TECH’S NEXT BIG WAVE: BIG DATA MEETS BIOLOGY
The quest to retrieve, analyze, and leverage that data has become the new gold rush. And a vanguard of tech titans—not to mention a bevy of hot startups—are on the hunt for it. Source: fortune.com
IBM BUILT A COMPUTER THE SIZE OF A GRAIN OF SALT. HERE’S WHAT IT’S FOR
The device is one type of what IBM calls “crypto-anchors”—”digital fingerprints” that can be embedded in everyday items in order to verify their provenance and contents. Another example of this concept is edible ink that can be stamped on pills. Source: fortune.com
APPS LIKE WAZE, GOOGLE MAPS, AND APPLE MAPS MAY MAKE TRAFFIC CONDITIONS WORSE IN SOME AREAS, NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS
In the pre-mobile-app days, drivers’ selfishness was limited by their knowledge of the road network. In those conditions, both simulation and real-world experience showed that most people stuck to the freeways and arterial roads. Sure, there were always people who knew the crazy, back-road route, but the bulk of people just stuck to the routes that transportation planners had designated as the preferred way to get from A to B.
Read moreSELF-DRIVING UBER CAR KILLS ARIZONA WOMAN CROSSING STREET
Elaine Herzberg, 49, was walking her bicycle outside the crosswalk on a four-lane road in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe about 10 p.m. MST Sunday (0400 GMT Monday) when she was struck by the Uber vehicle traveling at about 40 miles per hour (65 km per hour), police said. The car was in autonomous mode with an operator behind the wheel. Source: reuters.com
LOW-POWER MICROLED DISPLAY TECH COULD POWER FUTURE APPLE WATCHES
Apple is reportedly taking a big step toward making its own displays, and it isn’t using the technology you may be most familiar with. According to a Bloomberg report, a secret facility in California close to Apple Park houses engineers developing microLED displays for Apple mobile devices. While Apple has been making its own chips for its mobile devices for a few years, this would be the first time the company has attempted to build its own displays.
Read moreTHIS HAT CAN FOOL A FACE RECOGNITION SYSTEM INTO THINKING YOU’RE MOBY
Facial recognition software is becoming more advanced and ubiquitous—I mean, you can unlock your phone with your face now. As this progresses, researchers are trying to make systems more secure by getting ahead of any potential hacks, including creating an infrared light-projecting baseball cap that can fool a face recognition system into thinking you’re the musician Moby. Source: vice.com
WHY IS KITTY HAWK’S FLYING TAXI TAKING OFF IN NEW ZEALAND INSTEAD OF CALIFORNIA?
Kitty Hawk did preliminary testing at an airstrip in Hollister, an agricultural town about 50 miles south of San Jose, and the company’s headquarters has not shifted from Mountain View. But when its executives conducted a global search for a location to start a service that would eventually carry passengers, California failed to make the cut.
Read moreSELF-DRIVING CARS WILL CAUSE SPRAWL
In a 1994 paper called “Anthropological Invariants in Travel Behavior,” he looked at empirical historical data to establish a relationship between the adoption of new transit technology and how much the footprints of cities sprawl. Source: medium.com
BAIDU APOLLO RELEASES MASSIVE SELF-DRIVING DATASET; TEAMS UP WITH BERKELEY DEEPDRIVE
ApolloScape was released under Baidu’s autonomous driving platform Apollo, which Baidu hopes will become “the Android of the auto industry.” Apollo gives developers access to a complete set of service solutions and open-source codes and can enable for example a software engineer to convert a Lincoln MKZ into a self-driving vehicle in about 48 hours. ApolloScape’s open sourced data now provides developers a base for building self-driving vehicles.
Read moreRUBBER THAT CAN MAKE AND STORE POWER FROM LIGHT AND VIBRATION
Kunio Shimada, a professor of fluid mechanics and energy engineering at Fukushima University, has developed a special rubber that can generate electricity from solar and kinetic energy and save the power generated. Source: co.jp