New Florence. New Renaissance.

The New Generation Y - the "Yold"

One might therefore expect peak retirement for baby-boomers in the coming years—except that they are not retiring. By continuing to work, and staying socially engaged, the boomers, in their new guise as the young old, will change the world, as they have done several times before at different stages of their lives.

The yold are more numerous, healthier and wealthier than previous generations of seniors. There will be 134m 65- to 74-year-olds in rich countries in 2020 (11% of the population), up from 99m (8%) in 2000. That is the fastest rate of growth of any large age group. Health worsens with age, but the yold are resisting the decline better than most: of the 3.7 years of increased life expectancy in rich countries between 2000 and 2015, says the World Health Organisation, 3.2 years were enjoyed in good health. The yold are also better off: between 1989 and 2013, the median wealth of families headed by someone over 62 in America rose by 40% to $210,000, while the wealth of all other age groups declined.

The Economist

An interesting documentary on the aging population in Japan which has encountered the "yold" phenomenon earlier than many other societies.

Sony's electric concept car

Called the Sony Vision-S, it’s an electric concept sedan that is meant to showcase the Japanese tech conglomerate’s many different strengths, from entertainment products to camera sensors and more.

In fact, the Vision-S features 33 different sensors inside and outside of the car, multiple widescreen displays, 360 audio, and always-on connectivity, with some pieces coming from industry players like BlackBerry and Bosch. It’s also powered by a “newly-designed EV platform” — which appears to have been engineered by automotive supplier Magna — that Sony says will be able to power other vehicle types, like SUVs.

The Verge

 

Smart swim goggles

Typically, swim monitors reside on your wrist. An Apple Watch will track your performance, as will other wearables, like a Garmin watch. But a new gadget from a Vancouver, Canada company called Form does it differently: with a head-up display right in your goggles.

Slip them on, and simple yellow, pixelated text appears in front of one of your eyes, superimposed over the scene before you. Whether you’re underwater or turning your head for a breath of air, the information floats there. Two buttons on the side let you take actions like selecting the pool size, or actually starting the swim. While you’re swimming, the display allows you to see information like how far how you’ve been going and how many lengths you’ve completed. A companion app provides a place to make more granular changes and see the full results of your swim afterwards.

Popular Science

 

 

 

 

Open Ocean drones

(Open Ocean) drones can be used to collect all kinds of ocean and environmental data. They’re solar-powered, and can reportedly stay on the ocean for up to a year, continuously collecting data, and send it to a user in real time using satellite and other communication systems.

That translates to precise information on marine weather conditions and more accurate forecasts, which can help optimize ship routing, cut fuel use and in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The boats are equipped with 360-degree cameras, ship-tracking intelligence known as AIS and remote-sensing LIDAR (which uses lasers).

“This winter, we’ll conduct sea trials during big winter storms, where our boats could encounter waves that are 50 feet or larger,” says CEO Julie Angus. 

“Our boat will repeatedly capsize during these conditions, but its self-righting design will enable it to continue operating.

Forbes

 

 

 

 

Space solar power

In October, the Air Force Research Lab announced a $100 million program to develop hardware for a solar power satellite. It’s an important first step toward the first demonstration of space solar power in orbit, and Mankins says it could help solve what he sees as space solar power’s biggest problem: public perception. The technology has always seemed like a pie-in-the-sky idea, and the cost of setting up a solar array on Earth is plummeting. But space solar power has unique benefits, chief among them the availability of solar energy around the clock regardless of the weather or time of day.

It can also provide renewable energy to remote locations, such as forward operating bases for the military. And at a time when wildfires have forced the utility PG&E to kill power for thousands of California residents on multiple occasions, having a way to provide renewable energy through the clouds and smoke doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Wired

watch this hour long presentation starting around 3.30 on the concept.

 

 

 

UPS SMART hub

Fortune on the 1.2m sq ft UPS Southeast Metropolitan Automated Routing Terminal (SMART) in Atlanta

The scanning tunnel, it turns out, isn’t really a tunnel: It’s a metal frame the size of a small SUV. The frame holds six high-speed cameras, made by Italian automation specialist Datalogic, that perch over, next to, and underneath the line. Via a small gap in the conveyor belt and a system of carefully placed bright red lights and mirrors, the cameras snap pictures in a fraction of a second of all six sides of every box, without slowing their flow. An image-processing system instantly decodes the destination information inscribed on each box’s label and decides which of more than 300 exit bays in the facility has the correct departing truck to take the box on the next part of its journey, whether to a nearby home or business, or to another city, state, or country.

