Benches can now be added to the list of things like watches, cars, phones, and everything else that comes in a smart variety.
Why should our benches just be seats? The Soofa was built and designed by three female engineers working with the MIT Media Lab spinoff startup Changing environments, according to Yahoo Tech.
The findings, reported in the journal Science, could lead to cheaper and greener cars, planes and electronics.
thermosets are used throughout modern cars and aircraft, often mixed with carbon fibers to form composites. Some 50%of the new Airbus a350 jet, for example, will be made from composites.
Brought on by development of auto-drive vehicles, this new industry will need station designers and architects, traffic-flow analyzers, command center operators,
or Darpa, the government s futurist agency that worked on the predecessor to the Internet and self-driving cars.
#Electric car travels over 1, 100 miles without a recharge on a new aluminum-air battery Together the Israeli company, Phinergy,
and the aluminum giant, Alcoa Canada, demonstrated an electric vehicle (EV) capable of driving over 1, 100 miles between charges using a combination of aluminum-air and lithium-ion storage technologies.#
#The Phinergy aluminum-air battery at 100 kilograms (220 pounds) weight contained enough on board energy to allow the vehicle to travel up to 3, 000 kilometers (over 1, 860 miles.
Compare that to the best, current lithium-ion batteries in the Tesla Model S sedan.
In the case of the test car demonstrated at the#Canadian International Aluminum Conference#on Wednesday in Montreal,
To feed the chemical reaction from the aluminum-air battery drivers using a test car like this would add tap water every month
shifting through nine different classes for six hours a day, sitting in their seats. They need a different schooling experience.
#The scooter that doubles as a suitcase A Chinese private entrepreneur, He Liangcai, recently obtained a patent for a product that turns a regular suitcase into a rechargeable scooter.
Mr. He says the suitcase-scooter can carry 2 adults at once and travel as far as 37 miles in one charge
dubbing it an rban scooter. Turning a suitcase into an electric scooter up with a suitcase was no easy task.
According to local reports, Mr. He spent over 10 years to break through the technology issues, such as how to develop the right kind of wheels.
and other devices pulled along behind tractors. Planters have changed radically since they were simple boxes that pushed seeds into the soil at fixed intervals.
Google self-driving cars are legal and in use in several states at this point. As researchers, we are playing catch up trying to figure out the ethical and legal implications.
missile defines, autonomous vehicles, etc.,the military is rapidly creating systems that will need to make moral decisions,
even if in some limited form, they may be able to diffuse rising public anger and mistrust over armed unmanned vehicles.
and that the same as Google cars as it is for military robots, we should begin now to do the research to how far can we get in ensuring the robot systems are safe
While lithium ion batteries are the dominant batteries these days for laptops, cell phones and early electric cars,
Theye also relatively expensive if you need a bunch of them to power an electric car,
which is why Tesla cars are only really attainable by the wealthy right now. An all-carbon battery A battery that uses carbon for both the anode and the cathode could be safer than a lithium ion battery
While battery fires have been rare for electric car companies, Tesla, GM and others have seen all a handful of cars with punctured batteries catch on fire,
and have faced PR hiccups as a result. Thermal runaway intense, long-lasting fires caused by lithium oxide catching on fire has long been the Achillesheel of lithium ion batteries.
who developed the cathode tech used today in the Toyota prius and the Tesla Model S. Takeya splits his time between San francisco
if they want to scale up production to offer batteries to electric cars. Power Japan Plus intends to first launch batteries for the medical device and satellite industries,
Later down the road, they could try to tackle electric cars. An electric car with a battery pack of dual-carbon batteries could charge much faster and last much longer on the road, giving it a higher resale value.
Currently the team is supplying batteries for a Go-cart in a transportation proof-of-concept partnership.
In the immediate future, electric cars at least from dominant players Tesla and Nissan are betting on lithium ion chemistry for batteries.
But farther down the line, other types of chemistries will need to be investigated to provide power for the next generation of electric cars h
hoping to use it to beam power to buildings, cars, and dirigibles until his funding was canceled by J p morgan.
This panel will be suspended by 6-mile-long wires connected to a small bus which will house the satellite controls and communication systems.
