Category Archives: Futurism

In Brief Elon Musk told the National Governors Association meeting that the solar roof for the Model 3 (or any car) was not practical and was an idea that would be "scrapped." As of now, a car's roof is not big enough to make this efficient with current technologies.

In November 2016, Elon Musk said that the upcoming Tesla Model 3 would incorporate the technology of the new solar roof. However, on July 15 at the National Governors Association meeting, Musk squelched the idea in his remarks. When asked about the solar roof, he indicated that he would scrap that idea which requires some very complicated engineering. He explained:

I really thought about this. I pushed my team. Is there some way we can do it on the car? Technically, if you have some sort of transformer-like thing that will pop out of the trunk like a hardtop convertible that ratchets solar panels over the car. . .and provided you are in the sun, that would be enough to generate 20 to 30 miles a day of electricity. Its a difficult way to do it.

As Electrek reports, the issue with the concept of solar panels that cover the top of cars is that they are rarely efficient enough to be worthwhile. Furthermore, their functionality varies based on your location. Even the Prius solar roof is really mostly a ventilation system, not a significant source of backup power for the car. In the end, the idea of a retractable array in the trunk is a complicated solution that would, at most, add 20 to 30 miles per day.So, unfortunately, it looks like we wont be seeing the solar roof option on the Model 3, at least not now.

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Elon Musk Scraps Solar Roof Idea for New Tesla Model - Futurism

The Rise of Smartphones

These are the quiet times.

From April toJune, techs biggest companies all held their annual mega-events, laying out their grand visions for the next 12 months or so.

Facebook kicked it off in late April with itsF8 conference, followed byMicrosoft Build, then theGoogle I/O conference, andApples Worldwide Developers Conferencefinished things off. Amazon doesnt really hold events, but it unveiled two new Amazon Echo smart speakers during that period for good measure.

And things will get exciting again, sooner than you know it. This Fall, Apple is expected to reveal a10th-anniversary iPhone, Google will likely reveal arevamped Pixel smartphone, and Microsoft is expected to hold another one of its regular late-October Surface computer press conferences.

In the meantime, theres not much to do but reflect on what weve learned so far this year about the future of tech. And beyond the hype and the hyperbole, were starting to see the very earliest stages of a battle for the next phase of computing.

Because while Apple and Google may dominate the smartphone market today, technologies like augmented reality present whole-new platforms where theres no clear winner. So Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, having missed out on owning a mobile platform, are doing their damndest tohasten the end of the smartphone and the end of Apple and Googles duopoly, while theyre at it.

Every major technological shift has created big opportunities for the few entrepreneurs who see it coming early in the seventies, Apple and Microsoft made big bets that the PC would be a much bigger market than gigantic room-sized mainframes, while themainframe industry decried the PC itself as a fad. We see who won that one.

Similarly, Microsoft didnt fully realize the potential of smartphones, until well after Google and Apple proved them wrong. Now, Googles Android is the most popular operating system in the world, full stop. And the iPhone has propelledApple torecord profits and to the status asthecompany to beat in tech.

Well, it seems like time is a flat circle. Right now, were seeing the earliest growing pains of augmented reality and virtual reality tech that overlays the digital world onto ourhuman senses. It means information, projected into your eyes and ears, as you need it. Why carry a phone when Netflix and WhatsApp are floating in front of you?

Some call it a fad, or just something thats too new and untestedto be considered a real threat to the smartphone. And yet, theres a veritable arms race to build these augmented reality platforms of the future.

Amazons Alexa is primarily thought of as a digital voice assistant, but having a virtual person tell you the time and weather definitely qualifies as augmented reality. Microsoft has its reality-bending HoloLens hologram goggles.Facebookand Snapchat have both built augmented reality straight into the camera. Even Google-backed startupMagic Leap thinks its yet-to-released goggles have a shot at becoming a new platform.

The net result is arace to build whatever is going to do the smartphone what the PC did to the mainframe. What these companies all have in common is that they missed the boat on building smartphone operating systems of their own. Now, its on them to build whatever comes next.

Apple and Google are well aware of the threat and are not standing still.

