future

Do you face a serious case of city traffic woes every morning, with an added dose of exhaust fumes? Innovators have now worked out a smart and eco-friendly solution — an alternative mode of urban transportation. Introducing Smacircle S1, a carbon fiber e-bike that is lightweight, foldable, packable and can be easily carried in a backpack.

Whilst there are many offshore wind farms currently in place, their construction is limited by the depth of the water in which they stand. But now, advances in the technology have meant that for the first time, a full-scale floating wind farm is being built off the coast of Scotland.

Robots are increasingly accepted as the first line in automation, human-computer interfaces and even entertainment. However, they are often thought of in a limited way, as machines that could be designed to resemble humans, or body parts such as arms, designed to perform in a manner that is a variation on how a human would. Therefore, robots are often in a fixed shape with relatively limited dimensions of movement, articulation and manipulation.

The International Energy Agency estimate that around the world, 1.8 billion people live without electricity. In Africa, this is a particular issue. In an interview with CNBC, Ponmile Osibo from the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association said: “The situation is Arica at the moment is quite significant, over 40 percent of the population does not have direct access to energy.”

In a bold move which signals their commitment to both reducing the impact of climate change on our environment and meeting customer demand, Volvo announced that all cars manufactured from 2019 will have an electric motor – with the range to choose from including hybrid cars, mild hybrid cars and fully electric cars.

Many of us know that we work better under pressure – when no deadline is set we can coast along or become distracted by other tasks, but as soon as that deadline is looming we turn the anxiety over missing it to our advantage, using it as a powerful motivational tool to get the task completed on time. This is known as ‘anxiety motivation’ and can increase performance, helping us reach our goals or feel satisfied in our jobs.

Even if you’ve never been to London, most people know what one of their iconic Black Cabs look like. Along with red London Buses, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, they’re one of the most recognizable symbols of this city. Now though, it’s time for them to have a makeover.

Currently, there’s two main ways to access the energy needs that your household requires. Either connect to the national grid, or go off-grid and meet them through a combination of renewable energies. If you live off-grid, solar panels and wind turbines, or often a combination of the two, are currently the most popular choices. There’s many people who would love the chance to either generate their own electricity or use a more environmentally friendly choice but for various reasons, do not have the option of installing their own off-grid system.

Early efforts to build artificial silicon cochlea have largely been driven by their potential applications in hearing aids, cochlear implants and other portable devices that demand real-time, low-power signal processing for audio events recognition, including speech. With the recent advances in robotics, the topic has gained even more interest, as equipping robots with human-like sensory capabilities provides the ground for the future evolvement of robotics.

As summer starts in the Northern Hemisphere, many of us are reminded of the dangers that heatwaves can bring. Weather warnings for excessive heat have just been issued for Phoenix, Arizona, with temperatures due to reach a sweltering 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48.3 degrees Celsius). This heat can pose a massive threat to our environment with dangers of wildfire and droughts, but it can also play havoc with our bodies.

In recent years, researchers have created automatic planners. The International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling hosts a competition, in which machines try to give the best solutions for planning problems. Now, we can have scheduled a flight, taken a drive or coordinated tasks for teams of autonomous satellites, which is so important for the automated process of machines.

With the increased trend and market availability of smart home appliances usage, either for comfort or for economy (power consumption control), the automotive industry has started to seriously work on integrating the smart car technologies with the smart home platforms, trying to promote their products as part of the “Internet of Things” (IoT) networking technology.

Anouk Wipprecht is a designer and electronic wearables artist and has created a design dubbed the ‘spider dress.’ The spider dress comes complete with an Intel Edison chip that uses biosignals for protection, which is an intuitive system that uses biofeedback. It has the ability to record the user’s motions as well as their mental state.

The need for reliable energy production worldwide is growing at a rapid rate, with it being estimated that by 2050, our global energy needs will have doubled. This comes at a time when our reliance on fossil fuels is being tested as it becomes more apparent that these are not a sustainable source of energy for the future.

When thinking of arts, words like tradition, culture, inspiration, feelings and talent come into our mind, and are automatically linked to the human condition. For Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers, performing arts translates into just another means to learn, evolve, express oneself and… communicate with an artificially intelligent entity, either a robot or a software agent.

In the future, it is anticipated that robots may have to traverse some pretty inhospitable terrain, either to clear a war-torn region of landmines or scope out a location on Mars for a potential landing site. Many robots designed for remote work are either wheeled or have tracked systems. Whilst this is obviously an advantage for stability, problems arise when the robot encounters any sort of challenging terrain such as steep, potentially unstable rocks.

When you think about deep-sea exploration, the first image that might well pop into your head is a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) unmanned and plunging its way down to the depths of the ocean. There is still so much left to discover about our oceans, with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) suggesting that we have explored less than 5% of our oceans.

Cable TV companies are prohibited by law, from selling information about the viewing habits of their customers. The makers of Vizio televisions took the risk to surreptitiously collect details on viewers’ watching habits and was subsequently fined $2.2 million by the Federal Trade Commission.