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Nov 15, 2015
Vivek Wadhwa: Get Ready for The Next Wave of Tech Disruptions
Posted by Michael Paton in categories: 3D printing, robotics/AI
Futurist Vivek Wadhwa predicts change “at a scale which is unimaginable before,” thanks to advances in technologies like robotics and 3D printing. “New trillion dollar industries will wipe out out existing trillion dollar industries,” he says. “This is the future we’re headed into, for better or for worse.”
Nov 15, 2015
Lost And Found: Can We Restore Forgotten Memories?
Posted by Robert James Powles in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience
Memories are priceless, and the plight of dementia patients highlights how important they are to forming what makes us, well us. Now a new study has provided hope we may one day be able to restore lost memories.
Clearing the mist
A paper from researchers at MIT has demonstrated the reactivation of memories in amnesia patients with optogenetics — in which cell activity is controlled by bursts of light.
Nov 15, 2015
Asteroid Resources Could Create Space Habs For Trillions; Land Area Of A Thousand Earths
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in category: space
Planet dwellers like us naturally look first to other moons and planets for colonization. Yet, asteroids have enough resources to build space habs for trillions, with the same living space per person as for Earth.
The idea is to use the materials from the asteroids and NEOs to make new habitats. This gives far more living space than the amount you get if you hollow asteroids out, and live inside them.
The Moon and Mars are our only choices for surface colonization in the near future. Neither is a second Earth; both have many issues at present, especially, the almost total lack of atmosphere. Technically, Mars does have an atmosphere, true, enough for winds and dust storms, but it is so thin it would count as a laboratory vacuum on Earth.
Nov 14, 2015
Reports of Robots Stealing 50% of Jobs in the US and UK Are Totally Alarmist
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: employment, robotics/AI
It’s being reported that a Bank of England official forecasts that in the next 10 to 20 years, smart robots will steal 80 million jobs from Americans and 15 million jobs from Britons—over half the workforce of each nation. I smell BS.
In a speech delivered yesterday by Bank economist Andy Haldane at the Trades Union Congress in London, he predicted that robots could quickly “hollow out” the middle class, shrinking the need for human-only skills, especially in clerical, production, and administrative jobs.
It’s true—I think robots will appear more in those sectors. But for every “robot overload” doom-and-gloom claim, there is a calming rebuttal of reason.
Nov 14, 2015
Single Artificial Neuron Taught to Recognize Hundreds of Patterns
Posted by Phillipe Bojorquez in categories: education, robotics/AI
Biologists have long puzzled over why neurons have thousands of synapses. Now neuroscientists have shown they are crucial not just for recognizing patterns but for learning the sequence in which they appear.
Nov 14, 2015
Blood-brain barrier opened non-invasively for the first time in humans, using focused ultrasound
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience
Opening up the blood-brain barrier to deliver drugs (credit: Focused Ultrasound Foundation)
The blood-brain barrier has been non-invasively opened in a human patient for the first time. A team at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto used focused ultrasound to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), allowing for effective delivery of chemotherapy into a patient’s malignant brain tumor.
Nov 14, 2015
Disney Research-CMU design tool helps novices design 3D-printable robotic creatures
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: 3D printing, robotics/AI
Digital designs for robotic creatures are shown on the left and the physical prototypes produced via 3-D printing are on the right (credit: Disney Research, Carnegie Melon University)
Now you can design and build your own customized walking robot using a 3-D printer and off-the-shelf servo motors, with the help of a new DYI design tool developed by Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University.
Nov 14, 2015
Self-parallel parking car
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: robotics/AI, transportation
Mitsubishi Self-Driving Car
This new Mitsubishi self-driving car is so advanced it can parallel park itself.
Nov 14, 2015
Nissan wants to bring wireless charging technology to electric cars
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: transportation
Electric car owners get to enjoy a certain level of pride in saying that they never have to deal with gas stations and dirty fuel-filler nozzles.
Most of those owners would likely agree that not having to deal with cords and charging ports would be another great step forward, however.
Soon, if Nissan and several other automakers have their way, that day will come, as wireless (inductive) charging systems and smart charging controls will take away that “hands on” obligation—provided you park in designated charging spots.
