Category Archives: Futurism

Clean Energy Storage

Swiss startup Energy Vault wants to overcome the limitations of lithium-ion batteries by storing green wind and solar energy by stacking massive towers made up of 35-ton bricks, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In August, the startup locked down $110 million from SoftBanks Vision Fund. The company already constructed a 400-foot demonstration tower and is planning to eventually build cranes up to 500 feet in height.

The concept relies on gravity alone.

A pre-programmed crane on top of a massive tower lifts and stacks colossal bricks on top of each using excess power from wind and solar plants. When demand exceeds electricity production, the crane reverses the process, recouping energy by unstacking the tower of bricks.

Just 20 cranes could provide enough power for 40,000 households over a 24 hour period, according to the WSJ.

Lithium-ion batteries rely on rare-Earth metals, the extraction of which is steeped in environmental and humanitarian problems, and tend to lose their capacity over time.

The concept is similar to pumped hydro systems,which use bodies of water instead of heavy bricks and a hill instead of a tower,and have been around for at least a century.

READ MORE: To Store the Wind and Sun, Energy Startups Look to Gravity [The Wall Street Journal]

More on the startup: Giant Hanging Bricks Could Store Energy Better Than Batteries

Continue reading here:
Heres How to Store Wind and Solar Energy Using Just Gravity - Futurism

Digging In

In central Italy, a team of scientists dug a well two miles deep in search of a functionally-unlimited supply of clean energy.

If the group of Italian and Swiss geologists manages to get a little bit deeper and reach the K horizon the depth at which they expect to find reservoirs of highly-pressurized fluids they would be able to tap into what Wired describes as one of the most energy-dense forms of renewable power in the world.

The trick, however, is digging that deep without triggering a massive earthquake along the way.

The scientists are optimistic that they can reach the K horizon without causing an earthquake they published research in the journal JGR Solid Earth last month that suggests its possible.

But tapping the energy source beneath known as supercritical fluid because it has properties of both liquid and gas will prove to be tricky in its own right.

The fluids are very corrosive and dissolve a lot of stuff out of the rock that you need to deal with, said Susan Petty, cofounder of the geothermal company Alta Rock Energy, told Wired. Its scary stuff.

Scientists also need to make sure theyve actually found a reservoir before beginning such an ambitious digging project.

Supercritical fluids are fairly uncommon, Wired reports, so even if this particular project succeeds, other parts of the globe may be out of luck. But the areas near these hotspots, if they tap in, could find themselves with access to unlimited clean power.

READ MORE: Want Unlimited Clean Energy? Just Drill the Worlds Hottest Well [Wired]

More on energy: Iceland is Using Extreme Tech to Harvest Clean Energy From Volcanoes

See more here:
This Team Wants to Capture Unlimited Energy From Inside the Earth - Futurism

The deadly COVID-19 virus has killed more than a thousand over the past month, and scientists across the world are racing to understand the novel pathogen.

Now, researchers at the Montana-based National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Rocky Mountain Laboratories have released a gallery of stunning images of the virus that they took with a variety of scanning and transmission electron microscopes.

The haunting shots that remind you that your body is a microcosmic battleground of trillions of cells, many of them fighting off invaders that can range from the COVID-19 to the common cold.

Dont believe us? A scanning electron microscope caught this cluster of the viruses nestled in the folds of a human cell from a patient in the US:

In this shot, from a transmission electron microscope, the viruses look almost like celestial objects:

Okay, one more. This scanning electron microscope shot shows the viruses living on the surface of cave-like cells cultured in a lab:

Read the rest here:
What Does the Coronavirus Look Like? This. - Futurism

The Quote

Via TechCrunch, Elon Musk, Monday night, on Twitter (of course):

Musk was responding to a massive feature story published in the MIT Technology Review about OpenAI, the AI research lab founded in partby Elon Musk, alongside others.

The lab operates with the mission of developing safe and ethical AI thatll be good for the world. But MIT Techs reporting tells of how Open AI went from being a transparent organization to a relatively opaque one (hence Musks preceding Tweet about OpenAI needing to be more open).

Musks ability to self-aggrandize or self-flagellate is usually surprising in equal measure, but never shocking: Industries often argue for their own regulation as a way to keep government regulators off their backs.

Though credit where its due: Musk has been, as in the case of when he argued in favor of regulating autonomous weapons, more substantially and more effectively vocal than most when it comes to regulating AI. Whether or not this will have any substantial effects on other companies (statements from CEOs, regulatory commission efforts, etc) let alone Tesla or OpenAI will be nothing if not a compelling plot to watch.