Using a technique called gravity gradient stabilization, the bus acts as a counterweight to the huge panel.
while the bus will be tugged upward by the opposite effects. This balancing of forces will keep the satellite in a stable orbit,
Allows mechanical devices such as tractors to warn mechanics that a failure is likely to occur soon.
Intra-tractor communication can be used as a rudimentary arm swarmplatform. Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream in 2016;
tractors or agbots can procedurally apply inputs at variable rates throughout the field. Scientifically viable in 2013;
#Volvo testing self-driving cars on public roads in Sweden Volvo Car Group rive Meproject featuring 100 self-driving Volvos on public roads in everyday driving conditions is moving forward rapidly,
with the first test cars now driving around the Swedish city of Gothenburg. he test cars are now able to handle lane following, speed adaption,
Technical Specialist at Volvo Car Group. his is an important step towards our aim that the final rive Mecars will be able to drive the whole test route in highly autonomous mode.
enables the driver to hand over the driving to the vehicle, which takes care of all driving functions.
legislators, transport authorities, a major city, a vehicle manufacturer, and real customers. The customers will drive the 100 cars in everyday driving conditions on approximately 50 kilometers of selected roads in and around Gothenburg.
These roads are typical commuter arteries, including motorway conditions and frequent queues. rive Me self-driving cars for sustainable mobilityis a joint initiative between Volvo Car Group, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science
Park and the City of Gothenburg. The Swedish Government is endorsing the project. Volvo Cars will play a leading role in the world first large-scale autonomous driving pilot project in
which 100 self-driving Volvo cars will use public roads in everyday driving conditions around the Swedish city of Gothenburg.
The ground-breaking project rive Me Self-driving cars for sustainable mobilityis a joint initiative between Volvo Car Group, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen
Science Park and the City of Gothenburg. The rive Meproject is endorsed by the Swedish Government.
The aim is to pinpoint the societal benefits of autonomous driving and position Sweden and Volvo Cars as leaders in the development of future mobility e
just keeping up. oogle has been working on the autonomous vehicles, the Nest acquisition, and a bunch of other stuff that surprising if you think of them as a search engine company which hopefully nobody does anymore,
#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.
which are suitable for our watches, our cars or phones, we can use these robots in life domains,
vehicles and the ground. These are used to reduce energy and water consumption and pollution. Dubai, United arab emirates Although in the early stages yet, Dubai announced plans last year to turn itself into a smart city.
#In-car facial recognition system can detect road rage Researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
or EPFL are collaborating closely with PSA Peugeot Citroen and developing an in-car emotion detection system designed to watch out for emotions like anger and disgust.
Video) IL-Header-Communicating-with-the-Future The system uses an infrared camera system to identify the driver emotions.
or trigger a limiting function on the car speed to make the driver aware and maintain safe driving.
and electric cars will refuel while sitting on the driveway. Witricity have demonstrated already their ability to power laptops, cellphones,
and an electric car refueller is reportedly in the works. Hall sees a bright future for the family without wires:
I going to drive my car home and I never going to have to go to the gas station
Bitcoin the currency As a currency, bitcoin is in many ways the antithesis of modern fiat currencies.
compared with the 43 years of the global fiat system we have today. History thus clearly shows that the idea of a currency deriving value primarily from thebacking of some central state is nonsense.
robots that kill raise moral questions far more complicated than those posed by probes or delivery vehicles.
The Army is testing a gun-mounted ground vehicle, MAARS, that can fire on targets autonomously.
the Raven is primarily a surveillance vehicle but among its capabilities is arget acquisition. No one knows for sure what other technologies may be in development. ransparency
They experimented with both ABS and PLA plastic. t was just a whole ton of trials before we looked at something
#Tesla s plans for world s largest battery factory will be a game changer Tesla motors, the electric car maker, hasn blazed just its own trail
when it comes to designing and building a hot electric car. It also made breakthroughs in many aspects of the automotive business (the sales channel, the servicing,
the over-the-air-software updates) and now it doing the same thing for the core part of the electric car:
the battery. This week Tesla revealed more details about its plans to build a massive the largest of its kind in the world battery factory in the U s. that will produce enough lithium-ion batteries by 2020 to outfit 500,000 electric cars.
