As we adapt our cities for the next 100 years, it’s important and thrilling to remind ourselves that this is a rare moment in technology where an innovation can be designed to build community. If we play our cards right, … Continued
The trouble with the future is that it never seems to arrive. That’s why we call it the future. We consequently have this bad habit of taking the present, and all the wondrous and horrific things it has to offer, … Continued
Colouring books and crayons often have a hard time competing against smartphone games and YouTube videos, especially as children come into contact with mobile devices from a very early age. Researchers at the Game Technology Center have combined the advantages … Continued
An article under the heading “Life is a six-letter word” the 2 December 2017 edition of the Economist reports on research by Dr Floyd Romseberg and his colleagues in which they have created two chemical bases which they have proven … Continued
Sophia the robot’s recognition as a Saudi citizen made international headlines — and sparked an outcry against a country with a shoddy human rights record that has been accused of making women second-class citizens. Until recently, the most famous thing … Continued
A spin-off of an ambitious idea to refreeze the Arctic using machines is about to get a trial run in Switzerland where a team of researchers plan to add ice to a glacier in the Alps using snow machines. One … Continued
A team of researchers at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa have made a major breakthrough in the field of biomedical engineering. According to a release published on Medical Express, for the first time ever, researchers have devised a way of … Continued
My conversation with Mathias Bahnmueller started as pretty much all my phone interviews do. “Can you hear me?” he asked, and I replied affirmatively. Then I asked him the same question. His answer was yes—he could hear me very clearly. And … Continued
Automation will make most jobs obsolete. Rather than mourn the loss of the 9 to 5, we should see this as an opportunity to liberate humanity from the need to work for somebody else to survive. Coupled with universal basic … Continued
You might call it the smallest movie ever made. This week, a team of scientists report that they have successfully embedded a short film into the DNA of living bacteria cells. The mini-movie, really a GIF, is a five-frame animation … Continued
Green Heinz ketchup? Fat-free Pringles? Colgate frozen lasagna? You don’t need to be an expert to know these products weren’t successful. Which is why these creations, with dozens of others, feature in the new Museum of Failure , a wacky … Continued
Brain surgery is precision business, and one slip can spell doom for affected patients. Even in one of the most skilled jobs in the world, human error can still be a factor. Researchers from the University of Utah are looking … Continued
Developer PMG is building 3,500 units in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Miami, featuring smaller living spaces and more shared space. If you live in a new apartment building in Chicago, you might be more likely to spend a typical night downstairs … Continued
A Swedish mall, called ReTuna Återbruksgalleria, exclusively sells recycled and upcycled goods. Unlike a traditional mall with a shopping centre, ReTuna also has a traditional municipal recycling centre. Visitors can drop off goods that they no longer need in the recycling centre, and then … Continued
It sounds, admits Chris Finlayson, like a “pretty nutty” idea. Yet the new law that declares the Whanganui River, New Zealand’s third-longest, a legal person, in the sense that it can own property, incur debts and petition the courts, is … Continued
Arachnophobia is a common and powerful fear. Spiders sit high in the pantheon of species that have an outsized terror-to-danger ratio. But, unsettling though they may be, the eight legged to excel at keeping six-limbed pests in check. They prey … Continued
The booming growth of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), like most transformational technologies, is both exciting and scary. It’s exciting to consider all the ways our lives may improve, from managing our calendars to making medical diagnoses, but it’s … Continued
There’s a lot of carbon in automobile exhaust. Carbon is also used as a pigment in black ink. The guys at Singapore-based Graviky Labs have combined the one with the other, by harvesting carbon from vehicles’ tailpipes to make their … Continued
Google recently announced that its new AI-based translation software, Neural Machine Translation (NMT), has developed an internal language of its own to facilitate its translation of certain languages — and Google can’t explain how it did it. Neural Machine Translation … Continued
Thermoelectric generators convert heat or cold to electricity (and vice-versa). Normally solid-state devices, they can be used in such things as power plants to convert waste heat into additional electrical power, or in small cooling systems that do not need … Continued