As packages zip out of the scanner, each is joined by a shadow companion moving at the same speed along the side of the conveyor. They take the form of little black rectangles—UPS calls them “shoes,” and they’re about that size. Each package gets accompanied by a pair, or a bunch, depending on its size and weight. These are some smart shoes, though: They whiz down the line, escorting a box, and then, just when the box is passing its correct “off-ramp,” the exit chute to a smaller belt that will take it to the appropriate departing truck, they pop out and push the box down that chute. The shove happens so fast, you can miss it if you blink. The boxes seem to fly about by magic—Harry Potter minus the wand. Soon the box is on a new truck and off to a customer—wrapping up a ritual that takes place hundreds of thousands of times a day.

UPS SMART Hub from Select Fulton on Vimeo.

Smart pajamas

In her lab, Andrew is capitalizing on this softness to develop pajamas that monitor your sleep posture. It’s not as random as it sounds—bad sleep posture has been linked to chronic spinal pain, and there’s not currently a good way for doctors to monitor it over time. Andrew’s smart pajamas have five strategically placed RVD-based pressure sensors that track heart rate, breathing rate, and body position throughout the night. They’re all connected to a microprocessor hidden in a button that beams data to a receiver via Bluetooth.

Andrew is also testing the same pajamas with an REM sleep-sensing mask. Currently, when a doctor wants to diagnose sleep apnea or investigate insomnia, the patient has to travel to a sleep center, be wired to monitoring machines, and then try to fall asleep while a technician watches them over video. Andrew hopes her pajamas will bring sleep studies into a patient’s home, allowing doctors to collect data remotely while the patient sleeps in familiar surroundings.

Wired

Tech to help with Chunyun - the world's largest annual human migration

From CNN Travel

Considered the largest human migration on the planet, Chunyun -- the 40-day period when Chinese people head home to celebrate the Lunar New Year Spring Festival with their families -- officially began on January 10 and will end on February 18. Some 3 billion trips are expected to be made during the 2020 Chunyun period, a slight increase from last year's figure (2.99 billion trips).

New tech will play a part in easing congestion at train stations, highways and airports. More than 1,000 train stations in the country have been installed with e-ticket check-in system to speed up ticketing procedures. Last year also saw the opening of the long-awaited Beijing Daxing International Airport. The Civil Aviation Administration of China estimated that the new airport in the capital city will ferry 190 million passengers during the Lunar New Year period, with 15% more flights than usual. In addition to featuring technology to help flying in low visibility, to reduce the chances of flight delays during adverse weather conditions, Daxing International Airport has also adopted facial recognition and automated technologies to increase efficiency.

Airports around China have scheduled at least 17,000 flights every day, 13.3% higher than last year, to deal with the traffic. Wang Yang, chief engineer of the Ministry of Transport, said that about 790,000 buses and 19,000 boats will be utilized to ferry home-comers. Some 330,000 kilometers of highway has also been built and expanded. Shortly before the Spring Festival rush, the country implemented an electronic collection system at all the toll booths at provincial borders.

a video from last year's travel

 

 

 

 

Women flock to franchising

As of May, women own or co-own 35% of the franchise outlets in the U.S.—around 265,000—according to the Franchise Business Review research firm. That represents outlet growth of 24% from a decade earlier, and in the two years ended in May, 41% of new franchise outlets opened have been owned or co-owned by women. And in some sectors, such as interior decorating, they far outnumber their male counterparts.

WSJ

Popular industries for women-owned franchises are travel and hospitality, child and senior-care services and advertising and sales, per Franchise Business Review. The magazine named as the top five franchises for women in its 2019 list of the top 50 franchises for women Kona Ice, a mobile, Hawaiian-style shaved ice franchise; Wild Birds Unlimited, a retail store that specializes in bird feeding supplies; Keller Williams real estate; MaidPro cleaning and maintenance service; and NextHome real estate.

BizJournals

Image Credit: WSJ

The new walkie-talkie

Chuang says Relay has “tens of thousands of customers” for the family version, but it turns out that the same properties that made Relay work for kids—durability, simplicity, cost-effectiveness—also appealed to businesses. While walkie-talkie apps do exist for smartphones, the touchscreen requires “active workers”—that is, those in fields like construction and hospitality—to stop looking at what they’re doing. Smartphones would also invite distraction from social media and other apps.

Fast Company

The Coke Freestyle machine evolves

I first wrote about the Coke Freestyle machine in 2009. I was at Firehouse Subs last week picking up a sandwich for my son and noticed a newer version of the machine, the 9100. Firehouse is a charter customer and has over 1,000 machines in its stores nationwide.

You can now communicate with the machine via bluetooth on a mobile app. An improved content management system allows Coca-Cola to release “digital recipes” over the air, right to the dispenser, surprising Firehouse guests with unique drink offerings like Team USA custom mixes, Fanta Halloween and Coca-Cola Holiday mixes. New brand choices include Orange Vanilla Coke and Sprite Lymonade, plus limited-time flavors of Minute Maid Lemonade. The machine has microphones, speakers, optical sensors and a new equipment option that will eventually support the addition of drink categories not available on Freestyle today, such as teas and new varieties of juices.

