Category Archives: Futurist

Lionel Messis arrival at Inter Miami has sparked the imagination of architect Jorge Luis Veliz, who has designed a futuristic $50 million mansion fit for the global superstar, reported by goal.com. This innovative concept home takes the form of an M,' incorporating Messi's iconic brand logo and reflecting his meteoric rise in the world of football.

The visionary design encompasses luxury and extravagance on an unprecedented scale. Nestled on a unique ship-shaped island, the three-level mansion offers unparalleled privacy and exclusivity, befitting a player of Messi's stature. The property boasts an array of features that redefine opulence, including a private waterslide, a massive 20-car garage, and a yacht pier.

Inside the mansion, Messi's family would find every conceivable amenity for comfort and entertainment. From a dedicated games room and a state-of-the-art home theater to an expansive swimming pool and a personal football pitch, the residence offers a perfect blend of leisure and sports for Messi and his three sons to enjoy.

Subscribe now toMLS Season Pass and watch every match including the playoffs on Apple TV.

The house's concept aligns with Messi's legacy and his current chapter with Inter Miami, a team co-owned by soccer legend David Beckham. Despite the ambitious design, the cost is reportedly estimated at a staggering $50 million, a figure that reflects both the uniqueness of the project and Messi's astronomical earning power.

As Messi continues to make waves in the United States, his on-field prowess is complemented by the charm of this potential dream home. Although the immediate future might not see Messi residing in this futuristic mansion, the concept serves as a testament to his global impact and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead for him and his family at Inter Miami. The world watches as Messi's journey unfolds, both on the field and in the realm of the extraordinary.

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Inter Miami: Lionel Messi's futuristic $50 million mansion is out of this ... - ClutchPoints

The Big Picture

From filmmaker Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla, Monsters), the sci-fi action thriller The Creator (due out in theaters and on IMAX on September 29th) is set in a future that finds the human race and artificial intelligence at war, and one man, an ex-special forces agent named Joshua (John David Washington), caught in between with no clear answers. Grieving after the disappearance of his wife (Gemma Chan) and on a mission to hunt down and kill the Creator that designed the advanced AI, Joshua discovers that the young Alphie (Madeleine Yuma Voyles) has the potential to alter mankind and the world.

After a recent IMAX screening of three scenes from the film, director/co-writer Edwards took part in a Q&A, in which he discussed why he finds the sci-fi genre so appealing, how The Creator evolved into what it is now, the journey in getting an epic original idea into production, shooting in 80 locations with relatively little green screen, how relevant this story about AI has become, wanting to use a different approach to shooting the film, the importance of casting, shooting the combat scenes, cinematic influences, robot design inspiration, getting Hans Zimmer on board to compose the music, and how science fiction provides and opportunity for social commentary.

Question: This is your fourth film, which also happens to be your fourth science fiction film. What is it about this genre that you just keep coming back to?

GARETH EDWARDS: Are there other genres? Ive heard that there are films without robots in them. I dont see it as, I do science fiction. I think the best science fiction is a blend of genres. My first film (Monsters), I see as a love story meets science fiction. My second film, which was Godzilla, is a disaster movie meets science fiction movie. Star Wars (Rogue One) is a war movie meets science fiction.

How did The Creator come about? When and where did inspiration hit you for this?

EDWARDS: It was 7:32pm on a Tuesday. No. There were numerous things that happened, the most obvious one was that we had just finished Rogue One. My girlfriends family lives in Iowa, and we drove across America to go visit them. As we were driving through the Midwest, and there were all these farmlands with tall grass, I was just looking out the window. I had my headphones on, and I wasnt trying to think of an idea for a film, but I was getting a little bit inspired. I just saw this factory in the middle of this tall grass and I remember it having a Japanese logo on it, and I thought, Oh, I wonder what theyre making in there. Because of my tendencies, I was like, Oh, its probably robots, right? And then, I thought, Okay, imagine you were a robot built in a factory, and then, suddenly, for the first time ever, you got to step outside into the field and look around and see the sky. What would that be like? That felt like a really good moment in a movie, but I didnt know what that movie was. I threw it away, like whatever. And then, it tapped me on the shoulder and went, Oh, it could be this, and these ideas started coming. As we carried on with the journey, by the time we pulled up at the house, I had the whole movie mapped out in my head, which has never happened. I was like, Okay, maybe this might be my next thing.

This is an original concept that youre working with here. How did you get New Regency on board as a producer?

EDWARDS: I do need to shout out to New Regency because, as you probably noticed in cinema recently, there are very few original films being made and thats because everyones gotten very gun shy, and the franchises and IP s keep getting regurgitated a little bit. Hats off to New Regency for basically having the balls to take a big swing and do something like this. Some of my closest friends are concept artists, so I asked all my friends, Ill pay you, but could you do some artwork for this idea that Ive got, and just started building up this library of imagery until I had about 50 images. I didnt tell my agent. I kept it very secret because I didnt want to put any pressure on it. I just went into New Regency and laid out all the artwork, and I talked them through the idea, beat by beat, which I hate doing. I hate being a car salesman. I just want to hit play on the movie. Thats my favorite thing to do. Trying to sell it is not my fun thing. So, you look at all that imagery and its incredibly ambitious, and the natural reaction is, This is a $300 million film. Theres no way we can really do this. Wed love to do it, but we cant really do it. And I was like, No, were gonna do it very differently. Were gonna film it with this very small crew and were gonna essentially reverse engineer the whole movie. In theory, what you normally do is you have all this design work and people say that you cant find these locations, so youre gonna have to build sets in a studio against a green screen, and it will cost a fortune. We were like, No, what we want to do is go shoot the movie in real locations, in real parts of the world, that look closest to what these images are. And then, afterwards, when the film is fully edited, get the production designer and other concept artists to paint over those frames and put the sci-fi on top. And everyone was like, That sounds great. Basically, we had to go try to prove it to them.

