#Google buys Titan Aerospace, a solar-powered drone company Solar-powered drone This week, Google announced the acquisition of Titan Aerospace for an undisclosed sum in a move that sees the technology
Following Facebook s $20 million purchase of U k.-based aerospace company Ascenta which has been working on the development of unmanned,
solar-powered aerial drones for the past few years Google acted fast to usurp an expected bid by Facebook to also acquire Titan Aerospace.
The New mexico-based company has been working on the development of solar-powered drones designed to fly unmanned
and nonstop for years at a time a technology Google hopes to utilize in order to extend its influence
a source close to Google said that the company offered to top any offer from Facebook for Titan Aerospace.
which has a staff of just 20, will remain at its location in New mexico to continue its work on its promising
but as yet largely unproven technology that Google hopes can help beam internet access to areas of the globe that remain unserved by cellphone towers or telephone wires.
Solar-powered drones are an attractive proposition to company like Google and Facebook because of their reliability and stability in often adverse weather conditions.
Balloons previously utilized to scour hard-to-reach locations, are susceptible to changing weather conditions, while fossil fuel-or battery-powered unmanned aircraft are expensive to run
and possess a shorter range. Google s technical experts will work with Titan Aerospace to advance the material design for the drones wings,
while also developing advanced algorithms to help the aircraft better traverse wind patterns and flight routes.
The intention is to collect real-time, high-resolution images of the earth, and to bring greater depth
and detail to atmospheric sensors used in many of Google s applications, such as Google maps. It is still early days
but atmospheric satellites could help bring internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems,
and environmental damage like deforestation, said a Google statement announcing the acquisition. Solar s influence Titan Aerospace caught Google s attention thanks to its innovative dragonfly-shaped drones that are powered by its wing-mounted solar panels
and onboard battery storage that allows the planes to fly at night. The drones are huge aircraft the smaller model,
the Solara 50, is actually larger than a Boeing 767 jetliner, boasting a 164-foot wingspan.
Commercial operations for the technology are still approximately 12 months away and some experts in the industry are skeptical as to
whether the solar technology is advanced currently enough to deliver the kind of long-range reliability that Google will require.
The problem with solar planes is that they are limited to smaller payloads, said drone expert Patrick Egan.
At night you are not collecting energy from the sun and it takes a lot of power to broadcast internet signals.
However, a source close to Facebook has revealed that the social media giants had been reviewing Titan Aerospace s solar-powered drones some six months ago,
and were impressed enough to open talks with the company about a possible acquisition. Google were evidently also eager to speak with Titan
and are believed to have gazumped Facebook s offer r
#Neuroscientists reverse symptoms of Alzheimer s in mice Researchers found that the overproduction of the protein known as p25 may be the culprit behind the sticky protein-fragment clusters that build up in the brains of Alzheimer patients.
The work, which was published in the April 10 issue of Cell, could provide a new drug target for the treatment of the disease that affects more than five million Americans,
says Li-Huei Tsai, director of MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and senior author of the paper.
Abnormal clusters of protein fragments, known as beta amyloid plaques are believed to cause the cognitive impairments, cell death,
and tissue loss associated with Alzheimer. The p25 protein had been tied to the creation and buildup of beta amyloids,
but until now, p25 role in Alzheimer pathology was understood not well. his protein appears to help maintain normal brain activity,
but also is part of a feedback loop with beta amyloids. It generates the plaques which, in turn, boost levels of p25,
Tsai says. Lead author of the paper is Jinsoo Seo, a postdoc associate at the Picower Institute.
Elevated p25 levels in the brain have been documented upon exposure to neurotoxic stimuli such as oxidative stress and beta amyloids. n this study
Tsai lab generated a transgenic mouse model, which enabled researchers to prevent the production of p25 without altering other proteins with essential roles in brain development.
whether the blockade of p25 generation could mitigate pathological phenotypes in the Alzheimer brain, Tsai says.
In the mouse model of Alzheimer disease, inhibiting p25 production improved cognitive function, greatly reduced plaque formation and neuroinflammation, hallmark features of Alzheimer disease.