 

 

 

 

CES: Where are the tech companies?

In The New Technology Elite I wrote

"At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early 2011, I got a clear answer to the first question. While the big excitement during the show was around the tens of new tablets expected to be rolled out later in the year, I observed companies from just about every industry – from Walgreens, the pharmacy chain to Nike, the shoe company to Ford, the auto company all were showing off technology enabled “smart” products for the new tech savvy consumer.

It is a really exciting time for many of these companies. For too long IT has been an expensive and low payback back office investment. Now technology in their products is allowing them to generate revenue and growth. Technology is fun - and profitable again."

We have gone much further in the decade since

MarketWatch writes about CES which starts today in Las Vegas

"This change has been happening for years — the name was changed from the Consumer Electronics Show to just CES in 2016 — but for an indication of how much has changed in just the past year, look at the keynote lineup. In 2019, executives from blue-chip tech giant International Business Machines Corp. IBM and chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMDdelivered the top keynote speeches. In their place this year are Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL, Daimler-Benz, Unilever ULVR, and startups like Impossible Foods and Quibi."

Of course there will be plenty from tech vendors - here are some in video below

2020: Megatends for the decade

From the always positive futurist Peter Diamandis

In the decade ahead, waves of exponential technological advancements are stacking atop one another, eclipsing decades of breakthroughs in scale and impact.

Emerging from these waves are 20 “Metatrends,” likely to revolutionize entire industries (old and new), redefine tomorrow's generation of businesses and contemporary challenges, and transform our livelihoods from the bottom-up.

Among these metatrends are augmented human longevity, the surging smart economy, AI-human collaboration, urbanized cellular agriculture, and high-bandwidth brain-computer interfaces, just to name a few.

It is here that master entrepreneurs and their teams must see beyond the immediate implications of a given technology, capturing second-order, Google-sized business opportunities on the horizon.

Welcome to a new decade of runaway technological booms, historic watershed moments, and extraordinary abundance.

Medellin: World's "Smartest City"

Think of a gondola suspended under a cable, floating high off the ground as it hauls a cabin full of passengers up a long, steep mountain slope. To most people, the image would suggest ski resorts and pricey vacations. To the people who live in the poor mountainside communities once known as favelas at the edges of Medellín, Colombia, the gondola system is a lifeline, and a powerful symbol of an extraordinary urban transformation led by technology and data.

The technology that helped save Medellín is not what you'd see in San Francisco, Boston or Singapore—fleets of driverless cars, big tech companies and artificial intelligence. It is about gathering data to make informed decisions on how to deploy technology where it has the most impact. And it is about establishing a constituency for change that transcends wealth and class. When experts get together to discuss the path to smarter cities, Medellín often comes up as a standard against which any city's vision for transformation should be measured—including the judges of Newsweek's Momentum Awards.

Here is another perspective

 

 

2020: National Geo's recommended trips

National Geographic's international editors came up with 25 destinations based on 4 categories - culture, city life, nature, and adventure.

Here are some in the Adventure category

 

2020: Life in 2030

Frank Chen is partner at Andreessen Horowitz. In a recent post he describes what life may look like in 2030 using his daughter as the use case.

"My day job is to think about the future, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what life will look like in the 2030s. What do we need to build? What social acceptance do we need? What business models do we need?"

This video brings his scenarios to life even more vividly

 

 

2020: what to expect at CES

Amongst keynote announcements from the likes of Amazon, LG, and Toyota, as well as thousands of other exhibitors, the first CES of the 2020s will offer a glimpse into how we will be spending our spare and leisure time over the next decade. Trends which will be at the forefront are intelligent vehicles, health and fitness technology, 5G networks as well as anything involving data and analytics.

Forbes

another perspective below from Steve Koenig of the CTA

2020: New Year. New Buzzwords.

Happy New Year!

From Mashable

"Once upon a time, "WiFi" was just another silly tech term you had to know before it became a daily necessity. Will the 2020 tech terms on this list ever rise to that same level of importance? We don't know, but it can't hurt to learn them now just in case they get to that point."

One of the terms you can expect to hear is Hand Tracking. Here is the Oculus Quest version

 

2019 in review - Where were you last year? last decade?

These days, there’s more than one way to reminisce. Thanks to the modern surveillance state that is Google, and the marvels of modern data visualization, you can actually map the last few years of your life. The Location History Visualizer heatmap is a totally free and private tool that can import your location data stored by Google, then chart that onto a global map that shows where you spent the most time.

