Category Archives: Futurist

A horrifying new trend is emerging in the face of climate change: more areas are growing so hot and humid that people are simply dying.

In fact, these heat and humidity conditions becoming far more common than experts previously assumed, according to research published in the journal Science Advances last May. In the study, scientists identified over 7,000 examples of these deadly wet bulb conditions in between 1979 and 2019 and the data shows that theyve been steadily increasing in frequency over the years.

Even if theyre in perfect health, even if theyre sitting in the shade, even if theyre wearing clothes that make it easy in principle to sweat, even if they have an endless supply of water, study coauthor and a Columbia University environmental scientist Radley Horton told Motherboard. If theres enough moisture in the air, its thermodynamically impossible to prevent the body from overheating.

With enough heat and humidity, all of your sweat just stays on your skin rather than cooling you off by evaporating. That means that the body is stuck at such an elevated temperature that it starts to shut down a growing hazard for laborers, people without air conditioning, or those in regions hit by the deadly, infrastructure-destroying heat waves.

Scientists have found that wet bulb conditions in which temperatures exceed 88 degrees Fahrenheit 95 degrees for seemingly certain doom under high humidity are on the rise in South Asia, the Middle East, Australia, and multiple chunks of the United States.

Thats bad news on its own, but its also caught experts off guard. Scientists predicted an onslaught of wet bulb scenarios in the coming decades, Motherboard reports, and the fact that theyre already happening with alarming frequency is troubling news for our chances of preventing the worst impacts of climate change.

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Places Are Increasingly Getting So Hot That People Just Die - Futurism

The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), in partnership with a Bengaluru based start-up, would soon get the approval to develop a futuristic High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS).

Sources told The Hans India that HAL is already working on its design and would take around three to four years to develop HAPS before being inducted.

"The approval will come and it will take a minimum of 3-4 years to develop HAPS before it is inducted. HAL is already working on its design. It is a giant leap in technology. It will weigh more than 500 kg, will be solar energised and can fly at 70,000 feet and stay there for months," sources said.

The plan to develop the High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) was revealed during Aero India. The solar-powered unmanned aircraft HAPS operates in the stratosphere at an altitude of 70,000 feet.

They are designed to bridge the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and conventional satellites. They could coordinate in strike missions providing communication to the troops with live video feeds and images.

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Defence PSU HAL To Develop Futuristic High Altitude Pseudo Satellite To Assist Armed Forces In Strike Missions - Swarajya

Police in India recently broke up a massive ring of scammers who injected thousands of people with fake COVID-19 vaccines and collected the profits from the worthless shots.

The scammers injected about 2,500 victims with salt water instead of the coronavirus vaccines they promised, making off with about $28,000, CNN reports. The scammers ran over a dozen fake vaccination sites in and around Mumbai as they took advantage of a terrified public that trusted them to keep them safe.

Shockingly, genuine health care workers appear to have participated in the scheme.

We have arrested doctors, senior Mumbai police official Vishal Thakur told CNN. They were using a hospital which was producing the fake certificates, vials, syringes.

The scam became apparent after victims grew suspicious of their total lack of side effects as well as the cash payments they had to make for the shots once the government began to provide vaccines for free and injections became more common, according to a June lawsuit. But by then there were already over 2,000 victims, CNN notes.

So far, 14 people involved in the elaborate scam have been arrested on charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to culpable homicide, Thakur told CNN. Most of the fake injections were administered in late May and early June, when India was in the throes of a horrific surge in coronavirus cases and deaths during which hundreds of thousands of cases were being confirmed every day.

As that surge eased up and Indias healthcare system pulled back from the brink of being utterly overwhelmed, the government was able to focus on its centralized vaccination program and scammers took the opportunity to prey on the vulnerable population.

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Scammers Inject Thousands of People With Fake Vaccines - Futurism

The sleek and futuristic Lucid Air sedan is one of the bigger curios on the EV front. Boasting an estimated 517 miles of range, tiny battery packaging, and a great interior, it's definitely a luxury electric sedan to watch. I'm going to get up close and personal with one next week and you should ask me what you want to know about it!

