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May 8, 2017, 3:02pm EDT

The Columbus Smart City more

Columbus Chief Innovation Officer Michael Stevens discussing the city's Smart Columbus more

Rick Titus

Columbus is inviting tech startups nationwide and globally to compete for slots in the Smart City Accelerator, and leaders say whether the resulting companies stay in Central Ohio or not, they'll benefit economic development and further establish the region as an innovation hub.

Columbus Chief Innovation Officer Michael Stevens discussing the city's Smart Columbus more

Rick Titus

Columbus is inviting tech startups nationwide and globally to compete for slots in the Smart City Accelerator and leaders say whether any resulting companies stay in Central Ohio or not, they'll benefit economic development and further establish the region as an innovation hub.

Silicon Valley-based Singularity University will operate the business accelerator program this fall for teams making industry-changing technology in energy, transportation, manufacturing and other aspects of urban life. Columbus venture capital firm NCT Ventures is investing up to $100,000 each in the 10 participants. They'll also have at their disposal a city-curated trove of data called the Smart City Sandbox.

Columbus Chief Innovation Officer Michael Stevens discussing the city's Smart Columbus more

Rick Titus

"By attracting the best startups from around the world to the region, we are taking a huge leap forward on the international stage," Nick Davis, Singularity vice president of corporate innovation, said via email.

Startups completing the business curriculum and refining their products in the accelerator could produce technology that benefits Central Ohio even if they leave the area after the program, said Michael Stevens, Columbus' chief innovation officer.

The long-term benefit is you will see more companies coming here and continuing to invest here and provide jobs and opportunity, Stevens said.

Davis, who splits his time between Silicon Valley and Columbus, is a founding partner in a separate organization that operates startup accelerators. Hes had a few years to watch and participate in the maturing of Central Ohios entrepreneurial sector. Its at a point where it needs even more incubation and an acceleration program, he said, as well as sources of capital.

Over the last several years the local accelerators have gained in momentum and sophistication just like the overall startup ecosystem in Columbus, he said. As more quality startups are formed there is a relational increase in funding to support them.

What is great now is to see the variety of accelerators and multiple players in town delivering these valuable programs to startups and for the community, he said.

No funding from the city or the Smart City federal grant goes to the accelerator, although the 10 startups will be aligned with goals of the program, Stevens said. Columbus-based American Electric Power Company Inc. (NYSE:AEP) is the lead operations sponsor. Other entities are helping with mentors and business services.

Technologies sought for the program are ways to bring old-school industries like manufacturing and transportation into the future.

Those industries are still important, and weve got to make sure were adapting to the change thats coming fast, and make sure were not left behind, Stevens said.

The Columbus Smart City more

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Smart City Accelerator to give Columbus 'a huge leap forward on the international stage' - Columbus Business First

(TNS) -- Singularity University, a Silicon Valley think tank and business incubator, announced Monday it is sponsoring a Smart City Accelerator in Columbus.

The accelerator would be the first program of its kind and is in response to Columbus winning the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge.

The accelerator will help the businesses involved in the program by providing access to Singularity University faculty, and by identifying mentors from large companies and startups who will provide expertise on industry and technology.

Other sponsors will facilitate web services, legal support, financial services and tax planning for the chosen businesses.

After Columbus won the Smart City Challenge, Singularity University wanted to be part of the local entrepreneurial environment, said Nick Davis, Singularity University vice president of corporate innovation, in a statement. The Smart City Accelerator "will drive the next wave of innovation," with the ultimate goal of creating better functioning cities that transform how residents and communities work and live.

Last June, Columbus bested six other finalists in the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City competition to receive $50 million in grants from the federal government and Vulcan Inc. to develop the city into the nation's proving ground for intelligent transportation systems. The city also lined up about $90 million in local matching commitments, including $19 million in public money, giving Columbus a total of $140 million to upgrade its transportation network.

Singularity's Smart Cities Accelerator will choose 10 businesses focused on such things as mobility; connectivity; data and analytics; infrastructure and energy; and manufacturing and production.

Each selected business will be eligible to receive up to $100,000 in funding from Columbus-based venture capital firm NCT Ventures.

"The (Singularity) Smart City Accelerator will attract innovators from around the world and amplify the successes Columbus already has achieved in becoming recognized as a global center of technology and innovation," said Mayor Andrew J. Ginther in a statement. "I view the ... Smart Cities Accelerator as a mutually supportive partner and participant of Smart Columbus, and I look forward to working with Singularity University on this transformative initiative."

The program will be a "world-class accelerator," said Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, which represents the region's business leadership and is leading the Smart Columbus effort alongside the city of Columbus. By giving the entrepreneurs who participate in the program "full access to our community as a living laboratory ... we can learn together what business models and technologies are going to make our cities better in the future for all people," Fischer said.

Singularity University was co-founded in 2008 by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil and Peter H. Diamandis, the entrepreneur best known for being the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, the non-profit that encourage technological development to benefit mankind.

The benefits of the Smart City Accelerator program are expected to be so strong that American Electric Power is already planning to send a team through it, said AEP CEO Nick Akins.