FastCompany

 

 

2019 in review - The Year in Search

Out of all the tech year-in-review recaps, Google’s annual “Year in Search” video is probably the most anticipated and well known. Unlike YouTube’s Rewind video, Google’s Year in Search videos are generally well received due to their inspirational tone, good song choices, and really hitting that “year that was” nostalgia-factor head-on.

Google’s Year in Search 2019 continues the tradition, with this year’s video focusing on whom people turn to in times of uncertainty: heroes. And as Google points out in the video’s description, searches for heroes soared this year

FastCompany

 

 

2019 in review: Scientific American Top Emerging Technologies

One day soon an emerging technology highlighted in this report will allow you to virtually teleport to a distant site and actually feel the handshakes and hugs of fellow cyber travelers. Also close to becoming commonplace: humanoid (and animaloid) robots designed to socialize with people; a system for pinpointing the source of a food-poisoning outbreak in just seconds; minuscule lenses that will pave the way for diminutive cameras and other devices; strong, biodegradable plastics that can be fashioned from otherwise useless plant wastes; DNA-based data-storage systems that will reliably stow ginormous amounts of information; and more.

Scientific American

Here's more on DNA-based storage

 

Google as Interpreter

Interpreter mode, the feature that allows Google Assistant to translate your conversations in real time, is coming to phones. Google says it will work with 44 languages and can be invoked by saying commands like “Hey Google, help me speak Thai” or “Hey Google, be my German translator.”

Once you’re in interpreter mode, the Assistant will translate your speech and read it out loud. On phone screens, the Assistant is able to offer up Smart Replies that can speed up the conversation by letting you respond without having to speak.

The Verge

 

 

 

Everything you ever wanted to know about airplane deicing

Admit it...deicing is a mysterious process to most travelers. 

Toronto Pearson airport runs "the largest and most technologically advanced centralized deicing facility in the world" and can process up to 500 planes in a day. 

They describe here why the need to deice, how they do it, the glycol and anti-icing fluid they use, and how they carefully recycle the significant volume of runoff. Thanks to Sandy Kemsley for the pointer.

The video below provides more detail of the operation.

The US Space Force

Military systems in space provide crucial information to the troops. For example, GPS satellites help the military hit targets precisely. Satellites gather intelligence, detecting things like missile launches. They're also used for communication and collect data on the weather.

It's worth pointing out a few things the Space Force will not do.

"It's not about putting military service members in space, it has nothing to do with NASA, it's not about protecting Earth from asteroids or aliens," said Harrison.

Joan Johnson-Freese, a space security expert at the U.S. Naval War College, said the kind of information gathered by U.S. space systems is crucial in warfare today. "Whoever has the best information and can get it the fastest wins – and space provides a lot of that information."

NPR

Here are some of the space related careers the US Air Force lists on its site

 

Florida as hotbed for AVs

The AV-friendly environment has sparked plenty of activity in the Sunshine State, which recently launched the second phase of construction on SunTrax, a 475-acre AV testing facility near Orlando.

• In Miami, Ford and its AV partner, Argo AI, are testing AVs ahead of expected commercial deployment in 2021.
• Another AV developer, Voyage, is testing driverless shuttles in The Villages, a huge retirement community.
• In June, Starsky Robotics ran the first unmanned, high-speed test of a heavy-duty commercial truck on a stretch of the Florida Turnpike, with the "driver" 140 miles away, operating the rig remotely.
• Waymo brought AVs to Florida this fall to see how its sensors performed during the rainy hurricane season.

Other cutting-edge transportation technology is also being deployed in Florida.

Tampa, for example, was selected by the federal government as one of the first cities to pilot connected vehicle technology on real streets, enabling cars, buses and streetcars to communicate with each other to reduce traffic and improve safety.

Axios

 

2019 in review - the gift of mobility

At the end of every year, I like to flip through our photo albums. What really stood out this year was the wide range of transportation we used during our travels. Some were humble, others luxurious, still others scary - I could use a whole range of adjectives to describe them. It hit me that while we are excited about the future of EVs, AVs, flying cars, last mile bikes and scooters, it is amazing how much choice people have - today - to get from point A to B.

Here is a gallery from a few of my trips

Chao Phraya Express Boat

If you don't mind the occasional bumps and the crowds, this river ferry is one cheap and quick way to get around Bangkok's crowded streets.