First, allow me to set some expectations. There will be no driving of the Air. The event is meant to show off the new flagship Lucid Studio storefront in New York City. There will be a car there on display I've been told I'm allowed to check out. Secondly, though I will not get to drive the Air, I will get a chance for a ridealong in a pre-production Lucid Air Grand Touringthe one with a claimed 800 horsepower, 517 miles of estimated range, and a $139,000 price tag.

Personally, I want to get a sense of that gratuitous interior space Lucid's been hyping up. Because its EV drivetrain is tiny, it frees up a lot of room that designers then turned into usable cabin space. I'm fascinated by photos of this thing, as they do indeed show an interior that's, well, airy.

You can expect more of these interactions on The Drive, by the way. We're trying to incorporate the things you want to know more and more into the content we feature, like how we did when Peter went to check out the Z Proto a few days ago and when I drove a Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport recently.

So let me know what you'd like to know about the Air within those parameters I just described. Want to see the trunk? Maybe get an up-close look at the big, curved screen? Drop your comment below and I'll pick between five to 10 of the best questions to answer in a follow-up post!

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I'm Going to See the Futuristic Lucid Air EV Sedan Next Week. What Do You Want to Know About It? - The Drive

California-based startup Kernel is about to start shipping a $50,000 helmet that can analyze neurons being fired in someones brain to dozens of customers across the US, Bloomberg reports.

In other words, a helmet that can, at least to a small degree, read your mind.

The technology behind it may have been around for many years, but so far, devices like it have often been as big as rooms and cost millions to set up.

Kernel is hoping to democratize the technology by miniaturizing and commercializing it. A smaller device can also open new doors for researchers as trial participants are able to move around freely.

The companys futuristic-looking Flow brain interface can record real-time data and establish precise patterns of brain activity using lasers, according to the companys website. All the user has to do is plug it to a computer via a USB-C cable.

Kernels other helmet, called Flux, can measure the speed of neurons in real-time, and provide access to the intricate brain activity underlying functions such as arousal, emotion, attention, memory, and learning, the company claims.

Its unclear which of the two helmets goes for $50,000 and what the price of the other helmet is.

In addition to Elon Musks Neuralink and even Facebook, its yet another sign that private companies are increasingly motivated to get inside and understand what goes on inside peoples brains.

Researchers could use data collected by the likes of Kernels helmets to study brain aging, mental disorders, strokes, and even what goes on inside the brain during a psychedelic trip, according to Bloomberg.

To make progress on all the fronts that we need to as a society, we have to bring the brain online, Kernel CEO Bryan Johnson told the media company.

The Flow helmet works by sending lasers through the skull to record brain activity rather than having a computer chip implanted inside your brain, as is the case for Neuralink.

While a helmet is less invasive, its also not as accurate and is more likely to be confused by external electrical interference.

The Flow device can measure changes in blood oxygenation levels, while Flux uses a process called magnetoencephalography, a neuroimaging technique for mapping brain activity by recording the brains magnetic fields.

The first customers to receive the helmets include brain research institutions and other companies who want to better understand what goes on in their customers heads.

According to Bloomberg, Johnson wants to eventually sell a device like Flow for the price of a smartphone, allowing everybody to get better insights into their mental health.

Whether a mobile mind-reading helmet will be able to do just that remains to be seen.

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Company Starts Shipping Its $50,000 Mind-Reading Helmet - Futurism

Wearable designs make our lives easier and more efficient in multiple ways! From smartwatches, Fitbits to even wearable furniture, innovative wearable designs can be valuable additions to our daily lifestyles. And, not to mention sometimes theyre really fun to use and trendy to wear as well! Hence, weve curated a collection of wearable designs that are not only super easy to wear on your person, but also promise to make your everyday life easier, simpler, and effortless! Enjoy.