"Bringing the Singularity University Smart City Accelerator to Columbus is a catalyst for innovation and technology in Columbus," Akins said in a statement. "The vision of Smart Columbus is for this community to be a center of innovation and entrepreneurship, and the Smart City Accelerator represents a significant step toward the realization of that vision."

2017 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Silicon Valley Think Tank Assists Smart City Initiative in Columbus, Ohio - Government Technology

Written speculation about life beyond the confines of Earth dates back thousands of years, to the time of the Greek philosophers Epicurus and Democritus. Unrecorded curiosity about this question undoubtedly goes back much further still. Remarkably, todays generation seems about to get an answer from the study of exoplanets planets orbiting other stars than the Sun. The early results are upending many assumptions from that long history.

Two months ago, our research team at the University of Cambridge and the University of Lige in Belgium reported that a nearby star, called TRAPPIST-1A, is orbited by seven planets similar in size and mass to Earth. All seven planets are temperate, meaning that under the right atmospheric and geologic conditions, they could sustain liquid water. Three of the planets show particular potential for habitability, receiving about as much energy from their star as the Earth receives from the Sun.

Our discovery received ecstatic and gratifying news coverage around the world. In many ways, though, the TRAPPIST-1 system is an odd place to look for life. The central star is just 1/12th the mass of the Sun and scarcely bigger than the planet Jupiter. It gives off just 0.05 per cent as much light as the Sun. TRAPPIST-1A belongs to a class that we call ultra-cool dwarfs, the very smallest stars that exist.

Searching for habitable planets around ultra-cool dwarfs has long been considered a waste of time. Even as astronomers found that exoplanetary systems are generally different from the solar system, old attitudes lingered. The Earth and Sun appear so normal and hospitable to our eyes that we get blinded by their attributes. Major programs are therefore directed at finding an Earth twin: a planet the mass and size of our own, orbiting a star just like the Sun, at the same Earth-Sun distance. The detection of such a world remains decades away.

In the effort to answer the question Is there life elsewhere? the focus on Earth twins is perceived as a safe path, since we can expect that similar conditions will lead to similar results (at least part of the time). However, we argue that this is far too conservative a goal, considering the huge number and diversity of available planets. That is part of the message of TRAPPIST-1. Research should be about finding what we dont already know. Identifying a life-bearing Earth twin would be a resounding scientific success, but it would teach little about the overall emergence of biology in the Universe.

Our ambition is wider. Instead, we seek an answer to How frequently is life found elsewhere? This simple change of words means that we should also be investigating planetary systems unlike the solar system. It would be disappointing and surprising if Earth were the only template for habitability in the Universe. Sun-like stars represent just 15 per cent of all stars in the Milky Way. More than half of those, in turn, exist in binary star systems that have also been disregarded as being too different from the conditions present in the solar system. The search for Earth twins therefore covers a nearly insignificant fraction of all the outcomes in nature.

Once we reset the goal to measuring the total frequency of biology, ultra-cool dwarfs become an obvious target. Half the stars in the Milky Way have masses less than one-quarter of the Suns. Our preliminary results suggest that rocky worlds are common orbiting low-mass stars, including ultra-cool dwarf systems, possibly more so than in orbit around Sun-like stars. Ultra-cool dwarfs also open a much easier route to detecting and studying temperate, Earth-like planets.

The scientific advantages of ultra-cool dwarfs come from their stellar properties, from how we identify exoplanets, and from how we expect to investigate their atmospheres. The TRAPPIST-1 planets were found as they passed in front of their star, events known as transits. When the planet transits, it casts a shadow whose depth tells us how much of the stellar surface is being hidden by the planet; the bigger the planet, the deeper the shadow. Because ultra-cool dwarfs are so small, the transit of an Earth-sized planet in front of TRAPPIST-1A is approximately 80 times as prominent as an equivalent transit against a much larger, Sun-like star.

During a transit, any gases in the planets atmosphere change the appearance of starlight streaming through. Around ultra-cool dwarfs, the atmospheric signature is boosted by about a factor of 80. The atmospheric composition of the TRAPPIST-1 planets will be detectable using current and upcoming facilities, such as the James Webb Space Telescope launching in 2018, unlike the decades of technological development needed to study an Earth twin. Extracting a reliable atmospheric signal requires observing dozens of transits. Here, too, systems such as TRAPPIST-1 have huge advantages. Around tiny ultra-cool dwarfs, transits of temperate planets happen once every few days to every couple of weeks, instead of once a year for a planet exactly like Earth.

Astronomers, including ourselves, have already begun investigating the compositions of giant planets around other stars, detecting molecules such as water, carbon monoxide, methane, and hydrogen cyanide. With the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system, we can extend those explorations to Earth-sized planets. Our first efforts will be to characterize the greenhouse gas content of atmosphere, and assess whether the surface conditions are conducive for liquid water. Then we will seek out signs of biologically produced gases, analogous to ways that living organisms have transformed the composition of Earths atmosphere.

Claiming a discovery of life will be hard. We cannot rely on the detection of a single gas but instead will need to detect several, and will need to measure their relative abundances. In addition, we will have to be extremely wary of false positives. For instance, repeated stellar flares could build up oxygen in an atmosphere without the presence of life. The richness of the TRAPPIST-1 system is an important asset, because we can compare its planets to one another. All seven planets originated from the same nebular chemistry; they share a similar history of receiving flares and meteoritic impacts. Weeding out false positives will be much easier here than in planetary systems containing only one or two temperate, potentially Earth-like worlds.

