Joi Ito’s Near-Perfect Explanation of the Next 100 Years
“One hundred years from now, the role of science and technology will be about becoming part of nature rather than trying to control it.”
Full Story: Technology Review
We can see the trends already and it is really an important shift that will have profound implications - the problem is that it is probably deeper transformation than any traditional scientific paradigm shift and might therefore take much longer than humanity can wait.
6 Ways to Anticipate the Future of Digital Behavior
“How do we observe the future?” So began the presentation of Duane Bray, partner and head of IDEO’s global digital business, at our Mashable Connect conference in Orlando, Fla., last weekend.
IDEO is a firm that solves problems through “human-centered” design. Its clients span the business, government, education, healthcare and social sectors
Full Story: Mashable
The iPad may only be two years old, but it’s already begun to change many things. Reading is one of them. Work is another. It is selling like crazy, but it will be some time before most of the people you know own a tablet.
The market for this type of device may only be in its…
A Cambridge, Mass.-based startup, Essess, has found a novel way to spot energy leaks for residential and commercial buildings: drive-by energy audits. Equipped with multi-spectral thermal cameras mounted on top of vehicles, the company captures high-speed images to build a database…
Making Cheaper, Better Windmills | Fast Company
GOAL: Cheaper, Better Windmills
PROJECT: Makani Airborne Wind Turbine (aka the Flying Windmill)
Thesis
Wind power can be cheaper than solar and greener than coal, which bodes well for the $77 billion (and counting) annual market. But turbines are clunky and expensive—both huge barriers to adoption. So what if they soared like kites?Method
Makani built a carbon-fiber wing, with triblade propellers to mimic traditional windmills. The gizmo, which flies in circles, is tethered to the ground by a wire that transmits the electricity its propellers generate. Onboard sensors and a computer chip work automatically to direct its path. “Once the blade gets high enough, it can coast without help from a motor,” says CEO Corwin Hardham. “It flies by hitting the wind flow perpendicularly, like a kite.”
Data mining opens the door to predictive neuroscience | KurzweilAI
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) researchers havediscovered rules that relate the genes that a neuron switches on and off to the shape of that neuron, its electrical properties, and its location in the brain.
The discovery, using state-of-the-art computational tools, increases the likelihood that it will be possible to predict much of the fundamental structure and function of the brain without having to measure every aspect of it.
That in turn makes modeling the brain in silico — the goal of the proposedHuman Brain Project — a more realistic, less Herculean, prospect.
“It is the door that opens to a world of predictive biology,” says Prof. Henry Markram.
Cars in the Cloud: Trackable and Time-Stamped
When an aircraft crashes, investigators are able to retrieve useful information about what went wrong from the flight data recorder, more commonly known as the black box. (The data recorder itself is actually not black, not until it’s retrieved from charred remains.) Statistically speaking, plane crashes are rare occurrences compared to car crashes, so why not install a black box for cars?
That’s exactly what Japanese telemetrics company Crew Systems developed: a driving data recorder for cars and trucks. A big market exists for these in Japan, since businesses with more than five vehicles are required by law to produce daily reports on the driving habits of their drivers.
Full Story: Wired
As demand for renewable energy increases, wind turbine blades are increasing in size, leading to longer blades that can achieve larger swept areas. Yet, gravity-induced bending loads on blades create dramatic increases in dynamic stress, heightening market demand for a material that reduces blade mass while retaining strength.
The Computing Trend that Will Change Everything
Computing isn’t just getting cheaper. It’s becoming more energy efficient. That means a world populated by ubiquitous sensors and streams of nanodata.
Full Story: Technology Review
Solar thermal process produces cement with no carbon dioxide emissions | physorg.com
While the largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is the power industry, the second largest is the more often overlooked cement industry, which accounts for 5-6% of all anthropogenic CO2emissions. For every 10 kg of cement produced, the cement industry releases a full 9 kg of CO2. Since the world consumes about 3 trillion kg of cement annually, this sector has one of the highest potentials for CO2 emission reductions. But while processes are being explored to sequester the CO2 from cement production, so far no process can completely eliminate it.