Dani Clodes Third Thumb project aims at exploring and expanding the possibilities of what we can do with additional powers in this case, an extra thumb. With the aim of adding to human possibilities, rather than replacing whats lost, the prosthetic has the potential to rapidly alter the way we live our lives. The thumb, 3D printed from a variant of Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) called Ninjaflex, sits right beside your little finger. Its connected to a smart bracelet that receives its commands via Bluetooth from the wearers foot. Pressure sensors are placed on the soles of the feet and any force you apply with your foot is perceived as a signal by the bracelet i.e., if you press down with one foot, the thumb flexes inwards, grasping whatever youre holding. Clode says that the learning curve is rather minimal and people get used to the controls pretty quick. Watch the video to see one rather confident candidate shred away at a guitar with a Third Thumb!

The After You umbrella is a multipurpose product designed to save you from the rains and to help you carry stuff when the skies are clear! Anna, a student at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, created this design as a part of her design course. The aim of the course is to completely redesign an everyday object an umbrella in this case. The After You revolutionizes the humble umbrella in quite a few ways the first is by making the design hands-free! One of the most tedious things about carrying the umbrella is the juggling act of holding onto your umbrella with one hand with the tons of stuff we carry in our hands. By wearing the product over your shoulders like a backpack, After You leave your hands free to answer back to that text or browse your phone. The next thing we love about this design is the foldable design the five layers made from rigid polycarbonate layers fold and unfold to form a cocoon that keeps you protected.

Industrial designer SangWoon Kim has reimagined the traditional waist support belt as a smart wearable to protect the lumbar spine better. Basically, it functions like any standard belt to compress the waist and isolate our breathing patterns. The striking difference is the ability to tighten the belt automatically, depending on the intensity of the workout and the users breathing pattern. Kim calls it the BIND.CO belt and this workout accessory come in handy for any exercise mode and intensity. The innovation will be godsent for beginners who are still learning about the exact tightening of the belt needed for their workout. Thanks to the embedded sensors, the smart belt tightens during exercise and loosens at the time of rest between activities.

Mictic is creating a new relation between music and dance. This hand-worn wearable allows your body movements to be converted into musical symphonies. Simply put, Mictic converts your hand movements into digital signals that trigger virtual instruments within the Mictic smartphone app. The two wearables sit on your wrists, and their individual movements help the app understand how your hands are moving. First, you need to pair your bands with your smartphone and select the drum instrument within the Mictic app. Now beat your hands around in the air and the app plays back drum sounds as if you were sitting in front of a real drum kit. Similarly, select the guitar instrument and shred away in the air and the Mictic app generates a killer solo.

Once activated, EVE launches a 10-second alarm meant to discourage the attacker from continuing their assault and instantly calls the local police station, sending operators the location and live audio recordings of the attack. EVE follows a two-step activation process to launch the wristbands emergency features. First, to unlock EVE and prepare it for activation, the user simply shakes their wrist repeatedly three to five times. Embedded inside the wristband, an accelerometer and gyroscope detect the shaking and rotation of the wrist, awakening the device and gearing it up for activation. Then, either by announcing previously recorded voice triggers or by placing pressure on the wristbands sensors, the 110dB alarm sounds, and the police are called, sending live recordings of the assault to an emergency operator, along with the GPS location of the EVE user.

Designed by Yang Zhao, the odd-looking origami-inspired contraption dubbed SharkMan is only for the bold ones to actually use in a shopping mall or maybe at the beach. It is still worth the experiment at home since it cocoons you in complete privacy, although you might look a little funny. The deformable soft furniture morphs into several different configurations based on your needs for a me space when things get too distracting. Whether you are reading a book, working on your laptop, or simply want to take a quick nap the SharkMan is an odd-looking solution that makes the cut. You can use it while standing, sitting, or even lying down as three of these configurations dont reveal your face to the world so you dont have to worry about the embarrassing part of using SharkMan in public.

Crown, from Neurosity, helps to maintain your brains focus by measuring not only what triggers your focus, but also what sustains it. Eight EEG sensors fill out the Crown to track and quantify an individuals brainwaves to better understand what retains focus and what introduces distraction. As the brainwaves are measured, the accompanying Neurosity Shift app connects to your Spotify account to play the most suitable music for your brain to hold onto that state of flow. Similar to Neurositys previous brain-sensing technology, the Notion 2, the Crown also minimizes any technological distractions like notifications or ringtones by automatically muting any prospective interruptions that could take away from your focus.