Apple has ARkit, a system for building augmented reality into iPhone apps, using the phones built-in camera. Its technologically robust enough and easy enough to use that developers love it, givingApple a nice foothold in augmented reality. If and whenApple releases smart glasses, those apps will come right over.

Google has various augmented reality effortsin the works, including Project Tango. And although the first version of the Google Glass headset flopped, if Google figures out how to revamp the device, it will have a vehicle to extend Android into the AR realm.

In a weird way, going on the defensive like this almost gives Apple a perverse incentive to replace the iPhone: IfApple can build the next great hardware platform itself, it means that Amazon cant do it with Alexa, and Microsoft cant do it with HoloLens.

In the meantime, as we appreciate all the new hardware and software goodies coming out later this year, keep the perspective that everything were seeing now is the first salvo in a computing war that will rage forthe next decade and beyond.

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The Smartphone Is Eventually Going to Die, and Apple, Google ... - Futurism

In Brief Soft robotics and 3D printing have allowed a team of researchers from Switzerland to develop an artificial heart that works like the real thing. This proof of concept design was successfully tested in the lab, but it may take a while before it will be ready.

Scientists have been developingartificial hearts for quite some time now. However, many of the current designs are unfortunatelyclunky, which presents difficulties in successfully integrating them into human tissue. To approach this issue, a team of researchers from ETH Zrich decided to take a cue from thebiological human heart.

Instead of using separate parts, the Swiss team, led by Nicholas Cohrs, 3D-printed an artificial heart using a soft, flexible material. The material was molded into a single part (or a monoblock) which allowed the team to design a complex inner structure complete with pumping mechanisms able to be triggered by silicon ventricles. This method imitates a realistic human heartbeat.

[O]ur goal is to develop an artificial heart that is roughly the same size as the patients own one and which imitates the human heart as closely as possible in form and function, Cohrs said in a press release. The team successfully tested this artificial heart, pumping blood-like fluid at human body-like pressures. The team published their research in the journal Artificial Organs.

However, this design is still a proof of concept, which means its yet to be ready for actual implantation. The materials used are, as of right now, unable to last more than half an hour or some few thousand heartbeats, though that could vary a bit depending on a persons heart rate. Its a limitation the team will continue to work on, as new materials and design improvements advance. Once perfected, this design could potentially improve the lives and health ofaround 26 million people worldwide who suffer from various heart conditions.

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This 3D-Printed Human Heart Can Do Everything a Real One Can - Futurism

Quantum Mechanical Particles

Mathematicians at the Universities of York, Munich and Cardiff have identified a unique property of quantum mechanical particles they can move in the opposite way to the direction in which they are being pushed.

In everyday life, objects travel in the same direction as their momentum a car in forward motion is going forwards, and certainly not backwards.

However, this is no longer true on microscopic scales quantumparticlescan partially go into reverse and travel in the direction opposite to their momentum. This unique property is known as backflow.

This is the first time this has been found in a particle where external forces are acting on it. Previously, scientists were only aware of this movement in free quantum particles, where noforceis acting on them.

Using a combination of analytical and numerical methods, researchers also obtained precise estimates about the strength of this phenomenon. Such results demonstrate that backflow is always there but is a rather small effect, which may explain why it has not been measured yet.

This discovery paves the way for further research intoquantum mechanics, and could be applied to future experiments in quantum technology fields such as computer encryption.

Dr Henning Bostelmann, Researcher in Yorks Department of Mathematics, said: This new theoretical analysis into quantum mechanical particles shows that this backflow effect is ubiquitous in quantum physics.

We have shown that backflow can always occur, even if a force is acting on the quantum particle while it travels. The backflow effect is the result of wave-particle duality and the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, and it is already well understood in an idealised case of force-free motion.

Dr Gandalf Lechner, Researcher in Cardiffs Universitys School of Mathematics, said: Forces can of course make a particle go backwards that is, they can reflect it, and this naturally leads to increased backflow. But we could show that even in a completely reflection-free medium, backflow occurs. In the presence of reflection, on the other hand, we found that backflow remains asmall effect, and estimated its magnitude.