More important, TRAPPIST-1 is not a one-off discovery. Ultra-cool dwarf stars are so common that there could be numerous other similar systems close to us in the galaxy. The TRAPPIST (Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescopes) facility we used to find the TRAPPIST-1 planets was just the prototype of a more ambitious planet survey called SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets Eclipsing Ultra-Cool Stars), which has already begun operations. We expect to find many more Earth-sized, rocky planets around dwarf stars within the next five years. With this sample in hand, we will explore the many climates of such worlds. The solar system contains two: Venus and Earth. How many different types of environments will we discover?

Using SPECULOOS, we will also begin to address the many objections scientists have raised about the habitability of planets around ultra-cool dwarfs. One argument is that such planets will be tidally locked, meaning that they have permanent day and night sides. Planets orbiting in close proximity around small stars could excite each others orbits, leading to major instabilities. Ultra-cool dwarf stars frequently flare up, emitting ultraviolet and X-rays that might vaporise a planets oceans into space.

Far from holding us back, those arguments motivated us. Now we can assess the actual conditions, and explore counter-arguments that Earth-sized planets around stars such as TRAPPIST-1A might in fact be hospitable to life. Oceans and thick atmospheres could mitigate the temperature contrast between day and night sides. Tidal interaction between close-orbiting planets might provide energy for biology. Some models suggest that planets forming around ultra-cool dwarfs start out with much more water than Earth has. Ultraviolet radiation could help to produce biologically relevant compounds We are optimistic.

No matter what we find by studying planets orbiting ultra-cool dwarfs, we cannot lose. We can only learn. If we manage to identify the presence of life on a planet similar to those in the TRAPPIST-1 system, then we can start measuring how frequently biology emerges in the universe. We could have the first clues of extraterrestrial biology in a decade! If we find that none of those worlds is habitable, or that they are habitable but barren, we would learn that life is rare and precious. It will vindicate the Earth-twin approach without delaying it.

In either case, we will define the context of our existence: as one among many, or as an isolated outlier. Both possibilities are humbling. Both are thrilling.

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Banner Image Credit:Detail from an impressionistic poster of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. IoA/Amanda Smith

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Dwarf Planetary Systems Will Transform the Hunt for Alien Life - Singularity Hub

CCP Games runs a test server, called Singularity, in order to test drive changes, fixes, new features and gather community feedback.

Its primary function is to provide a test environment as close as possible to the live environment of Tranquility. For this purpose, the Tranquility database is "mirrored" (copied) over to the Singularity server once every few months (or more often, if needed by the CCP Quality Assurance department) in order totest the performance of the server and client with as many players as possible at the same place (such asfleet fight situations), periodical mass testing events are often held on Singularity as well.

New and Reactivated Accounts

Newly created accounts and characters on Tranquility will only be available on the test server after a full mirror of the Tranquility database has been completed.

Test Server Resources

Information on how to connect to the test server and provide feedback can be found at the Test Server Feedback section of the forums:

Test Server Feedback

Additional information regarding the test servers can be found on ourTest Servers Information page.

Test Server Customer Support

Due to the Singularity servers nature a test environment which may break at any point in time the server is offered "as is." Bugs found should be reported, preferably via the in-game Bug Reporting tool (located in the Help menu of the client) or via the community website to receive developer attention. Support tickets from Singularity, however, are not answered or forwarded.Should users come across any non-bug issues on the test server, then it is recommended to leave feedback within the "Test Server Feedback" forum.

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Test Server Singularity EVE Online

With the release of the two new Dark Star skins, Riot has also given us a new rotating game mode! Its a Thresh-only game mode, so you know youre in for a treat.

Your goal is to pull and flay your friends TO THEIR DEATHS. The map is small with a huge Dark Star in the center and you want to shove your enemies in there to kill them.

The game is 3v3 and played in a best of three rounds - whatever team gets 100 points first wins that round. You accumulate points by pulling little Scuttles into the Dark Star for one point or enemy Threshes for five points.

Threshs skills have also been changed quite a bit to accommodate the game mode. His Q, Death Sentence, now has a range that nearly lets him pull from across the map - and if his Q goes through the Dark Star center, itll ignite the hook and deal more damage. Dark Passage, W, works a little bit different as well. His lantern will now automatically save teammates - they dont need to click the lantern! His E, Flay, flings enemies farther based on missing health and the passive charges faster and hurts more. R, The Box, doesnt exist on this map. 🙁

Enemies are not killed by auto attacks or abilities - you have to fling them into the Dark Star. Enemies can still be damaged and this influences Threshs Flay! Flinging an enemy into the Dark Star results in an instant-kill.

This is one of the weirdest game modes that Riot has ever released. Even if you are very comfortable with Thresh, this new iteration will not feel that familiar to you.

Here are some quick tips to get you started:

One of the keys here is to throw your hook through the core in an attempt to hit your enemies on the other side. The area is small and the cooldown is short, so if you throw your hook there is a good chance that you will hit someone on the other side. Death Sentence is a truly apt name here, as most hooks through the core will pull the enemy to their DOOM.