While Tesla only released a few details of the plan, the company said that by 2020 the battery cell output of the factory would be 35 gigawatt hours per year,
its cars are constrained by global battery production, and it would need to use all of the batteries produced for electric cars in 2013
(and then some) to make those 500,000 per year by 2020. According to Navigant Research analyst Sam Jaffe, Tesla already used half of all the batteries made for electric cars in the world in 2013 for its Model S car (22,477 cars sold.
In terms of global lithium ion and advanced battery production beyond just for electric cars Tesla so-called igafactoryis still massive;
it jaw-dropping actually. According to Navigant figures, battery factories in the world produced close to 27 gigawatt hours of advanced batteries (the vast majority of these,
Traditionally auto makers have multiple suppliers for core components so that they can get the best price and use the other suppliers as leverage.
The end goal for Tesla is that cheap batteries could help Tesla deliver its $35, 000 third generation electric car.
while, allowing users to perform transformations as unconsciously as they might drive a car or play an instrument.
when driving a car, cycling, eating with Chinese sticks or playing sports or instruments, he explains. n contrast,
But combining telecommunications with the Bitcoin blockchain presents more intriguing possibilities for example, cars able to read the blockchain could disable themselves
I m doing right now is a direct threat to fiat merchant banking. For him
In 2012, researchers at the Vienna University of Technology 3d printed a race car and cathedral smaller than a dust mite.
and the world they live in is an extremely visual one. ill Van Eron owner of Headwaters
scrolling=#no#><iframe>Van Eron said he became an advisor to Witty because of the potential he sees in Aristotl capability to improve education
Investments in autonomous vehicles accelerating SOUTHFIELD, Mich. Google and various automakers have increased their activity and investment toward the goal of self-driving vehicles,
with Google now focusing on fully driverless vehicles for the future, according to a report by IHS Automotive.
The report, Autonomous Driving: Question is When, Not If, is an update of a previous report issued in early 2014.
The findings support IHS Automotive global forecast of nearly 12 million self-driving cars in 2035, with nearly all autos likely to be self-driving on some level by 2050.
Last year, Google adjusted its approach to focus on fully autonomous vehicles that have the ability to operate without a driver at all,
the report said. oogle path goes through low-speed testing of self-driving cars in restricted areas beginning in 2015 and lasting three to five years,
the report co-author. he next stage is small-scale deployment of low-speed L5 self-driving vehicles in campus-like environments
and self-driving vehicles will have tremendous long-term impact on the auto industry, Juliussen said. t will also likely have a positive influence on auto sales and vehicles in operation after 2035,
presumably adding another 50 years of growth to the sector. Without these advancements, it is possible that the auto industry could stagnate in 10 to 15 years. 1
#New Algorithm for Real-time Simulations in Materials Research Researchers at LBNL have have developed a new algorithm that opens the door for real-time simulations in atomic-level materials research.
vice president of marketing and business development at Supermicro. ur Microsoft certified solution comes preconfigured with quad Intel Xeon E7 processors, Seagate Nytro Flash Accelerator cards, memory,
Designer from Holland Teresa Van Donge a
#Medifocus Granted Patent for the Treatment and Prevention of Breast cancer Medifocus, Inc. TSXV: MFS, OTCQX:
and show how and when to deploy delivery trucks to ensure immediate shipment an especially important factor in farmlands where the lack of paved roads can paralyze distribution.
and heavy rain can cause trucks to get stuck in mud. Coupling predictive analytics and modeling techniques with other sophisticated farming methods can prove to be quite beneficial
a Massachusetts-based company that builds and operates robotic underwater vehicles for defense, commercial and scientific purposes.
The Roboclam could anchor Bluefin Robotics'vehicles when they need to remain stationary in a current,
or inside the cylinder shaft of a car engine, being much more heat resistant than an electrical system.
proven techniques already widely used in the likes of smart phones, cars and airplanes. It has been estimated there are already 50 MEMS sensors in a modern car.
The MEMS market is estimated to be $14 billion in 2014, growing to over $22 billion by 2018, a CAGR of 13%per annum.
