THE WORLD’S FASTEST COMMERCIAL DRONE WILL DROP BLOOD ON THE US THIS YEAR
The company was founded on the idea that it could save lives by using drones to drastically reduce the delivery time for blood, plasma, and other critical supplies to medical clinics in rural areas. Since it started its pilot program in Rwanda in 2016, Zipline’s drones have flown more than 185,000 miles and now account for 20 percent of the the country’s blood supply in rural areas, according to IEEE. Zipline has since expanded its services to Tanzania, and may begin offering similar services in the US this year.
Read moreMIT SEVERS TIES TO COMPANY PROMOTING FATAL BRAIN UPLOADING
A startup called Nectome collected $200,000 from people hoping to become digitally immortal through suicide. Source: technologyreview.com
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM?
We got onto the buzz about “transparent aluminum” as a result of a Tweetfrom whence the image above came. This Tweet was posted by [Jo Pitesky], a Science Systems Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. [Jo] reported that at a recent JPL technology open house she had the chance to handle a tube of material that looks for all the world like a section of glass tubing, but was billed as transparent aluminum.
Read moreWATCH THESE SCIENTISTS REMOTELY OPERATE A SPACE GARBAGE ROBOT
Humans aren’t great at picking up their trash, a fact that is reinforced by the Great Pacific garbage patch and other massive dumps and landfills around the world. As it turns out, we are also taking our talent at producing rubbish into orbit with us. Since the advent of spaceflight in the 1950s, outer space has become congested with about 500,000 bits of spacecraft debris measuring larger than a marble, and 20,000 chunks larger than a softball, according to NASA.
Read moreMICROSOFT AI INTERVIEW QUESTIONS – ACING THE AI INTERVIEW
In a recent letter by the CEO Satya Nadella to all Microsoft employees, there are two new teams formed in Microsoft, Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge to shape the next phase of innovation. This announces the profound shift to weave Artificial Intelligence in to all that Microsoft does. Needless to say Microsoft following this announcement may increase the AI related hires to the company.
Read moreONE OF ESTONIA’S FIRST “E-RESIDENTS” EXPLAINS WHAT IT MEANS
In 2014, Estonia, a country previously known as much for its national singing revolution as anything else, became the first country in the world to launch an e-Residency program. Once admitted, e-Residents can conduct business worldwide as if they were from Estonia, which is a member of the EU. They are given government-issued digital IDs, can open Estonian bank and securities accounts, form and register Estonian companies, and have a front-row seat as nascent concepts of digital and virtual citizenship evolve.
Read moreTHE FIRST 3D-PRINTED STEEL BRIDGE
The plan to 3D-print a bridge in mid-air was always bonkers. How could a technology best known for creating flimsy prototypes and personalized action figures be used for permanent construction projects? Well, the team at MX3D in Amsterdam just answered all of the hard questions and revealed it: the world’s first 3D-printed bridge. It’s made of a completely new type of steel, spans 40 feet, and will be installed early next year in De Wallen, the largest and best-known red-light district in Amsterdam. It also looks utterly otherworldly.
Read moreAPPLE PLANS TO USE ITS OWN CHIPS IN MACS FROM 2020, REPLACING INTEL
The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple’s Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5 percent of its annual revenue, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. Source: bloomberg.com
RESEARCHERS THINK THERE COULD BE ALIEN LIFE FLOATING IN THE CLOUDS OF VENUS
As detailed in a paper published recently in Astrobiology, studies of organisms capable of withstanding extreme environments on earth—appropriately known as extremophiles—has made the prospect microbial life on Venus more plausible in recent years. In fact, pockets of carbon dioxide-munching microbes adrift in the Venusian atmosphere may explain mysterious dark patches that have been observed in Venus’ clouds for over a century.
Read moreSATELLITE IMAGES FROM HIGHLY OBLIQUE ANGLES ARE PRETTY MINDBLOWING
Founded in 2010 by three former NASA scientists, Planet Labs has been among the forefront of several companies seeking to provide high-quality, commercially available imagery of planet Earth. As such, it has the capability to look all around the world, in real time. Source: arstechnica.com