How many locations did you shoot in?

EDWARDS: On some of the other films Ive done, youre lucky to get away from the studio and go to a proper location a handful of times. On this, we went to 80 locations, and we didnt really use any green screen. There was occasionally a little bit, here and there, but very little. If you keep the crew small enough, the theory was that the cost of building a set, which is typically $200,000, apparently, you can fly everyone to anywhere in the world for that kind of money. And so, we were like, Lets keep the crew small and go to these amazing locations. And so, we went to Nepal, the Himalayas, active volcanoes in Indonesia, temples in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Tokyo. And then, we did a little bit at Pinewood, using the Volume for some non-green screen, LED screen, environment stuff.

Your antagonist in this is artificial intelligence. Did you know how relevant that would be?

EDWARDS: The trick with AI is that theres a sweet spot window before the robo-apocalypse and not after, which is in November or maybe December. We got lucky [with our release date]. I tried to avoid putting a date. I didnt want to write a date for the movie because even [Stanley] Kubrick gets it wrong. At some point, you have to pick a date, so I did some math and I picked 2070. Now, I feel like an idiot because I should have gone for 2023, with everything thats unfolded in the last few months, or year. Its scarily weird. When we first pitched the movie to the studio, this idea of war with AI, everyone wants to know the backstory. Theyre like, Hang on, why would we be at war with AI? We were like, Its been banned because it went wrong. But why would you ban AI? Its gonna be great. There were all these ideas that you have to set up that, that maybe humanity would reject this thing and not be that cool about it. And the way its played out, the set up of our movie, is pretty much the last few months.

How would you set up this story?

EDWARDS: I would say that the world is divided in two. Essentially, something terrible happened in America and AI got banned. Its completely banned in the West, but in Asia, there was no such problem, so they carried on developing it until it was near human like. So, theres this war going on, to wipe out AI. Public enemy number one, the person that everybody is after, is The Creator. From the Western perspective, its the Osama bin Laden of our story. But from Asia and the AIs perspective, its like God.

When it came to cutting edge technology, what were some of the tools and new innovations that you were able to take advantage of, that didnt exist when you made Rogue One in 2016?

EDWARDS: I think camera technology and filmmaking technology has come a long way, even in the last few years. Something we did on this film, that was really important, was that I wanted it to feel as realistic as possible, so I needed the actors and me to have total freedom on set. We would always be able to shoot in 360 degrees. The biggest thing working against you when you try to do that in a film is that you have lights, and the second you want to move the camera, you can suddenly see the lights and you spend 20 minutes moving them, so it takes forever to shoot a scene. So, the way we worked was with really sensitive camera equipment. We could use the LED lights that are very lightweight. You have a boom operator holding a pole with the microphone on it, so why cant you have a person holding a pole with the lights on it. So, we had a best boy running around holding the light by hand. If the actor suddenly got up and did something and went over here, and then suddenly there was a better shot, I could move and the lighting could be readjusted. What would normally take 10 minutes to change was taking four seconds, so we could do 25-minute takes, where wed play out the scene three or four times. There was an atmosphere of naturalism and realism that I really wanted to get, where it isnt so prescribed, and youre not putting marks on the ground and telling actors to stand there. It wasnt that kind of movie.

What led you to cast John David Washington and Ken Watanabe?

EDWARDS: We were casting the film during the pandemic, so it was really hard to meet anybody. Fortunately, JD lived in L.A. and I heard through his agents, Hey, hed meet you any time you want. Just go for a meal. So, I did. I went and met him during the pandemic, and he walked in with his mask on, but it was a Star Wars mask. It had the Star Wars logo on it. I initially thought, Oh, no, hes doing this because of Rogue One. And then, he sat down and admitted to being a massive Star Wars fan. He was like, Ive been wearing this mask, every single day for like a year. Its been for the whole pandemic. I thought about not wearing it to this meeting, but then it felt false. So, I thought itd be a good icebreaker. We hit it off, straight away. And then, Ken is the only actor that Ive worked with twice. I always want to do something new, so for the longest time, I didnt want to think about Ken for this role. And then, the second he turned up on set, I felt like such an idiot. It was obviously supposed to be Ken, from the beginning. I love Kurosawa films. Those are my big inspirations. And every time you hold the camera up and Kens in the shot, it feels like this strange hybrid of Kurosawa meets Star Wars, which was exactly what we were going for. He gives you goosebumps. Theres something about that guy. Hes just got this face. The reason hes so successful, internationally, is not really about what he says. He can convey so much with just his looks. Hes so good.

How did you find your Alphie?

EDWARDS: We basically did an open casting call, all around the world. We got hundreds of videos, but I didnt have to watch all of them. They sent me the top 70, and then I went to meet 10 kids. The first one was Madeleine [Yuna Voyles], who plays Alphie. She came in and did this scene, and we were all nearly in tears at the end. I thought to myself, This is weird and phenomenal. Maybe her mum was just brilliant at prepping her to get really upset, just before she came in and there was some little trick going on. So, we chatted for a bit and we did some of the scenes, and then right at the end, I was a bit cruel. I was like, Can we try just one more thing? I wanted to see if it was repeatable. I was like, Can we do another scene? So, I explained a different scene and we just improvised it, and she was even more heartbreaking. I dont know what we would have done, if we hadnt found the right kid. We got really lucky. The movie lives and dies [with her performance]. I hate movies about little kids because they can tend to be so annoying. My biggest fear was that we were gonna get one of those really annoying kid movie kids, so it was the biggest relief when she was beyond her years. Its like shes reincarnated, or something.

How was Madeleine working with John David, and vice versa?

