This week, the widely-anticipated fifth season of the dystopian series Black Mirror was released on Netflix. The storylines this season are less focused on...
HEALTH
Laser Destroys Cancer Cells Circulating in the Blood
Emily Waltz | IEEE Spectrum
"Tumor cells that spread cancer via the bloodstream face a new foe: a...
According to those in the industry, and researchers too, driverless cars will totally revolutionize the way we think about individual transport. They will change...
Graphene is a highly unconventional substance. After all, how many other Nobel-Prize-winning breakthroughs are made by scientists messing around on a Friday night with...
Big established companies know they must innovate to survive, but often fail to do so. Startups, meanwhile, are born innovating. While it's tempting to...
Earth’s oceans have seen better days. They’re inundated with plastic waste, both whole single-use plastics and tons of plastic microparticles that find their way...
ROBOTICS
Inside the Amazon Warehouse Where Humans and Machines Become One
Matt Simon | Wired
"Seen from above, the scale of the system is dizzying. My robot,...
In almost every industry you can think of, blockchain is poised to cut out middlemen, dramatically improve transparency, and multiply the efficiency of countless...
When Elon Musk and DARPA both hop aboard the cyborg hypetrain, you know brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are about to achieve the impossible.
BMIs, already the...
As digital technologies facilitate the growth of both new and incumbent organizations, we have started to see the darker sides of the digital economy...
Buck Rogers had Twiki. Luke Skywalker palled around with C-3PO and R2-D2. And astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) now have their own...
Machines are mastering vision and language, but one sense they're lagging behind on is touch. Now researchers have created a sensor-laden glove for just...
The question of whether an artificial general intelligence will be developed in the future—and, if so, when it might arrive—is controversial. One (very uncertain)...
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
DeepMind Can Now Beat Us at Multiplayer Games Too
Cade Metz | The New York Times
"DeepMind’s project is part of a broad effort to...
“Do we have a chance of ever understanding brain function without brain simulations?” So asked the Human Brain Project (HBP), the brainchild of Henry...
We live in the age of entrepreneurs. New startups seem to appear out of nowhere and challenge not only established companies, but entire industries....
GENETICS
Gene Therapy Might Have Its First Blockbuster
Antonio Regalado | MIT Technology Review
"...drug giant Novartis expects to win approval to launch what it says will...
Regenerative medicine and stem cells are often uttered within the same breath, for good reason.
In animal models, stem cells have reliably reversed brain damage...
In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius pointed out that “the development of human industry” could introduce carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, trapping infrared radiation...
Robot technology is evolving at breakneck speed. SoftBank’s Pepper is found in companies across the globe and is rapidly improving its conversation skills. Telepresence...
AUGMENTED REALITY
Minecraft Earth Wants to Be the Next Pokemon Go—Only Bigger
Peter Rubin | Wired
"It’s a massive undertaking that quite literally covers the entire globe...
The energy and transportation industries are being aggressively disrupted by converging exponential technologies.
In just five days, the sun provides Earth with an energy supply...
When scientists behind the Manhattan Project heard of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their earlier exuberance gradually turned into morose regret. What began...
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have invested $1 billion in Breakthrough Energy to fund next-generation solutions to tackle climate. But there is a huge...
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
A New Way to Build Tiny Neural Networks Could Create Powerful AI on Your Phone
Karen Hao | MIT Technology Review
"If you can train...
Convergence is accelerating disruption… everywhere! Exponential technologies are colliding into each other, reinventing products, services, and industries.
In this third installment of my Convergence Catalyzer...
It’s hard to imagine a field where data is more valuable than in healthcare. Monitoring and interpreting crucial health indices can make the difference...
A few years back, DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis famously prophesized that AI and neuroscience will positively feed into each other in a “virtuous circle.” If...
We're tantalizingly close to growing organs in the lab, but the biggest remaining challenge has been creating the fine networks of blood vessels required...
As technology continues to progress, the possibility of an abundant future seems more likely. Artificial intelligence is expected to drive down the cost of...
NANOTECHNOLOGY
The Microbots Are on Their Way
Kenneth Chang | The New York Times
"Like Frankenstein, Marc Miskin’s robots initially lie motionless. Then their limbs jerk to...
Twenty years ago, entertainment was dominated by a handful of producers and monolithic broadcasters, a near-impossible market to break into.
Today, the industry is almost...
CRISPR just hit another landmark.
Last week, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) confirmed that they have treated two cancer patients using the gene editing darling...