Dr Daniela Cadamuro, Researcher at the Technical University of Munich, said: The backflow effect in quantum mechanics has been known for quite a while, but it has always been discussed in regards to free quantum particles, i.e., no external forces are acting on the particle.

As freequantum particlesare an idealised, perhaps unrealistic situation, we have shown that backflow still occurs when external forces are present. This means that external forces dont destroy the backflow effect, which is an excitingnew discovery.

These new findings allow us to find out the optimal configuration of a quantum particle that exhibits the maximal amount of backflow, which is important for future experimental verification.

This article was provided byUniversity of York. Materials may have been edited for clarity and brevity. And make the name of the source a link back to their website.

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New Breakthrough DiscoveryEvery Quantum Particle Travels ... - Futurism

In Brief Elon Musk shared a bold prediction for the future of EVs and autonomous driving systems during a talk at a meeting of the National Governors Association. Just two decades from now, he expects most of the vehicles on the road will be electric and autonomous.

During a talk at the National Governors Association on Saturday, Elon Musk shared a bold prediction for the future of personal transportation. Not only does he believe that half the cars produced in the United States just 10 years from now will be electric, he thinks almost all cars produced by then will be autonomous.

In 10 years, half of all production will be EV, he told the governors. I think almost all cars produced will be autonomous in 10 years, almost all. It will be rare to find one that is not, in 10 years.

While EVs and autonomous cars will comprise a bulk of new vehicles, however, that doesnt mean they will be the majority on the roads. New vehicle production is only about five percent of the size of the vehicle fleet, Musk explained, and because a car or truck can last for 15 to 20 years, it will take some time for the old to be replaced by the new. Even when new vehicle production switches over to electric or autonomousthat still means the vast majority of the fleet is not, he noted.

Musk estimated that well have to wait a bit longer before we see a significant change in the types of vehicles on the road, but two decades from now, he expects an overwhelming portion of vehicles to be electric and fully autonomous.

The shift wont be limited to cars and trucks, either. He predicts that eventually all transport will go fully electric with the exception of spacecraft.

Musk is at the forefront of this driverless and electric revolution. Tesla recently began production on their Model 3, which is poised to make electric vehicles more affordable, and the companys cars have been breaking EV industry records for hypermiling and cannonball runs.

Teslas progress has spurred their competitors into action, with other industry leaders like Volvo making the decision to go all electric. If the trend continues, Musks predictions could prove true and we could be just a few short years from entering the age of electric, autonomous vehicles.

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Elon Musk: Almost All Cars Produced Will Be Autonomous in 10 Years - Futurism

In Brief Google's iconic Glass is now back, but this time the wearable is not meant for the average consumer. Alphabet's X division has refocused the device for optimal use in the workplace, and already, the reboot is poised to be more successful than the original. A Clearer Vision

When Google Glass debuted back in 2012, it generated so muchhype that people expected it to usher in a new era of wearable technologies. Sadly, the hype was short-lived as people realized that Glass wasnt what they thought it could be.

Despite officially shutting down the Glass website in 2015, Google didnt exactly pull the plug on the project, and now, Glass is backwith a new mission.

The reboot comes from X, the moonshot branch of Googles parent company, Alphabet. The eyeglass-like wearable is now called Glass Enterprise Edition, and according to the Glass website, its nowa hands-free device, for hands-on workers.

Workers in many fields, like manufacturing, logistics, field services, and healthcare, find it useful to consult a wearable device for information and other resources while their hands are busy, Jay Kothari, project lead for Glass, wrote in a blog announcement. Thats why weve spent the last two years working closely with a network of more than 30 expert partners to build customized software and business solutions for Glass for people in these fields.

This work-focused version of Glass was a product of time and smart choices. Despite the original Explorer Edition not landing a core market, it did find traction in a number of work environments.

We first saw signs of Glass potential for businesses in the Glass Explorer days, explained Kothari. As we said when we graduated, wed been seeing incredible developments with Glass in the workplace.

While Alphabet continued to supply companies likeBoeing, General Electric, DHL, and AGCO with the Glass Explorer, they also started adjusting the lenses to focus on just one market.

For these businesses, using the Enterprise Edition has worked out pretty well. Employees are now working smarter, faster, and safer because they have the information they need right in their line of sight,AGCOs Peggy Gulick told Kothari.