Where your thresh mechanics will really come into play is with Flay. Flay is one of the weirder abilities in the game, forcing you to be very specific with how you cast it. You need to keep a constant eye on where Thresh is at the time, and the direction that he is facing. Holding space to center your camera can help with this. If you want to flay someone towards you, position your mouse behind Threshs back and click. If you want to flay someone away, position the mouse in front.

Flay is your most useful ability in Dark Star. This will be your main tool for flinging your enemy into the core as well as Scuttle Crabs. It can be easy to mis-position yourself in hopes of making a flashy play into the core, so uh, be mindful of where you stand. It is best here to stay simple. Stay away from the core when possible and flay people towards it. Flaying Scuttle Crabs is good for points, but most of the time, it should probably be considered a waste of a cooldown.

Finally, use Dark Passage to save your allies when you can. If you position it between where a friend is flying and the core, they will be saved automatically. This will not only save you points, it will make you look bad ass as well.

And as MadLife has taught us, looking cool on Thresh is the only thing that matters anyway.

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How to be the best Thresh in the new Dark Star: Singularity game mode - The Rift Herald

Our current education system is not fit for purpose. Student mental health is at an all-time low, and student debt is at an all-time high. Dominated by uninspiring curricula and an over-emphasis on short-term knowledge and outdated skills, the entire industry is ripe for disruption.

Better education contributes to better citizens and, ultimately, a better society. As Nelson Mandela said, Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. We need to equip young minds with the skills to create a more exciting future, both for themselves and for the species at large. Above all, we need to make learning more inspiring, relevant and fulfilling.

Several technology-driven trends are disrupting education systems around the world. Together, these trends are offering innovative solutions for a flawed system and contributing to more impactful learning experiences.

The internet has exponentially increased our access to information. We are seeing the rise of massive open online courses, also known as MOOCs. Last year, there were 58 million students enrolled in MOOCs with 700 universities across thousands of courses. Many of these courses, including those offered by prestigious universities, are available for free or even with official institutional accreditation.

Though not yet perfect, these courses are becoming more interactive and project-based. They break the physical limitations of the traditional classroom and allow an educator to reach millions of students from around the world at a minimal cost. Individuals from developing countries can now access and enroll in courses offered by the most prestigious universities in the world.

Even in traditional classrooms, this access to online information has transformed the learning experience. Todays innovative teaching methods involve blended learning, which includes a mix of classroom learning and online learning. For instance, students will watch online instructional videos at home while classroom time is focused on problem-solving and collaborative activities. This also gives students control over the time, pace, and place of their learning.

Peter Diamandis notes that over the next few years, three to five billion people will gain access to the internet for the very first time. Coupled with a rising number of internet-enabled mobile phones, this trend will further propel digital learning. Even more, it will enable global collaboration between learners.

According to a New Horizons report on education, we are seeing an increasing focus on global online collaboration, where digital tools are used to support interactions around curricular objectives and promote intercultural understanding.

As the rising billions arrive on the web, they bring with them their voices and ideas. As they participate in online learning networks, they contribute to the global empathy of our species. For instance, startup Belouga is connecting classrooms across the planet through video conferencing and online chatting. By offering a direct pathway for students to connect globally, social learning networks like this will teach them culture, teamwork and empathy. Educators too will be able to develop collaborations and share resources with one another.

According to a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum, 65 percent of children just now beginning school will find themselves working jobs as adults that don't exist today. And according to McKinsey, technology could automate 45 percent of the tasks people are currently paid to do. Jobs requiring higher-order skills, such as creativity, emotional intelligence and analytical thinking are more difficult to automate and are most likely to stick around longer.Educational systems have simply not kept pace with the changing nature of the workforce and need for 21st-century skills. So how do we prepare our students for the future?

Educational systems have simply not kept pace with the changing nature of the workforce and need for 21st-century skills. So how do we prepare our students for the future? According to teachers at Connections Academy, educators need to focus on three core 21st-century skills: complex problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration.

Even more, the evolving workforce and continuous emergence of novel industries meanswe need to inspire students to become lifelong learners. Learning can no longer be something you only do when you are enrolled in a school for a specific period of time. Instead, it should be an ongoing process of self-development and exploration of new ideas and skills.

Show, not tell has always been a fundamental principle in effective teaching. Virtual and augmented reality are revolutionizing the learning experience. They allow students to take journeys into ancient history, travel across the universe and visit museums in different countries, all without leaving the classroom.

For instance, the Google Expeditions Pioneer Program will allow teachers to take their students on a journey anywhere in the world. Whether its exploring coral reefs or the surface of Mars in an afternoon, teachers can take students on immersive, virtual field trips.

One the biggest feats of such technologies is that they make the learning experience more engaging, awe-inspiring and transformative. These immersive experiences have the potential to contribute to faster learning, better retention, and improved decision-making.

Big data offers the opportunity to both evaluate educational programs and provide more valuable learning experiences for students. It can aid researchers in identifying what teaching methods work best both for the masses and for individual students.

