Google shows off its driverless cars in California

ITN

China Plans Beijing-United States High-Speed Rail Line

breitbart

By Jordan Schachtel 

Chinese experts are studying and considering plans to build a high-speed rail line that stretches from China to the United States.

If constructed, the project, titled the “China-Russia-Canada-America” line, would stretch out to cover over 8,000 miles of land.

China’s Beijing Times newspaper reported the line would start in China, continue into Siberia, then pass through an extensive, 125-mile tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean, then run through Alaska and Canada to finally reach destinations within the continental United States. The total expected trip time is two days (36 hours) with the train traveling at an average speed of 220 miles per hour.

Some skeptics have doubted the plausibility of the high-speed rail plan. If constructed, the Bering strait tunnel would have to be by far the longest underwater tunnel on earth.

Others had concerns revolving around the financial aspect of the project. "China's railway sector is still being haunted by deep debts. Therefore, even with the government's support, it must persuade banks to lend a colossal amount of money," said an expert at Beijing Jiaotong University.

The report does not mention whether Canada or the United States were consulted in developing plans for the project.

The China-United States rail line is one of four proposed plans to expand China’s high-speed rail coverage.

The Eurasia Line would cover London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk(Russia), and would end in Manzhouli (China).

The proposed Central Line would have stops in Urumqi (China), Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Germany, and “other countries.”

The Pan-Asian Line would canvas Kunming (China), Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. A Chinese official said the Pan-Asian line’s construction will start next month.

China has completed roughly 6,200 miles (10,000 km) of its own high-speed rail network, with plans to expand it to roughly 11,000 miles (19,000 km) by 2015.

This machine makes drinking water from thin air

CNN.com

Tel Aviv, Israel (CNN) -- Water. A vital nutrient, yet one that is inaccessible to many worldwide.

The World Health Organization reports that 780 million people don't have access to clean water, and 3.4 million die each year due to water-borne diseases. But an Israeli company thinks it can play a part in alleviating the crisis by producing drinking water from thin air.

Water-Gen has developed an Atmospheric Water-Generation Units using its "GENius" heat exchanger to chill air and condense water vapor.

"The clean air enters our GENius heat exchanger system where it is dehumidified, the water is removed from the air and collected in a collection tank inside the unit," says co-CEO Arye Kohavi.

"From there the water is passed through an extensive water filtration system which cleans it from possible chemical and microbiological contaminations," he explains. "The clean purified water is stored in an internal water tank which is kept continuously preserved to keep it at high quality over time."

Several companies tried to extract water from the air ... But the issue is to do it very efficiently.
Arye Kohavi, co-CEO Water-Genius

Energy efficient

Capturing atmospheric humidity isn't a ground-breaking invention in itself -- other companies already sell atmospheric water generators for commercial and domestic use -- but Water-Gen says it has made its water generator more energy efficient than others by using the cooled air created by the unit to chill incoming air.

"Several companies tried to extract water from the air," says Kohavi. "It looks simple, because air conditioning is extracting water from air. But the issue is to do it very efficiently, to produce as much water as you can per kilowatt of power consumed."

He adds: "When you're very, very efficient, it brings us to the point that it is a real solution. Water from air became actually a solution for drinking water."

The system produces 250-800 liters (65-210 gallons) of potable water a day depending on temperature and humidity conditions and Kohavi says it uses two cents' worth of electricity to produce a liter of water.

Civilian uses

Developed primarily for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Water-Gen says it has already sold units to militaries in seven countries, but Kohavi is keen to stress that the general population can also benefit from the technology.

He explains: "We believe that the products can be sold to developing countries in different civilian applications. For example in India, [drinking] water for homes is not available and will also be rare in the future. The Atmospheric Water-Generation Unit can be built as a residential unit and serve as a perfect water supply solution for homes in India."

Kohavi says Water-Gen's units can produce a liter of water for 1.5 Rupees, as opposed to 15 Rupees for a liter of bottled water.

Dirty water

Another product Water-Gen has developed is a portable water purification system. It's a battery-operated water filtration unit called Spring. Spring is able to filter 180 liters (48 gallons) of water, and fits into a backpack -- enabling water filtration on the go.