Bone conducting audio devices arent new, although the Sentien Audio is one of the first to bring AirPods-style features to it. The headset comfortably rests around your head and against the front of each ear. It sports a touch-sensitive panel that lets you tap and swipe to do things like skip tracks, play-pause music, increase-decrease volume, and even summon your phones voice assistant. Unlike AirPods and other TWS earphones, the Sentien Audio boasts of a whopping 24-hour battery, allowing you to practically wear it all day and go about listening to music, answering calls, or asking Google Assistant or Siri random questions without worrying about battery life. Coupled with that is a unique adjustable titanium headband that comfortably places the headset on your head in a way that lets you naturally go about your day without worrying about it falling off or causing discomfort.

Acknowledging the mental stressors within the ICU, a team of designers created SOVA, an ICU medical aid device that tracks the patients health progress and allows the patient to communicate their needs by simply directing their eyes. Either before, during, or following their visit to the ICU, almost half of the patients who receive medical treatment experience some form of trauma or suffer from mental stressors that make it difficult to communicate their needs. SOVA is a medical device that tracks and registers early signs of physical or mental pain so that medical personnel within the ICU can provide the patient with proper treatment. While physical pain, insomnia, and anxiety are only a few of the stressors in the ICU, SOVA operates as a system to track these stressors for real-time support and treatment.

This wearable fitness tracker-looking ring is actually a mouse designed to be as lightweight as possible so there isnt excess load on your joints.Thering mousesdesign works intuitively, it reacts to the movements of the fingertips and does not interfere with the natural movement of the wrist since it is a wearable ring. Due to its unique shape for a mouse, it makes the experience smoother while reducing the stress on your wrists as it wont be awkwardly bent at an angle for hours!The ring has sensors that provide the functionality of a mouse such as click, sweep, scroll through different gestures that are similar to how we use the trackpads on a laptop.

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Futuristic Wearable Designs that are emerging as the top tech trends of 2021! - Yanko Design

A Futuristic Amusement Park and an Ecological Power Plant: 16 Unbuilt Competition-Winning Projects Submitted to ArchDaily

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This weeks curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights competition-winning projects submitted by the ArchDaily Community. From art museums to memorials, this article explores cultural functions and commercial spaces, and presents projects submitted to us from all over the world.

Featuring commercial spaces that honor the historic architectures of Ukraine and Romania, and a public plaza inspired by the topography between the coastal line and the urban square of Uskdar, this roundup explores how architects have designed monumental structures that cater to the needs of the public while respecting the surrounding topography. This round up also includes a collection of competition-winning proposals in Spain, China, Thailand, India, Israel, Iran, Kosovo, and Hungary, each responding to different contexts, spatial needs, and geographies.

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Read on to discover16 curated projects showcasing museums, memorials, andoffices all over the world, along with their descriptions from the architects.

Tamirci Architects

Competition: Bursa Atatrk Sports Hall National Competition Rank: 3rd Place

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The Bursa Atatrk Sports Hall Competition proposal makes a neighborly relation with The National Garden in the south. The main subject that is prioritized is to conceal the structural installation inside of the defined green context. Considering the structural density of the residential texture close to the competition site, it is critical that the state of concealment makes a contribution to the urban occupancy-vacancy balance by dissolving the competition site boundaries and integrating them with the periphery.

NG Architects

Competition: OPAL AWARDRank: 1st Place

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Office building as a second home is an issue that I want to mention it. By considering the presence of users in their working place in most hours of the day, I have achieved a different quality. Design of this building delivers an environmental concept to the observer. If we want to consider the whole volume as a rectangular cube with a concrete shell, wood in the form of ivy is rotated on the faade from inside the cube.

Mayslits Kassif Roytman Architects

Competition: National Architecture CompetitionRank: 1st Place

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The Academy of the Hebrew Language selected Mayslits Kassif Roytman Architects, a leading Israeli architecture firm, as the winner of a national architecture competition. The new academy's plot, nestled in a spectacular natural setting, forms part of Jerusalem's National Cultural District, also home to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), The National Library, Israeli Museum, and the Hebrew University.

