but Japanese automaker Nissan has signed a pact with US space agency NASA to develop self-driving cars. The five-year agreement announced last week covers a partnership on research and development of autonomous vehicle systems and their commercial applications.
Ames director S. Peter Worden and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn (Image: Nissan) The agreement covers a five-year partnership (Image:
#Freedom Driver allows man with artificial heart to await transplant at home Heart failure patients awaiting organ transplants normally find themselves anchored to the hospital bed by a washing machine-sized device that keeps blood pumping through their veins.
But for Stan Larkin a patient at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center a new form of wearable technology is allowing him to keep on the move.
and replacing it with an artificial organ a temporary solution that would keep him alive until another heart became available.
What drives power to Larkin's artificial heart and others like it is a machine that delivers compressed air into the ventricles via two tubes.
Let's take a look at eight future uses for the best virtual reality headset. The Oculus Rift could ultimately transform movies at least as much as it does gaming.
Imagine a future version of Facebook where instead of posting photos of your lunch on your wall you have a Second life-like avatar
This virtual world could give a whole new meaning to the moniker virtual town square. Speaking of Second life the past-its-prime virtual world is already trying to get a jump on this by integrating Oculus Rift DK2 support into its social sandbox.
If autonomous cars become mainstream that would free us up to focus on other things while in the car.
So why not pimp your ride with a few Oculus headsets? Then instead of staring at miles
but imagine a future world where we each have telepresence robots that we control from home using virtual reality headsets.
We could pretend like virtual reality will only be used for PG family-friendly uses but who would we be kidding?
and solar power plants need to be able to store generated electricity effectively for when it's required another purpose that vanadate-borate glass could potentially be used for.
#Voxel8 paves the way for 3d printed electronics The 3d printers of today can produce objects that may be quite intricate in shape
and other electronic components within their 3d printed objects allowing a degree of design freedom that is simply not possible through standard methods of manufacturing.
so that users can manually insert the components that will be embedded in their 3d printed objects. As printers go this one appears to be on the higher end of the spectrum with features including a 4. 3-inch touchscreen USB
This will open new application possibilities to utilize printable solar cells e g. in Iot (Internet of things) type applications, in
#Polymer gel that stores light energy A team led by Nicolas Giuseppone, professor at the Université de Strasbourg,
Another advantage is that the new material is able to store the light energy absorbed. In biology, molecular motors are highly complex protein assemblies that can produce work by consuming energy:
However, this light energy is dissipated not totally: it is turned into mechanical energy through the twisting of the polymer chains,
therefore now attempting to take advantage of this new way of storing light energy, and reuse it in a controlled manner e
#Abusive Spouses are Using Spyware to Track their Victims The use of surveillance software by abusive spouses to monitor the phones
Helplines and women refuge charities have reported a dramatic rise in the use of spyware apps to eavesdrop on the victims of domestic violence via their mobiles and other electronic devices,
found that more than 50 per cent of abusive partners used spyware or some other form of electronic surveillance to stalk their victims.
computers and toys pre-loaded with spyware to infiltrate a target home. Polly Neate, chief executive of Women Aid, told The Independent:
placing spyware on personal computers and using the internet to gather information about their partner. Many software packages are marketed openly as tools for covertly tracking a heating wife
Campaigners are concerned particularly at the insidious nature of spyware, which once installed on a computer
who had bugged her phone with spyware. He then told her he had connections with criminals
an abusive husband managed to gain access to his spouse ebay account using spyware and found a delivery address.
while the use of spyware to stalk or eavesdrop on a victim is illegal in Britain,
While most companies marketing spyware are based abroad, the eavesdropping technology is also available in Britain through specialist retailers and also the website of the high-street electronics retailer Maplin.
providing day care and home care, have increased fivefold since 2008, to nearly 20,000. Care is subsidized heavily. And a government dementia database allows families to register relatives
Mr. Kwak, the local government official, arranges for nursery school classes to play games with nursing home patients,
DEVICE WORKS ON SOLAR POWER The system is suitable in areas where there is no electricity supply because it can be powered by a simple solar panel that generates five volts of energy,
#A half-cow, half-electronic artificial heart has saved this Frenchman In France, A 75-year-old man has just been given the gift of life as a team of surgeons have completed successfully the transplant of the world s first true artificial heart.##
##The patient, so far unnamed, is reportedly recovering at Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris,
##Most other artificial hearts, by contrast, beat at a constant unchanging rate. This means that patients either have to avoid too much activity,
Patients who receive artificial heart transplants usually take anticoagulation medication to minimize such risks. Carmat artificial heart mimics the dual chamber pumping action of a real human heart.
