Lifeboat Foundation

The industry association of leading businesses and organizations working to make commercial human spaceflight a reality.

Sad for Russia.

President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials dream of a technological leap that could immediately close the gap between Russia and more advanced economies, as Sputnik did for the Soviet Union. The hyperloop, a kind of train in a tube that can reach speeds of up to 700 mph, fits that dream, and a well-connected Russian businessman has invested in it — only to see the project become embroiled in a lawsuit involving a Silicon Valley startup’s founders and claims of financial mismanagement.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, proposed the hyperloop four years ago. This “fifth mode of transport” would involve a system of practically airless tubes through which magnetically levitated pods could carry passengers and cargo. Musk has not set up a company to bring the project to reality, but others have. For example, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, wants to build a system in Slovakia. Another, Hyperloop One, offered a public demonstration of some elements of its technology in May.

Continue reading “Russia’s hyperloop dream is undone” »

Roger Dumoulin-White, president and CEO of Theralase Technologies, explains his company’s two divisions: the currently operating therapeutic laser division and the anti-cancer division. The company’s TLC-1000 laser is used for pain relief, tissue healing and more, and upwards of 1,200 medicial facilities worldwide use the device. The next-generation TLC-2000 laser was recently FDA-approved. At this time, Theralase Technologies is conducting clinical trials for photodynamic compounds that help to destroy cancer cells.

Click play to learn how these new technologies have the potential to revolutionize cancer treatment.

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Continue reading “This Company Users Lasers to Relieve Pain and Treat Cancer” »

Blockchain Engine and Petrodvorets Watch Factory have introduced blockchain technology into the manufacturing process of Raketa watches, making Raketa one of the first companies in the world to record the production of physical goods in the blockchain.

Established by Peter the Great in 1721, Petrodvorets Watch Factory is one of Russia’s oldest businesses. After the Second World War, the factory produced watches under the brand name Pobeda until 1961, when production of the Raketa [Rocket] watches started, named in honor of the first flight into space by Yuri Gagarin.

In a bid to restructure the historical watch brand, the company entered a rebranding stage in 2009 under the direction of Russian, Swiss and French experts, with director Jacques von Polier heading the creative and design department.

Continue reading “Raketa Watches Trials Blockchain Technology to Fight Counterfeiting” »

Fog, blizzards, gusts of wind — poor weather can often make the operation of rescue helicopters a highly risky business, and sometimes even impossible. A new helmet-mounted display, developed by researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), may in the future be able to help pilots detect hazards at an early stage, even when their visibility is severely impaired: the information required to do this is created in an on-board computer and imported into digital eye glasses.

A new study has shown that this augmented reality improves the performance of pilots.

Thick clouds hang over the Tegernsee. The range of sight is just a few hundred meters. Under normal circumstances, a helicopter would not be allowed to take off in such weather — the danger that the pilot would not be able to react in time to a construction crane, a power line or a mountain would be too great.

A startup called Starry is shaking things up, attempting to provide a faster internet service that’s cheaper and hassle-free (and remarkably fast). Testing is set to begin in Boston.

Say goodbye to expensive internet coming in at slow speeds.

Continue reading “New Company Promises Cheaper WiFi That’s 100x Faster” »

First installations go live as INTASAVE Energy pursues $30M impact investment.

Villagers in Lemolo B and Echareria in Nakuru County, Kenya, are waking up today to a new future as new solar nano-grids installed over the last two weeks allows them to switch on lights and operate new agri-processing machinery. The two communities are the first to receive a revolutionary new model for clean, affordable and reliable energy where a central solar hub provides both commercial energy for new village enterprises and household energy using cutting-edge up-cycled laptop batteries. The hub allows energy to be shared between households, businesses and the community bringing economic, social and environmental benefits.

The installation is the start of a major INTASAVE Energy solar nano-grid initiative (SONG) that ultimately aims to bring the benefits now beginning for villagers in Lemolo B and Echareria to over 450,000 people across the globe. INTASAVE Energy has launched a $30M impact investment programme to make this goal a reality.

Continue reading “Solar nano-grids light up homes and businesses in Kenya” »

I’m curious if readers of this blog, futurists or otherwise, were as surprised as I was to see the Pew Research Center report last month about how, to the average American, some of the biggest digital economy companies and concepts are still relatively unknown. A few highlights:

• 61% of Americans have never heard of the term “crowdfunding.”
• 73% are not familiar with the term “sharing economy.”
• 89% are not familiar with the term “gig economy.”

This was a reminder to me that the digital economy is still far from mainstream, and I think we need to keep that in mind when we analyze new technologies. But there’s another reason the report caught my eye, which is that it I think it’s another good example of a human ecosystem, in this case the digital economy, exhibiting signs of Postnormal Times (PNT). The digital economy is famous for making our lives easier, cutting out various middlemen and red tape to get what the consumer actually wants: a bed, not a grand lobby, a ride, not a car. This seems very normal in terms of the evolution of consumer needs.

But according to Sardar and Sweeney, “many ‘normal’ systems will not continue to operate ‘normally’ in PNT—sooner or later, the 3Cs will have a direct or indirect impact on them.” It may sound somewhat doomsday, but it’s not. PNT is nothing to fear, but a way of observing the world; evidence of the 3Cs are just indicators that a system is evolving and changing, and lets us know that our responses need to change in kind.

One of those Cs stands for “contradictions.” Though contradiction is of course ‘normal,’ the contradiction between the relatively small slice of consumers being served by Uber and AirBNB doesn’t mesh with the massive values (AirBNB worth $30Billion) associated with such startups. This is where my PNT radar goes off.

Continue reading “The Digital Economy: Postnormal?” »

Excellent start in using GPU for mapping and predictive analysis on brain functioning and reactions; definitely should prove interesting to medical & tech researchers and engineers across the board should find this interesting.

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