Data can be used to improve student results, assess each students strengths and weaknesses and create mass-customized programs. Algorithms can analyze student data and consequently make flexible programs that adapt to the learner based on real-time feedback.

One day, they may even aid or replace educators. One Georgia Tech professor used a virtual teaching assistant to chat with students, and some students didnt even notice the difference.

At the moment, most online courses are still mass-made, but in the future they can be mass-customized. After all, every student is unique in personality, learning style and life path. The education they receive should reflect their individual needs.

In a world of accelerating change, disrupt or be disrupted is the way to stay relevant. We are seeing a surge of education and technology companies that are offering innovative solutions at minimal costs. The traditional educational bodies will have no choice but to adapt and integrate these technologies or fall behind as emerging organizations offer better services.

Ultimately, our education system is a direct reflection of our values as a civilization. What and how we teach future generations will have a powerful impact on the kind of world we live in.

As American educational reformer John Dewey said, If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow."

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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These 5 Big Tech Trends Are Changing the Way We Learn - Singularity Hub

Piloting your drone aircraft through an intricate, Star Wars-like obstacle course or ramming an enemy to the ground in a dogfightsounds slightly like science fiction, doesnt it? Its not. In fact, both sports already exist.

They are part of the rapidly expanding ecosystem of drone sports, which looks set to follow the growth trajectory of the hugely popular world of live video gaming known as eSports.

Something that owes a lot to the speed of technological development and a punk-meets-maker-movement attitude. Its a melding that has already led to experiments with paintball gun dogfightsand in one case, a flying flamethrower.

You have probably already heard about drone racing, which illustrates how quickly drone sports have taken off.

Drone Racing League (DRL) is a good example. DRL organizes drone races across the globe and films them using a mix of camera drones, stationary cameras and first-person-view (FPV) video. Since its launch in 20152016, its races have been viewed on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook over 43 million times. DRL events have also been on TV, and the organization expects the coming season to be viewable on TV screens in up to 75 countries.

Part of the fascination is seeing drones whiz around at 80 miles an hour, Nicholas Horbaczewski, CEO and founder of Drone Racing League, says.

Spectators at live events also have the opportunity to see exactly what the pilots are seeing.

Each drone is equipped with a camera that streams images in real time to first person view (FPV) goggles worn by the pilots. The pilot literally feels like he or she is sitting on the nose of the drone, as it flies around courses in venues like outdoor stadiums, factory buildings or tents.

Drone racing essentially means that a pilot can shift their consciousness into the aircraft, flying through tiny gaps without any fear of physical danger, Chris Ballard, director of communication at Freedom Class drones, explains.

Anyone wearing FPV goggles can share the pilots experience, something that has often been compared to Star Wars or a computer game.

DRL is just one of the drone racing organizers around today.

Freedom Class is an Australian group that is taking drone racing in a slightly different direction.

If Websters dictionary needs a definition for big-ass racing drone, they could use a picture of the 1.2 meter Freedom Class V1.0, capable of speeds up to 160 kilometers an hour. The size solves one of the challenges of live drone racesthe fact that following the action and finding out who is actually in the lead can be difficult when the competing craft are roughly the size of a shoebox.

Then theres DR1 Racing, whose races air on TV channels like Eurosport and Discovery Channel, and MultiGP, which is likely the biggest drone racing organizer based on number of registered pilots (16,195) and chapters (1,041) around the world.

Finding analyses of the market potential of theseand many otherorganizers, not to mention drone sports generally, is difficult. However, if the broad market for drones is anything to go by, the outlook is promising. A 2016 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast that the world drone market will be worth nearly $127 billion by 2020.

The price of drones and other technology is also falling rapidly. A racing drone, FPV goggles and controller would likely cost you $500 to $800 today. However, entry-level equipment packages are available for around $200$300. Some industry insiders expect that to fall to around $100 within a couple of years. Many organizers actively encourage entry-level drones as a starting point because part of the learning process of drone racing invariably involves crashingat speed.

The final indicator comes from drone sports closest cousin, eSports. Both are children of the 21st century, taking advantage of falling prices of technology. Both also excel at using new media channels like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter and Facebook to reach and engage with their audiences.

Newzoo, an eSports analysis company, has projected the growth of both global audience and revenue in eSports, and given the similarities to drone sports, it may provide a useful benchmark for growth potential.

Source: Newzoo

Drone racing is far from the only kind of drone sport. One other example traces its roots to the area around San Francisco.

In the beginning, back around 20112012, it was a bunch of geeky maker-friends who met up on Friday nights in someones garage to fly drones and smash them in battles, Marque Cornblatt explains.

The concept grew, and some drone pilots quickly started adding things like net-launchers, bottle rockets and paintball guns to the drones. One ambitious maker even attached a mini-flamethrower. From five to six people meeting up in a garage, the events quickly grew to 150200 people.

Cornblatt and his compatriots decided to form the Aerial Sports League (ASL), which today hosts a range of different drone sports events, including one that is perhaps best likened to a UFC of drone combat with added pit crews. Drone pilots attempt to destroy or force opponents drones to the ground. If a drone is downed, its crew has a limited time to get it back in the air. The loser is the drone thats literally unable to fly anymore.