The technology, which took 25 years to develop, started taking shape after the surgeon initially tested the feasibility of developing artificial heart valves using chemically-treated animal tissues as an alternative to plastic.
Since then he has obtained approval from authorities in France, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia and Saudi arabia to conduct human trials that are expected to run until the end of 2014.
Ultimately, the litmus test hinges on whether the artificial heart s pumps last more than a few years.
The#Syncardia#total artificial heart which remains the only FDA-approved heart replacement option, has made it
The artificial heart features sensors to monitor and adjust blood flow depending on the body s demands.
The idea was to develop an artificial heart in which the moving parts that are in contact with blood are made of tissue that is better suited for the biological environment,
The Carmat artificial heart is expected to cost about 140,000 to 180,000 Euros (or $191, 000 to $246, 000.
#3d printed eye cells could one day cure blindness Researchers have printed actually viable retina cells using an inkjet printer.
and cuts and scrapes aren t the only maladies that medical 3d printing can help cure.
Living, 3d printed retina cells could someday aid in curing many#kinds of blindness.####At the University of Cambridge, researchers have pulled off something of a 3d printing coup.
Using lab rats, they ve printed living central nervous system cells for the very first time. Led by professor Keith Martin,
and their internal structures can someday be 3d printed for#surgical purposes. According to Martin even a rapid printing process didn t hamper the research team s results:##
but eventually professor Martin and his team believe that their process will be capable of 3d printing#retinal#grafts tailored for individual patients.
Cells used in this sort of medical 3d printing will be grown to perfectly match those of the patient prior to surgery.
there s so much solar energy that it poses a threat to the system and a safety issue.
The state s tax credit for solar energy made it additionally appealing (Climatewire, May 6). ) The new struggle on Hawaii foreshadows what the rest of the country could face as solar moves closer to the mainstream
and the District of columbia##lets households with renewable energy earn bill credits for surplus power delivered to the grid.
In one of the most shocking revelations, it turned out the NSA has been#betraying its partners#in the computer security industry
as though they were happily inviting them into their data centers for a look around, and perhaps a nice martini.
Knowing that, many of the big web companies were scarcely encrypting the data they held in storage, let alone the connections between their data centers.
And then we have the#profound privacy implications#of the emerging internet of things. Each case needs to be evaluated on its own merits,
as#some suggest, to accept technological trends such as##big data##while also giving people the option of privacy?
The innovations are being enabled by cloud computing big data analytics (the company recently formed its own customer-focused#big data analytics lab),
and adaptive learning technologies. IBM believes the technologies will be developed with the appropriate safeguards for privacy and security,
IBM believes it can harness big data to help students out.####You ll be able to pick up problems like dyslexia instantly,
and augmented reality can deliver more information to the store shelves. With these technologies, stores will be able to anticipate
where IBM researchers are working with#a crowdsourcing toolthat people can use to report accessibility problems, via their mobile phones,
Apple stores can already pinpoint your location with unprecedented accuracy. 2014 will be the year that the##internet of things###that effort to remotely control every object on earth##becomes visible in our everyday lives.
But most of us don t recognize just how far the internet of things will go, from souped-up gadgets that track our every move to a world that predicts our actions and emotions.
In this way, the internet of things will become more central to society than the internet#as we know it today.#
Here s a closer look at the internet of things that s already here, and where it s headed.
The internet of things will create a world of##invisible buttons##The#pioneer species#of the internet of things is the smartphone.
so shows how the internet of things replaces the internet-related actions we already know##click a button,
Apple s play for the internet of things Apple seems keen on the idea of invisible buttons.
which is in the forefront of making the internet of things#accessible to people other than techies and hobbyists.
Wearable computers will connected keep us at all times The next layer of the internet of things will require combining disparate streams of data##mined##from reality##everything from your location to the members of your social network.
This is called#sensor fusion, a task that is basic to all big data projects. Knowing where you are throughout the day won t mean much,
the internet of things will replace the internet, but not by giving us another way to explicitly tell computers what we want.
exactly the sort of thing the internet of things would be good At first, our connected devices will be able to monitor our state##inactivity could indicate sickness or depression.
