The Pengheng Space Capsules Hotel in Shenzhen, China.
Would you like to travel to space but the cost of a Virgin Galactic flight falls outside of your budget? You might want to consider a trip to China instead.
Continue reading… “Chinese space-themed hotel run by robots”
Curved displays by Sony at CES 2014.
Venture Beat tried to cover all of the 2 million square feet of exhibit space at the 2014 International CES. They saw only a portion of the tens of thousands products on display at the huge tech trade show. They saw fads like 3D glasses for TVs fade away. And it was interesting to see how “phablets,” or phones with huge, tablet-like screens, have caught on in places like Asia even though we’ve ridiculed them in the past.
Novel energy storage materials flow from the white containers into a fuel-cell like device in the foreground, where they generate electricity.
It would be great if utilities would be able to store the power that wind farms generate at night when no one wants and then be able to use it when the demand is high during the day. But conventional battery technology is so expensive that it only makes economic sense to store a few minutes of electricity, enough to smooth out a few fluctuations from gusts of wind.
Exceptionally gifted children were more likely to gain Master’s degrees and PhDs, compared with less gifted children.
The largest study ever on exceptionally gifted children questions whether the education system is providing enough support for highly talented young people.
Continue reading… “Are gifted children being failed by the education system?”
The claim that robotics is capital intensive is a myth.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a much-discussed piece, a little over a year ago, on the discrepancy between corporate profits and labor compensation. Krugman’s column sparked a huge debate, and on the Times website alone readers left more than 1,300 comments. In his article he referred to robotics as a capital-intensive technology. The problem is, it isn’t true.
Continue reading… “Biggest myth about the robotics industry”
Drones will be everywhere.
2013 looked like the dystopian future we’ve been warned about. We learned the NSA can spy on our every word, right as Google shared a breakthrough product that could put a camera and microphone on everyone’s face. Amazon wanted to replace UPS with autonomous drones. But, what will 2014 look like? This is the year of technological kickback, according to Frog design, when privacy goes mainstream and we take the reins on our own quantified self, when artists tame 3-D printers and we learn to unplug. And yes…when drones, driverless cars, and the digital dragon that is China rise to change our economy, and our lives, forever.
Higher education is in the midst of dramatic, disruptive change.
The quintessential value proposition of higher education has always been the degree or certificate. Americans have embraced degrees with a fervor. Everyone should have degrees. And their perceived value elsewhere in the world — in Asia in particular — is if anything even higher.
Technological unemployment
Futurist Thomas Frey has predicted more than two billion jobs will disappear by 2030 as a result of automation. Statements such as these strike fear into an already turbulent job market, but there are many who believe we should take solace in history. In their book, Race Against the Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee explain how the recent panic brought on by ‘technological unemployment’ – a term originally coined by John Maynard Keynes – is nothing new.
Continue reading… “The rise of ‘technological unemployment’”
The technology is known as Contour Crafting.
Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, at The University of Southern California, has built a colossal 3D printer that can build a house in 24 hours. Khoshnevis’s robot comes equipped with a nozzle that spews out concrete and can build a home based on a set computer pattern. (Video)
Continue reading… “A 3D printer that can build a house in 24 hours”
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology researchers published a paper in Nature Communications describing an ultra-thin thin circuit that is small and flexible enough to wrap around a human hair or lay on top of a contact lens, opening up some interesting applications.
Patching up holes in blood vessels and the heart’s walls may become easier with blood-resistant glue.
You’re operating on a heart and it’s got a tear in it. How do you mend it? The traditional answers are with sutures or staples, but they aren’t good ones. Both involve piercing tissue and creating holes, which is bad news for an organ that’s constantly moving, and vigorously pumping blood. Holes lead to clots. They also bleed.
Continue reading… “New surgical glue can mend a broken heart”
Watson rose to prominence when the super computer ‘won’ US quiz show Jeopardy.
IBM is planning to invest more than $1 billion into Watson, its super computing platform. The company announced that the investment program will see a new business unit created for the technology, alongside a $100 million VC fund that will be used to encourage developers to create apps on the platform.
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.