.
Put on a pair of these magic underpants called Fundawear, and you’ll be able to feel your lover’s touch from anywhere on the planet. (Video)
Trying to build better workers with big data
Workers can now be analyzed like any other data.
As it turns out, bosses really do matter and they may matter more than we even realize. For example, in telephone call centers where hourly workers handle a steady stream of calls under demanding conditions, the communication skills and personal warmth of an employee’s supervisor are often crucial in determining the employee’s tenure and performance. Recent research shows that the quality of the supervisor may be more important than the experience and individual attributes of the workers themselves.
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New battery technology offers 30 times more power and charges 1,000 times faster
An illustration of a high power battery technology from the University of Illinois.
Over the last ten years, battery technology has improved, but now scientists claim they have made a giant leap in power storage, giving lithium-ion batteries 30 times more power and the ability to recharge 1,000 times faster “than competing technologies.”
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Top 10 global technology trends for the energy and utility markets in 2013
Global energy an utilities sectors faces significant challenges from ongoing environmental sensitivity.
Gartner, Inc. has released a new report that identifies the top ten technology trends affecting the global energy and utility markets in 2013, as the industry faces significant challenges from ongoing environmental sensitivity, changing policymaker attitudes and consumer expectations.
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Medical technology and The Frankenstein Syndrome
Ray Kurzweil believes that Moore’s Law applies to advances in the biological sciences. Will advances like artificial hips, cardiac pacemakers and spinal stimulators for pain be only the beginning of the realization of how humanity will be “re-engineered”” to take fuller and richer advantage of what science offers us?
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COMAN – a robot that can’t be knocked over no matter how hard you shove it
COMAN
Mimicking the many distinct balancing adjustments standing humans make when unexpectedly shoved, or while encountering shifting terrain (such as on a boat or moving train) is a skill that most robots haven’t mastered. Nevertheless, one lab in Italy has created a humanoid robot that comes very close to matching our skill at avoiding taking a spill. (Video)
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World’s first self-healing “artificial leaf” produces energy from dirty water
Self-healing artificial leaf.
Scientists reported the creation of the “world’s first practical artificial leaf” back in 2011. The leaf mimics the ability of real leaves to produce energy from sunlight and water. Touted as a potentially inexpensive source of electricity for those in developing countries and remote areas, the leaf’s creators have now given it a capability that would be especially beneficial in such environments – the ability to self heal and therefore produce energy from dirty water.
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Downloadable Personalities for Your Computer
Futurist Thomas Frey: Fifteen years ago in an article I wrote for The Futurist Magazine, I made the prediction that once we had talking computers, we would soon have downloadable personalities to create a more human-like experience. I went on to suggest that most of us would actually download multiple personalities so we could interact with the right persona at any given moment.
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Future of crowd-mobbed vigilantism
One of the blast sites on Boylston Street near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.
There is a lot of restless energy surging through the web.A legion of Internet investigators are scrutinizing every available photo of the Boston Marathon finish line, searching for clues that will help nab a killer. At Reddit, Imgur and a zillion blogs, notes are being shared, theories propounded — and, without question, innocent people are getting slandered.
The Delight – an automated public toilet system being installed throughout India
The Delight
It’s a hard job in developed countries to maintain a safe, clean network of public toilets is where most people have other places to go to the bathroom. In countries like India, with limited facilities and a big “floating population,” it’s doubly difficult. Facilities easily get damaged and misused, and quickly become no-go places. (Video)
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Manufacturers to reveal first ‘bendable’ gadgets that will never break
A prototype Samsung Windows smartphone.
The next big revolution in electronics are gadgets you can simply fold up to put in your pocket. We have already gotten a glimpse of the technology from manufacturers with Samsung showing off a ‘foldable’ phone.
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Eric Schmidt urges action to regulate mini-drones
Warning of mini-drones’ potential as a terrorist weapon.
Eric Schmidt, the influential head of Google, has called for civilian drone technology to be regulated, warning about privacy and security concerns. He told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that cheap miniature versions of the unmanned aircraft used by the military could fall into the wrong hands.
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