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.
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.”
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.
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.
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
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
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?”
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.
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.
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.”
"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.
Curie, a 10,500-kilometer-long undersea cable, now connects Google data centers in the US and Chile. Today, Google announced that the fiber optic cable has been successfully installed and tested. It is expected to begin transmitting data in the second quarter of 2020, and Google is already working on a branch into Panama.
Curie (named after scientist Marie Curie) contains four 18 terabit per second (Tbps) fiber-optic pairs, which allow it to deliver 72 Tbps of bandwidth. As Google points out, 98 percent of its traffic travels through fiber optic cables, and in areas like Chile, Google cannot grow using existing cables, which are nearing end-of-life and don't have enough capacity. Submarine cable systems like Curie offer an alternative.
GitHub, the software collaboration platform recently acquired by Microsoft, will store 6,000 software repositories in long-term storage.
The open-source software will be stored at Piql's data center in Svalbard, known as the Arctic World Archive. Instead of hard drives or tape, the company uses its own proprietary film which is designed to last for 1,000 years.
The selected collection includes the source code for the Linux and Android operating systems; the programming languages Python, Ruby, and Rust; web platforms Node, V8, React, and Angular; cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum; AI tools TensorFlow and FastAI; and more. GitHub will store all active public repositories as of February 2, 2020.
As with its other models, Tesla gave Cybertruck some thoughtful goodies. It has 120-volt and 240-volt power outlets and an onboard air compressor, turning the truck into a mobile power station for work sites. According to previous Twitter reveals from Musk, it can parallel park itself (now a common feature in new cars) should it ever wander into a city. And, for unclear reasons, it’s bulletproof, at least to a 9-millimeter handgun. Though when Musk invited Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen to throw a metal ball at the window, the result was major cracking, and a somewhat embarrassed CEO.
But other electric pickups are coming. Startup Rivian has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and has repurposed an old Mitsubishi factory in Normal, Ill. Its R-1T pickup is slated to go on sale in late 2020 starting at $69,000. Michigan-based Bollinger is promising a muscular-looking 614-hp pickup for $125,000. Lordstown Motors, a fledgling truckmaker, is taking over the GM factory outside Youngstown, Ohio, to make electric pickups. It said Thursday that its first truck, the Endurance, would go on sale next fall starting at $52,500.
MotorTrend on potential manufacturing efficiencies
If the Cybertruck is a shock to the eyes, it's a jump-start to reimagining the foundational assumptions about vehicle appearance, engineering, and manufacturing. Remember Elon Musk's plans to leapfrog car assembly with a high-speed, robotic, alien dreadnaught "machine-that-builds-the-machine" that would fire-hose Model 3s out its tailpipe? He had to sheepishly remove some of the robots and conveyor belts to speed things up. Now, the "machines-that-will-build" the Cybertruck will go dramatically skinnier, scaling the dreadnaught down to simple dinghies that groove and bend (with the $200 million paint shop getting an auditor's line drawn through it). Real progress is assembled from the debris of failures.
Autoblog on why the concept car will likely evolve
Given how extreme the design is, don't expect that the Cybertruck as presented last night will reach production unchanged. In fact, it’s about as concept car-like as any previous Tesla reveal to date.
In true concept car fashion, there are no mirrors or wipers, and the lighting is also questionable. This concept doesn’t even appear to have camera mirrors installed anywhere, and who knows when those will be greenlit by U.S. regulators anyway. The Cybertruck has just one light bar in the front and another light bar in back. We’re not sure where the third brake light is yet either. It looks like the turn signals may be hiding down by the bumper, but the light bar across the front appears to house both the headlights and one massive DRL.
Enter the Mustang Mach-E, a gamble so great for the world’s sixth-largest automaker that the galloping horse on the vehicle’s grille is one of the few things in common with its predecessor. The Mustang’s slinky silhouette—long hood, short rear deck—has been altered to accommodate the bulbous curves of a four-door, albeit still rear-wheel-drive, utility vehicle. Its signature snarl, courtesy of the internal combustion engine, has been replaced by the subtle whine of a battery-powered electric motor. (Ford will add an artificial sound for the benefit of unwary pedestrians and U.S. regulators.) It’s expected to retail in the $40,000 range with a $7,500 federal rebate, a substantial premium over the $27,000 gasoline-powered base Mustang but competitive with electric-auto maker Tesla’s popular Model 3 sedan. Its range is approximately 300 miles, also on par with the Model 3.
