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IT 

Facebook’s drones – made in Britain

admin

In a warehouse in Somerset, the latest phase in Facebook’s bid for world domination has been taking shape. Or, to put it less dramatically, the social network’s plan to connect millions in developing countries is proceeding. It is called Project Aquila and involves building solar-powered aircraft which will fly for months at a time above remote places, beaming down an internet connection. Two years ago Facebook bought small British business Ascenta, which specialises in solar-powered drones, and its owner Andy Cox is now the engineer running Project Aquila. At the…

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Transport Tech 

The EPA’s Fuel Efficiency Testing May Not Work. Like, at All

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In 2012 President Obama instituted new, aggressive fuel economy standards for automakers selling cars in the United States. The executive branch—represented here by the Environmental Protection Agency, basically—mandated that every car manufacturer would have to have a fleetwide average gas mileage of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (CAFE to transit nerds) take the gas mileage of every car a company sells—from Yaris to Tundra, Verano to Enclave, Golf to whatever—and average it out. You want to build a gas-guzzling, smoke-pumping, V-18 for hauling…

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Other Tech 

Gest glove has gesture control on hand

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There have been numerous attempts over the years to break the decades-long stranglehold the keyboard and mouse have had on the human-to-computer interface by providing some semblance of Minority Report-like gesture control. Apotact Labs recently joined the fray with a four-finger glove-like design called Gest that allows you to control your computer and your mobile devices with your hands. Gest is described as a digital toolkit that consists of two components: a gesture controller that slips onto your hand, and an SDK that allows anyone to build new applications for the…

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Medical Tech 

Nanotechnology In Medicine: Huge Potential, But What Are The Risks?

admin

Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scale to create materials with remarkably varied and new properties, is a rapidly expanding area of research with huge potential in many sectors, ranging from healthcare to construction and electronics. In medicine, it promises to revolutionize drug delivery, gene therapy, diagnostics, and many areas of research, development and clinical application. This article does not attempt to cover the whole field, but offers, by means of some examples, a few insights into how nanotechnology has the potential to change medicine, both…

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Medical Tech 

Magnetic nanoparticles could stop blood clot-caused strokes

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By loading magnetic nanoparticles with drugs and dressing them in biochemical camouflage, Houston Methodist researchers say they can destroy blood clots 100 to 1,000 times faster than a commonly used clot-busting technique.   The finding, reported in Advanced Functional Materials (early online), is based on experiments in human blood and mouse clotting models. If the drug delivery system performs similarly well in planned human clinical trials, it could mean a major step forward in the prevention of strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, and other dire circumstances where clots — if…

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Transport Tech 

So, a Few Concerns About China’s Traffic-Slaying ‘Straddling Bus’

admin

Well blow us down: Those scrappy engineers did it. They built that crazy straddling bus a Chinese company announced three months ago, and damned if it doesn’t work. This weird wonder—officially, it’s the “Transit Elevated Bus”—gets through traffic by driving over it. And according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, it got through Tuesday’s test drive in Qinhuangdao without decapitating a single Geely Panda. Some specs: This thing is 68.9 feet long, 25.6 feet wide, and 15.7 feet tall. “There’s enough space on this for old ladies to have a…

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IT 

Computers in your clothes? A milestone for wearable electronics

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Researchers who are working to develop wearable electronics have reached a milestone: They are able to embroider circuits into fabric with 0.1 mm precision — the perfect size to integrate electronic components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing. With this advance, the Ohio State University researchers have taken the next step toward the design of functional textiles — clothes that gather, store, or transmit digital information. With further development, the technology could lead to shirts that act as antennas for your smart phone or tablet, workout clothes…

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IT 

Pascal-based Nvidia Titan X is graphics card overkill of the highest order

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With the rise of 4K and graphics-intensive VR, more strain is being placed on graphics cards. A couple of months ago, Nvidia responded to this call for more power with its GTX 1080, which the company called “the new king” of graphics cards. Well, the king is dead, long live the king, because now Nvidia has unveiled an updated version of the Titan X, which takes Nvidia’s Pascal architecture and cranks it up to the absolute max. With maximum performance sitting at 11 teraflops, the new Titan X is around 60…

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IT 

How Nanotechnology Poised to Change Medicine Forever — and What’s Holding it Back

admin

Science fiction movies such as Ant-Man and Fantastic Voyage excite us about the possibility of shrinking ourselves down to the subatomic level. In the Disney version of The Sword in the Stone, Merlin defeats the sorceress Madam Mim in a shape shifting battle by turning into a microbe which makes her sick. All of these touch upon the power that comes with being able to control what is infinitesimally small. In reality, science has made great progress in this regard. But we’re not quite there yet. The prefix nano comes from ancient Greek meaning, “dwarf.”…

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IT 

Wireless Gravestone Tech Will Broadcast Your Awesomeness to Posterity

admin

For those people seeking some long-term postmortem respect, you could always go the route of theRoyal Tenenbaum epitaph and have your hyperbolic greatness engraved upon a headstone. But we all know weather eventually gets the better of those words, and besides: Why settle for one measly sentence when you could speak directly to your descendants from beyond the grave? The Objecs company has the answer: RosettaStone “technology enhanced memorial products,” which, preloaded with your autobiographical information, will attach to your grave. From Discovery News: When your great-great-great granddaughter stops by sometime in the…

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