READ MORE: The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAIs bid to save the world[MIT Technology Review]

More on OpenAI: OpenAI Just Released The Ai It Said It Was Too Dangerous To Share

Originally posted here:
Elon Musk: Everyone, Including Tesla, Needs AI Regulation - Futurism

Whip It

A newly-published patent dating back to 2017 lays out plans for a ship-based launch system that whips payloads into orbit using a miles-long whip that is being guided by a whole bunch of drones, according to GeekWire. The goals to increase energy efficiency by reducing the fuel needed to get to altitude.

The system, dreamed up by Amazon Air VP Gur Kimchi and (winningly-named) senior Amazon inventor Louis LeRoi LeGrand III is surprisingly detailed in its patent application.

Its an unusual concept: a miles-long whip is attached to a boat on one end, and a drone carrying the payload on the other end. A series of additional drones attached to the length of the whip fly up and down to generate a whip waveform. The end with the payload then cracks like a whip, sending the payload flying.

The system could be scaled down to even fling smaller packages attached to aerial vehicles into the air as well. Payloads could even be flung from planes mid-air. But the main focus of the application is on space-based applications think satellites.

Its not the first (and likely, is far from the last) crazy concept dreamed up by Amazon. Theres the patent for a system that would place warehouse workers in metal cages to protect them from robots, flying warehouses filled with delivery drones, and even tracking wristbands that spy on warehouse workers.

Will we ever see giant satellite whips in action in the future? Unlikely.

Patents take multiple years to receive and do not necessarily reflect our current product roadmap, an Amazon spokesperson told GeekWire in an email.

READ MORE: Whip it good! Amazon patents a launch system for snapping payloads into the air or even into orbit [GeekWire]

More on Amazon patents: A New Amazon Camera Patent Is Straight Out of 1984

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Amazon Patented a System That Literally Whips Stuff Into Orbit - Futurism

Look: We here at Futurism Dot Com are not immune like every other media outleton the internet to the occasional shameless Internet Dog post.

Among our ranks are dog owners; our office is dog-friendly. Also, were shameless. So heres a video of NASA astronaut Christina Koch coming home to her dog after returning from her record-setting 328-day spaceflight:

The dogs name, for the record, is LBD, which stands for Little Brown Dog. And look at our fawning contemporaries in media, covering this particular story:

Ah, yes, CNN: That regal news operation, justbowled over by this dog.Timemagazine, that old stalwart, argues that this dogcould not be happier.

We beg to differ.

Allow us to introduce you, dear reader, to the Master Returns subreddit, which is full of videos of dogs who are far happier to see their owners who werent even in space! than Christina Kochs dog, which could do better:

Reunited with Ruby after almost four weeks away from MasterReturns

See? This dog certainly did better:

WELCOME HOME A soldiers worry her beloved dog wouldnt remember her while she was deployed in Africa quickly dissolved by the pups public freakout at the airport from MasterReturns

This dogabsolutelyowns lesser dogs with a greeting involving pirouettes:

Its been a whole 2 hours since weve seen each other from aww

See? Thats all. We just expect more of that dog.

Related: Welcome back, Christina Koch. Not that you needed a reminder, but Earth is full of assholes, and only dogs are good. Also, LBD, do better.

MORE #FUTURISM_PETS CONTENT:These Cats Refuse to Die of Coronavirus Before Their Humans

EVEN MORE #FUTURISM_PETS CONTENT:If You Dont Adopt These Animals the FDA Experimented on Youre a Bad Person

Continued here:
This Record-Breaking Astronaut's Dog Is Really Glad to See Her. But. - Futurism

Retro Gaming

Theres a new breakout game on the eSports scene: more and more, gamers streaming online are playing competitive rounds of chess in front of their virtual audiences.

For instance, NBC News profiled chess streamer Alexandra Botez, one of Canadas top-ranked players. Shes taken to playing games live on the internet, all while posting in a chatroom to some 1,000 audience members and providing commentary a marked shift from the usual slate of games featured on Twitch or other streaming platforms.

Chess is an old-school, turn-based, medieval combat strategy game. It features lots of the same tropes as other games in the genre: battle-ready knights, castles, even powerful hero units called queens, a subtle nod toward medieval royalty. In the game, combat is boiled down to its simplest form and centers around occupying spaces on a grid-like playing field.