"You can go to any lake, any place, any river, anything in the field, usually contaminated with industrial waste, or anything like that and actually filter it into the best drinking water that exists," says Kohavi.

This unit gives logistic independence for the forces and make us ensure that we provide the soldiers high quality water.
Major Alisa Zevin, head of the Facilities and Specialized Equipment, IDF

Major Alisa Zevin, head of the Facilities and Specialized Equipment Section for the IDF, says the unit is revolutionary for them.

"This unit gives logistic independence for the forces and make us ensure that we provide the soldiers high quality water," she says.

In 2013, the IDF took Spring to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the island country and left 4.2 million people affected by water scarcity. The system filtered what was undrinkable water into potable water, and that is what Water-Gen hopes to accomplish elsewhere where the technology is needed.

"It's something as a Westerner you cannot understand because you have a perfect water in the pipe, but people are dying from lack of water," says Kohavi.

Although Water-Gen's developments aren't a solution for the water crisis, Kohavi believes that the technology can do for countries that lack clean water, such as Haiti, what it has done for the Philippines. It can be the technology used to not only to filter water, but to save lives.

"They could actually bring solution, perfect solution, to the people over there," says Kohavi. "For the kids ... They can use the technology to filter water in the field. People are going days just to carry water. And all our solutions can be an alternative for that."

Glow-in-the-dark highway a bright idea

Toronto Sun

On a 500 metre stretch of highway in the Netherlands, streetlights have been replaced with glow-in-the-dark paint.

The glow-in-the-dark markings are created by mixing a photo-luminescent powder into the road paint.  The paint charges by absorbing daylight, and stays lit for about eight hours during the night.

As the inventor Dan Roosegaarde explains to Wired UK, "It's like the glow in the dark paint you and I had when we were children, but we teamed up with a paint manufacturer and pushed the development. Now, it's almost radioactive."

The paint was developed in conjunction with Heijmans, a road construction company. Specifically, the luminous road is found on the N329 highway in the city of Oss.

Should this test project prove successful, imagine the savings this could net for a city, using this paint as opposed to installing, powering, and maintaining those massive lights that run along most highways.

Whether that will happen depends on the proverbial government red tape, which proved to be the largest obstacle to the studio seeing its invention come to life. In fact, the studio said that despite being ready for a while, the project was held up because of a delay in a licences application approval from the local government.

Mr. Roosegaarde envisions future uses for the paint, such as when outside temperatures reach a certain low point, snowflake symbols would appear on the road, reminding drivers that the road is slippery.

Until then, the paint is currently being tested to determine wear and tear, as well as effectiveness.

Invisible Car Technology: Land Rover reveals 'see-through' car bonnet

ITN

Introducing the Desktop 3D Printer

www.breitbart

By Warner Todd Huston

The 3D printing revolution could be coming to your home with a new machine that costs less than an iPhone and can sit on your desktop.

MD3 is a company trying to produce an affordable 3D printing device and has set up a Kickstarter page in hopes that it can raise enough money to bring The Micro 3D printing machine to customers' homes.

The novelty machine is intended for beginners in 3D printing and can only "print" items that stand a few inches tall, but MD3 hopes that the affordable printer can bring the concept of 3D printing to the average consumer in order to get more people interested in the concept of home manufacturing.

Micro 3D weighs 2.2 lbs and prints objects up 4.6-inches tall, the company says.

The machine will be able to print in plastics and will be able to make toys, key chains, jewelry, and can even print with food stuffs such as chocolate.

MD3 says that their printer is plug and play and easy to use with open source software.

"At M3D we knew at some point in the future these tools would be a part of everyone’s lives, so we asked why not now?" said the company's founder Michael Armani.

"In order for [3D printers] to live up their potential, they need to be affordable and completely effortless to use," Armani said.

The Kickstarter campaign is scheduled to end on May 7 and has already raised $250,000.