EDWARDS: Shes quite method. Well, I cant tell if shes method or not because we only knew each other during the filmmaking process and she kept everybody at arms reach. I was allowed in a little bit, but her and John David were inseparable. He became her surrogate brother or father figure, Im not sure which. I thought I was gonna have to trick her. When we did all the scenes, I was like, I need this to be like a documentary, so we can pull this performance out of this girl without her having to act. And she could act her pants off. She was amazing at it. It was a directors dream. You could just tell her what Alphie was thinking and this amazing performance would come out. Youd look at the other actors and be like, Why cant you all be like this? Whats your problem?

How did filming the combat scenes differ from Rogue One?

EDWARDS: We went to real exterior locations. We went to locations that were the closest thing we could find to what the artwork suggested it should be. When we were in Thailand, we needed to find a really technologically advanced factory, or something like that, and we looked everywhere. There were car manufacturing plants that were nervous about us filming. Eventually, we found a particle accelerator, which was the most advanced thing, probably in the whole of Thailand. We were like, Please, could you let us film? It looked amazing. We went to visit, and they were like, Theres no way youre gonna be allowed to film here. They asked, What do you want to do? And we said, Well, there will be people with guns shooting and explosions. It was a multi-multimillion dollar facility with all these leading cutting-edge scientists, and they were like, Its not gonna happen. Let it go. And then, at the very last minute, someone was like, What filmmaker is doing this? They were like, Its this guy who lives in the States. They were like, Well, what films has he done? And they said, Oh, he did this Star Wars film, called Rogue One. And they were like, Can we be in it? And we were like, Sure, whatever. And so, everybody running around in that scene are nuclear physicists. They were amazing.

Didnt you use a lot of local talent, in front of and behind the camera?

EDWARDS: Yeah. And we had a rule where I wanted to be able to look and not see video village, with the monitor and the chairs. I didnt want to see that anywhere. I wanted it to feel like we were doing a student film, to some extent. The beach scene where Gemma is running and theres all that crossfire, the restrictions of the pandemic were just starting to lift and Thailand was opening up to tourists. They were like, You can film on this beach, but you cant close it. We were like, Oh, my God, how are we gonna do that scene? I dont know what happens normally in Thailand, at night on these beaches, but we didnt close that beach. If you look carefully in the background, you can see bars and tourists just carrying on, but not one person came over and went, What are you doing? There were just four of us with a camera, running around. It didnt look as big, massive movie. It all ends up on the screen. We tried to just be very efficient with it.

What are your cinematic influences for this film? What movies would you recommend as companion pieces?

EDWARDS: I have this superstition, since my first film, where I put up posters in the edit suite that inspired the film Im doing. Around the edit suite on this one, one that you might not know would be Baraka, which I think is one of the greatest movies ever made. And then, there was Lone Wolf and Cub, which is a Japanese manga series. There were the really obvious ones, like Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner. In terms of the dynamic, maybe there was a little bit of Rain Man. Its a journey with someone normal and someone whos a little bit special, different, or however you want to say it. And there, there was Paper Moon.

What was your inspiration for the robot designs?

EDWARDS: The way we tried to quickly summarize the design and aesthetic of the movie was that its a little bit retro futuristic. Imagine that Apple Mac hadnt won the tech war and the Sony Walkman had, so everything has that eighties Walkman/Nintendo feel. We looked at all the product design from that era and tried to put that on the robots. The tricky thing with designing robot heads was trying to pull from sources. We did a whole pass, at one point, where we took insects and insect heads and tried to make it as if that insect had been made by Sony. We took products and tried to turn them into organic looking heads. We took things like film projectors and vacuum cleaners, and then just messed around. We would take things and put them together, and then delete pieces, and we just kept experimenting. It was like evolution, in real life. It was like DNA got merged together with other DNA, trying to create something better than the previous thing.

Who are some of the directors and writers that you look up to and get inspiration from?

EDWARDS: The obvious ones are Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, and Ridley Scott. Thats the high benchmark of what we were trying to do. Im not saying we got anywhere close to achieving it, but the goal of the movie was to try to go back to that style and type of film that we grew up loving, and give it that vibe and aesthetic again. The film was shot on 1970s anamorphic lenses. I hate writing. Its like doing homework. The worst thing in the world is having to write a screenplay, so the only way I can really bring myself to do it is to lock myself somewhere nice. I find a nice hotel, and I say that Im not allowed to leave until Ive finished. I stayed there for a month. I went to Thailand, to the exact place on that beach. I didnt realize that I was getting inspired for the movie. I just picked this nice resort. While I was there, a filmmaker friend was in Vietnam and said, Come over and well do a little trip. So, I went around Vietnam. You cant go around that country and not think of all the imagery from films like Apocalypse Now and Platoon. But I was writing this science fiction film, so everything in my mind was robots and spaceships. Youd see Buddhist monks going to temples, and Id picture a robot Buddhist monk. I spent the whole time going, Oh, my God, what is this movie? Blade Runner meets Apocalypse Now is the fastest way to [describe] it to people.

What was the biggest challenge in filming this movie?

EDWARDS: I wouldnt say there was a particular thing It was more just the duration of it. We started filming in January 2022, and we finished in June. There were six months of nonstop 40 degree heat (in Celsius, which is 104 degrees Fahrenheit), dying every day. Looking back, its a dream that we got to do that, but there was a point where you wanted to collapse and youd only done seven days of filming. The first cut of this movie was five hours long. We had so much great, cool material. Everything thats in this film is all the best stuff of that material. The editing process was basically a game of Jenga, where we would pull things out and see if we missed it, or if it fell apart. We were like, When we finally get this down to two hours, if theres anything anyone misses or wants to put back in, youll be allowed to do it. We put five shots back in. There were five little moments. That old adage of less is more is right, most of the time.