One particularly interesting feature is not digital at all. It is its "frunk" - the front trunk. It has 4.8 cubic feet of storage, big enough to hold a carry-on-size suitcase, but it's being tipped as a tailgating or picnic-basket carrier, since it also has a drain located at the bottom of the storage compartment. With such, Ford says that the frunk can be packed full of ice and used as a cooler for camping or tailgating. It also sounds like the perfect place for dirty or muddy things, since the frunk could be easily rinsed out.
The airline has tested dual boarding and deplaning in Sacramento and a couple of other cities on and off for the past few years to gauge how much faster it gets passengers on and off planes and reduces the turnaround time between flights.
Southwest's so-called turn times – a measure of the time from when the plane locks at the gate and leaves again – were as low as 10 minutes in the scrappy carrier's early days and have long been a financial boon and competitive advantage for Southwest.
Today, they average 42 minutes. The airline's flights in Burbank and Long Beach, California, older airports where dual boarding and deplaning has long been the standard for airlines due to the airport facilities, have among the quickest turnaround times in the company.
Goldberg said the Sacramento experiment is just one piece of a puzzle Southwest is working on to make its operation more efficient as it approaches its 50th birthday in a couple of years.
It comprises of a traditionally-looking cane, completed by a handle. The innovative device features dual sensors which vibrate to alert the user of upcoming danger at ground & chest level. The battery can be charged via a USB and it functions up to five hours.
WeWALK is mobile-integrated: connecting to apps via Bluetooth, it enables control with a touchpad or voice command, with no need to hold the phone in one’s hand.
The integration of apps like Uber and Lyft means access to easy urban mobility, while Google Maps provides an accurate navigation system when walking. WeWALK also features an LED light to assist partially sighted people.
Due to the rising interest in the segment WeWALK faces direct competition with other products such as the MIT awarded Smart Cane Device, the Malaysian engineered BAWA cane and the GPS integrated SmartCane.
"Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the Bill Gates–backed fund, has made long-duration storage one of its highest priorities. In addition to Form, it has backed Quidnet and Malta, another thermal startup that relies on molten salt as the storage medium (see “Alphabet is in talks to spin out its molten-salt storage play”).
Meanwhile, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank recently invested $110 million in the Swiss mechanical storage startup Energy Vault, which uses cranes and wires to stack up concrete blocks when renewables are generating excess electricity. It then drops those blocks back to the ground on those same wires, using their momentum to turn motors in the cranes in reverse and pump out electricity."
Tobii was founded in 2001 after John Elvesjö, then an engineering student, built a computerized camera that could count bubbles in liquids. After realizing it could also track his pupils, he began developing an eye-tracking system that could control a computer. The team initially positioned its system for use in scientific research but quickly identified a market in health care. “We had experts approach us at trade shows and conferences saying, ‘Do you understand how much good this could do for people with disabilities?’” said Henrik Eskilsson, chief executive and co-founder.
Eye-tracking technology has been around for decades, but the devices were complicated, said Werner Goertz, senior director at the market research firm Gartner Inc. Today, companies such as Tobii are selling technology that allows other companies to add eye-tracking capabilities to their own products, allowing startups in industries including health care, retail, automotive and consumer electronics to test it out. “You just buy it off the shelf and stick your own application on top of it,” said Mr. Goetz.
In its mission to claw its way back from bankruptcy and reestablish itself in the hypercompetitive toy market, the brand has a new high-tech angle. Toys “R” Us, or rather Tru Kids (the company that is helping to manage the brand names left in the wake of the liquidation last year), has teamed up with b8ta, a software company that specializes in immersive retail experiences, and will each own 50% of the new endeavor. According to CNBC, the company hopes to open 10 stores around the U.S. in 2020 and may even bring back its New York City flagship.
Evolution gave the Burmese python a nearly infallible camouflage, but technology is catching up.
A new camera developed by University of Central Florida researchers and the non-profit company Imec uses a special wavelength of light to expose the snake as an ethereal slither against black, a ghostly coil in the river of grass.
Because pythons are cold-blooded and adopt the temperature of their surroundings, thermal imaging proved useless in hunting the invasive species.
But the camera uses a near infrared 850 nanometer wavelength (humans see between 400 and 700 nanometers) to detect the snakes, which reflect light at that level differently than the flora and waterways of South Florida.
“This is a game-changer,” said Orges, noting that they also are working on mounting the camera on drones. “The way the hunters operate now, they drive the roads and look out the sides, so having a drone system would allow them to cover a bigger area.”