The next frontier in 3-D printing: Human organs

CNN.com

By Brandon Griggs

The emerging process of 3-D printing, which uses computer-created digital models to create real-world objects, has produced everything from toys to jewelry to food.

Soon, however, 3-D printers may be spitting out something far more complex, and controversial: human organs.

For years now, medical researchers have been reproducing human cells in laboratories by hand to create blood vessels, urine tubes, skin tissue and other living body parts. But engineering full organs, with their complicated cell structures, is much more difficult.

Enter 3-D printers, which because of their precise process can reproduce the vascular systems required to make organs viable. Scientists are already using the machines to print tiny strips of organ tissue. And while printing whole human organs for surgical transplants is still years away, the technology is rapidly developing.

"The mechanical process isn't all that complicated. The tricky part is the materials, which are biological in nature," said Mike Titsch, editor-in-chief of 3D Printer World, which covers the industry. "It isn't like 3-D printing plastic or metal. Plastic doesn't die if you leave it sitting on an open-air shelf at room temperature for too long."

Lawrence Bonassar, a professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell University, with an artificial ear made via 3-D printing and injectable molds.

The idea of printing a human kidney or liver in a lab may seem incomprehensible, even creepy. But to many scientists in the field, bioprinting holds great promise. Authentic printed organs could be used for drug or vaccine testing, freeing researchers from less accurate methods such as tests on animals or on synthetic models.

Then there's the hope that 3-D printers could someday produce much-needed organs for transplants. Americans are living longer, and as we get deeper into old age our organs are failing more. Some 18 people die in the United States each day waiting in vain for transplants because of a shortage of donated organs -- a problem that Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a pioneer in bioprinting, calls "a major health crisis."

An 'exciting new area of medicine'

Bioprinting works like this: Scientists harvest human cells from biopsies or stem cells, then allow them to multiply in a petri dish. The resulting mixture, a sort of biological ink, is fed into a 3-D printer, which is programmed to arrange different cell types, along with other materials, into a precise three-dimensional shape. Doctors hope that when placed in the body, these 3-D-printed cells will integrate with existing tissues.

The process already is seeing some success. Last year a 2-year-old girl in Illinois, born without a trachea, received a windpipe built with her own stem cells. The U.S. government has funded a university-led "body on a chip" project that prints tissue samples that mimic the functions of the heart, liver, lungs and other organs. The samples are placed on a microchip and connected with a blood substitute to keep the cells alive, allowing doctors to test specific treatments and monitor their effectiveness.

"This is an exciting new area of medicine. It has the potential for being a very important breakthrough," said Dr. Jorge Rakela, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and a member of the American Liver Foundation's medical advisory committee.

One of Organovo's engineers oversees the construction of a vascular tissue construct on a NovoGen MMX bioprinter.

"Three-D printing allows you to be closer to what is happening in real life, where you have multiple layers of cells," he said. With current 2-D models, "if you grow more than one or two layers, the cells at the bottom suffocate from lack of oxygen."

To accelerate the development of bioprinted organs, a Virginia foundation that supports regenerative medicine research announced in December it will award a $1 million prize for the first organization to print a fully functioning liver.

One early contender for the prize is Organovo, a California start-up that has been a leader in bioprinting human body parts for commercial purposes. Using cells from donated tissue or stem cells, Organovo is developing what it hopes will be authentic models of human organs, primarily livers, for drug testing.

The company has printed strips of human liver tissue in its labs, although they are still very small: four by four by one millimeter, or about one-fourth the size of a dime. Each strip takes about 45 minutes to print, and it takes another two days for the cells to grow and mature, said Organovo CEO Keith Murphy. The models can then survive for about 40 days.

Organovo has also built models of human kidneys, bone, cartilage, muscle, blood vessels and lung tissue, he said.

"Basically what it allows you to do is build tissue the way you assemble something with Legos," Murphy said. "So you can put the right cells in the right places. You can't just pour them into a mold."

Ethical concerns

Not everyone is comfortable with this bold new future of lab-built body parts, however.

A research director at Gartner Inc., the information-technology research and advisory firm, believes 3-D bioprinting is advancing so quickly that it will spark a major ethical debate by 2016.