What are the best values of humanity that you hope this movie ultimately illustrates?

EDWARDS: I hope empathy for others. Thats a strong value that I think is very important. When this film began, obviously I didnt know that AI was gonna do what it ended up doing, this last year. AI was really just in the fairy tale of this story. AI was the people who are different to us that we want to get rid of, or naturally have conflicts with. But the second you make them AI, all kinds of fascinating things start to happen. As you write that script, you start to think, Are they real? What if you didnt like what they were doing? Can you turn them off? What if they dont want to be turned off? All this stuff started to play out, which became as strong as the premise. What Im most proud of in the film is that we hung onto that. There are things in the movie that we just got very lucky with. If it came out in November, after we were killed in the robo-apocalypse, it wouldnt be that good. But thankfully, its out on September 29th.

What was it like to have Hans Zimmer do the music?

EDWARDS: When it came to who was gonna do the music for the film, out of the 25 most played tracks on everyones iPhone, 14 of the tracks were Hans Zimmer tracks. I was like, I dont know how, but weve got to get Hans Zimmer. Joe Walker, who is the editor on Dune, put the assembly of the film together, and he had worked with Hans a lot. He was like, Ill talk to Hans. Hell do it. I was like, Really? We ended up in this strange situation, where I had to do a Zoom call with Hans, while I was in the middle of nowhere. We were going to meet the head of the military in Thailand to get permission to film in Black Hawks for a sequence. It was this massive deal meeting that took months and months to organize, and it just happened to be the same moment that Hans was available to do Zoom. We had to pull off the road and I went into a hotel in the middle of nowhere because they had a wifi signal. They said, Youve gotta leave in 30 minutes because the whole military is waiting for us. And so, I was looking at this clock, and he started talking about his anecdotes about The Dark Knight and Terrence Malick. All my life, Ive wanted to talk to him about these films, and I had to be like, Hans, I have to go. Im really sorry, but I have to leave now. We showed him the little test we did for the studio, and he was like, Okay, Im in.

How did you approach collaborating with your cinematographer, Greig Fraser?

EDWARDS: I worked with Greig on Rogue One, and while we were making this, he had to go and work on Dune 2, as well. His protg, Oren Soffer, ended up being our DoP through a lot of the Thailand shoot. The most important thing, when you have a DoP is that you have exactly the same taste. The less you have to talk about what looks good and bad, and their instincts are your instincts, the easier it goes. We were all totally on the same page. Greigs very rebellious, despite how that might look because hes doing these big movies. In the build up to this film, I got to go around to one of those virtual reality studios, and they had this poster on the wall with how to make a movie. It was just every part of the process. I was looking at it and thinking, What a strange thing to have? Why have they got this poster? The guy who ran the thing came up to me and said, I see you looking at the poster. Thats a hundred years old. We havent changed how films are made in one hundred years. We still do it, exactly the same way. With all these new digital tools and technology, there are other ways to make films, and people like Greig and I really want to do things differently because thats how you make a different type of movie. The process is as important as the screenplay, to some extent.

Would you mind talking about the opportunity and the power of science fiction for social commentary and reflection?

EDWARDS: Oh, my God, thats probably why I like science fiction. There is that chance that you can sneak it under the radar. My favorite TV show growing up was The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling wrote a lot of those shows and the reason he did science fiction was because he could get it under the radar of the censors and say things youre not allowed to normally say out loud. If you sit down and start to type, and you try to work out a film and you go, I want to make a film about this thats got this social commentary to it, its gonna be a rubbish film. You get attracted to an idea. Theres something very primal about it that pulls you. Theres something that needs to be said about this subject matter, and then, halfway through writing a film, you start to realize what that thing is. Its like a child. It tells you what they want to be when they grow up. You learn what it is, and then you try to help it. Science fiction does it the best because we all go through our lives having certain beliefs, but they never really get tested because you can get to the end of your life and youre never really challenged. You just do everything that youre supposed to do. But science fiction says, What if the world had this different thing about it? Now, that think you thought was true starts to be false, and you start to question things. I love that kind of storytelling. Thats the most interesting sort. I hope our film does a little bit of that.

The Creator is in theaters on September 29th.

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'The Creator' and Its War Between Humans and Artificial Intelligence - Collider

"This was absolutely stunning to watch first-hand." Heal Turn

Scientists at Texas A&M University were stunned when a piece of metal appeared to heal itself before their eyes.

While tugging at a 40-nanometer-thick piece of platinum inside a vacuum 200 times a second, the team observed how the material could mend itself under an electron microscope.

They claim it's the first time we've ever witnessed a piece of metal crack and then fuse back together by itself, a fascinating new phenomenon on its own, but also one that could "usher in an engineering revolution," according to a press release that is, if we can figure out a way to harness it.

Under repeated pressure, machines tend to wear out over time due to stresses that can cause microscopic cracks, which eventually grow and cause the device to fail.

But the new finding suggests that metals may have a secret way to heal themselves, negating these microscopic fractures.

"What we have confirmed is that metals have their own intrinsic, natural ability to heal themselves, at least in the case of fatigue damage at the nanoscale," said Texas A&M University materials scientist Brad Boyce, co-author of a new paper published in the journal Nature, in the statement.

"This was absolutely stunning to watch first-hand," he added.

If we could ever find a way to harness this effect, the implications could be huge.

"From solder joints in our electronic devices to our vehicles engines to the bridges that we drive over, these structures often fail unpredictably due to cyclic loading that leads to crack initiation and eventual fracture," Boyce explained, adding that these material failures "is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the US."

Boyce and his colleagues suggest a process called "crack flank cold welding" could be behind the phenomenon. But finding ways to harness this self-healing ability could prove extremely difficult. Plenty of unknowns remain and we still don't know if these findings are generalizable.

