“Pilots push the speeds to the limit, head to Bolivia for high altitude testing, and even try to fly with missing winglets. … We went aboard to see how it’s done.”
“Brittan Heller has a hard job. The Anti-Defamation League’s first director of technology and society, she’ll be working with tech companies to combat online harassment.”
The Estes Park Advanced Propulsion Workshop, 20–22 September 2016, organized by the Space Studies Institute (SSI), will feature presentations by NASA Eagleworks scientist Paul March and Prof. Martin Tajmar, chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, who last year presented an independent confirmation of the anomalous EmDrive thrust.
Other notable participants include Prof. James Woodward and Prof. Heidi Fearn, both from California State University, Fullerton, and Prof. David Hyland from Texas A and M University.
The 3-day conference will address at most 6 concepts for a breakthrough in propulsion. They are devoting a half-day per concept. The half-day is broken into theory and experiment sessions for the concept. The concept will be investigated on both grounds, with substantial give-and-take between the audience and the concept presenter, verbally and on the whiteboard.
“History “teaches us that order in international relations is the exception, rather than the rule,” Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister, writes in a new report on the uncertain future of the UN.”
Given the demands of the modern world, many people find solace and relaxation when they disconnect from their smart phones, computers and email. But what if you could improve your overall happiness simply by playing games on your phone? In a recent interview, tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Happify Ofer Leidner said gamification can make people “happier”, and that the development of technology that improves well-being is only just getting beginning.
Image credit: x-bility.com
It should be noted that not just any game on your phone can help one live a happier, healthier life. Instead, Happify and other comparable platforms use science-based games to drive behavior and to help people learn skills for generally improving their outlook on life. It’s still gaming and gamification, but gaming done with a meaningful purpose.
“After telling us a little bit about themselves, we recommend a certain track, which is a topic around which (Happify users) want to build those skills for greater emotional fitness. We then prescribe for them a set of activities and interventions that have been transformed into an interactive app,” Leidner said. “You can do them on your phone, when you’re commuting, or you can do it at night. What we’re doing, in terms of the measurement of improved outcome, is we’re actually measuring them based on scientific event reports.”
Continue reading “Can Technology Help Fine-Tune Your Happiness?” »
New amazing inventions, cool gadgets, futuristic new technology, and things you didn’t know exist. Mind blow!
Links:
Good move by China especially as one is determine to expand quickly and expedite their competitive edge around PLM and SCM.
BEIJING, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) — China will promote standardization to push industrial upgrades and foster new competitive edges, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.
Standardization represents a country’s core industrial competitiveness and overall prowess and China will highlight standardization as part of its reform agenda, Li said while addressing the ongoing 39th International Organization for Standardization (ISO) General Assembly.
Continue reading “China will promote standardization to accelerate industrial upgrading: premier” »
In preparation for writing a review of the Unabomber’s new book, I have gone through my files to find all the things I and others had said about this iconic figure when he struck terror in the hearts of technophiles in the 1990s. Along the way, I found this letter written to a UK Channel 4 producer on 26 November 1999 by way of providing material for a television show in which I participated called ‘The Trial of the 21st Century’, which aired on 2 January 2000. I was part of the team which said things were going to get worse in the 21st century.
What is interesting about this letter is just how similar ‘The Future’ still looks, even though the examples and perhaps some of the wording are now dated. It suggests that there is a way of living in the present that is indeed ‘future-forward’ in the sense of amplifying certain aspects of today’s world beyond the significance normally given to them. In this respect, the science fiction writer William Gibson quipped that the future is already here, only unevenly distributed. Indeed, it seems to have been here for quite a while.
Dear Matt,
Here are the sum of my ideas for the Trial of the 21st Century programme, stressing the downbeat:
Continue reading “The Familiarity of the Future: A Look Back from 1999” »