After seeing improved production results and EURS with far less production variations between wells Devon has chosen to incorporate the CYPHER service in the Eagle Ford Shale as part of their technology efforts to help them better understand the reservoir
and 240-ton mining truck to a large open-pit mining operation in the western United states. The mine recently experienced a series of landslides.
Equipment is driven manually to a transition zone, where the operator leaves the vehicle cab. The equipment operator then goes into the Integrated Remote Operations center (IROC) that contains two operator stations and a spotter.
the vehicle is driven remotely into the hazardous zone. The operator control station is designed to exactly mirror the control center in the cab,
The operator station is able to be installed in a vehicle, trailer or containers with the control and interface systems designed to mimic the setup of a physical rig to improve operator familiarity with the system.
The lenses could even be applied to allow drivers to see through blind spots on their vehicles
#Could bacteria from honeybees replace antibiotics? Bacteria are increasingly outsmarting our most overused antibiotics creating a boom of drug-resistant diseases.
It's half-bike half-electric car Meet the Twike. It a made-in-Germany combination of an electric bicycle with an EV.
but very few in the U s. It can be registered as a motorcycle which means you don need airbags and crash tests.
The made-in-America equivalent of the Twike is named another three wheeler the ELF which Ie had the pleasure of pedaling around places as diverse as Darien Connecticut and Chattanooga Tennessee.
The ELF built by Organic Transit isn quite as luxurious as the Twike but it a lot cheaper $5495 for the standard model.
That's a lot to ask from an ELF which lacks basic suspension and is jolting over rough pavement.
I bullish on these neighborhood-type trikes which make great commuter vehicles. Highway friendly they're not
It can also do a better job than current in-car systems of predicting how much range youe got left again based on driving behavior and such factors as terrain and temperature.
Automakers are just starting to look at optimizing the EV driving and charging experience as is refashioned the newly Chargepoint app.
UC global partners have included GM Ford Chrysler Nissan and Mitsubishi. Here's a closer look at the Twike on video c
The computer had to detect people, bicyclists, cars and other vehicles in a photo, and identify each object correctly.
Humanoid Robots to Flying cars: 10 Coolest DARPA Projects After the team constructed the chip, Modha halted work for a month and offered a $1,
Today's computers laptops, smartphones and even cars suffer from visual and sensory impairment, Modha said.
#BMW offers free (and fast) EV charging Thinking about buying an electric car but worried about range and places to plug in?
Nissan recently said that Leaf buyers will have free public charging for two years in 25 U s. cities with 10 of them already online.
and now BMW is jumping in with two announcements to support its new i3 electric and i8 plug-in hybrid models.
According to BMW spokesman Dave Buchko t a DC fast charger at half the size and a third of the size of previous fast chargers.
Businesses and municipalities that partner with BMW will be able to buy the charger which is capable of charging an i3 (to 80 percent) in 30 minutes for $6548.
BMW's fast charger weighs less than 200 pounds and can be mounted on the wall. Photo:
BMW) BMW fast charger uses the Society of Automotive Engineersomboplug which makes it compatible with most U s
. and German EVS (including the Chevrolet Spark) but not with the Nissan leaf which uses the more established Japanese CHADEMO standard.
but the low-cost BMW unit is not one of those the company said. BMW second announcement is about a Chargenow partnership with NRG evgo and Chargepoint.
By the end of 2015 the utility will have installed 100 of its own fast chargers (15 in 2014) around California said Rob Healey EV infrastructure manager for BMW of North america.
Through the end of next year i3 drivers will be able to enjoy 30-minute free charges at those stations
Theyl be able to use the same Chargenow card for BMW fast chargers NRG reedom stationsor Chargepoint units. t the first step to true interoperabilityhealey said.
Not all BMW i3s are fast-charge capable by the way. It a $700 option. But trust me on this it worth the money for the flexibility it adds.
and range extender REX cars) but BMW Healey says the data isn there yet. he i3 has only been on the market for two
But moving kids, pizzas and even entire households with pedal power is catching on big time in the U s. Cargo bikes are he new station wagon,
Jim Motavalli on a carbo bike The author investigates a Belgian Ecopostale van at the International Transport Forum.
