Blog

China completes global satellite navigation network to rival US-led GPS

This week in future tech, China’s latest attempt to establish itself as the leading global power saw it complete its rival to GPS called Beidou. While the Global Positioning System – known commonly as GPS – has become synonymous with global navigation systems, the technology’s development and oversight is distinctly American. Now however, according to CNBC, China has completed its own global satellite network that will rival (GPS) in...

Scientists Claim to Find “Neurological Signature” of Consciousness

Seat of Consciousness Back in the middle of the 19th century, a physician named William Carpenter theorized that a part of the brain called the sensory ganglion was the “seat of consciousness.” He was wrong — we now know that what he called the sensory ganglion, since renamed the thalamus, is more of a switchboard for most of our senses. But the mystery of where consciousness comes from remained unsolved....

“Green New Deal” Calls for a Zero-Emission America by 2030

It’s Finally Here The Green New Deal, the ambitious climate-change prevention overhaul of the U.S. economy introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey, made its way to the internet on Thursday. The Green New Deal (GND), which is not a bill in itself but rather a resolution for the government to craft new laws promoting clean energy, was published online along with an FAQ sheet that highlights some...

This Smart “Astroskin” Shirt Tracks Astronauts’ Vital Signs

Space Tank It looks like a techie muscle-tee built for the gym. But this tank top can do a lot more than simply catch sweat — it also unobtrusively tracks astronauts’ vital signs. The Astroskin Bio-Monitor System jersey was developed by Quebec’s Carré Technologies, also known as Hexoskin. The company signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to develop the jersey back in 2016, according to Air & Space Magazine — and the shirt...

The next integration evolution

Here is one way to look at distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and blockchain in the context of integration evolution. Over the years, businesses and their systems are getting more integrated, forming industry-specific trustless networks, and blockchain technology is in the foundation of this evolutionary step. Enterprise integration Large organizations have a large number of applications running in separate silos that need to share data and functionality in order to...

China Built an AI to Detect Corruption and Officials Shut it Down

Zero Trust Since 2012, a sophisticated artificial intelligence has dug through big data to find signs of corruption in the Chinese government — but local officials in many areas are now shutting it down, according to the South China Morning Post. One researcher involved in the program, which is portentously called “Zero Trust,” told the Hong Kong newspaper that local officials might be shutting the program down because they don’t...

Five reasons why autonomous cars aren’t coming anytime soon

In the world of autonomous vehicles, Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley are bustling hubs of development and testing. But ask those involved in self-driving vehicles when we might actually see them carrying passengers in every city, and you’ll get an almost universal answer: Not anytime soon. An optimistic assessment is 10 years. Many others say decades as researchers try to conquer a number of obstacles. The vehicles themselves will debut...

Data is the Future of Brand Identity

Brands have always used a host of different tools, from advertising to product design, to clearly define themselves to their audiences. They understand that without communicating their voice, values, mission and approach, many brands would feel largely interchangeable. Sure, Nike makes sneakers and apparel for athletes, with a message that speaks to speed, design, and form. But from a high level, the same description could seem applicable to Adidas,...

Virtually reality: Future factories run by digital twins

A*STAR has built a testbed for digital twins, the virtual counterparts of real manufacturing equipment. These factory innovations could help companies save huge amounts of time and money by predicting and adjusting for their partner machine’s condition on the go. Imagine that a manufacturing giant has a machine on one of its factory floors in which a spindle is about to snap. In a conventional factory, the whirring machine...

Laser Scientists Just Tripled Their Record Fusion Power Yield

Fusion Power Fusion power — the process that keeps stars like the Sun burning — holds the promise of nearly unlimited clean power. But scientists have struggled for decades to make it a practical energy source. Now, laser scientists say a machine learning breakthrough has smashed the standing record for a fusion power yield. It doesn’t mean fusion power is practical yet, but the prestigious journal Nature called the result “remarkable” and...