empowerment via access to information, exponential growth in connectivity, ability to crunch and interpret staggering amounts of data, using collective intelligence to find truth) are all quietly at work setting the stage for major change in our industry.
Nielsen put out its latest figures on the state of the advertising market across old and new media platforms this morning. One big takeaway is that Internet advertising continues to be the fastest-growing medium, but it remains a small player. Global display advertising across the web, mobile internet and apps collectively grew by 32.4% in 2013 — by far the biggest leap of any media — but that still worked out to a 4.5% share of the overall spend in ads. In contrast, television grew only 4.3% but remains the behemoth when it comes to ad spend, taking nearly 58% of the market.
Continue reading… “Internet display ad spending up 32% in 2013, but still just 4.5% of market share”
Robot Land
Since 2007, South Korea has been planning a robot-centric theme park. “Robot Land” is back on track after missing its initial opening date of 2012. Now slated for a 2015 opening, this place won’t be like any other theme park on Earth. (Pics)
Continue reading… “‘Robot Land’ – South Korea’s robot theme park to open in 2015”
The U.S. Army has recently declared that it is cutting troop levels. Over the next sixteen years, each and every brigade in the Army will see its soldier count drop from 4,000 to 3,000, with robots making up the loss in firepower. That’s according to General Robert Cone, who said robot soldier levels would reach their new peak between 2030 and 2040 during an Army Aviation symposium last week.
Continue reading… “By 2030 U.S. Army will replace 25% of soldiers with robots”
Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation can improve learning and speed up mental calculations.
An Oxford University study gave participants just five days of training with a relatively new form of brain stimulation: transcranial random noise stimulation.
Continue reading… “Brain stimulation can improve mental arithmetic ability”
Finnish programmer Linda Liukas had a major crush on Al Gore as a teenager. She wanted to share her passion for the then-vice president with a fan page. She didn’t have the pre-made templates that Tumblr and WordPress now place at our fingertips so built a site from scratch by teaching herself HTML and CSS.
Continue reading… “‘Hello Ruby’ – a children’s book that teaches programming to 4 – 7 year olds”
Drones that can fly into some of the most dangerous crime scenes and disaster zones are coming to the aid of police officers and other first responders who put themselves in harm’s way. (Videos)
Continue reading… “Drones could be the next frontier in emergency response”
General Motors assembly line.
In the United States the industrial sector is rebounding. Manufacturers are boosting output, building new plants, increasing exports, and creating better-paying jobs that require precise skills—and in the process are helping lead the U.S. out of the long, stubborn slump that followed the market disruptions of 2007.
Continue reading… “The real manufacturing advantage in America”
China has “outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts” to install a record 12 GW of photovoltaic projects.
There were predictions all through 2013 that suggested Japan would walk away the dominant solar PV market. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that despite those predictions China has “outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts” to install a record 12 GW of photovoltaic projects in 2013.
Continue reading… “China installed more solar power than any other country in 2013”
Amelia Earhart – 1st Woman to Cross the Atlantic.
Futurist Thomas Frey, wrote a very interesting article about a year and a half ago titled 56 Future Accomplishments: Waiting for Someone to go First. It was a fascinating piece on some of the “firsts” that have occurred, such as:
Baxter, the flagship robot by Rethink Robotics in Boston.
Computerization. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Technology. Innovation. Robots. These are the many names of an invisible force that has been stoking progress and killing jobs for centuries. But it’s different now because nearly half of jobs in America today could be automated in the next 10 to 20 years, according to a new paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, discussed recently in The Economist. The question is: Which half?
Continue reading… “Almost half of American jobs today will be automated ‘in a decade or two’”