While some firms are using computer vision to empower factory robots, others are turning digital eyes on you and me to perfect the art of advertising, and an increasingly data-hungry ad industry is buying in. One of the latest to jump onboard, AOL’s content subsidiary, Be On, recently announced a partnership with Realeyes, a provider of face and emotion detection software.
A year and a half ago virtual reality was yet an elusive technodream. It may still be, even today. But the Oculus Rift, VR’s latest great hope, is winning over developers and newbies alike, accruing accolades, awards—and now cold cash.
Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, recently reported the finding of unapproved genetically modified wheat in an Oregon field—and nobody knows where it came from. This is of concern, especially to farmers, but raises a larger question too. If genetic modification is the future, how will we control our creations?
The name of China’s newest supercomputer, Tianhe-2, translates to Milky Way 2. It’s a fitting moniker, maybe even a modest one. There are an estimated 400 billion stars in our galaxy. The Tianhe-2 can run a million times as many calculations per second as there are stars in the Milky Way. Tianhe-2 is now the fastest computer on Earth, doubling the speed of its American rival, Titan—and it arrived two years ahead of schedule. Moore’s Law may not apply to chips anymore, but thanks to improving interconnects, evolving architecture, and ingenious software to exploit massively parallel processing, elite computing continues along an exponential trajectory.
Andrew Johnson, or Cyber-AJ, is one of the 10 million people suffering from Parkinson’s Disease (PD) worldwide. The disease is progressive, and it is devastating. Johnson recently described himself as a “39 year old trapped in a 89 year old body.” But earlier this year, his life was transformed by a technique increasingly prescribed to a subset of PD patients called deep brain stimulation (DBS).
Bob Richards & Naveen Jain are trustees of Singularity University and space entrepreneurs who discuss their vision for business and the fundamental shifts that are...
Most of us know when we’re stressed. Physical cues like stomach butterflies, a flushed face, or muscle tension are hard to miss. Problem is, said symptoms can be very difficult to control. Once going—these things tend to snowball. The PIP biosensor Kickstarter aims to help folks mediate stress by objectively measuring symptoms, digitally visualizing the results, and then gamifying stress reduction. It’s the latest in an avalanche of sensors aiming to increase body awareness and health.
The tired legs of 80 jetlagged students shuffle to their seats of Mountain View California’s Computer History Museum, in preparation for a summer that...
Remember watching Boston Dynamics’ cheetah robot outrun Usain Bolt? Meet its little cousin, Cheetah-cub, built by EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory (Biorob). Being just a cub, it’s no Usain Bolt, but Biorob believes it’s the fastest robot of its kind.
It’s no secret Google’s building a high-tech portfolio beyond search, from self-driving cars to artificial intelligence. Out of the limelight, however, they’re building something else entirely—a new campus at NASA Moffett Field. Though the firm has been rather secretive about their new Bayview campus, a panel of designers and architects in involved in the project recently gave a talk at NASA, a stone’s throw from Singularity University. Down for the afternoon, I popped in to hear the gospel.
Sometimes it's the simplest of explanations that can change your whole perspective...at least, that's what statistics guru Hans Rosling hopes to achieve in a...
Ever dream of seeing the horizon’s curve from orbit? Or maybe just sending your smartphone into the wild blue to snap a shot for Instagram? For most of us, that first one may be out of reach for a little while longer—but option two? Closer than you think. Thanks to years of microchip and sensor miniaturization, we are now making useful satellites shockingly tiny and affordable.
If Cisco and iRobot have their way, robot CEOs may invade boardrooms from Tokyo to New York to London in 2014. iRobot and Cisco recently announced collaboration on the autonomous Ava 500 telepresence robot for business. The firms hope the Ava 500 will allow business people to attend daily meetings in person, across the planet—without ever changing a plane or time zone.
Is it a plane? Is it a car? Well, so far, a flying car prototype is the best answer—and a late one at that. Massachusetts firm, Terrafugia, has been promising delivery of the Transition for almost four years. The latest missed deadline? The end of 2012, and to date, still no Transition. As you’d expect, it’s hard to build a flying car.
Last month, the office supply chain, Staples, joined the world of 3D printing. Adding to the momentum? Amazon is in too. Or at least that’s the story.vThe online retailer launched a new department offering 3D printers ($1,099 and up), 3D printing filament, parts and accessories (for those building their own machine), 3D printing books, and software, like CAD, to make 3D models.
Technology has always ridden far out ahead of the laws that govern it. As the pace accelerates, that gap may widen. The US Patent Office issued the first patent on a gene thirty years ago. Tens of thousands of patents later and amid growing uncertainty about the patentability of genes, the issue was heard by the US Supreme Court earlier this year. On June 13th, the court ruled against biotech firm, Myriad, saying the company may not patent isolation of naturally ocurring genes. However, the court upheld patents of synthetically created genes, known as complementary DNA or cDNA.
Two Bit Circus is producing the STEAM Carnival, a hands-on event featuring “robots, fire, and lasers to inspire young inventors in science, technology, engineering, art, and math.” Doesn’t that sound lovely?