These results hold out the hope that a drug that regulates p25 could benefit Alzheimer disease patients by improving cognitive function
and perhaps delaying the development of brain pathology, Tsai says. This work was supported in part by the National institutes of health and the Howard hughes medical institute M
#Lost Luggage 3d printable luggage Janne Kyttanen, a Finnish designer and creative director of 3d Systems, has improved vastly on the concept of luggage.
the era of suitcase-schlepping may soon be over. magine design is just data, and products could travel through the Internet as code,
produced on demand at any location, Kyttanen says in a video explaining the project. Now on view as part of Kyttanen solo exhibition at Galerie Vivid in Rotterdam
The files for these products could be sent in an email and then printed out, all in one operation,
Mehta demonstrates that you can combine it with about $20 worth of electronics to create a fully functioning robot.
The heavy lifting is done by the software that generates these designs employing a branch of mathematics called computational geometry.
For example, a user can tell the software he wants a two-wheeled robot of a certain size,
and it will generate a cut-and-fold pattern that looks like this: You can use an off-the-shelf vinyl cutter to make super-precise cuts automatically,
which will make it an amazing tool for robotics education. It also means that if your pet completely shreds your robot, youe only out one piece of paper.
It uses an LED to detect the black line, and when it senses that it over white space,
#Electric car sales growing 100%every year Actually, electric car sales are growing a little bit more than 100%.%Every year more and more electric car models are hitting the market.
As more consumers begin to adopt the technology electric car sales continue to improve. EV sales are currently growing at a rate of more than 100 percent a year according to a recent report.
In 2010 only 25,000 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles were sold around the world, but by the end of 2011 80,000 electric vehicles were sold.
In 2012,200, 000 electric vehicles were sold and just last year 405,000 EVS found homes globally. Why are electric cars selling better than ever before?
A few years ago if a car buyer wanted to buy a fully electric car, their only option was to walk into a showroom for the Nissan leaf.
But now there are several electric and plug-in electric hybrid models to choose from. Also since lithium-ion battery costs have dropped,
electric car prices have dropped also, meaning that there are now several electric cars with price tags around $30, 000.
Will the trend continue? Signs point to yes many automakers like BMW and Kia are just starting to release electric cars,
and over the next few years there will be more electric and plug-in hybrid models to choose from than ever before.
One issue holding electric cars back is the lack of EV infrastructure, but cities all over the world are installing charging stations.
The technology will also continue to improve, and the next generation of electric cars will have longer driving ranges
and faster charging times t
#DNA computers deliver drugs inside cockroaches Nano-sized entities made of DNA that are able to perform the same kind of logic operations as a silicon-based computer have been introduced into a living animal.
A computer inside a cockroach. The DNA computers known as origami robots because they work by folding
and unfolding strands of DNA travel around the insect body and interact with each other, as well as the insect cells.
When they uncurl, they can dispense drugs carried in their folds. NA nanorobots could potentially carry out complex programs that could one day be used to diagnose
or treat diseases with unprecedented sophistication, says Daniel Levner, a bioengineer at the Wyss Institute at Harvard university.
Levner and his colleagues at Bar Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel, made the nanobots by exploiting the binding properties of DNA.
When it meets a certain kind of protein, DNA unravels into two complementary strands. By creating particular sequences,
the strands can be made to unravel on contact with specific molecules say, those on a diseased cell.
When the molecule unravels, out drops the package wrapped inside. A bug life The team has injected now various kinds of nanobots into cockroaches.
Because the nanobots are labelled with fluorescent markers the researchers can follow them and analyse how different robot combinations affect where substances are delivered.
The team says the accuracy of delivery and control of the nanobots is equivalent to a computer system. his is the first time that biological therapy has been able to match how a computer processor works,
says co-author Ido Bachelet of the Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials at Bar Ilan University. nlike electronic devices,
which are suitable for our watches, our cars or phones, we can use these robots in life domains,
like a living cockroach, says Ángel Goñi Moreno of the National Center for Biotechnology in Madrid,
Spain. his opens the door for environmental or health applications. DNA has already been used for storing large amounts of information and circuits for amplifying chemical signals,
but these applications are compared rudimentary with the potential benefits of the origami robots. Commodore cockroach The number of nanobots in the study more than in previous experiments makes it particularly promising,
says Bachelet. he higher the number of robots present, the more complex the decisions and actions that can be achieved.