The Emirates A380

You can spend hours at the bar at the back of the double decker, 4-engine jumbo jet or you can take advantage of the free wifi, streams from 3 cameras on the plane, hundreds of channels of entertainment. Here is the view from one of the cameras. Read more about my experience here

Navigating Indian Ghats during the Monsoons

My journey from Mumbai to Pune showed as only 80 miles but it was estimated at 3 hours to get there, 4 hours to get back given the clogged streets.  The flight or train options were even less convenient so I got a ride in a Toyota Innova Crysta minivan.  The expressway that cuts through the Western Ghats (The Sahyadri Mountain Range) has historically been a dangerous road. And this was the peak of the monsoon season so it was hairy at times. The driver, thankfully, was excellent

Segway HT

This was scarier than the ride through the Ghats. The user manual says “Whenever you ride the Segway HT, you risk death or serious injury from loss of control, collisions, and falls.” The training took a couple of hours (the trainer was concerned we would not know how to stop and then hurt someone), but after that we enjoyed our ride through the streets of Vail, CO

The Shinkansen

Japan's pride bullet train reaches 175 mph - but even more fascinating are the logistics of running and maintaining that high-speed network in a country prone to earthquakes. See more in my post here

Slowest ride in world?

From one of the fastest to one of the slowest trains in the world...I had tried the Las Vegas Monorail and the Aria Express Tram - both are sleek and efficient and I presumed the tram between the Excalibur and Luxor would be similar. However, going south on that line you have to make a stop and then backtrack. It is a cable car made by the Austrian company DCC Doppelmayr and is rated to go as high as 22 mph, but with the stops it works out to roughly 2 mph. Next time I will walk.

London Underground

For nostalgia I tried the London Underground on a Sunday - it used to be my daily commute when I worked there in the late 80s. The old faithful continues to chug along at average speeds of 20 mph, and carry over 5 million passengers a day

San Francisco Cable Car

For more nostalgia, I took the still-manually operated cable car. I had first tried it couple of decades ago. I particularly wanted to observe the turntable at Powell and Market where the car reverses direction.

The Airbus EC130

The view from a helicopter over Hoover Dam and into the Grand Canyon is stunning. I was just as fascinated with the conversation with the pilot of the EC130.

The Provincetown III

This catamaran makes its winter home in our hometown. Stable even at its speed of 30 knots, it made for a very pleasant ride across Tampa Bay

Kyoto taxi

The ride itself was not unusual but I was impressed how many electronic devices surround a taxi driver in Japan - GPS, walkie talkie, credit card processor, receipt printer, cameras and more

Airport buses

I had the opportunity to take several airport buses this year - from Seattle Airport to Vancouver, from Osaka Itami airport to downtown, and from London Heathrow to Nottingham. I am impressed how efficient bus travel has become (even the immigration and customs across the US/Canada border was a dream) and many of the buses now have wifi and a toilet.

Tokyo Yurikamome line

Tokyo has nearly 5,000 miles of rail, much of it underground. I really enjoyed a ride on the (relatively new) Yurikamome line. It is autonomous, over ground and spotless. Two 8 year old girls old without any adult supervision boarded the train with their school bags. Struck me how safe that transit is.

I could go on and on...but let me stop and just wish you as the Irish do "May the road rise to meet you..." Safe travels. 

 

Nighttime Firefighting

On a recent evening, pilot Toni Lindschinger boarded a reconnaissance helicopter that accompanies the helitanker. He donned military-grade night-vision goggles that give him and his team the ability to fly after dark and hover safely over large bodies of water during a refill.

The night-vision goggles turned the blackened landscape shades of green, allowing a view of individual trees and bushes on the hillsides, as well as waves on a lake as the helitanker dipped close to the shoreline and used an orange snorkel pump to fill its tank in less than a minute.

Being able to hover over any body of water means the team doesn’t have to land and wait for a refill, giving it extra time at night, when winds typically die down and temperatures ease—an ideal time to try to get a handle on a blaze.

WSJ

 

 

 

Chernobyl as tourist destination

The Exclusion Zone is a misnomer. People could always venture in, and lately, as the Ukrainian government has made it far easier to visit, several tour companies have reported an uptick in demand. Bookings of Intrepid Travel’s tours, for instance, have spiked 131%, since the HBO show debuted this past May. Exclusion Zone tours of various kinds can be booked through the company Chernobyl Tour. I hired a private guide via a Ukrainian government agency that oversees the area. How safe is the zone to visit? Tatiana Zotina, a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Radioecology at the Institute of Biophysics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Krasnoyarsk, said it is “probably not dangerous” to take an excursion or an official sightseeing tour since the guides avoid the areas with high radiation levels. Other experts agree that there’s little risk to tourists in terms of radiation exposure.

WSJ

 

 

 

Open-topped Roadster

The Elva isn't a convertible. It's an open-topped roadster, meaning it has, literally, zero roof of any kind.

You can pay a little extra to get a windshield if you want. (It will be legally required to get one in some US states, McLaren said.)

To help keep the wind out of your face, the Elva's Active Air Management System deploys when the car is driven at faster than suburban street speeds, roughly 25 miles per hour. The system directs air around the cabin to create what it calls a "bubble of calm" for those inside. Air is channeled through the car's nose — or front end — and sent out in a high-velocity sheet, just ahead of the cockpit. This air acts like a windshield, forcing oncoming air around the cockpit. A small carbon fiber wind deflector also rises up at the front of the car, further directing the air around the cabin.