#A solar-powered 3d printer that prints glass from sand Marcus Kayser s Solar Sinter project When Markus Kayser, a design student,
#2013 has been a record breaking year for solar power in the U s. America is on track to install more solar capacity this year than world leader Germany.
In the U s.,the outlook for solar power is bright and sunny. The solar industry in America has recorded its second largest quarter ever in the third quarter of 2013,
and the Solar energy Industries Association (SEIA)# on the state of the solar power market in the U s..#Without a doubt,
There is now 10,250 MW of solar energy in the U s . which is enough to power 1. 7 million average American homes.
#Lumus DK-40 Glass to have full augmented reality Lumus DK-40 Lumus, a transparent display specialist and military head up screen supplier,
is wading into the wearable computing market, revealing a new#developer#kit that, unlike#Google s Glass, offers full augmented reality support.
backed by##father of augmented reality##Steve Mann; that has two transparent screens, one for each eye, unlike the single-display Lumus.
since the monthly payments for energy storage would be less than the money saved by not forking over cash to the utility.
when providing energy storage to customers for no money down. But growing economies of scale are in Solarcity and Tesla s favor.##
I think you ll see up to 50 percent of solar systems will have energy storage, ##says Rive.####The economics and scale that Tesla has achieved in the automotive market now make stationary energy storage more cost effective and reliable than it has ever been in the past,##JB Straubel,
##The scientists believe that using super-thin#graphene sheets could make the process even more efficient, making synthetic gas less of a concept and more of a reality.
By wearing Google glass or other Internet-connected goggles with cameras, they could get clues to the reactions of the people with
#Will 3d printing bring space-based solar power to reality? Spiderfab 3-D robotic printer Since the 1970##s, space-based solar power has been a futuristic fantasy
but the advent of 21st#century 3-D printing may bring it a step closer to reality.
##For#space-based solar power (SBSP), there would be two basic steps, Hoyt explained. First, the 3-D printer would build a carbon fiber truss structure that would act as a frame for the system.
if concentrating solar power was being deployed.####We haven t yet looked in detail at space-based solar,
Cars will be big data collectors in the future. They will continuously monitoring the operation and function of the many moving parts of the vehicle and hopefully giving you a warning well in advance of pending failure.##
Big data in the Connected car,##researchers at#IHS Automotive#forecasts there will be 152 million actively connected cars on roads globally by 2020,
Big data sensors in cars should help eliminate any surprises.####The cr#me de la cr#me is making an autonomous car.
In the era of big data and the car, maintenance intervals don t exist any more because it s based on the condition of the car.
Right now we have diagnostic information but as they collect more and more info, that will become prognostics.
In Sword Art Online, an anime series, gamers take part in a#virtual world#that is teeming with danger,
Motorola And 3d Systems will 3d-print modular cell phones 3d printed modular cell phone. Motorola announced last month a plan for a modular smartphone.#
The remaining 20 percent will be supplied by renewable sources, including hydropower, and energy efficiency measures. Meanwhile, in Arizona yesterday, the state s utility regulator turned back a request by Arizona Public service (APS) to#impose steep new fees on homeowners who install solar panels#on their roofs.
It s a battle being fought elsewhere in the country as utilities grapple with an existential threat to their century-old business model.
stick it to consumers and bolster its bottom line,##Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar energy Industries Association,
A $1000 3d printer that prints metal http://www. vimeo. com/78961565 The Mini Metal Maker prints 3d objects from digital files directly in precious metal clay, rather than in plastic.#
Preorders are part of a crowdfunding#campaign to raise 50k and get the word out, according to#CNET. But if you preorder, Coin is promising that you ll get a black (or##midnight##)color card in the summer of 2014.
In August, the#National Development and Reform Commission,#China s top economic planning body, published a statement setting cybersecurity standards for financial institutions, cloud computing and big data, information system secrecy
#3d printed biodegradable underwear can be made in 3 seconds 3d printed underwear. For those who hate to do laundry the days of washing your underwear may soon be over.
The only hurdle is the technology and skills to mine a massive data set like this.
Encryption and information security are complex technical issues which most people don t understand or#even care about.
Perhaps there is a need for##information security rating agencies##that rate online services on how they protect users confidential data from hackers and governments everywhere.
#World s first 3d printed metal gun Solid Concepts 3d printed metal gun. The first 3d printed gun was the Liberator pistol.