A 3-D printer at Cornell University produces an artificial ear.

"Three-D bioprinting facilities with the ability to print human organs and tissue will advance far faster than general understanding and acceptance of the ramifications of this technology," Pete Basiliere said in a recent report.

"These initiatives are well-intentioned, but raise a number of questions that remain unanswered," Basiliere added. "What happens when complex 'enhanced' organs involving nonhuman cells are made? Who will control the ability to produce them? Who will ensure the quality of the resulting organs?"

Bioprinted organs are also likely to be expensive, which could put them out of reach of all but the wealthiest patients.

Murphy said Organovo only uses human cells in creating tissues, and doesn't see any ethical problems with what his company is doing.

"People used to worry about doing research on cadavers ... and that dissipated very quickly," he said. "We don't think there's any controversy if you're producing good data and helping people with health conditions."

Most experts, including Wake Forest's Atala, don't think we'll see complex 3-D-printed organs, suitable for transplants, for years if not decades. Instead, they believe the next step will be printing strips of tissue, or patches, that could be used to repair livers and other damaged organs.

Organovo's NovoGen MMX bioprinter is small enough to fit into a cabinet.

"We are very eager to put pieces of tissue to work for surgical transplants," said Organovo's Murphy, who hopes his company will be ready to begin clinical trials within five years.

Of course, any use of 3-D-printed tissue in surgical procedures would require approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That review process could take up to a decade.

By then, the notion of a surgeon putting a 3-D-printed kidney into a patient may not seem so bizarre. Then again, this swiftly evolving technology may create new moral conundrums.

"The ethical questions are bound to be the same concerns we have seen in the past. Many major medical breakthroughs have suffered moral resistance, from organ transplants to stem cells," said Titsch of 3D Printer World.

"Will only the rich be able to afford it? Are we playing God? In the end, saving lives tends to trump all objections."

Sex robots: Robotic strippers and red-light districts of the future.

slate

Hilarious bus stop prank: Public see giant robots and alien invasion

ITN

The future of solar power

The Economist

John H. Conway hablando del Juego de la vida

Emue 

microsiervos

No es la primera vez que mencionamos por aquí el Juego de la vida de John Horton Conway, pero en esta ocasión el vídeo bien lo merece pues es el propio creador quien lo describe con sus propias palabras; algo así como si bajara Dios a explicar cómo «funcionan» los diez mandamientos (los «de verdad»). En este caso, dibujando una cuadrícula infinita y utilizando pistachos y un lenguaje muy divulgativo enseña cómo se puede seguir la pista de las diferentes celdas y cada tic, tac del «reloj cósmico» que hace evolucionar a estos autómatas celulares.

Resulta interesante también ver cómo Conway, de 76 años, mantiene aún hoy en día una relación de amor/odio con su creación. En su momento no le dio demasiada importancia; supuso que era un mero entretenimiento curioso. Pero con el paso del tiempo y la ayuda de los microordenadores de la época se convirtió en una gran herramienta para estudiar los autómatas celulares, las matemáticas y lógica que lo rodean.

En cierto modo, el Juego de la vida eclipsó otros trabajos de Conway que él considera más profundos y meritorios. Sabemos de ellos porque Martin Gardner siempre le trató estupendamente en sus columnas y libros; tiene publicados números trabajos y libros sobre geometría, combinatoria, topología… Pero su nombre probablemente pasará a la historia ligado indefectiblemente a ese pequeño jueguecito que tanta gente conoce.

• El juego de la vida, versión estratégica, doble juego
• El juego de la vida, versión épica, un vídeo
• ¿Qué sucedería si el universo fuera una simulación? un autómata celular quizá
• SmoothLife: el Juego de la vida en versión «continua», en coma flotante

# Enlace Permanente

Metrópolis II, la película (Arte y Diseño)

microsiervos

HENRYandREL Supermarche

La gente de Supermarché preparó hace tiempo una minipelícula titulada Metrópolis II dedicada al proyecto del mismo nombre que creó Chris Burden y del que ya hablamos por aquí hace un par de años.