CNN

 

The world's longest flights

Eight hours from Sydney to Singapore? It’s a doddle. 12 hours from Hong Kong to London? No sweat.

With a high-tech assist from Airbus and Boeing, airlines are steadily pushing the boundaries of long-distance flying.

Even the language is being redefined. The new frontier is the “ultra-long range” flight, where globe-striding jets regularly tackle journeys of more than 16,000km (8,600nm).

For passengers, that translates to 18+ hours in the air. But for many business travellers, even those non-stop marathons prove the superior alternative to airport layovers halfway along the route.

Executive Traveller

 

It then profiles flights on Singapore, Qatar, Qantas and Emirates Air

Alice, the electric plane

Developed by Israeli firm Eviation, the plane will be able to carry nine passengers for up to 1,046 km.

The aircraft has one main pusher-propeller on the tail and one on each wing. Eviation says the shift to electric could significantly reduce operating costs, while eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.

WEForum

 

 

Inside the Gore-Tex torture chamber

In fact, the Environmental Chamber where Walter and his human counterpart are running is capable of replicating 85 percent of the earth’s weather The lights on the ceiling can mimic a full solar cycle from sunrise to sunset, while humidity can go from 5 to 98 percent. Wondering how a garment will fare in the rainforest in peak rains’ season? The chamber can show you. how about in the solar radiation reflecting off snow on Mt.Everest? Just let Davis crank up the 72 lights overhead. It only takes two hours to go between its maximum and minimum temperatures—122°F to —58°F (wind chill —85°F) in full blizzard conditions—although it uses about two thirds of the entire building’s power capacity to make this drastic temperature change.

Popular Mechanics

The video below shows abrasion and many other "tortures" the material is subjected to

 

Amazon in healthcare?

Many physicians believe the kind of high-tech delivery of health care that Amazon could bring about is just what the doctor ordered to fix the deeply dysfunctional U.S. health care system, which each year sticks Americans with a $3.5 trillion bill. It is the most expensive in the world and delivers some of the worst patient outcomes among developed nations. An app-based, customer-centric delivery system could provide a more personal, responsive and caring experience than what most patients get from the traditional family-doctor model. "Some patients think all they want is Marcus Welby," says physician Steven Strongwater, CEO of Atrius Health, a highly regarded New England health care system that has been active in telehealth. "But a high-tech system that at first glance seems colder may actually be very, very good at taking care of people."

Newsweek

another perspective below

 

 

 

ML and mining

The machine learning model, which Freeport developed with McKinsey, the consultancy, uses data from sensors around the mine and suggests new ways to improve the performance of its crushers and processing mills, according to the company.

The system found that the mine was producing seven distinct types of ore and that the processing method, which involves the use of large flotation tanks, could be adjusted to recover more copper by adjusting the PH level.

The machine-learning programme is one of three major initiatives Freeport says will boost copper production by 30 per cent.

FT

another perspective below about AI in mining

 

 

Extreme 911

Last month, a recluse living in the woods in Scotland had a health emergency. The man, who’s in his 70s, sent out a distress signal that was picked up some 4,500 miles away in Greater Houston. And help was sent and the man is recovering.

But why was his beacon picked up in Houston — not somewhere in the United Kingdom?

Well, that’s because Montgomery, about an hour north of Houston, is home to the GEOS International Emergency Response Coordination Center. It operates like an extreme 911, picking up satellite distress signals from all over the world.

The center, which is staffed around the clock, gets calls from hikers deep in the wilderness, people whose boats are sinking in the middle of the ocean, and park rangers attacked by bears, just to name a few.

Houston Public Media

 

 

Digitizing India's $ trillion gold stash

Indians stockpile more of the precious metal than citizens of any other country, and their hoard is seven times the amount of gold mined globally in 2018. Now, Bangalore-based Rupeek is giving the centuries-old business of gold lending an internet-aided makeover to help Indians cash in on the 25,000 tons of the metal the World Gold Council estimates they’ve stashed away. Backed by two of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capital firms, Sequoia Capital and Accel, the startup allows people to borrow money against their hoard, often built up from wedding gifts or inherited from their families. “Indians have a mind-boggling $1 trillion worth of gold sitting in their homes, several times the gold in Fort Knox,” says Sumit Maniyar, Rupeek’s founder and chief executive officer.

A motorcycle-borne loan agent from the startup arrived within the hour. He used a computer vision-aided testing kit to appraise the metal’s purity. A team 600 miles away crunched data to complete the background check and process the loan electronically. About 30 minutes later, 200,000 rupees ($2,800) had been deposited in Mhatre’s bank account by one of Rupeek’s partners, an Indian private lender called Federal Bank. The startup’s 24/7 control room turned on the risk-monitoring system to track the agent, ensuring he securely deposited the jewelry at the bank’s nearest vault.