Then came the Grizzly, a 3d printed rifle. Now a third one has surfaced, and it s a doozy.
This one is printed entirely out of metal and the gun s design was copied from a classic 1911 model.
Video)##The company behind the new 3d printed gun is called Solid Concepts, and like the creator of the Liberator pistol, they re based in good ol Texas. Now,
They simply wanted to show the world that metal 3d printed objects can stand up to the pressures of everyday use.
The 3d printed metal gun was constructed using a laser sintering process capable of shaping tougher metals like stainless steel.
desktop 3d printing technology, so hobbyists won t yet be capable of replicating this sort of weapon at home.
since the folks at Solid Concepts have fired already successfully their handgun 50 times without it failing. 3d printers capable of printing metal are#on the rise,
Also of note, the gun which was just 3d printed was old enough that its design was public domain.
The future wearable device market has abundant manufacturers, but lacks a common platform, like Androidand ios for smartphones,
Wearable device mania has swept the whole world. An Australian research institute predicted that one fifth of Australians would have one wearable device each in the future year, with shipment reaching 36 million units.
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#Off-grid solar is the next big market in clean energy Off-grid solar The off-grid clean energy market is booming.
when it comes to solar power for the poor. The best way to understand this is to consider the case of a villager in Tanzania.
#Internet of things will be the biggest business in the history of electronics Imagine a world filled with hyperlinked smart objects that are constantly interacting over a network to improve user experience IRL.
The Internet of things is perhaps the buzzwordiest buzzword in all of the tech sector right now, as it promises to produce a sleek, futuristic,
Recent projections from some of the industry s biggest players say the Iot could be a#$15 trillion market#in just six years.##
and GE are both evangelizing the internet of things and gearing up for it. They need two things, primarily:
and AC unit from a smartphone#or augmented reality devices like Glass##isn t actually all that far off.
The internet of things is comprised already of 10 billion moving parts. To make it all work in a concerted fashion, to meaningfully corral all that data,
the Iot also enables more acute exploitation of biometric tech, like#RFID chips that users carry with them on their persons;#
The Iot could improve our lives in numerous ways##making life more convenient, efficient, and sustainable.#
#Driverless cars to be launched on UK streets by 2015 ULTRA PRT#transport pod. Chances are if you have been to London s Heathrow Airport you have caught probably a glimpse of something called an ULTRA PRT#transport pod.
These driverless pods have been shuttling travelers from terminal to terminal at the massive airport sonce 2011.
but now these driverless robo-cars are breaking free of their confines and heading out into the city streets.
But if all goes well for the folks of Milton Keynes, maybe driverless, smartphone-hailed pod cars will someday grace the streets of cities all across the world.
#3d printed meat may be coming sooner than you think Modern Meadow is developing technology to provide instant meat.
#For now, it is focusing on synthetic meat made with 3d printers.####Artificial food seems to have a particular attraction for young tech barons,
##and leather buyers/consumers have expressed already an interest in its prototyped 3d printed leather products. Though Lux Research gives it a##Wait
Suddenly, 3d printed beef doesn t sound too bad!##Indeed, synthetic meat was foreseen decades back by visionaries like Aldous Huxley in#Brave New world#and Robert Heinlein instranger in a Strange Land.
#The 3d printer that can print a 2, 500 square foot house in 20 hours Contour crafting.
There have been huge advancements in 3d printing.##We have seen 3d printed oversized wrenches that measure 1. 2 meters in length.
Now. we can print an entire 2, 500 square foot house in 20 hours. Video)##In the TED Talk video below, Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), demonstrates automated construction,
using 3d printers to build an entire house in 20 hours. In manufacturing we use a process called CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing.
and then manufactured using CNC Machines or 3d printers. The design is manufactured into a physical object automatically, with instruction from 3d computer model to physical object without human interface.
The size of the 3d printer is large enough to construct walls by depositing concrete based material layer upon layer to build a Wall in this video,
or an unmanned aerial vehicle to further study an area, or summon an engineer when a pipeline or bridge structure is in danger or fractured.
And although Lockheed claims that SPAN s inconspicuous sensors##reduce the likelihood of discovery and tampering,
That why Google is doing self driving cars, and balloons floating in the air with Internet connections. Google which boatloads of cash,
#Precision agriculture moves farmers into the high tech age The U s. has seen record-setting drought in recent years.
The key is precision farming: the convergence of digital technology that allows farmers to apply just the right amount of fertilizer and water on their fields.