ASL has strong ties with the maker movement. Its installation and competitions have proven to be the single most popular exhibition at several recent Maker Faires across the US, with over 250,000 spectators in 2016.

The potential for further inventions and iterations of drone sports is part of what gets Marque Cornblatt most excited about where drone sports are today.

Adding laser tag and paintball markers to drones would make actual dogfights a possibility. Our drone battles could expand into multiplayer king-of-the-hill kind of events, he says.

The same goes for the technologies used to make and fly drones. Cornblatt explains he is currently working on a system that lets you fly the drone using things like eye movement and head-tracking.

Much of the innovation is ground-up, coming from the grass roots of the fledgling sport, where manyif not allpilots and drone league organizers have learned how to repair and upgrade drones out of sheer necessity.

The technologies are evolving at an incredible rate, with new products and features seemingly coming out on a monthly basis. This is being driven by the DIY aspect of the drone community, Dave Heavyside, creative director at Freedom Class Drones, says.

One example is the Tiny Whoop phenomenon. Team Big Whoop pilot Jesse Perkins decided to modify a standard Blade Inductrix microdrone by adding a micro-FPV camera and upgrading the motors and battery from different suppliers. The recipe proved so successful that people started ordering the upgrades from Jesses website. Today, the term Tiny Whoop is more or less synonymous with micro / indoor FPV drones.

This link to the maker/hacker movement will stand drone sports in good stead, as they still face technical challenges, including how to improve the quality of FPV-view and broadcast it beyond the physical location. Once that happens, you should be able to follow a drone race with FPV goggles at home in your living room. AR/VR technology is another area that drone sports have yet to fully integrate and exploit.

Drone sports could soon be getting help with these issues from the next generation of STEM-interested innovators, who are learning through drones.

We get emails from high school teachers about how drones are helping them reach the students and from high school students saying thanks for getting them interested in science. Once kids / students get to work figuring out how drones work and how you can improve them, they dont even realize that theyre learning things like mechanical engineering, electronics and aerodynamics, Nicholas Horbaczewski says.

Banner Image Credit: DRL

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Why the Fast-Paced World of Drone Sports Is Getting So Popular - Singularity Hub

The core of a Docker image is basically a compressed set of files, a set of .tar.gz that (if you look in your Docker image folder on your host machine, you will see. We are going to use this local repository for this first set of methods.

The Docker engine communicates with the Docker Hub via the Docker Remote API, and guess what, we can too! The easiest thing to do is create an image, and then pipe a Docker image directly into it from the Docker Registry. This first method does not require having Docker installed on your machine. Lets say that I want to bootstrap tensorflow from Docker. First I should create the tensorflow image:

Note that if you want (much) more detailed output for debugging to the console, you need to enable --verbose mode:

Now I can shell into it, and import tensorflow:

Docker has two commands in the DOCKERFILE that have something to do with execution, CMD and ENTRYPOINT. The differences are subtle, but the best description Ive found is the following:

A CMD is to provide defaults for an executing container.

and

An ENTRYPOINT helps you to configure a container that you can run as an executable.

Given the definition, the ENTRYPOINT is most appropriate for the Singularity %runscript, and so using the default bootstrap (whether from a docker:// endpoint or a Singularity spec file) will set the ENTRYPOINT variable as the runscript. You can change this behavior by specifying IncludeCmd: yes in the Spec file (see below). If you provide any sort of %runscript in your Spec file, this overrides anything provided in Docker. In summary, the order of operations is as follows:

Do a barrel role! Use a spec file! Many times, you want to bootstrap an image, and then either change the %runscript or add additional software or commands in the %post section. To achieve this, you can create a specification file. Currently, these are distributed with the naming format [myfile].def, however (soon) we will use a standard name, Singularity so all specification files can be automatically found. Here is what the spec file would look like for tensorflow:

In the example above, I am overriding any Dockerfile ENTRYPOINT because I have defined a %runscript. If I want the Dockerfile ENTRYPOINT to take preference, I would remove the %runscript section:

Note that the spec file above would be (almost) equivalent to the command:

minus the useless echo at the end. If I want the CMD to take preference, I would add IncludeCmd:

The solutions above would be ideal for saving a custom specification of an image to build at some runtime.

For both import and bootstrap using a build spec file, by default we use the Docker Registry index.docker.io. Singularity first tries the call without a token, and then asks for one with pull permissions if the request is defined. However, it may be the case that you want to provide a custom token for a private registry. You have two options. You can either provide a Username and Password in the build specification file (if stored locally and there is no need to share), or (in the case of doing an import or needing to secure the credentials) you can export these variables to environmental variables. We provide instructions for each of these cases:

You can simply specify your additional authentication parameters in the header with the labels Username and Password:

Again, this can be in addition to specification of a custom registry with the Registry parameter.

You can export your registry, username, and password for Singularity as follows:

If you are having trouble, you can test your token by obtaining it on the command line and putting it into an environmental variable, CREDENTIAL:

This should place the token in the environmental variable TOKEN. To test that your token is valid, you can do the following

The above call should return the tags list as expected.