BusinessWeek

Gold testing has become increasingly portable as the video below shows

 

 

High-tech reforestation

One of the technologies driving this process is light detection and ranging (LiDAR) mounted on aircraft or drones. LiDAR tech is getting to the point where it can penetrate tropical forest canopies and give an accurate, 3-D snapshot of the forest.

Satellite imagery is also useful in determining the density of the forest and surrounding areas.

“We are working on a project in Brazil, its 70,000 hectares, you can’t monitor that in person,” Saez Gil said.

That remote-sensing data is then fed into AI technologies which crunch the data into a reliable figure of how much carbon is being sequestered.

Forbes

 

 

De-carbonizing heavy industry?

Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven — one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you'd find on the surface of the sun.

The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes. In other words, carbon-free sunlight can replace fossil fuels in a heavy carbon-emitting corner of the economy that has been untouched by the clean energy revolution.

CNN Business

Thanks to Alan Alper for pointer

 

 

 

Synthetic Storms

Rather than extrapolating from storms that occurred when times were cooler, they’re deploying vast computing power to create “synthetic” storms that—so the modelers hope—will better reflect the realities of an era that’s getting hot.

The synthetic-storm methodology that Sobel’s team uses was pioneered by Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at MIT. The Columbia crew’s secret sauce is the model it has written, which incorporates particular assumptions about the physics of how climate change will affect hurricanes. Rather than employing Swiss Re’s current standard, a top-down approach that starts with the paths of past hurricanes and, as Sobel puts it, uses historical data to “just jiggle it a little bit,” the Columbia modelers use a bottom-up method, starting with data on weather-related factors they think are both relevant to hurricanes and likely to be influenced by global warming. Among those factors: “wind shear,” which is the variation in wind speed and direction at different altitudes; sea-surface temperature; and the amount of moisture in the air. Using that data, their algorithm calculates when a hurricane will form, how it will move, and how intense it will be. Theoretically, this more-forward-looking approach could be more accurate.

Fortune

Here is an example from eos.org

"Variables were taken from ECMWF operational forecasts and used for stress testing simulations for critical infrastructure in the city of Khulna in Bangladesh. In this example, Hurricane Matthew (29 September 2016, 18:00 Central European Summer Time) has been displaced from the Gulf of Mexico 163.5° eastward and 5° northward to just offshore of Bangladesh. Conditions for sea level pressure (colors), 10-meter zonal and meridional wind components (arrows), and precipitation (not shown) were replicated in a simulation of this new location to gauge the damage that such a storm might inflict on this region."

A better baby formula?

One answer may lie in a chemically complex type of sugar called human milk oligosaccharides, which make up about a third of the compounds in breast milk. Scientists think the sugars might be responsible for many of the infant health benefits of breast milk: They nourish and support healthy gut bacteria, block infectious bacteria, and support developing immune systems, according to laboratory research and clinical studies. Around 150 HMOs have been identified since the 1950s, but it took until 2010 for the Danish company Glycom to figure out how to mass-produce two of them, known as 2’FL and LNnT.

WSJ

 

 

 

 

 

UPS Flight Forward

UPS Flight Forward, which already delivers medical samples by drone at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, NC, is rapidly building out its ground and air infrastructure to meet the needs of a diverse customer base. UPS Flight Forward plans to deliver packages to consumers at their homes in the near future.

“As the country’s first fully-certified drone airline, UPS Flight Forward is rapidly building a robust customer base and a network of technology partners to galvanize our leadership in drone delivery,” said Scott Price, UPS chief strategy and transformation officer. “We will create new logistics and delivery solutions no one has ever considered. Previous industry thinking had been limited to only ground transportation technology. Now we’re thinking in three dimensions.”

UPS

 

 

 

Google's new mobile UI

Soli is a new sensing technology that uses miniature radar to detect touchless interactions developed by Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP). For the first time, consumers will be able to play with this new method of control via the Pixel 4 smartphone, pioneering an entirely new way to interact with devices.

With every new technology, you have to find a way to show people how to use it in order to speed up learning and adoption. Inspired by the way games have been used in the past to help people master a new technology, Ustwo and Google ATAP created a gaming experience to help players learn to control their device using gestures in the air.

 

USTwo

 

 

 

 

 

Ikea's design lab for a changing environment

In the past, Space10 has tackled problems such as creating sustainable and affordable homes in densely populated urban centers, prototyping a solar-powered neighborhood, and developing autonomous vehicles to serve as moving co-working spaces, cafés, grocery stores, and healthcare centers.

