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Category Archives: Technology
Air Travel: Electric Planes From “Eviation” Could Be Flying In UK In 2 Years
Electric planes could soon fly commuters from city to city, a transport minister has disclosed. George Freeman, minister for transport and innovation, told The Telegraph’s “Chopper’s Brexit Podcast” that there was “a whole opportunity for short-haul transport at low altitude” that the country was yet to grasp.
In an episode of 2020 predictions, Mr Freeman said: “This will be the year where we begin to see a whole new world of low level aviation, Velocopters, electric planes. We already run the world’s first commercial electric plane service and Boris and I have been looking at how we can develop UK leadership in electric plane technology.” Mr Freeman said the planes could take eight passengers and fly at 2,500ft and could be used for “short hops between cities that take you an hour or two in the car, pumping out carbon monoxide.”
“At the moment the electric plane seats eight. But you know what the aerospace industry is like – eight soon becomes 18, and that soon becomes 28. We are determined to lead in the revolution of clean transport.”
To listen to the podcast in full, head here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/…
2020 Auto Trends: “VinFast” Electric Cars From Vietnam Will Start At $17K
Even in the U.S., VinFast faces stiff competition from Toyota, Ford and Hyundai. VinFast hopes its low prices — starting at $17,000 — will give it an edge.
Medical Technology: New Artificial Intelligence (AI) Model Predicts Breast Cancer More Accurately
A new Artificial Intelligence (AI) model predicts breast cancer in mammograms more accurately than radiologists, reducing false positives and false negatives, reports a large international study from Google, Northwestern Medicine and two screening centers in the United Kingdom (U.K.).
Interviews: 63-Year Old Guido Van Rossum, Python Programming Language Creator (Oxford Union)
Van Rossum is a Dutch programmer and the author of the programming language Python. Python was first released in 1991 and is now one of the world’s most popular coding languages. Van Rossum was the language’s Benevolent Dictator for Life until 2018, and now sits on the Python Steering Council. He has also developed software for Google, and currently works at Dropbox.
ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY (OUS): The Oxford Union is the world’s most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. Since 1823, the Union has been promoting debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.
Self-Checkout Tech: “Trigo Vision” Uses 3-D Imaging + AI For “Scan-And-Go” Shopping (Video)
Trigo’s network of ceiling-mounted cameras sees what no other system can see. We create a 3D image of the shop-floor environment, and map the movement of every object as consumers shop.
Our proprietary algorithms and neural networks enable a frictionless shopping experience, where consumers can enter the store, pick and leave.
2020’s New Food Trends: “NextOn” In South Korea Created World’s First Underground Farm
NEXTON, an indoor vertical farm startup in Korea, realized world’s first vertical farm in a tunnel which naturally maintains temperatures of 10-20C throughout the year even without active heating or cooling solutions.
The farm inside the tunnel is 600 meters long (0.37 miles) with its floor area of ~71,000 sqft, making it one of the world’s largest indoor vertical farms. Integrating this unique tunnel environments with NEXTON’s in-house designed photosynthetically-active LED light sources and proprietary growth system, NEXTON is able to dramatically cut down the cost structure which has plagued profitability and viability of the indoor vertical farming business.
Inside the tunnel, NEXTON is hydroponically growing leafy greens and others without pesticide or herbicide with nutrient water fully-recycled and disinfected chemical-free. NEXTON tuned the environmental and nutritional conditions in such a way to produce crispy and savory leafy greens, well suited for salads. Thanks to our eco-friendly growth methods and clean/controlled environments, our produce needs no or minimal cleaning processes which, in turn, will deliver overall cost benefits to our enterprise customers.
edition.cnn.com/2019/12/09/asia/south-korea-vertical-farm-intl-c2e/index.html
“Future Of Food”: Fast-Growing Salmon, Cell-Based Meat, Diversified Crop Rotation (PBS)
“Future of Food” series on PBS. In this episode they discussed technology in food production including fast-growing salmon (Aquabounty), cell-based meat (Memphis Meats), diversified crop rotation in Iowa, and other trends.
Medical Research Video: “Synthesizing Speech From Brain Signals” (JAMA)
Imagine you’re paralyzed and can’t move or speak. How would you communicate with the world? This video describes the principles of early brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) designed to read electrical brain signals, analyze how brain activity patterns contribute to vocal tract movements, and reproduce the sound patterns as speech. The model is a first step toward one day restoring paralyzed individuals’ natural rate of communication and quality of life.
For more information see https://ja.ma/37dfVSx and https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158….
Technology: VW’s New “Mobile Charging Robot” Turns Every Carpark Into EV Charging Stations
From a VW media online news release December 26, 2019:
“The mobile charging robot will spark a revolution when it comes to charging in different parking facilities, such as multistorey car parks, parking spaces and underground car parks because we bring the charging infrastructure to the car 
and not the other way around. With this, we are making almost every car park electric, without any complex individual infrastructural measures”, summarises Mark Möller, Head of Development at Volkswagen Group Components.
“It’s a visionary prototype, which can be made into reality quite quickly, if the general conditions are right”, Möller continues. Volkswagen Group Components is researching different approaches to the assembly of charging infrastructure and has already developed several successful products. The flexible quick charging station and DC wall boxes are already part of a future charging family. Customer-oriented, intelligent and flexible approaches to charging are at the centre of the research. Other innovative products such as the charging robot are currently being developed.
- Volkswagen Group Components presents a new and visionary charging concept
- Mobile robots will charge electric vehicles completely autonomously in future
- Every parking space can become a charging point
Volkswagen provides a glimpse into the future in which the search for charging stations for electric cars comes to an end. Volkswagen Group Components’ mobile charging robot takes over this task – and drives to the electric car completely autonomously.