German flying carmaker Lilium has announced a major milestone in the development of its Lilium Jet today, reports CNBC. The company says it has successfully completed more than a hundred tests of the vehicle flying at speeds of up to 62 mph in the last six months.
Rolls-Royce took delivery of the “Queen of the Skies” airplane at AeroTEC’s flight test center in Moses Lake, Wash., US, after it flew from Qantas’ home port of Sydney, Australia. During an extensive two-year transformation, AeroTEC engineers and technicians will convert the Boeing 747-400 from a commercial aircraft with 364 passenger seats to a state-of-the-art flying testbed equipped with extensive instrumentation and systems to take sophisticated measurements of engine performance in flight.
The new drugs, dubbed protein degraders, could be one of the most significant advances in drugmaking technology in decades. Unlike specialized gene therapies, treatments based on protein degraders could be mass-produced in pill form. There could be a range of applications, from vanquishing drug-resistant tumors to clearing clusters of disease-causing proteins from the brains of Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s sufferers. “No other technology has the potential to have such a broad impact,” says Nello Mainolfi, founder and president of Kymera Therapeutics, a biotech that attracted $70 million in funding in May from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. to use protein degraders to tackle undisclosed specialty diseases.
In its purest form, the “Inner Expanse Infinity Coat” is a pink ankle-length puffer coat, with a purple waterproof trench coat layer on top of it, and it’s topped off with a large puffer hood. In campaign images, a woman is wearing the $998 coat in a wheat field at sunset as if it were a gown, with the puffer billowing gloriously behind her.
Thanks to subtle, hidden buttons and zippers, the Infinity Coat can be transformed in 26 different ways. Among its many variations, it can be flipped inside out to reveal a purple puffer exterior, or the sleeves can be removed to create a vest. And to make it even more convenient, the puffer can be neatly packed into a little pouch in one of the pockets, making it easy to throw into your luggage.
In a vacant lot next to one of the last remaining steel mills in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a town just south of Pittsburgh, a massive new indoor farm is taking shape. The farm, from a startup called Fifth Season, will begin selling spinach, lettuce, and other leafy greens early next year, using a robot-based system that the founders say is cost-competitive with growing and transporting the same crops from a traditional farm.
It’s more affordable, they argue, than some others in the vertical farming industry. “We looked at vertical farming and realized that the industrywide struggle to make the economics work was a huge factor, and something that would really prevent the industry from truly taking off,” says Austin Webb, cofounder and CEO of Fifth Season, which incubated its first farm at Carnegie Mellon University.
While Aker BP got the help it needed from a small Austin, Texas-based AI software firm, SparkCognition, some bigger oil-and-gas companies are working with giants in the tech industry. Exxon Mobil Corp. in February started a partnership with Microsoft Corp. to deploy AI programs to optimize its operations in the Permian, or West Texas Basin. The oil giant also recently installed an AI program to gain insights from data coming from millions of sensors that monitor its global refineries. Total SA, meanwhile, is linking up with Google Inc. to better interpret seismic data, and is set to increase its investment in AI to squeeze more hydrocarbons from existing assets.
A PANTHEON project robot moves through the orchard, stops and uses its camera to take images
Determining the individual needs of each plant would take humans too much time and effort, so that’s where robots could help. This prototype is being developed to move around a hazelnut orchard autonomously, taking measurements of the trees.
Renzo Fabrizio Carpio is a robotics engineer at Roma Tre University:
“We collect data with a laser scanner for 3D geometric reconstruction, and we use cameras to take multi-spectral and high-resolution images to assess the physical or health status of each tree.”
No, these are,” he said, opening a cabinet with four shelves stocked with neatly organized containers: kelp, gamma E, policosanol, super K, acetyl-L-carnitine, DHA, pomegranate extract, and so on. A different cabinet held the nighttime capsules. He has learned to gulp them by the fistful.
Transhumanism is a patchwork of beliefs about how technology will enhance the human condition, maybe radically so. There are Extropians and brain uploaders, artists keen to paint in virtual worlds, and do-it-yourself biohackers ready to have electronic chips implanted in their bodies. One common thread, though, is the hope for super-longevity.
There's the Elektro Dumper—the world's largest EV—which flouts the rule that EVs can't handle serious work.
The truck is used to haul lime and marlstone, which contains clay and silt, from the sides of mountains in Switzerland. Then, the material is transported directly to a cement factory. But here's the really impressive piece of engineering—this heavy dump truck never needs to be charged.