This is the first time that Space10 has come to India. The Delhi lab will be unlike previous pop-ups, partly because it will be open for significantly longer, allowing the local mix of artists, designers, and technologists to spend more time developing solutions to problems. Delhi is a fast-growing city that’s experiencing a web of issues, many of which are accelerated by the detrimental effects of climate change.

FastCompany

 

 

 

 

Japan's lithium ion submarines

Toryu, built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and launched on November 6th, is equipped with lithium ion batteries. Lithium ion batteries are lighter and have a higher energy density, meaning a pound of lithium ion batteries will store more electricity than a pound of lead acid. Lithium ion batteries also hold their charge longer and are faster to recharge. Toryu will be able to sit quietly on the bottom of the ocean, waiting in ambush for the enemy fleet, then sneak away on battery power after it unleashes a salvo of torpedoes.

Lithium ion batteries aren’t a risk-free technology. Lithium catches fire when exposed to water, a precarious situation for a submarine. In the event of a leak, the batteries must be shielded from water at all costs. Lithium fires are hot, burning at up to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, and release hydrogen gas

Popular Mechanics

IBM's High Res Weather Model

IBM, in collaboration with its subsidiary The Weather Company, has developed a new high-resolution weather model it claims will cover the entire world with a resolution and update frequency unseen in other weather models in use today.

The new IBM GRAF, short for Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting system, will utilize a finer grid—giving users a more detailed view of the atmosphere—and a faster update speed than other global models currently in operational use. IBM GRAF boasts a grid of just 3 km and updates on an hourly basis, which would allow forecasters to quickly predict the development of small-scale weather

Forbes

 

 

 

Patagonia's ReCrafted line

The line takes worn-out, damaged goods and transforms them into entirely new, one-of-a-kind products at a workshop in Los Angeles. Each item in the ReCrafted collection is made up of between three and six pieces of used clothing.

“The ReCrafted line was an answer to a question,” says Kourtney Morgan, Patagonia’s senior designer, in a video to launch the line. “And the question was: What are we doing with all the products we are taking back that isn’t recyclable, that isn’t resale-able, and that isn’t repairable?”

FastCompany

 

Google helps you pronounce complex words

Studies have shown that practicing how to say a word can be helpful for remembering it, especially when you’re learning a new language. Previously, when you searched for things like “how to pronounce quokka,” you could play audio and hear the word. With the new pronunciation feature, you’ll be able to also practice saying “quokka” into your phone’s microphone and receive feedback on what, if anything, can be adjusted in your pronunciation. This feature is rolling out to American English today, with Spanish soon to follow.

Google Blog

 

Cruise ships get greener

In the coming months, Carnival’s engineers will begin pulling 115,000-ton ships into dry dock and crawling beneath the hulls. There, they’ll weld nine mattress-size metal boxes to the outside of each hull in the shape of a “V” and install air compressors inside the vessels. The system, from Silverstream Technologies, will ­create a carpet of tiny air bubbles between the ships and the water. The expected benefit: less drag and 5% to 10% better fuel efficiency, achieving up to $1 million in annual savings per ship.

Fortune

 

 

 

The Nike Vaporfly

Similar to other elite racing shoes, the Vaporfly is impossibly lightweight. But unlike the shoes made by competing brands like Adidas or Saucony, the Vaporfly’s midsole contains a thick layer of super squishy foam, which Nike calls ZoomX, and a carbon fiber plate.

Biomechanics experts say the idea behind the carbon fiber plate is to mimic the spring amputee runners get from the blades of their prosthetics. The spring allows athletes to exert less energy to run the same speed. The concept has been around for a little more than a decade, but Nike is the first manufacturer to successfully employ a carbon fiber plate in a shoe.

This marginal boost in efficiency may be hard to notice in a 100-meter dash, but Nike says that it can improve a runner’s time by up to 4.2%. In distances as long as the marathon that’s significant—it would shave almost nine minutes off of a 3:30:00 marathoner’s personal best.

“The interesting thing is for the elite runners it translates to less than 1% per percent of economy, but for the back of the pack person they actually get more out of it.”

Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

 

EV charging in 10 minutes?

"We demonstrated that we can charge an electrical vehicle in ten minutes for a 200 to 300 mile range," said Chao-Yang Wang, William E. Diefenderfer Chair of mechanical engineering, professor of chemical engineering and professor of materials science and engineering, and director of the Electrochemical Engine Center at Penn State. "And we can do this maintaining 2,500 charging cycles, or the equivalent of half a million miles of travel."

Lithium-ion batteries degrade when rapidly charged at ambient temperatures under 50 degrees Fahrenheit because, rather than the lithium ions smoothly being inserted into the carbon anodes, the lithium deposits in spikes on the anode surface.  This lithium plating reduces cell capacity, but also can cause electrical spikes and unsafe battery conditions.

Batteries heated above the lithium plating threshold, whether by external or internal heating, will not exhibit lithium plating.

Penn State University