If you reach a certain threshold of capability, you can perform any kind of computation. In this case
we have gone past that threshold, he says. The team says it should be possible to scale up the computing power in the cockroach to that of an 8-bit computer, equivalent to a Commodore 64 or Atari 800 from the 1980s.
Goni-Moreno agrees that this is feasible. he mechanism seems easy to scale up so the complexity of the computations will soon become higher,
he says. An obvious benefit of this technology would be cancer treatments, because these must be cell-specific and current treatments are targeted not well.
But a treatment like this in mammals must overcome the immune response triggered when a foreign object enters the body.
with the exception of some aircraft carriers and 72 submarines that rely on nuclear propulsion. Moving away from that reliance would free the military from fuel shortages
and fluctuations in price. t a huge milestone for us, said Vice Adm. Philip Cullom. e are in very challenging times where we really do have to think in pretty innovative ways to look at how we create energy,
how we value energy and how we consume it. We need to challenge the results of the assumptions that are the result of the last six decades of constant access to cheap unlimited amounts of fuel.
The breakthrough came after scientists developed a way to extract carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas from seawater.
The gasses are turned then into a fuel by a gas-to-liquids process with the help of catalytic converters. or us in the military, in the Navy,
we have some pretty unusual and different kinds of challenges, said Cullom. e don necessarily go to a gas station to get our fuel.
It will also partner with universities to maximize the amount of CO2 and carbon they can recapture
Below is a U s. Naval Research Laboratory Youtube video explaining the breakthrough Y
#Israeli startup Storedot charges smartphone batteries to full in 30 seconds Storedot It possible that youl be able to plug the smartphone in
and charge it from 0 percent to 100 percent in just under a minute, according to a report by the Wall street journal. An Israeli startup by the name of Storedot revealed the technology at Microsoft Think Next Conference using standard smartphone batteries,
and they claim itl even be portable. video) As the demo was held at a Microsoft conference,
the actual demonstration was shown on a Samsung galaxy S3; however, the technology will almost certainly be available for Apple smartphone.
Fast battery chargers already exist, but theye expensive, unwieldy things for special batteries. Storedot, however, claims that its technology will only cost around twice as much as traditional chargers.
Batteries traditionally charge quickly during the first 80 percent of the charge, but slow to a trickle for the last 20 percent
so as not to overload the battery. Storedot has apparently found a way around this limitation,
and that itl even work with existing technology. Unfortunately, production won even begin until sometime in 2016.
Presumably however, this technology could be used for other products such as Macbooks and ipads. And as Cult of Mac points out,
if the technology actually works as well as Storedot claims it does, it be a killer startup for Apple to acquire l
#Amazon Dash barcode scanning, voice-recording grocery gadget Amazon was not content with unveiling its Amazon Fire TV SET-top box earlier this week,
they casually dropped a new gadget into the tech realm Friday the Amazon Dash. The Dash is part barcode scanner, part voice recorder.
It connects to Amazon grocery delivery service, Amazonfresh, which is currently only available in Seattle, Los angeles and San francisco. The promise of the Dash,
as you can see in the (rather annoyingly child-narrated) video above, is that you can scan anything you need to buy again in your kitchen before you run out.
For anything you don have there a voice-recording button. Press it and whatever you say will be stored as a search the next time you visit the Amazonfresh website.
The company seems to be trying to make the point that the Dash is simple enough for kids to use,
and durable enough to survive regular kitchen-based wear and tear. The Dash is currently free but y invitation only, according to its website,
and no release date has been announced yet. You can sign up to get in line for one. Wee not quite at the stage where your fridge will automatically reorder your milk
when it sees youe running low, but the Dash looks like the next best thing x
#Europe to abolish roaming charges by December 2015 The first move was to slash pricing of mobile phone roaming costs across Europe.
Then calls were made to abolish mobile roaming costs completely, with a view towards afeguarding citizensright to access an open Internet.
Today that vision has become a reality. Neelie Kroes has been one of the main drivers behind this reform, with the outspoken European commission VP a strong proponent if a single ICT and telecoms market,
previously saying she would ight with my last breath to get us there together. Perhaps the most significant nugget from today news is that the European parliament has voted now to banish roaming charges by Christmas 2015.
This headline-grabber constitutes part of the broader move towards the onnected Continentthat would be created by a single telecoms market.