Here's how it works: The dump truck, itself, weighs 45 tons and ascends a hill at a 13 percent grade, in one scenario. On the way back down, it's more than twice as heavy, carrying 65 tons of ore. To rectify that scenario, the truck's "regenerative braking system" actually recaptures the energy created by going downhill, refilling the battery's charge for the next time the truck travels uphill.
Remember the Geocaching craze a few years ago I posted about here?
Now it is corn mazes
"For those not in the know, corn mazes, like such other oddball pastimes and pursuits as escape rooms and ax throwing, are a thing these days. Farms across the country have made it part of their autumn slate of offerings. The idea: Come for the pumpkin patch and cider doughnuts, but stay for the chance to get completely lost in a field of towering vegetation.
In their simplest form, the mazes are indeed just that: fields of elephant eye-high corn stalks where pathways have been cut that lead a visitor from an entrance to an exit. But it is rarely that simple. Farms hire maze designers to create devilishly confusing trails with elaborate themes. That is, the path actually outlines a pirate ship or a jack o’ lantern or actor Joe Pesci’s face..."
The new CIMON will have a "more robust" computer, better mics, improved flight control and a more conversational system that recognizes speech, determines intent and includes a call history. It's expected to reach the ISS in December for further tests.
The station is quickly becoming a hub for robotics for multiple countries. The US recently sent its Astrobee cube robot for tests, while Russia just sent the humanoid Fyodor robot into orbit. Multiple major space agencies see robot helpers as vital for a future when astronauts will spend longer periods away from Earth, and they each have different ideas as to how to alleviate burdens and let crews focus on their missions.
The crux of Skywave’s comfort is that in adjusting the seat it changes the points at which gravity puts pressure on various parts of the body.
Rather than reclining a backrest, raising a footrest, or adjusting the angle of the seat pan independently, a single movement allows all of these changes to happen at once and to be adjusted regularly. As a concept, it is truly fascinating and an impressive foray into industrial design.
“For this kind of very zero gravity concept, we are testing the market,” Drago says, explaining that the company is thinking of products like Skywave with exceptional seating comfort offered alongside sleeping options in a seat-plus-bed suite style.
Over the past year, a new breed of employee has been surfacing at Sweetgreen HQ: data scientists from Amazon, product czars from Uber, digital mavens from big food chains like Starbucks and Domino's. This small tech army is building the Sweetgreen of tomorrow: a food platform that is as dialed into each customer's microbiome and barre routine--and perhaps 23andMe profile--as it is tracking its farmers' crops through the blockchain for peak freshness and taste. A platform that can take the shape of a quick-service restaurant reimagined in the spirit of an Apple Store--where customers order salads from digital kiosks or tablet-wielding free-roaming employees while sampling local radishes from a tasting bar--or perhaps not a physical store at all. Amazon rented out servers; why couldn't Sweetgreen do the same with serveries, letting chefs harness its delivery network and supply chain?
Dr. Eagleman founded NeoSensory in 2015 in Palo Alto, Calif., not far from Stanford University, where he’s an adjunct professor. Its aim is to develop haptic wearables that offer new ways of experiencing the world. The first of these is the Buzz, a device geared toward allowing the hearing impaired to perceive the auditory world via haptic vibrations. NeoSensory plans to start selling the Buzz in January for $630, comprised of an upfront fee of $150 and $20 monthly payments for two years.
People with hearing impairments who tested the Buzz said they could recognize noises like oncoming vehicles, crying babies, barking dogs, opening doors, guitar music—even the high-pitched “ding!” of a toaster oven—through a range of distinct vibrations.
Just three years ago, pop-ups were mostly used for three purposes: experiential marketing exploits, fashion-week stunts, or e-brands making the leap to brick-and-mortar. The latter filled empty storefronts in New York’s SoHo district and downtown Los Angeles, selling then-unknown brands such as U.K. clothing retailer Boohoo.com Plc and dog food delivery service Ollie. The staff often included the founder. “I would get calls from a lot of emerging brands that were on Etsy and barely had their own website, and they wanted to do a one-off holiday pop-up for two weeks,” says Melissa Gonzalez, of the pop-up architecture company Lion’esque Group.
On a typical job site, a manager might be able to peruse and document the whole operation once a week to make sure all the components are coming into place properly, and that crews aren’t, say, running a duct where there’s supposed to be a supporting column. But if you loaded out Spot with a 360 camera, it could do the rounds every night, because once it builds an initial 3D map of the environment, during each subsequent visit it can detect changes. It can operate in the rain and withstand clouds of dust. Should it end up turtled on its back, it does some coordinated leg wiggling to flip itself back onto four feet. Because it conveniently lacks lungs, it can venture into hazards like asbestos-tainted buildings, where it’s expensive to send humans in hazmat suits.