Finally, we can achieve a shell experience, meaning shelling into Docker image imported into Singularity. We do this by storing the entire image in a temporary location, and then running the same function. You would do something like this:

A common use case is to want to start with a Docker image, possibly add custom commands, and have a Singularity image when you finish. You can read a bit about bootstrapping here to get a sense of adding the custom commands and software. To specify Docker as the build source, you simply need this header:

In the case of omitting the tag (latest) it is assumed that you want the latest image. In the case of omitting the namespace (library) it is assumed that you want the common namespace, library. If you have a reason to use the Docker Engine, we also have a method to do this. The benefit of this method would be that you could use an image built locally (in your local cache) that isnt on Docker Hub.

Here we will access Docker images via the Docker command line tool, meaning using the Docker engine. As is the Docker standard, the image is first looked for in your local cache, and if not found, is pulled from Docker Hub.

We wrapped this entire process into a Docker container itself, which means that you can use a Docker container in a Docker container to export a Docker container into Singularity! Nuts. Full instructions are provided, however here is the gist:

How did this come to be? It so happens that Docker has an export command to pipe this data out, and Singularity has an import command to take them in. Thus, you can do a simple import of a Docker image into a Singularity command by doing:

Where $container_id is the id of a running container obtained with docker ps. However, there are subtle details like the environment and permissions that this method will miss. Its also the case that most Docker images dont run (and stay running) easily unless you do something like:

Early on we created a docker2singularity.sh, a script that you can download and run as follows:

To produce a Singularity image of ubuntu:latest in the present working directory.

Why wont my image bootstrap work? If you cant find an answer on this site, please ping us an issue. If youve found an answer and youd like to see it on the site for others to benefit from, then post to us here.

This entire process will hopefully change in two ways. First, we hope to collapse the image creation and bootstrapping, so you have the option to do them both in one full swing. Second, we hope to eventually figure out some kind of solution to import Docker containers without needing sudo.

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Singularity and Docker | Singularity

The struggle for electric vehicles to gain legitimacy in a world dominated by supersized SUVs and overbearing big rigs is something of a David and Goliath story.

The underdog just landed a blow right between the eyes of Americas major car manufacturers.

In April, Tesla became the most valuable automaker in the US, passing General Motors in total market value. GM has since regained the lead by a slim margin, edging Tesla in market cap by a little more than a billion dollars.

Still, the ability of a 15-year-old company to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the venerable Detroit automakers is extraordinary. Its a reflection of the broader picture of how alternative energy and renewables have risen to prominence. It would seem to be no coincidence that at a time when electric vehicles appear poised for widespread adoption, solar and renewable energy have become cheaper than coal.

Tesla is set to roll out its most affordable EV to date later this yearthe Model 3, retailing at $35,000 before tax breaks. The Model 3 reportedly has more than 400,000 pre-sales. There are only about 540,000 EVs on US roads today, according to report called The State of EV Charging in 2016, produced by electric car charging companyChargePoint.

The release of the Model 3 alone promises to nearly double the number of electric vehicles (including hybrids). Thats not quite as impressive as it first sounds considering there were more than 260 million vehicles in the US as of 2014, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In other words, EVs will still account for less than one percent of all vehicles.

There is potential for EVs to reach a market share of 30 percent or greater by 2030, but that will require radical shifts in environmental and regulatory policy, according to John Axsen, an associate professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who studies green technology, consumer behavior and environmental policy.

As long as gasoline vehicles are able to belch pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions for free, then EVs will have a disadvantage, he says by email to Singularity Hub. Economists call this a market failure. So nearly all the good research out there shows that strong policy is responsible for any success we've seen so far, and that we'll need more strong policy to see any real success going forward.

There are very few places where such policies exist. For example, Norway has reached 25 percent market share for EVs because it has huge taxes on fossil fuels, huge taxes on conventional vehicles, and very substantial financial and non-financial incentives for EVs, according to Axsen.

California is leading the way in North America. Its zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate requires automakers to sell a certain percentage of electric vehicles. Quebec has recently followed suit with its own ZEV mandate. I believe that if California did not have this policy, Tesla would never have existed (and Toyota probably never would have developed the Prius, for that matter), Axsen says.

Earlier this year, Californias utilities submitted plans to collect up to $1 billion from customers to expand the states EV infrastructure. If approved, California would add more than 10,000 new charging stations, as the state pushes to put a million EVs on the road by the end of the decade. The Guardian reported last year that the European Union has created a draft directive requiring every new and refurbished home in Europe to be equipped with a recharging point.

Another impediment to EVs reaching a tipping point is supply, according to Axsen. There are relatively few makes and models available, particularly in truck and van classes. And then, many car dealerships are not carrying these EVs in their inventory, and research shows that many dealers in Canada and the US are not even trying to sell the EVs to customers, he notes.

Most of the major US automakers manufacture EVs or hybrids, with more than 55 models on the market. There are also a number of emerging startups vying to become the next Tesla. Some of the best-funded are in China, while a company called Lucid Motors out of California (of course) has been touted as a potential challenger to Tesla. Its luxury model, still not in full production, boasts 1,000 horsepower and can go 400 miles on a single charge.

Elon Musk and Tesla, meanwhile, are not satisfied with just building the worlds most advanced EV compact cars and sedans. The company recently announced it would next tackle a mini-bus, pickup truck and even semi-truck. The latter would be a particularly disruptive technology, especially if Tesla outfits it with the companys Autopilot system.