El hipnótico y relajante montaje está compuesto en total de 18 carriles para coches, 1.000 cochecitos Hot Wheels, 13 vías de tren y decenas de edificios LEGO. Se necesitaron tres meses para moverlo de la impresionante nave en que se construyó –atención a la última escena– hasta el Museo de Arte de Los Ángeles, donde ahora está expuesto.

World's First 3-D Printed Bike Frame Weighs Just 3 Pounds

NBC News.com

By Devin Coldewey

Renishaw

 

It's a first: a bike frame created entirely via 3-D printing. Empire's prototype, on display at the London Bike Show, is solid (or rather hollow) titanium, and weighs just 1,400 grams — around 3 pounds.

Naturally, things like the tires, seat and chain can't be 3-D printed, but printing the entire frame is a big step. It's not printed out whole, though: The parts are made clustered together in a block by melting titanium dust with a laser, then bonded together.

Renishaw

The parts are printed together in a block, separated, then assembled and permanently bonded.

  Empire teamed up with additive manufacturing company Renishaw, and it took them about six months to produce the bike. Other companies have produced 3-D printed parts, but this is the first frame that's entirely made by this method.

Is it actually practical, though? It's just as strong as the Empire frame it's based on and quite a bit lighter, but the process doesn't exactly lend itself to mass manufacture.

So chances are if you buy a 3-D printed frame any time soon, it'll be a custom job and quite expensive. But a few years down the line, this may be both common and affordable.

Bodily maps of emotions

Bodily topography of basic (Upper) and nonbasic (Lower) emotions associated with words. The body maps show regions whose activation increased (warm colors) or decreased (cool colors) when feeling each emotion. (Credit: Lauri Nummenmaa et al./PNAS)

Read on KurzweilAI >>

Quantum engineers make a major step towards a scalable quantum computer

KurzweilAI

Quantum interference on a chip

Photonic quantum computer: two spontaneous photon-pair source are integrated within a tuneable Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The system is capable of generating and manipulating path-entangled two-photon states (credit: J. W. Silverstone et al./Nature Photonics)

Scientists and engineers from an international collaboration led by Mark Thompson from the University of Bristol have, for the first time, generated and manipulated single photons on a silicon chip — a major step forward in the race to build a quantum computer, achieved by shrinking down key components and integrating them onto a silicon microchip, according to the researchers.

Previous attempts have required external light sources to generate the photons; this new chip integrates components that can generate photons inside the chip.

Potential for scaling

“We were surprised by how well the integrated sources performed together,” admits Joshua Silverstone, lead author of the paper. “They produced high-quality identical photons in a reproducible way, confirming that we could one day manufacture a silicon chip with hundreds of similar sources on it, all working together. This could eventually lead to an optical quantum computer capable of performing enormously complex calculations.”

“Single-photon detectors, sources and circuits have all been developed separately in silicon but putting them all together and integrating them on a chip is a huge challenge,” said Thompson.

“Our device is the most functionally complex photonic quantum circuit to date, and was fabricated by Toshiba using exactly the same manufacturing techniques used to make conventional electronic devices. We can generate and manipulate quantum entanglement all within a single millimeter-sized microchip.”

[+]

The group, which, includes researchers from Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Stanford University (US), University of Glasgow (UK) and TU Delft (The Netherlands), now plans to integrate the remaining necessary components onto a chip, and show that large-scale quantum devices using photons are possible.

“Our group has been making steady progress towards a functioning quantum computer over the last five years,” said Thompson. “We hope to have within the next couple of years, photon-based devices complex enough to rival modern computing hardware for highly-specialized tasks.”

Bristol’s newly established Centre for Doctoral Training in Quantum Engineering will train a new generation of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs to harness the power of quantum mechanics and lead the quantum technology revolution. This innovative center bridges the gaps between physics, engineering, mathematics and computer science, working closely with chemists and biologists while interacting strongly with industry.