By pivoting away from the consumer market, Glass may just have found a way to rewrite its legacy.

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Google Glass Is Back, and It's No Longer Meant for Everyone - Futurism

In Brief Volkswagen announced that the I.D. Concept, the company's electric concept car designed to compete with the Tesla Model 3, will sell for $7,000 to $8,000 less. The low price is part of VW's drive to compete with Tesla in the EV market.

Volkswagen chief strategist Thomas Sedran announced at the Automobil Forum that the I.D. Concept will sell for $7,000 to $8,000 less than Teslas model. Aside from competitive pricing, the I.D. Concept wasdesigned to compete with the Tesla Model 3across the board.The price cutting strategy is one of the companys more traditional competitive moves in a battle that has, at times, strayed into the unorthodox.According to Electrek, last year before unveiling the concept, VW misrepresented the Model s NEDC-rated range in a presentation designed to favorably compare the VW concept electric vehicle (EV).

At this point, it appears that the all-electric hatchback from VW will be available to compete with the Model 3 in the U.S., but not for more than a year after the Model 3 hits the market. Meanwhile, the concept vehicle which is about the size of the VW Golf will be part of the companys more focused EV efforts in the EU and China. Its crossover model made its debut in Shanghai in April.

While Tesla may see the VW model as a potential competitor, its marketing strategies are more centered on converting drivers of gas-powered cars to EVs. However, if VW follows through with its plan to offer 30 all-electric or hybrid models by 2025, it seems likely that it will remain acompetitor for Tesla and everyone else.

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Volkswagen's EV Will Sell for $7-8K Cheaper Than the Tesla Model 3 - Futurism

In Brief Former NASA climate chief James Hansen believes climate change's most dangerous effect will be a continuous rise in sea levels and not necessarily the increase in temperatures. Because so many people live in coastal cities, the mass migrations inland that will follow this rise could leave the world in ungovernable chaos. Water World

Simply fixatingon the potential negative effects of climate change instead of focusing on efforts to combat itwill not help our planet. However, climate change predictions are the reason these efforts matter, and they provide valuable insights as to how we should take action.

According to former NASA climate research headJames Hansen, the effect of climate change we should be most focused on isnt the warming of the atmosphere. Its the rising sea levels.

Hansen told New York Magthat he doesnt think the atmosphere will actually warm as much as some have predicted by the end of the century, but he does think that sea levels will rise significantly due to melting polar caps. I dont think were going to get four or five degrees [Celsius] this century, because we get a cooling effect from the melting ice. But the biggest effect will be that melting ice, he asserted. In my opinion thats the big thing sea-level rise.

In a paper published last year, Hansen warned that continuous reliance on fossil fuels could increase sea levels by several meters in just a period of 50 to 150 years. That seems like a long time, but Hansens predictions are significantly greater than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes projected range of sea level rise of 30 centimeters (~1 foot) to just under a meter (3.2 feet).

Coastlines are home to more than half the worlds large cities, so a significant portion of the population will be affected by these rising sea levels. The economic implications of that, and the migrations and the social effects of migrations the planet could become practically ungovernable, it seems to me, said Hansen.

Of course, the rising temperatures themselves will impact the population, too. While they wont really be an issue in the U.S., Hansen believes they could be a major problem for countries in the subtropics. If the prediction of a four to five degrees Celsius (7.2 to nine degrees Fahrenheit) increase does come true, it would make these places practically uninhabitable and potentially grind their economies to a halt.

Its already becoming uncomfortable in the summers, in the subtropics. You cant work outdoors, and agriculture, more than half of the jobs are outdoors, he explained.

Hansen asserts that a carbon tax could help stabilize the economy as the world transitions away from fossil fuels, but the important thing is that this transition happens. Without serious efforts on every level, from the individual to the institutional, we stand no chance of preventing climate change from wreaking havoc on our planet.