Of course, there are quite a few technological roadblocks the company will need to address, not least of which is developing a battery system that can handle a heavy, long-haul 18-wheeler rig. A company not named Tesla but called the Nikola Motor Company thinks it has the answer by using hydrogen fuel cells to power a fully electric 18-wheeler.

It claims its Nikola One will have a range of 800 to 1,200 miles while delivering 1,000 horsepower. And just a few days ago, Toyota also announced plans for a hydrogen cell-powered big rig, in a new race to produce the first zero-emission 18-wheeler.

Electric vehicle technology is getting better, and a few regions are showing the market potential, Axsen says, such as California, Norway and the Netherlands. Both European countries plan to phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2025.

Despite such successes, Axsen emphasizes that without changes in policy, the EV market will likely continue to hover around one percent, perhaps hitting 10 percent by 2030. The strongest policies, which encourage automakers to sell a wide variety of EVs, can push market share as high as 30 to 45 percent by 2030, he adds.

The current US administrations efforts to rollback Obama-era fuel economy rules would seem to imply that policies favoring EVs will remain status quo at best for now. That could mean China and Europe will speed past the US and Canada in the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.

While Axsen doesnt share Musks unfettered optimismpossibly because he is not beholden to stockholdershe does think the drive to a zero-emission transportation system is navigable in the US and Canada.

Though our current policies are not nearly up to the task, governments have proven options at their disposal that will get us where we need to go, he wrote previously.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Electric Vehicles Are on the Rise: Here's How to Sustain Their Growth - Singularity Hub

Among modern medicine's achievements, one of the most dramatic has been asteep reduction in infant mortality. Yet, even today, there are exceptions. Babies born prematurely often have to battle to stay alive. Our best technology isn't enough.

Scientists recently took a small step towards changing that. A team of doctors from Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia was successfully able to bring eight premature lambs to full term in an artificial womb outside their mothers body. Researchers dubbed the fake womb a Biobag, a good term to describe whats basically a big plastic bag equipped with a circulation system and filled with a liquid that mimics amniotic fluid.

After being born at just over half their gestation periodthe equivalent for a human baby would be 22 weeksthe lambs spent up to four weeks in Biobags before being transferred to ventilators.

According to the researchers paper, which was published this week in Nature Communications, extreme prematurity is the leading cause of neonatal mortality in the developed worldmore than a third of infant deaths in the US are due to prematurity. Even when preemies survive, they often end up battling complications related to underdeveloped organs.

More specifically, premature babies most often have respiratory problems related to their lungs being forced to transition from liquid to air ventilation before theyre ready. An artificial womb like the Biobag allows the lungs and other organs to continue developing more closely to the way they would inside a mothers body.

Obviously, though, a plastic bag is a far cry from a uterus, no matter how many advanced systems its outfitted with. During pregnancy, a mothers blood flows to her baby, giving the baby oxygen and clearing its lungs of carbon dioxide. This isnt an easy process to re-create, not least because the blood pressure has to stay within a narrow range to avoid damaging the babys heart.

To clear these significant hurdles, researchers connected the lamb fetuss umbilical blood vessels to an apparatus that oxygenated them. The babys heartbeat was able to power blood flow, eliminating the need for an external pump.

Besides the oxygenator, the Biobags have two other crucial components: continuous fluid exchange and an umbilical cord connection. Each Biobag is a single-use, closed, sterile environment, with liquid continuously flowing out of the bag to be purifiedjust as a mothers kidneys would do during pregnancy.

Finally, the research team developed a new technique to connect umbilical cord vessels to an external nutrient source.

The baby lambs that spent several weeks in the Biobags were compared to lambs born by C-section at full term, and the differences in crucial organs like lungs and brain were minimal.

"These results are superior to all previous attempts at extracorporeal support of the extreme premature fetus in both duration and physiologic well-being," according to the paper.

Lambs and humans are, of course, not the same, and this projects success doesnt mean Biobags will necessarily work for human babies. But thats the direction the team is planning to take their research.

"We believe that the animal data that we have reported in this manuscript really supports translating our system into a clinical therapy for human babies," according to Emily Partridge, aresearcherChildren's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Besides helping bring preemies to full term in a way thats healthier for them, Biobag-type technology could be used to treat babies whose mothers have an insufficient placenta or to correct congenital heart or lung issues. In general, the technology offers a way to help premature babies without causing additional health risks to mothers.

It doesnt end there, though. The authors of the paper state that their system offers an intriguing experimental model for addressing fundamental questions regarding the role of the mother and placenta in fetal development.

Could the mother one day be removed from the equation altogether (after providing an egg, that is)? Is that a desirable scenario, or would it render one of the most intimate parts of life too sterile and impersonal?

It will be years or even decades before we find out, but women who have had complicated pregnancies or agonizing deliveriesor those who simply didnt enjoy being pregnantwill welcome advancements in a technology that would free them from being natures vessel of life. It would pack a serious punch to gender equality, too.

Image Credit: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia/YouTube

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Scientists Create the Most Successful Artificial Womb Yet - Singularity Hub