"We show this happening in nanocrystalline metals in vacuum," Boyce said. "But we dont know if this can also be induced in conventional metals in air."

It's nonetheless an unexpected new finding in the field of materials science and one that goes to show how much there still is to learn.

More on metal: Scientists Discover Gigantic Solid Metal Ball Inside the Earth's Core

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Scientists Intrigued by Metal That Can Heal Itself After Damage - Futurism

This bizarre organism is missing huge amounts of genes. Spaghetti Yeerk

For years, researchers have known about a species of parasitic critters called hairworms that can "mind control" their host by hijacking their cognitive functions.

Now, it turns out the spaghetti-like organisms that spend almost their entire lives inside other animals' bodies have yet another peculiar claim to fame.

As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, hairworms lack a startling proportion of the genes researchers expected them to have which only adds to their already mystifying nature.

"What we found, which was very surprising, was that both hairworm genomes were missing about 30 percent of a set of genes that are expected to be present across basically all groups of animals," said Tauana Cunha, a postdoctoral researcher at Chicago's Field Museum and lead author of the study, in a statement about the findings.

Hairworms were already a bit of an oddball in the animal kingdom.

"One of the coolest things, maybe the thing that they are most known for, is that they can affect the behavior of their hosts and make them do things that they wouldn't do otherwise," Cunha enthused.

But as it turns out, that isn't the only quality that sets them apart. After analyzing and sequencing DNA samples from two hairworm species, Cunha and her colleagues found something astonishing.

"Cilia are organelles, small structures at the cellular level, that are basically present across all animals and even more broadly, in protists and some plants and fungi," Cunha explained. "So they're present across a large diversity of life on Earth."

The researchers concluded that hairworms likely don't have any cilia, since they don't have the "machinery to make cilia in the first place," as Cunha explained.

That means the researchers are now left with even more questions.How can hairworms survive without these near-ubiquitous biological features? Do they get by without them since they spend most of their lives living off their host?

It's a significant puzzle that'll require further research to solve. Cunha suggests we could compare the genes of these hairworms to other mind-controlling parasites to see if we can find some "similarities" a grisly subject matter that's as fascinating as it is gruesome.

More on parasites: Terrifying Parasite Can Actually Triple an Ant's Lifespan

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Scientists Surprised by DNA in Worms That Control Hosts' Brains - Futurism

Image by Getty / Futurism

Brutal heat waves covering large swathes of world right now are forcing healthcare workers to come up with new ways to keep patients cool.

Several areas have hit record temperatures, as sweltering conditions continue across North America and Europe. Death Valley in Californiarecorded a "mind-boggling" 120 degrees Fahrenheit at 1am.

And the effects this heat is having on people's bodies are devastating. Some hospital staff are packing overheated patients in body bags with a bucket of ice to cool them down, The Wall Street Journal reports. Others have resorted to putting them in wet hospital gowns and sitting them in front of fans.

In more severe cases, patients are even showing up comatose, with doctors sometimes prolonging these comas to protect their brains a frightening reality of unprecedented heat surges that have already put millions at risk across the globe.

"Theyre coming in essentially unresponsive and theyre cooked," Aneesh Narang, an emergency medicine physician at Banner-University Medical Center in Phoenix, who had several patients come in with body temperatures as high as 109 Fahrenheit, told NBC last week.

The risks of excess exposure to extreme heat are significant. Symptoms can range from dizziness, nausea, and severe dehydration to comas and death. Heat strokes are particularly dangerous, and can even prove fatal.

Extreme heat can also mess with the body's innate coping mechanisms, like venting off heat by producing sweat.

"Youre kind of cooking from the inside, unfortunately," Narang told NBC.

Worse yet, the summer has only begun, and healthcare workers are worried about what 2023 still has in store for us.

"Were still early- to mid-July, and July and August are probably our two toughest months in this area," Narang added. "I anticipate things will get worse, unfortunately."

And that's without getting into every future summer.

More on extreme heat: Scientists Horrified as Sea Surface Temperatures Spike Off the Charts

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Brutal Heat Wave Is Literally Putting People Into Comas - Futurism

In an exclusive conversation with Euronews Next, will.i.am talks AI, the future of creativity, and his new AI-powered platform to co-pilot creation.

The epitome of a Renaissance Man, will.i.am (born William Adams), the prolific singer, songwriter, rapper, actor, producer, DJ, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, has added another feather to his cap: futurist.

And his latest endeavour serves as another testament to his forward-looking mindset.

The founding and lead member of the Black Eyed Peas has launched FYI (short for Focus Your Idea), billed as the first productivity tool designed to serve creatives first.

The FYI app is engineered to help creatives in a wide array of tasks, including AI-powered creative co-piloting, chatting with collaborators and team members, sharing photos, videos, audio files, and docs, as well as securing data with the most advanced end-to-end encryption.

Jonathan Mildenhall, former Chief Marketing Officer of Airbnb and co-founder and Chairman of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, says he is particularly excited about the launch of FYI because it has a similar founding story to Airbnb.

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, the founders of Airbnb, were inspired to create their home renting platform when faced with a sudden rent increase for their New York City apartment. To overcome the financial challenge, they decided to rent out their spare bedroom, sparking the idea that would revolutionise the way people travel.

Similarly, Will, confronted with the limitations imposed by the pandemic and the lack of suitable tools for remote creative collaborations, decided to take matters into his own hands and embarked on a mission to find a solution - the answer was FYI.

Products out of necessity are a gift to the world, said Mildenhall, whos developing the brand strategy for FYI.

In the context of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Euronews spoke to will.i.am about the potential and implications of the future of AI, music and creativity.