Net neutrality his vote is the EU delivering for citizens, said Kroes. his is what the EU is all about getting rid of barriers to make life easier and less expensive.
This is an historic day for the open Internet. The finer nuances of the net neutrality law have yet to be ratified,
distinct capacity, cannot be mistaken for Internet, no replacement of Internet services by specialised services. In other words, an ISP can reclassify Amazon Instant Video
or Netflix as a service other than Internet to bypass these new net neutrality laws. It a pretty solid advance for the Internet in Europe,
one that will ensure providers can slow down or otherwise degrade the speed of an Internet connection on a whim.
The European parliament is being very clear about this: the Internet cannot be affected by specialised services.
While there could still be some twists and turns with the finer details still to be ironed out,
and prevent someone from procuring a mobile phone plan in a cheaper EU country, and using it exclusively in another.
The main focus with this ruling is to ensure that you pay the same for calls, texts and data across the EU,
while contract rules will also apply to non-telecoms elements of bundles, such as TV. And there will be no automatic extension of contract terms
and General electric wants to lead the way A 20-year-old Indonesian student has helped General electric save considerable sums of money in development
in reality it just a fraction of the overall manufacturing process and General electric wants to lead the way.
The Fairfield, CT-headquartered conglomerate has been pushing hard in the 3d printing and the next-generation manufacturing space.
And it also about learning and gathering data. And I can also make tooling that can use more conventional manufacturing. t not just about making a final part,
and other businesses the firm has investments in. Furstoss said by 2020, the company aims to print more than 100,000 parts for aviation.
and learning, and we need to figure out what our role is, and if we are investing as much as we should be.
#Education reform has led to an education gold rush There been unprecedented an move to in education to standardize the curriculum in schools.
and tech companies to cash in on the education reform. Public schools don traditionally make good business clients for young tech startups.
And with good reason: Taxpayer-funded schools aren supposed to be the ones writing big checks for unproven products.
But that logic is increasingly being put to the test in California and 45 other jurisdictions that have adopted new Common Core standards for English and math.
The unprecedented scope of the move to standardize K-12 academic achievement targets has resulted in a flurry of business activity among startups,
as well as large Silicon valley tech firms and incumbent textbook publishers looking to keep pace. Gamified mobile apps, all manner of e-books and classroom analytics tools are just a few of the business models attracting venture capital dollars in the $5. 4 billion K-12
education technology industry. In California alone state estimates peg the implementation costs of Common Core around $3 billion,
opening the door for companies pitching cost-effective tech tools. here a cottage industry now that sprung up around Common Core,
said Deborah Stipek, an education researcher and professor at Stanford university. eople in district offices in schools have a really tough job.
They have to somehow get past the rhetoric. A new education gold rush Judging by venture capital dollars and press write-ups, it might seem like higher education is ground zero for startup activity in the multibillion-dollar education technology industry.
Through startups like Coursera and Udacity Silicon valley entrepreneurs groomed at Stanford and Google have attracted much attention
and tens of millions of dollars intheir bid to translate increasingly expensive college courses into cheaper online formats.
Mounting student debt and constant tuition increases contribute to demand for higher education hacks, but reliable revenue streams have been hard to come by for ed tech entrepreneurs.
K-12 schools, on the other hand, are notorious for strong teachers unions and administrative bureaucracy that can make sales more challenging for vendors.
Common Core offers new market incentives for entrepreneurs who can navigate those thorny realities. he big market condition that it enabling is consistency
Muhammed Chaudhry, CEO of the Silicon valley Education Foundation, said of the Common Core requirements. efore we had 50 states with 50 different standards.
Already there is no shortage of startups that have landed products in K-12 classrooms, netting large sums of capital in the process.
San mateo-based Edmodo has raised $40 million to help students and teachers communicate online. In Bellevue, Washington, elementary math curriculum provider Dreambox Learning has secured $32 million
and the backing of Netflix CEO (and education reform advocate) Reed Hastings. Meanwhile, Classdojo, based in San francisco,
has amassed $10 million for its classroom analytics designed to help teachers improve student behavior. Others
like Portland-based Edcaliber, specifically mention Common Core in their mission statements. Edcaliber, which raised a $500,
000 seed funding round last year, advertises a curriculum management system that aims to urn Common Core into common practice.