It has been said that reading books is surreal: You stare at marked slices of tree for hours on end, hallucinating vividly. Book lovers, therefore, are a strange bunch. They spend hours by themselves, escaping this world and immersing themselves in another. The variety of their worlds is as limitless as human knowledge. It’s a wonder that any one thing would bring these solitary souls together—until you consider the library.
Using a chip-based system, the league tracks the puck and players on the ice in a more seamless and comprehensive way than ever before. Marrying the new tracking information with its existing in-house Hockey Information Tracking System (HITS), which tallies all the essentials to properly log and score a hockey game (time-on-ice, face-offs won/lost, shots on goal, missed shots, shot types, penalties, etc.), the league and stats and broadcast-graphics partner SMT are simplifying the packaging and visualization of data in producing on-screen visuals that are both compelling to the viewer and easy to integrate for the producer.
Broadcasters dropped in IDs (or pointers) that followed players, trails of players or the puck, and advanced performance analytics at or close to real time. Even NBC Sports Digital streamed out an alternative version of its broadcast dedicated to showcasing this rich data.
An extract from a lengthy article in the WSJ on Bob Iger, the phenomenal CEO of Disney
"In an effort to find new ways to deliver content, Iger acquired a little-known company called BAMTech, a platform that helped Major League Baseball stream content to consumers. Disney would harness BAMTech’s technology to build Disney+, a streaming service with the scale to take on Netflix, Amazon and other potential competitors (including forthcoming streaming services from Apple, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia). Where once Disney would license its vast library of films and TV shows to Netflix, now Disney+ would offer subscribers exclusive access to the whole kingdom."
Meet the RT-1000. It’s different not just because it’s designed to cut grass by the acre. The RT-1000 is also a multi-talented robot that handles groundskeeping chores all-year round. Once the air turns cool and the snow starts falling, the RT-1000 can shed its mowing deck and turn into a snow blower.
CB Insights is not your old analyst firm. It says "We aggregate and analyze massive amounts of data and use machine learning, algorithms and data visualization to help corporations replace the three Gs (Google searches, gut instinct and guys with MBAs) so they can answer massive strategic questions using probability not punditry."
They have identified 14 trends (summarized below). Sign up here to get the detailed report.
The refueling station hosts a state-of-the-art, high-powered (HP), 200 kilowatt (kw), four dispenser system, delivering 50 kws and higher for EV charging. This refueling station allows four EVs to charge simultaneously within 20 to 30 minutes under an illuminated canopy. A new 200 kw/HP charging system with DC fast charging capability is in place to support the EV station along with a certified repair facility that can handle all aspects of servicing, including battery pack replacement and disposal, plus a fully stocked and automated convenience store.
The business isn’t earning money yet, P&G says, but the company is betting attractive stores, modern equipment, a focus on strong service and the use of Tide detergent on laundry orders will draw in customers. Expanding operations, as P&G first did in Chicago to include wash-and-fold laundry, on-campus delivery and lockers for pickup or drop-off, will make for a profitable business model, the company said.
A limited string of meals in November and December will showcase how food and virtual reality can intersect. Chintan Pandya and Roni Mazumdar of acclaimed Indian restaurants Adda and Rahi have teamed up with filmmaker Mattia Casalegno to create a virtual reality dining experience called Aerobanquets RMX at the James Beard house. Top Chef’s Gail Simmons narrates the seven-bite experience, which is $125 per person including tax and gratuity. Tickets here
In the wee hours of a sweltering Saturday in September, a volley of missiles and aerial explosives pierced the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. The attacks knocked out about 5% of global oil production almost immediately, yet one month later, they might as well never have happened.
Saudi Aramco says it’s currently pumping 9.9 million barrels a day, the same as before the Sept. 14 surprise attacks at Abqaiq, the world’s biggest oil-processing facility, and the field at Khurais. While the attacks laid bare Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability to major disruptions, Brent crude has slid below where it was beforehand, trading Monday at less than $60 a barrel."
