Is this the ultimate flying bike? A Hungarian company hopes to sell this flying device as soon as sometime this year.
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CNNMoney: A Tricopter
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Category: innovation – Page 211
We talked to Paul Dillinger, Levi’s VP of Global Product Innovation, on how the company is using the future of textile tech with Google’s Project Jacquard.
If you ride a bike, motorbike, or drive an automobile, you know that from time to time you need to pump air into those tires, at least if you need to ensure an optimum ride, you do. It’s a known fact that we do get lazy and at times ignore. But there is a good news, especially for a cyclist, there could be a solution out there for you personally.
Benjamin Krempel has come up with an invention called Dubbed the PumpTube, the idea here is that the inner tube on your motorcycle’s tires will be able to self-pump, meaning that as you cycle, it’ll continuously pump air in your tires to ensure that it really never deflates and that it’ll be at the pressure that you have set.
Water Nanofilter
Posted in innovation
Necessity is the mother of invention. Tanzanian researcher creates a water filter that turns polluted water into drinking water.
“Ruth Porat has taken an unusual path to the tech world. Before becoming the chief financial officer at Google in May 2015 (and then at Alphabet, Google’s new parent company, a few months later), she held the same post at Morgan Stanley, where among other roles she worked closely with the U.S. government to sort out the troubles at the insurance corporation AIG and the mortgage-financing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the 2008 financial crisis.”
In professional cycling, it’s well known that a pack of 40 or 50 riders can ride faster and more efficiently than a single rider or small group. As such, you’ll often see cycling teams with different goals in a race work together to chase down a breakaway before the finish line.
This analogy is one way to think about collaborative multi-agent intelligent systems, which are poised to change the technology landscape for individuals, businesses, and governments, says Dr. Mehdi Dastani, a computer scientist at Utrecht University. The proliferation of these multi-agent systems could lead to significant systemic changes across society in the next decade.
“Multi-agent systems are basically a kind of distributed system with sets of software. A set can be very large. They are autonomous, they make their own decisions, they can perceive their environment, “Dastani said. “They can perceive other agents and they can communicate, collaborate or compete to get certain resources. A multi-agent system can be conceived as a set of individual softwares that interact.”
As a simple example of multi-agent systems, Dastani cited Internet mail servers, which connect with each other and exchange messages and packets of information. On a larger scale, he noted eBay’s online auctions, which use multi-agent systems to allow one to find an item they want to buy, enter their maximum price and then, if needed, up the bid on the buyer’s behalf as the auction closes. Driverless cars are another great example of a multi-agent system, where many softwares must communicate to make complicated decisions.
Dastani noted that multi-agent systems dovetail nicely with today’s artificial intelligence. In the early days of AI, intelligence was a property of one single entity of software that could, for example, understand human language or perceive visual inputs to make its decisions, interact, or perform an action. As multi-agent systems have been developed, those single agents interact and receive information from other agents that they may lack, which allows them to collectively create greater functionality and more intelligent behavior.
“When we consider (global) trade, we basically define a kind of interaction in terms of action. This way of interacting among individuals might make their market more efficient. Their products might get to market for a better price, as the amount of time (to produce them) might be reduced,” Dastani said. “When we get into multi-agent systems, we consider intelligence as sort of an emergent phenomena that can be very functional and have properties like optimal global decision or situations of state.”
Other potential applications of multi-agent systems include designs for energy-efficient appliances, such as a washing machine that can contact an energy provider so that it operates during off-peak hours or a factory that wants to flatten out its peak energy use, he said. Municipal entities can also use multi-agent systems for planning, such as simulating traffic patterns to improve traffic efficiency.
Looking to the future, Dastani notes the parallels between multi-agent systems and Software as a Service (SaaS) computing, which could shed light on how multi-agent systems might evolve. Just as SaaS combines various applications for on-demand use, multi-agent systems can combine functionalities of various software to provide more complex solutions. The key to those more complex interactions, he added, is to develop a system that will govern the interactions of multi-agent systems and overcome the inefficiencies that can be created on the path toward functionality.
“The idea is the optimal interaction that we can design or we can have. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that multi-agent systems are by definition, efficient,” Dastani said. “We can have many processes that communicate, make an enormous number of messages and use a huge amount of resources and they still can not have a sort of interesting functionality. The whole idea is, how can we understand and analyze the interactions? How can we decide which interaction is better than the other interactions or more efficient or more productive?”
“You can learn how to improve your novice pilot skills by having your brain zapped with recorded brain patterns of experienced pilots via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), according to researchers at HRL Laboratories.”
CytoDyn Inc. announced in a news release last week that its ongoing extension study of PRO 140 monotherapy has shown “complete viral-load suppression” for well over a year, with some patients approaching 17 months. The phase I trial included 23 patients.
“The company believes that complete virologic suppression through treatment with a single agent, PRO 140, a safe and efficacious antibody, rather than through the widely used HAART combination therapy, could present a significant opportunity to treat HIV patients. Based on these monotherapy results, the company plans to file a second Phase 3 protocol for PRO 140 monotherapy with the FDA. CytoDyn is currently conducting a pivotal phase 3 trial for PRO 140 as an adjunct therapy with expected commercialization in 2017.”
On Jan 22, the company filed a request for Breakthrough Therapy Designation with the FDA for PRO 140 as a treatment for HIV-1 infection in treatment experienced patients with virologic failure, meaning other medications alone no longer work for them.
A Lifeboat guest editorial
Richelle Ross is a sophomore at the University of Florida, focusing on statistics and data science. As a crypto consultant, she educates far beyond the campus. Her insight on the evolution and future of Bitcoin has been featured in national publications. Richelle writes for CoinDesk, LinkedIn, and Quora, providing analysis on Bitcoin’s evolving economy.