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Former NASA Climate Chief Warns That Earth Could Become ... - Futurism

In Brief Tezos, the new blockchain on the block, has finished its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) crowdfunding run. The startup generated more more than $200 million worth of bitcoin and ether cryptocoins, making it the largest ever ICO in the world to date. No Caps, Just Coins

If youre building a new blockchain system, might as well fund it using digital currency generated by other blockchains. Thats what Tezos did when it decided to launch an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) back onJuly 1 for its new decentralized blockchain. Now, after 13 days of crypto asset crowdsale, the Tezos ICO generated more than $230 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) coins, making it the largest ICO to date.

The Tezos ICO closed with 65,627 BTC (with current prices hovering around $155-6 million) and 361,122 ETH (about $76 million), reaching a total of $232 million. Thats almost 100 million more than the previously highest Bancor ICO, which ended with about $150 million worth of ether coins. It helped that the Tezos ICO that didnt have a cap for total coins sold and was launched back when 2,000 transaction blocks were added to the Bitcoin blockchain.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether are used to pay for miners who maintain their respective blockchains the decentralized digital ledger of transactions thats recently found applications in not just finance, but other industries as well.

As mentioned, Tezos is a blockchain. It wants to be different from existing blockchains, however, by refining the way these decentralized networks are governed and developed. Tezos describes its blockchain as a self-amending cryptoledger, i.e. it gives stakeholders the ability to decide on network-wide changes at the protocol level.

Essentially, this could eliminate the current conundrum Bitcoin finds itself in. Bitcoin miners and developers who have opposing goals when it comes to the future of the blockchain are in a deadlock regarding whether to accept and implement an improvement that would handle increased traffic in the network.

Tezos isnt free of critics, however: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously expressed his disagreement with the idea of eliminating the need for outside protocol governance. Tezos, however, will offer support for smart contracts that use Proof-of-Stake (PoS) as a consensus algorithm something that Ethereum is supposedly working on.

While regular investments are already volatile by nature, ICOs are even more so. Theres no guarantee how many of these startups with ICOs will actually last. For now, though, Tezos is just enjoying the overwhelming amount of funding and support its generated.

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.

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Tezos Just Finished the World's Largest ICO, Hitting More Than $200 Million Worth of Cryptocoins - Futurism

The Fermi Paradox

The Milky Way Galaxy alone is home to between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, and each is potentially orbited by planets. There are probably at least 2 trillion galaxies like ours in the observable universe, each one populated by trillions of planets orbiting hundreds of billions of stars. Even if planets capable of sustaining life are exceedingly rare, on the numbers alone there should be intelligent life somewhere in the universe. For example, according to Business Insider, if a mere 0.1 percent of planets in our galaxy that might be habitable harbored life, that would mean there were about a million planets with life on them.

These numbers prompted Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi to ask in regard to alien life forms: Where are they? This question has come to be known as the Fermi paradox, and most possible answers to it would be concerning for humans.

Climate change, if it is allowed to continue, will eventually devastate much of life on Earth as we know it. It was the remarkably stable climate of the past 12,000 years or so that has allowed human civilization to flourish, benefitting from agriculture and eventually industrialization (although ironically that may also be our undoing).

Recent research points to several characteristics of species more likely to survive the rigors of a planet ravaged by climate change: two of the most vital being anindiscriminate palate and a rapid reproductive cycle. Therefore,humans are basically the oppositeofthe types of creatures considered to be prime survivors.

Other thinkers have different answers to the Fermi paradox, which are even more depressing (or less depending on your perspective). Oxford neuroscientist Anders Sandberg, Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade member Milan irkovi, and artificial intelligence (AI) expert Stuart Armstrong have suggested that aliens arent extinct, but are in hibernation, waiting for the universe to cool. Professor Zaza Osmanov of the Free University of Tbilisi believes that our search for signs of alien megastructures has yet to be rewarded because we are looking around stars when we should be looking around pulsars.

And physicist Brian Cox suggests yet another possibility; a cautionary tale for our own civilization as well as any others: It may be that the growth of science and engineering inevitably outstrips the development of political expertise, leading to disaster, says Cox. If intelligent life unwittingly renders itself extinct as soon as it advances sufficiently, the physicist believes, we could be approaching that position.

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The Reason We've Never Found Intelligent Life Might be Because We Are Already Going Extinct - Futurism