La policía podrá detener coches a distancia

microsiervos
En Yahoo, En 2020, la Policía detendrá tu coche a distancia,

El ENLET, European Network of Law Enforcement Technologies, trabaja entre otros proyectos, en un dispositivo capaz de desactivar la alimentación de un automóvil a distancia. Una herramienta que se supone de gran utilidad para que las policías eviten peligrosas persecuciones, disparos a las ruedas y líneas de pinchos, a la hora de echar el guante a los malos. Sólo se podría activar desde una sala de control, visualizando el delito en pantalla, bajo el visto bueno de la autoridad judicial, y contaría por encima de todo con la colaboración de las marcas de automóviles. Todas ellas deberían aceptar un estándar común y en todos sus coches a partir de 2020 debería existir la posibilidad técnica de detenerse por control remoto.

First bionic hand with real feeling

ITN

30-Second Tech Trick: How to Schedule Email to Be Sent Later

TIME

The cop of the future: Will crooks have a chance against smart bullets, crowd-stun cannons and eyes everywhere?

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Courtesy: Accenture

Criminals may not have a chance in 2025, when the cop of the future will be an imposing crime-fighting machine, able to see around corners in urban environments, identify suspects at a glance, safely pursue stolen cars and effortlessly bring unruly crowds under control.

Police departments around the country are already testing technologies like Google Glass, lapel cameras and tracking devices that allow safer pursuit of fleeing suspects. But this is merely a glimpse of what’s to come, according to experts contacted by FoxNews.com. They said increasing reliance on data mining, predictive analysis and all manner of gadgets will make getting away with crime harder than ever.

“The emergence of new technologies will have significant impact on how front-line police services are delivered in the years ahead and how police officers will look and perform their duties in the future,” Ger Daly, global managing director of Accenture Defense and Public Safety, told FoxNews.com. “All forces endeavor to provide high levels of situational awareness to front-line officers, and technology is a key enabler of this.”

'All forces endeavor to provide high levels of situational awareness to front-line officers, and tech is a key enabler.'

- Ger Daly, global managing director, Accenture Defense and Public Safety

One of the key aspects of the “digital revolution” already under way in the form of ongoing trials at police departments in Los Angeles, London and Byron, Ga., is the use of body cameras. These lightweight devices offer increased accountability for officers and departments alike, providing real-time video evidence of interactions with the public. In the future, technologies like lapel cameras and Google Glass may allow officers and emergency responders to access live information feeds as they engage or pursue suspects on city streets or inside buildings.

“The camera within the device could potentially capture the facial images of persons of interest or suspects and run these images against databases of known felons, repeat offenders, wanted or missing persons,” Daly told FoxNews.com.

LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck has said the addition of lapel cameras — currently being tested in the field for a three-month period — will aid investigators and provide an additional degree of accountability. The LAPD then plans to purchase 600 cameras this summer for officers with more than $1 million in private donations. The department has also already equipped 300 of its 1,200 patrol cars with video recorders, according to The Associated Press, a longtime goal since the 1991 beating of Rodney King.

Another key concept of the near-future cop will be mobility and the ability to respond to emergencies with decreasing resources, according to “American Policing in 2022: Essays on the Future of a Profession,” a Department of Justice collection of ideas on the next decade of law enforcement.

“In 2012, troopers are beginning to utilize mobile applications such as electronic traffic citations and traffic crash reports,” Michigan State Police Director Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue wrote. “By 2022, troopers will have a one-stop shop records management system that will incorporate all common administrative needs, including time accounting, report writing, form completion and data collection. Troopers will also have direct access to sophisticated biometric information that will make hiding one’s identity nearly impossible.”

Biometrics — or identification based on unique physical or behavioral characteristics — has long been used to identify terrorists, wanted criminals, sex offenders and immigration violators at airports and ports of entry around the world, but many in law enforcement circles expect the technology to explode in coming years. Balancing public safety versus privacy implications becomes the next key question, experts told FoxNews.com.

“The potential is there to have it become pretty Draconian if we choose to go that route,” said John Roman, senior fellow at The Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Keep reading at Fox News >>

Military Official Says Robots To Replace Troops On The Battlefield

Mary Greeley