Australian researchers solve challenge that can unlock cheaper, longer lasting batteries and substantially increase EV range.
Category: futurism
Google’s parent company Alphabet ($GOOG) is now the fourth US company to hit a market cap of $1 trillion. It hit the number just before markets closed on Thursday, ending the day’s trading at $1,451.70 per share, up 0.87 percent.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai took over as CEO of Alphabet in December, after Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin relinquished control of Alphabet. It’s been a bumpy couple of years at the company that included allegations of sexual misconduct by executives and a 20,000-person Google Walkout employee protest.
Alphabet is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings on February 3rd, and Wall Street analysts are expecting it to report revenue of $46.9 billion, a year-over-year uptick of almost 20 percent.
A team of researchers from the University of New England, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum and Swinburne University of Technology, all in Australia, has identified fossils found near Winton as remains of the largest theropod found to date in Australia. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes the bones they found and its likely species.
In 2017, a farmer in the central-western Queensland town of Winton discovered several fragmented bones on his property. Suspecting they might be dinosaur fossils, he contacted the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. A team was assembled, and a dig was established. The researchers found 15 more limb and vertebrae fossils.
The fossils closely resembled Australovenator wintonesis—a theropod species that was discovered in Australia in 2006. Theropods are a group of large, bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs—included in the group are both Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. The newly found fossils are bigger than those of the specimen found in 2006, making it difficult to determine if the two specimens are the same species. The fossil size suggests the creature was approximately two meters tall and five to seven meters long. The researchers are not ruling out the possibility that the fossils belong to an undiscovered species. But the larger size indicates that the find represents the largest known carnivore to have lived in Australia.
The Big Hybrid Cat Breaks World Record for Being the Largest Feline In the Entire World
Once upon a time, 12,000 years ago, to be exact, tall, large tigers called the sabre-tooth tigers used to rule the world. They were so big that their very existence threatened humans daily.
Even though their breed has been extinct since the Pleistocene era, nowadays, scientific development allows experts to crossbreed between lions and tigers to create a new hybrid – the “liger.” The ligers are quite similar to the sabre-tooth tigers in height and weight.
The SPIE Photonics West Exhibition is right around the corner, with around 1350 exhibitors ready to demonstrate their latest components, devices, and systems.
Analysts are bullish on the company’s newly appointed CEO, Sundar Pichai. In a surprise announcement in December 2019, Alphabet founder Larry Page announced plans to step down as CEO, along with co-founder and president Sergey Brin.
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The 256-foot boat doubles as a submarine capable of diving to depths of 985 feet for 10 days at a time.
We’re at a fascinating point in the discourse around artificial intelligence (AI) and all things “smart”. At one level, we may be reaching “peak hype”, with breathless claims and counter claims about potential society impacts of disruptive technologies. Everywhere we look, there’s earnest discussion of AI and its exponentially advancing sisters – blockchain, sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, 3D / 4D printing, and hyperconnectivity. At another level, for many, it is worrying to hear politicians and business leaders talking with confidence about the transformative potential and societal benefits of these technologies in application ranging from smart homes and cities to intelligent energy and transport infrastructures.
Why the concern? Well, these same leaders seem helpless to deal with any kind of adverse weather incident, ground 70,000 passengers worldwide with no communication because someone flicked the wrong switch, and rush between Brexit crisis meetings while pretending they have a coherent strategy. Hence, there’s growing concern that we’ll see genuine stupidity in the choices made about how we deploy ever more powerful smart technologies across our infrastructure for society’s benefit. So, what intelligent choices could ensure that intelligent tools genuinely serve humanity’s best future interests.
Firstly, we are becoming a society of connected things with appalling connectivity. Literally every street lamp, road sign, car component, object we own, and item of clothing we wear could be carrying a sensor in the next five to ten years. With a trillion plus connected objects throwing off a continuous stream of information – we are talking about a shift from big to humungous data. The challenge is how we’ll transport that information? For Britain to realise its smart nation goals and attract the industries of tomorrow in the post-Brexit world, it seems imperative that we have broadband speeds that puts us amongst the five fastest nations on the planet. This doesn’t appear to be part of the current plan.
The second issue is governance of smart infrastructure. If we want to be driverless pioneers, then we need to lead on thinking around the ethical frameworks that govern autonomous vehicle decision making. This means defining clear rules around liability and choice making on who to hit in accident. Facial recognition technology allows identification of most potential victims and vehicles could calculate instantly our current and potential societal contribution. The information is available, what will we choose to do with it? Similarly, when smart traffic infrastructures know who is driving, and drones can allow individualised navigation, how will we use their information in traffic management choices? In a traffic jam, who will be allowed onto the hard shoulder? Will we prioritise doctors on emergency calls, executives of major employers, or school teachers educating our young?
At the physical level, globally we see experiments with innovations such as solar roadways, and self-monitoring, self-repairing surfaces. We can of course wait until these technologies are proven, commercialised, and expensive. Or, we can recognise the market opportunity of piloting such innovations, accelerate the development of the ventures that are commercialising them, deliver genuinely smarter infrastructure in advance, of many competitor nations, and create leadership opportunities in these new global markets.
The final issue I’d like to highlight is that of speed. Global construction firms are delivering 57 storey buildings in 19 days and completing roadways in China and Dubai at three to four times the speed of the UK. The capabilities exist, the potential for exponential cost and time savings are evident. We can continue to find genuinely stupid reasons not to innovate or give ourselves permission to experiment with these new techniques. Again, the results would be enhanced infrastructure provision to UK society whilst at the same creating globally exportable capabilities.
As we look to the future, it will become increasingly apparent that the payoff from smart infrastructure will be even more dependent on the intelligence of our decision making than on the applications and technologies we deploy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, award-winning keynote speaker, author, and the CEO of Fast Future. His prime focus is on helping clients understand and shape the emerging future by putting people at the center of the agenda. Rohit is the co-author of Designing Your Future, lead editor and a contributing author for The Future of Business, and editor of Technology vs. Humanity. He is a co-editor and contributor for the recently published Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity and The Future Reinvented – Reimagining Life, Society, and Business, and two forthcoming books — Unleashing Human Potential – The Future of AI in Business, and 50:50 – Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.
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