Mathemati-phobes rejoice. If a new study is right, you may one day get to swap coffee and cramming for a trusty set of head-mounted electrodes. According to a team of researchers, hailing from the UK and Austria, non-invasive electrical brain stimulation may improve math skills.
In an attempt to not only expand the menu for Earth orbiters, but to also bring us one step closer to every Trekkie’s dream of a food replicator, NASA is funding a project that is aimed at creating a 3D printer to serve astronauts up some pizza.
My favorite thing about Jason Silva? His ability to formulate, encapsulate, and prescribe, over the counter, the awe this particular epoch of human evolution can and should engender. Whatever pills he’s taking, I want some. A close second? His t-shirts. Check out his backlog here to see cosmological creation on cotton crewnecks.
That's right, we're excited to announce that Singularity Hub is hiring! We're looking for talented, prolific writers with a strong background in technology and science...
The time for innovation is now! The 2013 Graduate Studies Program at Singularity University is officially kicking off with the Opening Ceremonies on June...
A group of resourceful doctors at the University of Michigan used 3D printing technology to give a young man a stint for his weakened trachea. Without the stint the boy’s prognosis was to never leave the hospital – and that was the best case scenario.
You’ve probably never heard of Anki. Before this article, I’d never heard of Anki either. Nevertheless, the robotics and artificial intelligence startup took pole position at Apple's 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote address—an event that sold out in less than a minute, was staged in front of a couple thousand journalists and developers, and was broadcast live to thousands more online. It’s the kind of exposure new companies dream about.
The US throws out 250 million tons of garbage a year. Roughly a third is recycled, and the rest is landfill. You might think that’s a problem, but one man’s trash is another’s treasure. Oslo, Norway burns rubbish to power and heat homes, and they’ve run out. The city imports trash from Sweden, Ireland, England—and they wouldn’t mind taking on a few tons from the US.
3D printers build objects by cross-section, one layer at a time from the ground up—gravity is the limiting factor. But what if it wasn’t? Using proprietary 3D printing materials, Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić’s Mataerial 3D printing system is gravity independent. The duo’s method allows a robotic arm to print objects on floors, walls, ceilings—smooth and uneven surfaces.
Though industrial firms have used additive technologies in rapid prototyping for years, the tech is still fresh and growing in the consumer segment. The latest sign of the 3D printer home invasion? Retail office supply chain, Staples, says they’ll sell the 3D Systems Cube 3D Printer online and in retail stores by the end of June.
Bryan Henderson hails from Edinburgh Scotland. He’s 18 years old and recently became a god. Henderson won the collaborative, cube-destroying game Curiosity—What’s Inside the Cube, and he’s reportedly still a bit baffled as to how it happened.
This is the complete version of the Opening Ceremonies for the Singularity University's 2013 Graduate Studies Program featuring Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. The...
To some of us, wicked fast quantum computers seem like the stuff of theory and some far off future. Not so if you work at Google or NASA. In a sign the technology is creeping closer to practical use, Google, NASA, and the non-profit Universities Space Research Association (USRA) recently announced formation of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab and seeded it with a brand new D-Wave quantum computer.
China has ten cities bigger than New York. Almost half of the world’s 20 tallest skyscrapers under construction today are in China. Naturally, China’s builders are chomping at the bit to get things done, like yesterday. But no one can erect the biggest skyscraper on the planet in three months…right? We may find out later this year. Broad Sustainable Building (BSB) says its Sky City scraper will hold the title by the end of 2013—and they haven’t even broken ground.
Mark Hatch is CEO of TechShop, a chain of six member-based fabrication workshops that allow the public access to industrial welding, milling, electronics, and...
Palmer Luckey wasn’t exactly a household name this time last year. He’s a young guy from Long Beach, California, smart as a whip, and obsessed with virtual reality. After building a massive collection of the day’s top virtual reality tech, he realized nothing came close to the experience he wanted. So, he decided to build it himself. Say hello to the Oculus Rift, the virtual reality headset causing quite a stir in the tech and gaming communities.
Only about two percent of the human genome contains genes. The other 98 percent has been likened to cosmology’s dark matter that fills the space between stars – there’s a lot of it, but nobody really know what it does.
How do you get kids interested in science? Strike that. How do you get kids and adults interested in science? One: Involve them in it. Two: Awaken awe. Asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources’ new Kickstarter aims to accomplish both by giving the public control over one of the firm’s ARKYD space telescopes—to snap a selfie or two with its camera arm or to plumb the cosmic depths with the scope’s optics.
Ever dream of living out your days on a hostile desert world, exiled from the garden planet of your youth? Who do you think you are? Paul Atreides? Well, maybe it’s not so strange. 78,000 other Earthlings (and counting) share your dream of exile. Since late April, the not-for-profit organization, Mars One, has been flooded with applications for a one-way ticket to colonize Mars in 2023.
Drones continue their steady approach into the different aspects of our lives. But while controversy rages over drone devastation over foreign soil and prying surveillance over US soil, experts are beginning to point our attention to the real future of unmanned aerial vehicles: farming.