Camille Bello, Euronews: Will, who do you think will be using FYI?

will.i.am: So the creative community was working across six different tools up until FYI existed. We were on WhatsApp. To work off WhatsApp, you need a Dropbox. If your files were too big, you need to WeTransfer. But if you can't open it up on WhatsApp, you need to send that Wetransfer to emails, you need email, you need a calendar, and you need Zoom and then a chatGPT.

So you need seven things for creatives to get work done remotely on a phone on fire. For FYI you just need one tool called FYI.

The key ideal customer is the hyper-creative, the person that is ideating, putting teams together or small teams. And with AI, small teams become big teams.

CB: How is FYI different from the other language models, such as ChatGPT?

will.i.am: FYI a messenger first. It's a messenger with your file management and your digital asset management storage. [All] connected to the messenger, because why should your conversations around your digital assets, the projects that you're working on, be separate from where your teams and your communication plan strategy are?

So it's a messenger digital asset management file storage. It's a calendar, a music organiser, and a generative AI for team flow.

It's a messenger from the perspective of project-based collaboration, project-based ideation, and materialisation with AI to help you.

CB: Tell us about the algorithm behind FYI.

will.i.am: I can tell you about the work that we're doing with IBM as far as the business of creativity.

Right now, if you're creative and you have an idea that you want to start, but you want to protect that idea before you go, reach out to folks, that's kind of impossible.

[Especially] if you're from some inner city or some from some rural area or living in the suburbs.

And so on FYI - in collaboration with IBM and WatsonX - in the near future, you're going to be able to create a thread and evoke your FYI business agent to create an NDA to protect your ideawithout having to worry about how you find an attorney or afford an attorney to do the basic thing - that is protect and do business while you create.

First we're starting with basic NDA idea of protection, IP protection, and then will grow from there.

And we invite the creative community to be on the journey with us. The whole premise of the product is to champion the creative, support them, and protect them and their IP and their data by issuing elliptical curve cryptography keys that we worked with IBM to ensure that everything is protected. Soup to nuts.

CB: Amidst the ongoing debate on the convergence of AI and music, and in response to a fake Drake track, trip-hop collective Massive Attack tweeted: "Is the discussion 'should AI recreate music?' or is the discussion 'Why is contemporary music so homogenised & formulaic that it's really easy to copy?'

CB: What do you think of that?

will.i.am: For anything to get good at something, it has to reference and copy something. And AI is already great at mimicking paintings, illustrations, marketing plans, strategiesbut it also creates.

I've heard amazing creations that AI has made of music that sounds like something that I would have written, that sounds like me, and some people would be convinced that I did it, that I sung it. And it wasn't a recreation of something. It was something from scratch. And it will continue to get better. How do I feel about that? I feel that regulations need to be put in place around essence and likeness ASAP.

I urge every person that's working in the AI space, every person that works in governance and regulation and setting protection protocols for people and humanity: essence and likeness is importantFighting for people's likeness, people's essence, protecting people and their civil liberties and their communities. That is what we should be doing. We're not saying regulations to stop innovation. We're saying, I'm saying, regulations for people.

CB: Do you think it's a bit premature the way in which we are adopting artificial intelligence - before there is an actual regulation put in place that we can follow?

will.i.am: That's hard to say. That's like saying when the automobile was invented, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was around. Fact is, no; That's like saying when the aeroplane was invented, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was already around. The answer is no. But now that there's flight, now that there's vehicles on the road, I think it's time for the Department of Motor Vehicles and the FAA to ensure people are safe and the communities that they live in.

CB: You come from a multicultural background. Are you concerned about the algorithm bias?

will.i.am: The only way to tackle bias is to have people from different communities and different backgrounds training data and writing algorithms. And I've been super passionate about this subject for the past decade-plus. That's why I have a school and a program in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, with todos los mexicanos de mi barrio, and we teach them computer science, robotics and programming so they can grow up and fill jobs that are needed to address data, biases and algorithmic biases. That is my core passion.

You can go out and ensure that companies address these biases. Or you can go out there and you could do work and adopt a school and encourage kids to go down this path.

And to the folks that are working in that space, it's not that they're malicious and they don't want people of colour to train models. It's set up from the school systems and the zoning from the get-go because there's not a computer science program in every school, but there's a basketball program or a football program or soccer program in every school, but no engineering or algorithmic programming or data training program mandatory in every school, inner city, rural area, poverty-stricken area, underdeveloped community, underserved community.

Is it the folks that made the model where they're like, mwahaha, we're not going to we don't want? No, that's not the case, there are engineering gaps.

The world needs more engineers. Where is the engineer going to come from?

Now there's engineering for engineering. Now there's an algorithm that can engineer for us, but that still doesn't address the data bias, that still doesn't address the algorithmic bias. So the only true way, like I said, is to have people of colour, black and brown and women and trans and gay and LGBTQ plus training models, writing algorithms. That's the only way. I started 12 years ago with 65 kids. Now we serve 14,000 students in L.A.

I put STEM programs in inner cities. That sounds like something to do. Why? Because they're not doing it. And when you don't have STEM programs in inner cities, you have data bias, algorithmic bias.

CB: Are you concerned about a future in which machines will be doing all the creative and fun work and humans just prompting machines?

will.i.am: No, because I believe in humanity's creativity, spontaneity, curiosity and competitiveness. I believe in that.

Just like calculators out-calculate mathematicians, that doesn't mean people aren't doing calculations. That doesn't mean people aren't building structures and, you know, working with advanced mathematical models. People are still thinking. People are still trying to solve problems. It's just an amazing tool. But that's not going to stop our innovative spirit, our ingenuity, inventions.

Right now, in popular culture, the word is innovation.Invention hasn't been said or talked about in a long time. This new renaissance is going to spark new inventions, not innovations. This next leap is like we're going to invent things. Not just innovate.