She making a documentary called"Less Car More Go, "and both crowdsourcing video for it and raising money through a Kickstarter campaign.
Bike with a wheelbarrow in front You can watch the trailer for"Less Car More Go"here:
Less Car More Go DHL's courier services are mounted often bike in Europe. Photo courtesy of"Less Car More Go")Cargo bikes have reached scale in Europe.
For instance, DHL Netherlands, which does parcel delivery, replaced 33 trucks with cargo bikes, saving 152 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Arne Melse of DHL says that 10 percent of the company vehicles are bikes. rom our pilots in four EU countries,
we see that it is indeed possible to deliver by cycle. There are already 2, 000 to 3, 000 cargo bikes in London,
Ecopostale is using bike vans to deliver the mail in Belgium (see photo above. UPS is testing pedal-power delivery vans in Germany.
According to Dr. Randy Rzewnicki, a transplanted Bostonian who now works for Europe-based Cyclelogistics, t is boom time for cargo bikes.
and"Less Car More Go"will be her first film as a director. She has modest goals of maybe being able to hire an assistant,
The new map is the first to look at the developing human brain specifically the developing neocortex the seat of higher cognitive functions Lein told Live Science.
#Honda Smart Home produces more energy than it uses Wouldn it be great if your house produced more energy than it consumed?
Panasonic Eco Ideas House, with solar, a fuel cell, battery backup and a plug-in Toyota prius, has stood long next to a company headquarters in Tokyo,
In Japan, Toyota is invested also heavily in green communities. Now it Honda turn. The automaker has made a splash with its vehicle-to-grid technology
but now it getting more serious with the Honda Smart Home on the campus of the University of California at Davis
(whose researchers helped develop the property). The house (incorporating elements of Honda's Smart Home System,
below) is furnished fully, and a UC-Davis employee is going to live in it for at least three years.
The company broke ground on the house last year, declaring it to be a"showplace for environmental innovation."
"Honda Smart Home The house design is pleasant enough, but you won see its green features just by looking at it.
A 9. 5-kilowatt solar array, backed up by a 10-kilowatt-hour lithium battery and a 10-kilowatt DC car charger.
and power a Honda Fit electric car. With direct DC fast charging, the Fit can be back on the road in two hours.
Michael Koenig, Honda Smart Home project leader, said that converting DC to AC wastes energy,
UC Davislighting center worked with Honda on a system that mimics the natural circadian rhythms of day and night.
so Honda house is tomorrow dwelling today. Here's a video overview of the Honda Smart House,
and if you want to learn more, explore this infographic which goes into more detail about how the house works e
#Poop-powered airport shuttle bus hits the road in the U k. A supermarket powered by its own expired comestibles.
Try a poop-powered airport shuttle bus. The first of its kind in the United kingdom Bio-Bus is a 40-seat transit vehicle that runs entirely on fuel generated through anaerobic digestion.
That is the conversion of waste n this case both locally sourced food waste and human sewage nto a methane-rich biogas.
if Bio-Bus serviced the number 2 route it runs along the 20-mile-long A4 route
Bio-Bus can travel 186 miles on a full tank of biomethane (or biomethane as they might say across the pond) gas which requires the annual waste of five people to produce according to the operator of the Bristol sewage treatment works GENECO.
A single person annual waste both edible and flushable would fuel the bus for 37 miles.
and food that unfit for human consumption wee able to produce enough biomethane to provide a significant supply of gas to the national gas network that capable of powering almost 8500 homes as well as fuelling the Bio-Bus. Gas-powered vehicles
but the Bio-Bus goes further than that and is powered actually by people living in the local area including quite possibly those on the bus itself.
Roughly 75 million cubic meters of sewage and 35000 metric tons of food waste collected from households along with local grocery stores and food manufacturers is treated annually at Bristol sewage treatment works located in the suburb of Avonmouth.
Bio-Bus which boasts CO2 EMISSIONS that are 30 percent less than buses with conventional diesel engines couldn hit the road at a better time.
if any vehicles in its sightseeing fleet will join the airport shuttle and be converted to run on Bristolian sewage and food scraps o
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