A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week: Britain’s place in the world, the future of global e-commerce (9:25), and using urine to heat homes (16:30).
Category Archives: Technology
Investigations: Chinese Telecomunications Giant Huawei – High Tech or Spy?
Telecommunications giant Huawei is said to be one of the most powerful companies in China. But Huawei has been accused of systematic espionage, and some Western governments doubt whether the company is truly independent of the Chinese government.
This documentary investigates concerns about Huawei and internet security. The company is a major player in the manufacture of smartphones, and enjoys a technological lead in the development of the super-fast 5G broadband network worldwide. But the US and some other Western countries suspect that Huawei works closely with the Chinese government on espionage and sabotage operations.
Has Huawei becomne a pawn in the trade war between the US and China? The arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada in 2018 — at the request of US authorities — marked the climax of the conflict between Huawei and Washington. Some European countries also have concerns about the company.
Does Huawei really have close ties to the Chinese government? And what are the benefits and risks for those foreign clients who choose to work with this 5G giant?
Future Deliveries: U.S. To Allow Small Drones To Fly Over People At Night (2021)
Small drones will be allowed to fly over people and at night in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a significant step toward their use for widespread commercial deliveries.
Design: ‘PAGURUS’ – Solar-Powered Amphibious Catamaran By Lazzarini
‘Pagurus’ – A solar-powered amphibious catamaran by Lazzarini Design.
Climate Change: Bill Gates On How Best To Fund The ‘Green Revolution’ (Video)
Bill Gates outlines his vision for a global green revolution. He tells Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief, how renewable energy is merely the first step in combatting climate change.
Video timeline: 00:00 – How to fund a green economy 00:38 – Lessons from the pandemic 01:52 – Behaviour change v innovation in technology 03:36 – Most promising renewable technologies 04:31 – Private sector investment in green technology 06:30 – How essential are carbon prices? 07:50 – Net-zero emissions targets for businesses 09:39 – America’s role in climate-change action 12:40 – What are the odds for success of green innovation?
Tech: Boston Dynamics ‘Dancing Robots’ (Video)
Our whole crew got together to celebrate the start of what we hope will be a happier year: Happy New Year from all of us at Boston Dynamics. http://www.BostonDynamics.com.
Night Views: Breathtaking Drone Display Illuminates Sky In Scotland (Video)
Video shows drones taking off and forming various shapes, including a luminous stag seen flying across Scottish skies.
Futuristic Homes: Solar-Powered Sustainable Mountain Pod (Video)
Designed by: Ehab Alhariri:
A Futuristic Smart Sustainable Mountain pod designed to utilize solar power using a petals mechanism that allows it to open up and close down to charge up the pod using photovoltaic cells mounted on the petals.
Inspired by a flower motion, the petals when open allows for a 360° view of the surrounding, the mechanism could also potentially allow the pod to collect rainwater to be self-sufficient and of the grid hide out.
Sailboat Racing: The Spectacular Technology Behind The ‘America’s Cup AC75 Monohulls’ (Video)
Fusing athleticism, teamwork, and technology, the monohulls competing for the 36th #AmericasCup are the fastest in the world. It was August 2012 when the sailing world was turned upside down by a 72 foot catamaran flying in the Hauraki Gulf. Emirates Team New Zealand had brought the foils to the America’s Cup and changed the face of top-level yacht racing forever. Since then the increase in performance for America’s Cup boats has been greater than at any point in the 170-year history of the event. Six years later, in 2018, the publication of the AC75 Class rule, marked the beginning of a new sailing era. Nowadays foils are commonplace, but the engineering and sailing techniques needed to get the AC75 to fly are completely different from anything seen before.
Medical Technology: The ‘3D-Printed Heart’ (Video)
Imagine having the option to get a 3D-printed organ. Well, a team of biomedical engineers from Carnegie Mellon University has just developed the first flexible, full-size, 3D-print of a human heart, bringing us one step closer to that reality.
Additive manufacturing printers are popular, but are typically known to build hard objects using materials like plastic or metal. But rigid plastic organs aren’t very practical. These printers could be used with softer materials, like biological hydrogels — you know, to make a heart — but those tend to collapse mid-print. But this new method can change the game.
The 3D-printing technique is called Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels or FRESH. It can print biological structures with soft squishy materials like alginate, a biomaterial made from seaweed, which feels like human tissue. AND it cleverly solves that collapsing problem during print by suspending flexible materials inside a container of gelatin.
For this team of researchers it all starts with a MRI scan from a real heart. The scan gets “chopped-up” digitally into horizontal slices by a program which then translates them into code that a printer will understand. A needle-like nozzle moves through the gelatin support bath, extruding thin layers of alginate. The layers stack on top of each other to build the shape. When the print is complete, it’s put in an incubator overnight, where the temperature is raised to 37°C to gently melt away the gelatin support structure, leaving only the 3D-printed heart.