View original post here:
will.i.am launches new AI-driven platform to 'co-pilot' creativity - Euronews

Tesla has already made great strides when it comes to achieving mainstream acceptance of plug-in electric vehicles. Now, there are rumors that the EV manufacturer might be looking toward pioneering an even newer type of car: EVs that dont plug in at all.

Electrek reported that Tesla may be close to acquiring a German company called Wiferion that was founded in 2016 and focuses on creating inductive wireless charging for industrial robots and EVs.

While the deal is not done yet, Tesla has been named in an official filing. According to Business Insider (Google-translated from German), One of the Wiferion investors had confirmed the exit to an interesting buyer without naming a name. Tesla is likely to have paid at least a mid-to-high double-digit million amount for the Bavarian startup.

One issue with wireless charging is it has been much less efficient than plug-in charging. However, according to Electrek, the technology has been closing the gap in recent years, opening the door for this futuristic advancement.

Tesla appears to be winning its battle to make its charging port the dominant one in North America, but that could eventually prove irrelevant if wireless car charging becomes the way of the future.

Tesla teased the concept of a wireless home charging port at its most recent investor day, although there were no details provided at that time; the preview was just limited to a visual rendering of what such a device might look like.

Ive owned all EVs for nearly 3 years now and I still sometimes forget to plug in, wrote one commenter at that time. Having that wireless charger would be great if we can tell it we only need charging when the battery hits a certain customizable lower level (able to be overrode when necessary as we can now). Wed never even be able to leave home without at least enough juice for our commutes.

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Tesla may be on the brink of adopting a futuristic new way to charge its EVs without plugging them in at all - Yahoo News

PRESS RELEASE

Published July 21, 2023

ThePeptide Therapeutics Marketis estimated to be worth US$ 38.0 billion in 2023 and US$ 106.0 billion by 2033, growing at a remarkable CAGR of 10.8% from 2023 to 2033.

The globalPeptide Therapeutics Marketis projected to reach a valuation of US$ 47 Bn in 2025, with sales growing at a prolific CAGR of 11% from 2022 to 2025. Scaling up from an estimated value of US$ 34.4 Bn in 2022, the peptide therapeutics market is fuelled by the various benefits associated with the product. Peptide medicines have been used to treat metabolic illnesses for a very long time and will likely continue to do so over the forecasted period.

Owing to the benefits related to the consumption of peptide therapeutics as well as the products wide range of applications in pharmaceuticals and the biotechnology sector, the market outlook for peptide therapeutics is highly positive in the upcoming years. Manufacturers of peptide therapeutics have realized the vital role that the product can play in meeting unfulfilled medical needs.

Get your hands on a visually captivating sample report featuring related graphs and charts. @https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1038

Further, peptide therapeutics can be a preferred alternative to small molecule and biological therapeutics. All of these factors have led to an upsurge in research and investments in peptide drug recovery over the last ten years and is expected to bode well for the future prospects of the market.

Again, surging incidences of metabolic disorders and high prevalence of cancer propel the demand for investments in research and development activities in the field of peptide therapies. These illnesses are the prime cause of death and disability all over the world. As a result, there a greater demand for the development of peptide therapeutics. Peptide-based drug delivery for cancer cells coupled with enhancements in the next generation therapeutics will presumably supplement the market expansion of peptide therapeutics. In addition to this, theres a rise in the interest in therapeutic peptide research due to commercial reasons. Thus, it is presumed that peptide drug recovery will play a crucial role in the healthcare industry.

Heightened application of peptides in the treatment of diabetes and cancer will likely augment the sales of peptide therapeutics in the global market over the forecast period, says an FMI analyst.

Key Takeaways:

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Competitive Landscape:

Eli Lilly and Company, AstraZeneca plc, Merck & Co., Inc., Ipsen S.A, Novo Nordisk A/S, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., among others are some of the major players in the peptide therapeutics market that are profiled in the full version of the report.

In a moderately competitive market, major players are concentrating on market expansion activities. These organizations are engaging in distribution agreements, white space exploration, and collaborative ventures. The more established businesses are focusing on working with local players in order to expand their production capacities and improve their regional presence.

According to the latest FMI reports, based on region, the peptide therapeutics market in North America is expected to dominate the market over the forecast period. A surge in government investments as well as an increase in industry spending on research and development activities in peptide therapeutics is driving the regional market growth. This market is further supported by the target market expansion in the United States. Owing to the high prevalence of cancer along with increasing research and development activities, the U.S. peptide therapeutics market is expected to witness impressive growth over the forecast period.

Uncovering the studys core assumptions. Connect to the Experts Now. @https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ask-the-analyst/rep-gb-1038

In India, the peptide therapeutics market is anticipated to gain many profitable future prospects. The rising adoption of synthetic peptide drugs in India is likely to propel the market growth in this region. Rising incidences of chronic illnesses and an ageing population also contribute to the market growth.

Based on segmentation, on the basis of route of administration, the parenteral route will continue to gain momentum over the forecast period.

Key Segments:

By Application:

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By Route of Administration:

By Drug Type:

Explore Wide-ranging Coverage of FMIs Healthcare Landscape:

Amniotic Membranes Market: The global amniotic membranes market size is likely to touch a valuation of around US$ 1.4 Bn in 2022. Further, with rising adoption of amniotic membranes for various purposes in ophthalmology, the total sales of amniotic membranes are slated to grow at an impressive CAGR of 9.0% between 2022 and 2028, totalling over US$ 2.3 Bn by the end of 2028.

Digital Radiography Detectors Market: The digital radiography detectors market is valued at US$ 2.13 Bn in 2022. The market is advancing at an average pace with a CAGR of 6.1% through 2026 to reach a valuation of US$ 2.7 Bn. The worldwide market for digital radiography detectors is highly concentrated, with large competitors such as Varex Imaging Corporation and Trixell accounting for about 47% of the market share.