In 2003, I remember going to see my first IMAX 3D film, Space Station . My family was touring NASA at Cape Canaveral Florida. The film was an inside view into life as an astronaut enters space. As the astronauts tossed M&Ms to each other in their new gravity-free domain, the other children and 
I gleefully reached our hands out to try and touch the candy as it floated towards us. I had never experienced anything so mind-blowing in my 7 year life. The first 3D film was released in 1922. Yet, surprisingly, flat entertainment has dominated screens for in the 9½ decades that followed. Only a handful of films have been released in 3D—most of them are animated. But now, we are gradually seeing a shift in how people experience entertainment. As methods evolve and as market momentum builds, it promises to be one of the most groundbreaking technologies of the decade. I foresee Virtual Reality reaching a point where our perception of virtual and real-life experiences becomes blurred—and eventually—the two become integrated.
Ever since pen was put to paper, and camera to screen, audiences have enjoyed being swept into other worlds. For those of us “dreamers” being able to escape into these stories is one way we live through and expand our understanding of other times and places—even places 
that may not be accessible in our lifetimes. Virtual reality is the logical progression and natural evolution of these experiences.
I caught the VR bug after one of my Facebook contacts was posting about it and sharing 360 degree videos that were of no use to me unless I too had the headset. Having been a Samsung user for the last several years, I purchased the Samsung VR headset to understand what all the hype was. Just as with my childhood experience visiting the space station, the VR Introduction video sent me floating across the universe. But this time, it was much more compelling. I could turn my head in any direction and experience a vast heavenly realm in 3D vision and tied to my own movements. Behind me was a large planet and in front were dozens of asteroids slowly moving by.
Similar to visiting the Grand Canyon, this is one of those novel experiences you really have to experience to appreciate. Within about ten seconds of trying it out, I had become hooked. I realized that I was experiencing something with far greater potential than an amusement park roller coaster, yet I also recognized that any applications I might imagine barely scratch the surface. This unexpected adrenaline rush is what leads tinkerers to the imaginative leaps that push new technologies into the next decades ahead.
Video games are probably the industry everyone thinks of being affected by this new paradigm. I immediately thought about the Star Wars franchise with its ever expanding universe. It will be a pretty exciting day when you can hold a lightsaber hilt that comes to life when you wear a headset and allows you to experience that universe from your living room. You could even wear a sensored body suit that allows you to feel little zaps or vibrations during gameplay. With more connected devices, the possibility of Li-Fi replacing Wi-Fi and so on, video games are just scratching the surface.
I discussed what the future of VR could offer with Collective Learning founder, Dan Barenboym. We explored various difficulties that impede market adoption. Barenboym was an early enthusiast of virtual reality, having worked with a startup that plans to deploy full-body scanners that give online life to gamers. The project began long before the film Avatar. Berenboym suggests ways that this would improve online shopping 
by allowing people to see their avatar with their own personal measurements in various outfits. This doesn’t have to be limited to at-home experiences though. Dan suggests that instead of walking into the boutique changing room, you walk into one with mirrors connected to VR software. Your reflection ‘tries on’ different virtual outfits before you pull your favorite one off the store rack.
We also discussed the current obstacles of VR like the headset itself, which is a hindrance in some respects as it is a bit uncomfortable to wear for prolonged use. The other looming issue is money. There are many ideas similar to the ones we brainstormed, but startups may struggle to get off the ground without sufficient funding. The Oculus Rift is one great example of how crowdfunding can help entrepreneurs launch their ideas. It is easier than ever before to share and fund great ideas through social networking.
Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, shared his own vision in 2014 after acquiring the Oculus Rift. Zuckerberg eloquently summarized the status of where we’re headed:
“Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming and we have a chance to build it
together.”
What could this mean for the social networking that Zuckerberg pioneered? I’d venture to say the void of a long distance relationship may be eased with VR immersion that allows you to be with your family at the click of a button. You could be sitting down in your apartment in the U.S., but with the help of a 360 camera, look around at the garden that your mother is tending to in the U.K. The same scenario could be applied to a classroom or business meeting. We already have global and instant communication, so it will serve to add an enriched layer to these interactions.
The concept of reality itself is probably the biggest factor that makes virtual reality so captivating. Reality is not an objective experience. Each of us has a perspective of the world that is colored by our childhood experiences, personality, and culture. Our inner dialogues, fantasies of who we want to become, and areas of intelligence determine so much of what we’re able to accomplish and choose to commit to outside of ourselves. Michael Abrash describes how VR works with our unconscious brain perceptions to make us believe we’re standing on the edge of a building that isn’t really there. At a conscious level, we accept that we are staring at a screen, but our hearts still race—based on an unconscious perception of what is happening. Tapping into this perception-changing part of our brain allows us to experience reality in new ways.
As VR becomes more mainstreamed and incorporated into all areas of our lives such as online shopping, socializing, education, recreation, etc., the degrees of separation from the real world that society applies to it will lessen. Long-term, the goal for VR would be to allow us to use any of our senses and body parts. We should see continued improvements in the graphics and interaction capabilities of VR, allowing for these experiences to feel as real as they possibly can.
One can only imagine the new vistas this powerful technology will open—not just for entertainment, but for education, medicine, working in hazardous environments or controlling machines at a distance. Is every industry planning to incorporate the positive potential of virtual reality? If not, they certainly should think about the potential. As long as we pay attention to present day needs and issues, engineering virtual reality in the Internet of Things promises to be a fantastic venture.
Author’s Note:
Feedback from Lifeboat is important. I’ll be back from time to time. Drop me a note on the comment form, or better yet, add your comment below. Until then, perhaps we will meet in the virtual world.
— RR
Hyperloop Technologie
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