The game has been kept alive by a cult following that never minded its monochrome graphics or rudimentary mechanics. Over the years, chess players have cultivated an air of refinement and sophistication. That culture clashes hard with Twitchs fast-paced, casual, social media-like culture, but NBC reports chess is among the fastest-growing games on the platform.

Botez, however, provides a bridge between the two cultures.

Its crazy to me to have this kind of support and this kind of viewership online for chess, Botez told NBC. Chess has always been a passion of mine, but it was never something that was popular. It was never something I would have imagined would have grown to what it is today.

READ MORE: Fast-and-loose culture of esports is upending once staid world of chess [NBC News]

More on eSports: Fortnite Didnt Do Anything New. Thats Why It Will Shape The Future Of Gaming.

Originally posted here:
Yasssss Queen: Chess Is Finally Becoming the Next Big eSport - Futurism

According to official reports, only 14 people died of the coronavirus COVID-19 on Friday a drastic reduction from the roughly 90 daily fatalities that have been reportedeach day for the past week.

But the sudden drop in deaths is almost certainly the result of clerical changes in how Chinese authorities are reporting both confirmed cases and fatalities they decided to include in their official tally cases that have been diagnosed by a doctor but not yet confirmed by a test not a sign that the outbreak has suddenly tapered off.

On Thursday, health officials in China announced 253 fatalities and over 14,000 confirmed infections a gigantic spike compared to previous days. The low number of additional fatalities announced Friday is almost certainly just correcting for that meteoric rise.

Futurism has been tracking each days COVID-19 fatalities in this frequently-updated graph. Below is the same graph with an overlaid polynomial line of best fit.

While the graph is in no way capable of predicting future fatalities, it does demonstrate how Thursdays massive uptick and Fridays tapering off roughly balance out to show the same gradually increasing death toll as the previous several days.

Futurism will keep updating its death toll graph as well as its more comprehensive timeline of the outbreak, so if there actually is a drastic increase or drop in new cases of the outbreak in the future, those posts will reflect it. But for now, it seems like the COVID-19 outbreak has been continuing along its existing course.

See the original post here:
Here's Why There Are So Few Reported COVID-19 Fatalities Today - Futurism

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday that a second case of 2019-nCoV coronavirus currently sweeping through China has been confirmed inside the US.

The patient was making her way backto Chicago from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, in mid-January. She is now in stable condition and doing well, Scientific American reports.

Almost 900 cases of the virus have been identified so far, with at least 26 deaths as of today, according to CNBC.

Despite the major press coverage the outbreak is getting, the CDC says theres little cause for alarm.

While CDC considers this a serious public health threat, based on current information, the immediate health risk from 2019-nCoV to the general American public is considered low at this time, reads Fridays statement.

The World Health Organization also stopped short of declaring it a global health emergency on Thursday. More cases, though, are likely to continue to accumulate worldwide.

Nancy Messonnier, director ofthe CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Scientific American that this is a rapidly changing situation, both abroad and domestically and that so far 63 people are under investigation in the US.

US authorities are doing their best to gain control over the situation. On Wednesday, the CDC ordered individualized screenings for all direct flights from Wuhan at fiveUS airports.

See the original post here:
CDC Confirms Second Chinese Virus Case in the US - Futurism

Hands Off

A Swiss researcher has created a prototype robot hand that moves objects without ever touching them.

The system exploits a phenomenon thats been around for 80 years and it has the potential to bring the benefits of robotics to a wider range of industries in the future.

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich researcher Marcel Schucks robot hand looks like a bisected sphere on the end of a standard robot arm.

Each half of the sphere contains numerous tiny loudspeakers. By precisely controlling the ultrasound waves emitted from the speakers using custom software, Schuck can suspend a small object between the two halves of the sphere a phenomenon called acoustic levitation.

He can even move the object around in midair by manipulating the direction of the waves.

Schuck now plans to survey experts from various industries to explore applications for his ultrasonic robot hand. But he can already think of at least one potential use thats particularly appropriate given that his lab is based in Switzerland: watchmaking.

Toothed gearwheels, for example, are first coated with lubricant, and then the thickness of this lubricant layer is measured, he said in a press release. Even the faintest touch could damage the thin film of lubricant.

READ MORE: This ultrasonic gripper could let robots hold things without touching them [TechCrunch]

More on robot hands: New Robot Hand Works Like a Venus Flytrap to Grip Objects

Link:
Ultrasonic Hands Could Give Robots a Lighter Touch - Futurism