Sepsis Diagnostics Market:The global sepsis diagnostics market is expected to record a CAGR of 8.1% between 2023 and 2033. In 2023, the market is estimated to be valued at US$ 561.2 million. The valuation is expected to cross US$ 1.2 billion by 2033

About Future Market Insights (FMI)

Future Market Insights, Inc. (ESOMAR certified, Stevie Award recipient market research organization and a member of Greater New York Chamber of Commerce) provides in-depth insights into governing factors elevating the demand in the market. It discloses opportunities that will favor the market growth in various segments on the basis of Source, Application, Sales Channel and End Use over the next 10-years.

Contact Us:

Future Market Insights Inc. Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive, Suite 401, Newark, Delaware 19713, USA T: +1-845-579-5705 For Sales Enquiries:[emailprotected] Website:https://www.futuremarketinsights.com LinkedIn|Twitter|Blogs |YouTube

The post Futuristic Projections: Peptide Therapeutics Market to Skyrocket to US$ 106.0 Billion by 2033, with a Remarkable CAGR of 10.8%! | Future Market Insight appeared first on Future Market Insights.

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Futuristic Projections: Peptide Therapeutics Market to Skyrocket to ... - Digital Journal

Solar panels on roofs are becoming a popular option for homeowners looking to save money on their energy bills. Teslas Solar Roof takes it one step further and is actually creating income for some people.

The sharp rise in electricity prices has been shocking homeowners across the U.S. In 2022, consumers paid 14.3% more for electricity on average than they did the previous year and experts project the cost of electricity to continue its ascent.

Teslas Solar Roof, combined with its Powerwall, gives homeowners a chance to be completely energy-independent turning homes into a virtual power plant that can pay back some of the installation costs.

Unlike traditional solar panels typically installed on top of your existing roof Teslas Solar Roof is a complete replacement for your current roof. If youre building a new home or looking to replace your roof, the Solar Roof is a terrific, sustainable option.

At first glance, the Solar Roof looks like a fairly normal roof, but if you look closely, you can see its a combination of glass solar tiles and steel roofing tiles.

The Powerwall is an integrated battery system that stores solar and other energy for later use. When paired with the Solar Roof, the dynamic duo captures all the suns energy during the day and keeps it for you to use at night.

For a fantastic example of a Solar Roof, head to the Big Island of Hawaii. Installed by Rising Sun Solar a major Tesla partner in Hawaii one home has an enormous 50kW Solar Roof.

The average U.S. home uses about 30kW per day, so 50kW is a solid amount of energy to power a home.

The homeowner is part of the Swell Energy Home Battery Rewards Program, which takes energy collected by the Solar Roof and sends it back to the power grid. The program will earn the homeowner about $350 a month for five years totaling $21,000.

But before you start ripping shingles off your roof, you should know that this is an expensive option. Its difficult to nail down a price for the Solar Roof due to many variables, but one estimate done by Forbes has a 2,000-square-foot, two-story house costing around $64,000.

Story continues

Dont sweat it if youve been spending all your money on eggs lately plenty of less expensive solar options are available.

Solar power is an excellent way to ease the pain of rising electricity bills, and its becoming cheaper and more accessible. Since 2011, the cost of solar power has gone down by almost 90%. Plus, federal tax credits can cover up to 26% of installation.

Solar panels can also pay off if you sell your home. A study by Zillow shows that homes with solar panels sell for 4.1% more than homes without solar power.

Teslas Solar Roof is a sleek-looking option for those who can afford it, but solar power, in general, is a fantastic option for anyone wanting to cut down on their electricity costs while switching to a clean energy power source.

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Teslas futuristic solar roof could help you save $350 a month and it could boost your homes resale value, too - Yahoo News

"I'm just trying not to fall off this rover." Strong Arms

A new reality TV show is challenging an unlikely group of celebrities to survive in a simulated Mars habitat and by the looks of it, it's playing out in an absolutely unhinged way.

The sixth episode of Fox's "Stars on Mars," which aired earlier this week, saw reality TV personality and former "The Bachelor" contestant Ashley Iaconetti team up with cycling champion Lance Armstrong we promise this bizarre pairing is just the beginning of the weirdness to plug holes in the habitat by, well, holding their hands against the hole for extended periods of time. Look, nobody expected this show to be scientifically accurate, OK?

"Unfortunately got stuck standing in front of two holes that were not anywhere near each other," Armstrong lamented in a promotional clip shared by Fox last week. "How did I get this one? This sucks."

"I'm just trying not to fall off this rover," NBA all-star Paul Pier said as he was plugging two separate holes with his gloved hands.

The show, which is being hosted by none other than "Star Trek" legend anddepressed space tourist William Shatner, is a mystifying cultural artifact.

Its bizarre mashup of B-and-C-list celebrities, including UFC champion Ronda Rousey, "Real Housewives of Atlanta" reality star Porsha Williams Guobadia, comedian Natasha Leggero, and Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon compete every week as they try to secure a future place in the simulated habitat.

As you'd expect, there's plenty of drama, with "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter butting heads with Lance Armstrong over his anti-trans comments about trans athletes.

Several celebrities took sides with Winter, bringing Armstrong close to the point of volunteering to leave the show.

In short, it's exactly the kind of drama you'd expect from a reality TV show that pits a group of celebrities against each other in a closed-off environment.

And we're just watching with glee as the chaos ensues.

More on the show: New Show Traps Lance Armstrong and Ariel Winter in Simulated Mars Base

Read more from the original source:
Watch Celebrities Try to Patch Leaks in Simulated Mars Base - Futurism