Pongpol Puangniyom x Mah Yi Jun

Competition:2021 TRAA competitionRank: 1st Place

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The idea is to reconstruct an infamous abandoned building Sathornue Unique Tower to a new affordable and sustainable community to provide a good living environment for low and middle class residents. Francine also gives a feedback that it is a good idea to design an abandoned building. The main street around the building creates an unique appearance and travel flow for the building and this project is not only a residential complex but a vertical village which fulfils the daily demand of nowadays human being.

Ashish Dalal andPratibha Christy

Competition: ArchmelloRank: 1st Place

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Looking back, the ancient educational system in India included spaces for active pub-lic interaction leading to layers of interconnected gain which in turn formed a sense of ownership within the community. It incorporated spaces such as open arenas, cultiva-tion lands, and collaborative workshops that could be utilized for the needs of the im-mediate community around the GURUKUL.

Tuungoo Arquitectos

Competition: Ames Design ContestRank: 1st Place

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FAAHO206 aims to generate a dynamic social and cultural center, strengthening the sense of neighborhood while meeting the needs of the younger population. The liberation of the ground plane allows the volume to stand as an urban landmark. Thank to it, a large public space is developed over the entire plot to host outdoor activities while enjoying impressive landscape. Over it, the multifunctional center is organized in a compact and stratified volume, with highly flexible spaces that look to adapt to future uses.

Symmetry

Competition: Lviv Grand Hotel CompetitionRank: 3rd Place

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Due to the fact that the building has a commercial purpose, the static balance of the long facade building is energized by the diagonals of the suspensions for vertical landscaping as sun and noise protections. Horizontal cornices are complemented by massive vases with a relief stone surface. Lower part of Doroshenko Street is devoid of landscaping, so the sides of the houses, which are created from the deepening of the red line, are used as planes for vertical landscaping.

Leers Weinzapfel Associates

Competition: Hsinta Ecological Power Plant Construction Project Conceptual Design International CompetitionRank: 2nd Place

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This plant in a park balances clean energy production with wetland protection and educational, cultural, and recreational resources for a growing region. Three rising organic forms contain turbine halls and stacks. A ring of supporting workspaces define an oval precinct with a service courtyard, and a surrounding park features wetlands and mangrove islands. Dune fields offer elevated views to the landscape and activities. A recreational basin along the canal edge provides dune field landfill and connects to the nearby harbor.

Metapolis, Studio Ana Horhat, Atelier Mass

Competition: East Park CompetitionRank: 1st Place

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Our design proposes different island environments linked in one park as a unifying landscape. These islands are bordered by water which regulates the perfect life conditions for flora and fauna and protects them from intrusion. The proposed water network works as communicating vessels between the different habitats. Regulated by water these habitats will balance themselves offering resilience and guaranteeing a good dynamic for the whole landscape ecosystem.

BIVAK studio Ltd.

Competition:Budapest Student City- Big Market Hall and its surroundings architectural design CompetitionRank: 1st Place

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Budapest South Gate quarter and the Student City within the neighbourhood is designed to cater for a large variety of needs by optimally using this unique location by the river branch. Its service mix includes supporting large-scale sporting events, the everyday life of its student residents, as well as providing recreation opportunities for a wider audience who live in the surrounding urban districts. The masterplan envisions an integrated development that shall provide a footprint for future urban transformation in Budapest during the upcoming decades.

MLA+

Competition: International Consultation on Planning and Design of Chongqing Amusement ParkRank: 1st Place

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Natural Futurism of Chongqing connects citizens and nature, history and future, to form a peoples park on a dramatic hill with fantastic views to Chongqings river and skyline. The winning masterplan of MLA+ and Deloittes rediscovers lost qualities of nature, creates convenient access to the extreme topography, and proposes cultural, touristic and everyday destinations with a sound business case

PES-Architects

Competition:Nanchang Poly Grand Theatre CompetitionRank: 1st Place

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Situated south of the city by Jiulong Lake, the theatre and art centre is set to become the cultural hub and landmark of the new urban development zone. The building is expected to be completed in 2024. The main functions of the 35,000 m2 building grand theatre/opera hall, multifunctional theatre, and educational and exhibition facilities are broken down into three separate volumes, circling each other like fish in a pond. Following the typology of a traditional Chinese village, this creates a variety of indoor and outdoor streets and plazas that allow the free flow of people in and around the building.

