Glimpse

11th
October

1,807 notes

7th
October

377 notes

futuramb:

curiositycounts:

Google and Carnegie Mellon researchers team up on cloud-powered facial recognition that would enable you to take a photo of a complete stranger and track their real identity in mere minutes

Then every public place on the planet becomes like the local pub where you know everyone’s first name, income and previous spouses but still treat them as acquaintances…

3rd
October

48 notes

emergentfutures:

Local classrooms to get dose of augmented reality

AUSTRALIAN researchers aim to build toolkits for teachers to help them use augmented reality techniques in the classroom.
Full Story: The Australian

23rd
September

170 notes

Impressive. In-Car Algorithm Could Rapidly Dissolve Traffic Jams
emergentfutures:

In-Car Algorithm Could Rapidly Dissolve Traffic Jams
If cars broadcast their speeds to other vehicles, a simple in-car algorithm could help dissolve traffic jams as soon as they occur, say computer scientists.
Full Story: Technology Review

Overshoot: 'Humanity falls deeper into ecological debt'

plantedcity:

From The Province:

Humankind will slip next week into ecological debt, having gobbled up in less then nine months more natural resources than the planet can replenish in a year, researchers said Tuesday.

The most dominant species in Earth’s history, in other words, is living beyond the planet’s threshold of sustainability, trashing the house it lives in.

At its current pace of consumption humankind will need, by 2030, a second globe to satisfy its voracious appetites and absorb all its waste, the report calculated.

Earth’s seven billion denizens — nine billion by mid-century — are using more water, cutting down more forests and eating more fish than Nature can replace, it said.

At the same time, we are disgorging more CO2, pollutants and chemical fertilizers than the atmosphere, soil and oceans can soak up without severely disrupting the ecosystems that have made our planet such a comfortable place for homo sapiens to live.

Counting down from January 1, the date when human activity exceeds its budget — dubbed “Earth Overshoot Day” — had receded by about three days each year since 2001.

The tipping point into non-sustainability happened sometime in the 1970s, said the Oakland, California-based Global Footprint Network, which issued the report.

This year, researchers estimate that the equivalent of Earth’s resource quota will be depleted on September 27.

…

“Overshoot” is driven by three factors: how much we consume, the global population, and how much Nature can produce.

…

The United States is the biggest ecological deficit spender, according to an earlier calculation by the same group.

If all people adopted the American lifestyle — big house, two cars, huge per-capita energy consumption — the world’s population would need about five “Earths” to meet its needs.

By contrast, if everyone on Earth matched the average footprint of someone in India today, humanity would be using less than half the planet’s biocapacity.

Check out the rest of the article here. You can learn more about our growing ecological debt here.

(‘Earthrise’ photo credit: NASA)

20th
September

127 notes

Are the Tweets paved with gold?
emergentfutures:

Are the Tweets paved with gold? London hedge fund uses social network to ‘see the future’
Analysts at London’s Derwent Capital Markets - described as ‘Europe’s first social media-based hedge fund’ - has launched a £25million fund based on research that suggests tweets foretell whether markets will go up or down.
Full Story: MailOnline

''Vertical street' collects rainwater'

plantedcity:

From New Scientist:

The world’s first “vertical street” will soon be built in Melbourne, Australia.

Every sixth floor of the 35-storey building will have gardens capable of growing trees up to 10 metres tall and the entire building will be boasting the very latest in green technology.

While roof gardens and landscaped balconies have been constructed in the past, project architect Robert Caulfield of CK Designworks, Melbourne, says this is the first time that five high-rise communal gardens have been attempted in the same building.

To achieve this feat, purpose-built planter boxes allowing tree roots to grow in the confined 120-square-metre gardens, and structural supports that hold the weight of the soil and trees will be used. Heat-reflective glass and solar-powered lighting will also be incorporated.

Since the site is a mere 360 square metres, the building’s external walls - more than 8000 square metres - will be used to catch rainwater. “This is unusual,” says Caulfield. Normally strong winds “just blow the rain off the building”.

But, in this development, triangular balconies and a jagged façade are used to reduce the sideways movement of the wind, minimising the water escaping from the side. The catchment will feed into the building’s water supply to be used for garden watering and toilet flushing.