But one unique dynamic in the K-12 education tech market which investor GSV Advisors projects will be worth $13. 4 billion by 2017is the prominence of nonprofit providers that have a head start over new for-profit entrants.
Mountain view Khan academy already counts 10 million monthly users, and Neeru Khosla Palo alto-based CK-12 Foundation provides free online tools to more than 38,
000 schools. Both of those organizations have been around for more than six years. However, even the appealing price tag of free tools sometimes isn enough to win over skeptical educators. ree doesn mean it garbage,
Khosla said. eople think theye going to use it more if they pay for it because they want to get their money worth.
Educator obstacles There is one constant at demo events featuring K-12 education startups in Silicon valley:
Lots and lots of ipads. The proliferation of mobile technology is used often as a selling point for entrepreneurs hoping to get their products into classrooms.
But Khosla said there one major hitch in the vision for software-powered classrooms: A lack of necessary hardware. he biggest challenge is said access,
she, noting that many schools don have the technological infrastructure to make ed tech products viable on a consistent basis. Teacher training is another challenge that Chaudhry group has identified.
He said the Education Foundation is working with local teachers on classroom pilots to try out startup products in a realistic environment.
Along with that effort, he is pushing schools to consider funding mechanisms for new technology investments. e have to go 1-to-1 with one device per child,
he said, noting that would likely require public funds on top of corporate donations. As we previously reported
Apple Inc.,Google Inc.,Microsoft corp. and Cisco systems Inc. are a few major Silicon valley tech companies selling either hardware or software to K-12 educators.
In the meantime, Stipek said success in the field remains about much more than the number of users a provider can claim. don give a whole lot of confidence in just the fact that (the technology) is being adopted,
she said. t what the teacher does with it that really matters
#U s. Navy s newest warship is a drone The U s. Navy will christen its newest class of destroyers this month.
The USS Zumwalt will be the first ship with a brain of its own. Among the high-tech features included on the USS Zumwaltannons that fire rocket-propelled,
GPS-guided rounds and stealth design that gives the 610-foot ship the radar signature of a small fishing vesselhere also a computer intelligence capable of preparing the ship for battle
and engaging enemy targets on its own. Think of it as a gigantic floating drone: ost UAVS unmanned aerial vehicles are a few million dollars,
says Wade Knudson, who heads the Zumwalt project forraytheon (RTN), which made most of the ship computer systems. his is a $5 billion UAV.
Unlike aerial drones, however, the Zumwalt will still have a human crew and it will know how to anticipate their needs.
If the ship smoke alarms and cameras detect a fire, the ship will turn on the sprinklers
and seal off the area. When the fire is out, the ship knows to drain the water so the crew can investigate.
All of this automation means the ship will carry a crew of just over 150alf of
what would normally be required on a ship of this size. In a pinch, it can be manned by a crew of 40.
The Zumwalt also boasts what Raytheon calls a Total Ship Computing Environment, which allows it to be controlled from any of a couple dozen consoles around the ship.
If the captain happens to be on the bow or the stern rather than up on the bridge when there an emergency,
he can still take control of the ship. e got that capability right where he at;
he doesn have to run 600 feet and up multiple levels to get up to where he has to be,
says Knudson. The captain just signs in to the nearest console and enters a password,
as if he doing some online banking. In an age of rampant hacking and password pilfering, you don have to be clinically paranoid to find something worrying in the prospect of a highly automated warship that can be controlled by anyone who has the right login information.
Asked how the ship will be guarded against hackers, Knudson replies: t the same ways that we protect information in classified networks,
through having processes and procedures to make sure the password is sophisticated. It incumbent on the captain not to share it with anybody.
Everyone got to protect their password, and it can be assword.?Even if an impostor did succeed in tricking the ship into thinking he was the captain,
it unlikely a hacker could fire the weaponshat process involves more than one person. Of course, not all hackers work alone.
Perhaps the greatest comfort for those who fear the idea of an agile, 15,000-ton naval drone with stealth technology and missiles is won that there be too many of them.
The original plan was for 32zumwalt-style ships, but escalating research and development costs drew congressional ire.
After repeated pruning, the Navy will now have only three of its next-generation destroyers
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