Lifeboat Foundation

We’ve seen some clever ways to order food online in our day, but this one is decidedly off the wall. Taco Bell is testing TacoBot, a chat AI that helps you order (what else?) tacos in a Slack conversation. Think of it as a tasty text adventure — you can ask questions about the menu, customize your order and check your cart. It’s only in a private beta with a few companies at the moment, but you can sign up for a waiting list to have your Slack team give TacoBot a try. Just think — you could have tacos sent your way while you’re stuck in a planning session.

“The scale of Facebook’s ambition, and the rivalries it faces, reflect a consensus that these technologies will transform how people interact with each other, with data and with their surroundings.”

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The TrueNorth neuromorphic chip may help engineers reach the exascale.

Samsung has been granted a patent for smart contact lenses with a built-in camera that activates when you blink.

The world’s brightest X-ray laser is getting a second beam that is 10,000 times brighter than the first one and fires 8,000 times faster.

Contact lenses that allow you to zoom and change focus are coming.

Stem cells, human trials, regenerative medicine, yay!

Continue reading “A stem-cell repair system that can regenerate any kind of human tissue” »

Almost all electronic devices operate by using an electron charge controlled by electrical means. In addition to a charge, an electron has a spin as a magnetic property. A groundbreaking concept for information processing based on electron spins is proposed using electron spins in semiconductors. Quantum computing enables us to exceed the speed of conventional computing and a spin transistor reduces energy consumption.

However, electron spins have yet to be used in realistic electronic devices except as part of magnetic devices for information storage. The reason is that spin polarization in a semiconductor is easily randomized, and consequently, it is difficult to transport spin polarization over a long distance.

An electron spin itself is a quantum spin angular momentum. Electrical transport and the manipulation of spin polarization are essential technologies if electron spins are to be employed in a device.

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Researchers have developed a new and highly efficient method for gene transfer. The technique, which involves culturing and transfecting cells with genetic material on an array of carbon nanotubes, appears to overcome the limitations of other gene editing technologies.

The device, which is described in a study published today in the journal Small, is the product of a collaboration between researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

Continue reading “‘Honeycomb’ of nanotubes could boost genetic engineering” »