In Idaho, the nonprofit is collaborating with Millercoors to support farmers who upgrade their irrigation systems to new precision agriculture systems.
Yet the promise of precision agriculture is to find the right mix of profit and environmental protection. e are also seeing a changing of the guard,
If Internet of things devices are going to take off, we must provide connectivity to the potentially billions of battery-free devices that will be embedded in everyday objects,
this provides a great way to get low-power Internet of things devices to communicate with a large swath of devices around us, Ranveer Chandra,
A 78 million partnership between Genomics England, the body set up by the Department of health to oversee the project,
#Baidu is developing a semi-autonomous car Baidu wants to keep the individual in control. Would you prefer to ride in a completely autonomous self-driving car, like Google s self-driving car,
or one like Chinese search engine Baidu s semi-autonomous car?##Instead of cars that have#no steering wheels, gas pedals,
or brake pedals for drivers to control, Baidu is thinking about cars with intelligent assistants who help you drive.##
We don t call this a driverless car, he said, adding that a carshould be helping people, not replacing people,
so we call this a highly autonomous car. The first working versions are expected sometime next year.
In the former, a driverless car merrily shares a sunny day with other Googlers, while, in the latter, a driverless car picks up a passenger
and makes its own decision where to Go with no controls to grab, the passenger just becomes freight.
the idea of a completely driverless car is already being welcomed in some quarters. Taxi service Uber has said that#driverless cars are its destiny,
and Johnson County in eastern Iowa has staked its claim as#the first place in the U s.#to encourage driverless car testing.
But a new New Frontier in humanless vehicles is now emerging, one in which Google may already be left in the dust.
#Why the Internet of things just became very interesting The Internet of things (Iot) computing phase is the next industrial revolution, according to experts.
a focus on shareholder positioning will help us better understand where we are in the Iot cycle
and how positioning Iot into a company s story just became that much more pressing. Early and trending higher inviting companies to talk about Iot Technologists have predicted long a Jetsons-like connected world
but their conjectures have been proven premature. To better understand why, we decided to analyze the timing of the current Iot trend, focusing on growth manager positioning,
to glean clues as to when long-term tech investors place their respective bets. By integrating a basket of public Iot semiconductor companies (highlighted by Goldman sachs;
note: Making S-E-N-s-E of the next mega-trend) with Google Trends data containing the phraseiot,
After six consecutive quarters of net asset outflows by growth managers, those firms have started finally to buy into the Iot theme.
For the first time in two years, companies looking to explore Iot now have the wind at their backs.
Public Market Not Ready for Iot Though still in its early stages, Iot remains a tough space for public investors to gain exposure, especially to
Further highlighting the early-cycle Iot thesis, Goldman sachs describes it well in their Internet of things Volume 2 note:
Like the mobile revolution, Iot will create new companies and new categories. The importance of Iot expands beyondpure play enablers as the market begins to take shape
{and} continues to evolve; we expect a similar ecosystem of software vendors to develop. Despite the limited public pure-play Iot options, firms are exhibiting their bullishness towards publicly available layers.
To classify a firm s bullishness, we analyzed recent buying trends, net capital allocation to Iot plays,
and portfolio concentration towards the Iot basket. Of the firms we deem to be increasingly bullish,
a total of $3. 9b has been poured into select Iot names over the trailing three quarters,
demonstrating that these investors see potential in Iot. What Iot says about broader technology market trends The Iot market is young in two senses of the word:
managers are just beginning to allocate capital, and Iot is undeveloped in that it has downfalls, specifically due to its investable limitations.
These limits to gaining exposure drive a broader shift in technology investing. We believe that Iot acts as a microcosm for a larger market themetraditional investors are now looking beyond the public markets to play technology trends.
Looking at private market funding for Gartner s high value layers, we see that investors are flooding into the Iot private company ecosystem with $1. 1b deployed into relevant startups in 2013.
It is with this understanding that we arrive at our original point: public investors are venturing beyond the confines of public markets.
As we have seen in recent late stage funding rounds by Uber, Snapchat, and Dropbox, private companies are able to stay private longer.
Effects on Communication with Investors By examining the Internet of things investment landscape, we collide directly with a market phenomenon currently under way traditional, public capital crossing over from public to private markets.
The number of competitors for Iot investable dollars just grew exponentially, and as such, getting ahead of the pack just became ever more important.
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