Check out the rest of the article here.

The world’s first “vertical street” will soon be built in Melbourne, Australia.

8th
September

3,081 notes

spacetimecontinumm:

Terrformation of Mars: A New Look
We look at Mars now as a forgotten Red Planet that almost seems barren and life-less judging from our available images and study of it. But study shows Mars was once as ecologically prosperous as our own Earth. But what happened to all of its waters? Better yet why is it so dry and lacking any plants? Once the abundance of oxygen left and the waters froze over or dried off the planet became what it is today. But what if we can in a way reactivate’ Mars? Welcome to Mars, Terraformed’.
About Terraforming
Transforming Mars will be a long and complicated process. But this is exactly the type of subject that interests space researchers like Christopher McKay of NASA Ames Research Center. First, greenhouse gases, like chlorofluorocarbons that contribute to the growing ozone layer on Earth, will be released into the atmosphere. This traps the heat from the Sun and raises the surface temperature by an average of 4 degrees Celsius. In order to achieve this, factories would manufacture chlorofluorocarbons derived from the air and soil. A single factory would require the power equivalent of a large nuclear power plant.
The increasing temperature would vaporize some of the carbon dioxide in the south polar cap. Introducing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would produce additional warming, melting more of the polar cap until it has been vaporized completely. This would produce an average temperature rise of 70 degrees Celsius.
With the temperature this high, ice will start melting, providing the water needed to sustain life. This water would raise the atmospheric pressure to the equivalent of some mountaintops. While this would be a survivable level, it may still require the use of an oxygen mask. The next step, which may take up to several centuries, would be to plant trees that thrive on carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

NASA: Terraforming Mars
Terraforming is the process of transforming a hostile environment into one suitable for human life. Being that Mars is the most Earth-like planet, it is the best candidate for terraforming. Once just the subject of science fiction novels, it is now becoming a viable research area. The famed astronomer and Pulitzer prize winner, Carl Sagan, says that there is enormous promise in the search for ancient life on Mars. If life was once sustainable on Mars, it is important to know what caused Mars to evolve into the cold and lifeless planet it is today. With this knowledge, we can terraform Mars by reversing the process.
NASA scientists believe that it is technologically possible at the present time to create considerable global climate changes, allowing humans to live on Mars. But this will not be by any means an easy task. Raising the atmospheric pressure and surface temperature alone could be achieved in a few decades.
This research has strong environmental implications for Earth. What researchers are trying to do involves global warming, a sort of greenhouse effect on the cold planet Mars. Scientists may be able to test their hypotheses about global warming in their attempts to elevate Mars’ surface temperature. Likewise, once theories, they may be applied to our own planet in an attempt to reverse environmental damage done by pollution and deforestation.

2nd
September

102 notes

Infographic: ‘The Evolution of Solar Technology’
plantedcity:

Infographic: ‘The Evolution of Solar Technology’
(Source: SunRun via Treehugger)

30th
August

15 notes

25th
August

368 notes

Last fall California-based Berkeley Bionics unveiled a “wearable robot” called eLEGS, an exoskeleton adapted from technology currently being tested for U.S. foot soldiers. Users strap on a backpack containing a battery and microprocessor, then bionic legs with motorized joints at the hips and knees. Sensors in handheld crutches issue instructions to the backpack computer, which relays them to the legs. Walking is simple: Shifting weight to the left crutch, for example, initiates a step forward with the right foot. Trials begin this year.

20th
August

340 notes

17th
August

21 notes

humanscalecities:

Scientific American special issue

"It is by now an old idea in futurology, originating with Alvin Toffler, that modern man exists in a state of constant shock at the changing landscape of the technological world — akin to “culture shock,” but as ceaseless as the progress of technology. But we quickly become accustomed to, and adjust ourselves to, the technologies that increasingly form the fabric of our interaction with the world — and so their novelty rapidly fades. And then we find our experience of moving through the world is not one of perpetual awe and wonderment, but of boredom and restlessness."

– GPS and the End of the Road, fantastic long read from The New Atlantis (via curiositycounts)

(via futuramb)