VTA Architects

Competition:Competition of memorial to the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred and ATO SoldiersRank: 3rd Place

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Memorial complex has a dominant resembling a shape of the wings sweepingly flying up. It is a symbol of Revolution of Dignity spirit and of memory of fallen Heroes souls, which will always be engraved on our minds. This shape also resembles an arrowhead. It embodies determination, striving of Ukrainian people for development and public response speed, especially of students, who first came out on Maidan.

SuperSpace

Competition:Konkur stanbul | Commemorating Mimar Sinan in skdarRank: Honorable Mention

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Even though Istanbul and bosphorus have this extraordinarily charming effect on people especially, at first sight, we can easily say that it could not be compared to any epic fairy-tale-land illustrations of bosphorus from the last two centuries. The peak aims to greet this, to commemorate a unique person of history, Architect Sinan the Great who has designed a magnificent amount of buildings around the world, and especially in Istanbul, that has changed the way of understanding and maintaining the city and its culture. Even today, architects are learning from his works. This legacy of sinan has created a valuable history and topography for the city that strengthened the epic silhouette of the city for centuries. In that manner, The Peak, a new public ground for the city, shapes a new sculptural topography and experience in between the coastal line and the urban square of Uskdar, as the eighth hill of Istanbul in the memory of Sinan.

Janne Hovi

Competition: Architectural Competition for the Sara Hildn Art MuseumRank: 1st Place

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The winning proposal to the international architecture competition for a new museum building for Sara Hildn Art Museum. The building continues the tradition of high quality masonry construction of the surrounding historical area in the center the city of Tampere.

Central-South Architectural Design Institute Co., LTD (CSADI)

Competition:: International Competition for Conceptual Design of Hangzhou E-sports Ecological Park and E-sports StadiumRank: 1st Place

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The project is located in Hangzhou Xiacheng district, which is the first stadium in China to meet the official standards of the Asian e-sports Games. It will fulfill the functional requirements of e-sports competition, training, leisure and entertainment for Hangzhou E-sports entertainment town. The site is enclosed by urban ground roads, high-speed rail lines, and elevated expressways. The surrounding traffic is extremely complicated. The e-sports stadium adopts the method of sinking, by introducing the flow of people and traffic through the basement space, which effectively breaks through the shackles of the complex traffic conditions around the site.

HOW TO SUBMIT AN UNBUILT PROJECT

We highly appreciate the input from our readers and are always happy to see more projects designed by them. If you have an Unbuilt project to submit, click here and follow the guidelines. Our curators will review your submission and get back to you in case it is selected for a feature.

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A Futuristic Amusement Park and an Ecological Power Plant: 16 Unbuilt Competition-Winning Projects Submitted to ArchDaily - ArchDaily

Moveable explores the future of transportation, infrastructure, energy, and cities.

Waymo, the self-driving outfit owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, says it wants its autonomous cars to be much safer than humans. As if to prove its own point, a Waymo vehicle being driven by a human struck a person on a scooter in San Francisco Wednesday.

The incident, which was first shared by WIRED reporter Tom Simonite, occurred at the intersection of McAllister and Larkin streets in the Tenderloin neighborhood. According to a Waymo spokesperson, "The autonomous specialist had recently disengaged the vehicle from autonomous mode and was driving in manual mode when the vehicle entered the intersection and made the left turn. After turning, and while still in manual mode, the vehicle came into contact with an individual on a motorized scooter." No serious injuries have yet been reported.

Did you witness this crash? Have you witnessed or been involved with any other incidents involving self-driving vehicles? We'd love to hear from you. Email Aaron Gordon at aaron.gordon@vice.com.