Here's how:
* Using crude in storage to meet customer contracts
* Swapping some cargoes of light grades with medium or heavy barrels
* Cutting domestic refinery runs and buying fuel abroad
* Contractors worked non-stop to repair units
* Spare and redundant capacity allowed Aramco to rely on processing units that weren’t running at the time of the attacks
"Today we’re taking another big step by making the biggest corporate purchase of renewable energy in history. This purchase is made up of a 1,600-megawatt (MW) package of agreements and includes 18 new energy deals. Together, these deals will increase our worldwide portfolio of wind and solar agreements by more than 40 percent, to 5,500 MW—equivalent to the capacity of a million solar rooftops. Once all these projects come online, our carbon-free energy portfolio will produce more electricity than places like Washington D.C. or entire countries like Lithuania or Uruguay use each year.
Our latest agreements will also spur the construction of more than $2 billion in new energy infrastructure, including millions of solar panels and hundreds of wind turbines spread across three continents. In all, our renewable energy fleet now stands at 52 projects, driving more than $7 billion in new construction and thousands of related jobs.
To ensure maximum impact, all of our latest deals meet the rigorous “additionality” criteria we set out long ago for our energy purchases. This means we’re not buying power from existing wind and solar farms but instead are making long-term purchase commitments that result in the development of new projects."
Welcome to the age of the ultra-marathon flight. Qantas just ran a test flight nonstop from New York to Sydney. As Time describes
"The research on the passengers and crew will feed into Project Sunrise, Qantas’s plan to start direct commercial services connecting Sydney with New York and London. Other super-long flights from Australia’s eastern seaboard to South America and Africa might follow, Qantas says.
On board, Joyce tells me he’ll “absolutely” roll out this flight’s regime on his other long routes — if the science shows it helps. The trick is accommodating those who want to drink and snooze at will, Joyce says.
But don’t go booking your round-the-world flights just yet. Qantas needs new planes from Boeing or Airbus SE that can do the job with a full load of passengers, and a new deal with crew to work longer than 20 hours."
Of course, no airline can help you with jet lag after you land, and even less when you turn around a few days later.
So, it is good to see a new generation of apps to fight jet lag. From Wired
"Every frequent flier has a trick to outrace jet lag, but Beyer-Clausen’s come-to-Jesus moment came when he met Steven Lockley, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and an expert in circadian rhythm studies. Lockley has worked with astronauts and Formula 1 race car drivers to improve sleep quality through light exposure.
Together, he and Beyer-Clausen designed the Timeshifter app. It joins several others in the App Store that promise to beat jet lag: Entrain, a free app, similarly leverages light exposure to reset circadian rhythms. Uplift, for $10, offers a few physical exercises based on “biorhythmic acupressure.”"
A new breakthrough out of Tufts University, just published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, could fast-forward us into a new era of wearable electronics that are woven like clothing, and even might be sewn into our skin and organs to track our health.
The scientists developed a transistor out of linen thread. That means the thread can transfer electricity like an insulated wire, be turned on and off instantaneously like a processor, and connect a network of sensors on or inside your body.
The 2013 holiday season was a turning point for Amazon, after orders overwhelmed carriers in the U.S. and led to late packages and upset customers. Since then, Amazon has multiplied the number of fulfillment, sorting and other delivery facilities from about 65 to roughly 400, according to an analysis of data from logistics consultant MWPVL International; before 2005, it just had three fulfillment centers for the entire country, MWPVL said.
Amazon now delivers nearly half of its orders, compared with less than 15% in 2017, according to estimates from research firm Rakuten Intelligence. It is now handling an estimated 4.8 million packages every day in the U.S., according to MWPVL International. The U.S. Postal Service, once the primary carrier of Amazon parcels, delivers about half the share of packages than it did two years ago.
The Saudi oil bounceback
From Fortune
In the wee hours of a sweltering Saturday in September, a volley of missiles and aerial explosives pierced the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. The attacks knocked out about 5% of global oil production almost immediately, yet one month later, they might as well never have happened.
Saudi Aramco says it’s currently pumping 9.9 million barrels a day, the same as before the Sept. 14 surprise attacks at Abqaiq, the world’s biggest oil-processing facility, and the field at Khurais. While the attacks laid bare Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability to major disruptions, Brent crude has slid below where it was beforehand, trading Monday at less than $60 a barrel."
Here's how:
* Using crude in storage to meet customer contracts
* Swapping some cargoes of light grades with medium or heavy barrels
* Cutting domestic refinery runs and buying fuel abroad
* Contractors worked non-stop to repair units
* Spare and redundant capacity allowed Aramco to rely on processing units that weren’t running at the time of the attacks
October 26, 2019 in Globalization and Technology, Industry Commentary, Logistics, Supply Chain | Permalink | Comments (0)