The incident highlights the complicated dyna

mics around self-driving cars in cities, which were not designed for nor are best with lots of cars zipping around. And human drivers pose a distinct and well-documented threat to pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, and other people not in cars. But there is yet no clear evidence computer-controlled vehicles will be any better. And in the absence of reliable, independently verified data, the future remains uncertain and scary as billion-dollar corporations forge ahead rolling out a technology that may one day be an improvement over current practices but nevertheless scares a lot of people. But, as this Waymo driver reminded us, the present is pretty scary, too.

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Futuristic Self-Driving Car Hits Person the Old Fashioned Way - VICE

"We're not really sure what can cause a torque on this scale."Tilt-a-Whirl

Some of the gigantic filaments that make up the cosmic web an unfathomably massive network of tendril-like structures linking the universes galaxies together seem to be spinning.

A team of scientists made the shocking discovery that some cosmic filaments, which are the largest known structures in the entire universe, are rotating around their central axis like gigantic drills, according to research published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. But thats as far as they got, Space.com reports: The team has no idea why the filaments started to spin or what force could have been powerful enough to set them in motion.

Were not really sure what can cause a torque on this scale, study coauthor Noam Libeskind told Space.com.

Libeskind, a cosmologist for Germanys Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, added that scientists previously assumed that individual galaxy clusters, which can move extremely slowly about their axes, were the largest spinning objects in the cosmos. Spinning is common in space on smaller scales, but theres nothing about the Big Bang that ought to have set the massive filaments in motion, especially given their incredible scale.

[Cosmic filaments] are structures so vast that entire galaxies are just specks of dust, Libeskind told Space.com. These huge filaments are much, much bigger than clusters.

Libeskind is still searching for possible answers, a task thats made even more difficult by the fact that only some filaments appear to be spinning while others are more static. One possible explanation, according to Space.com, is that the filaments built up some momentum as their intense gravitational pull sucked up and compacted nearby gases and dust but thats just speculation for now.

READ MORE: Astronomers discover largest known spinning structures in the universe [Space.com]

More on cosmic filaments: Heres The First-Ever Pic of Cosmic Web Connecting All Galaxies

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The Largest Structures in the Universe Started To Spin and We Don't Know Why - Futurism

Yes, fusion. Billionaires are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into fusion energy startups.Bezos Fusion

A Canadian fusion energy company is set to break ground on a large-scale nuclear fusion demonstration plant in Culham, UK and its being funded by one of the richest men in the world: the one and only Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the BBC reports.

The company General Fusion is one of many startups attempting to make fusion energy a reality. Rather than splitting atoms, the process involves fusing hydrogen atoms together under high heat and pressure inside a reactor.

The process releases copious of amounts of energy but so far, researchers have yet to make a net gain. Getting the fusion reaction started still takes significantly more energy than what its capable of producing.

With funding from the likes of Bezos however, the private sector has a better shot than ever in making fusion a viable alternative to other renewable forms of energy production.

General Fusions upcoming test plant wont however be generating power. The facility, which is roughly 70 percent the size of a commercial reactor, aims to be operational by 2025, according to the BBC, and lay the groundwork for future reactors.

The company raised $100 million in its last round of funding and has also received funding from the UK government.

Its approach to fusion energy involves compressing extremely hot plasma inside a cylinder that is lined by a wall of liquid metal, a process called magnetized target fusion. The heat then is used to generate steam and spin a turbine.

For decades, scientists have attempted to establish fusion energy as a limitless low-carbon form of energy whether the investment will end up paying off? Anybodys guess. But the basic fact of a power player like Bezos continuing to establish themselves in this space makes one thing clear: Its a question someone and someone very important, with several nations worth of wealth wants answered, now more than ever.

READ MORE: Nuclear energy: Fusion plant backed by Jeff Bezos to be built in UK [BBC]

More on fusion: Worlds Strongest Magnet Could Help Make Fusion Energy a Reality

As a Futurism reader, we invite you join the Singularity Global Community, our parent companys forum to discuss futuristic science & technology with like-minded people from all over the world. Its free to join, sign up now!

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Jeff Bezos Is Helping Build a Fusion Power Plant in the UK - Futurism