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If I have a very robust and sophisticated 3D/ 4D printer to make my own clothing, accessories, household furnishings plus another option in my printer/s to make dishware, household accessories, etc. Why would I ever need a Macys, Bed-Bath, etc. as well as Amazon for that matter for clothing, etc. Hmmm, and retail was already worried over Amazon and Aliexpress, etc.


nervous-system

We’ve followed Nervous System for two years now, with their stunning introduction of 4D printed apparel. Based in Somerville, MA, the design team has since offered numerous projects to the world, featuring their 3D printed Kinematics dress on more than one instance from the first one now permanently ensconced in MOMA to debuting their last in a Sydney Museum. And while we’ve reported on the innovation of their adaptive materials along with an overview of their construction in collaboration with Shapeways, now we are allowed to take a more comprehensive look from the present, as others look much further into the future.

Dutch TV channel NPO gave their viewers a thorough view at how the Kinematics dress is made, from the scanning process to the next step which is to choose the material and shape of the clothing, and then on to the actual 3D printing. You’ll see that the hosts are very excited about the process, and while unless you speak Dutch, you won’t understand a word, it’s easy to understand what’s going on and why everyone is so enthusiastic. The episode came about as both the Nervous System team and Shapeways came together again, and actually created a whole new Kinematic Petals Dress for the special.

rachel-2

As they highlighted the world of high-tech in ‘Netherlands in 2050,’ the hosts truly did bring the dress to life as rather than just explaining what happens, they showed us, with host Rachel Rosier enjoying the process firsthand at the Shapeways’ facility in Eindhoven. Keep in mind, again, that these dresses are in demand for the permanent collections of museums.

Society is about to take another big step into the age of space-based manufacturing.

Early next year, California-based startup Made In Space plans to launch a machine to the International Space Station (ISS) that will produce ZBLAN optical fiber.

ZBLAN has the potential to be much more efficient than the silica-based fiber currently used in the internet and telecommunications industries, but it’s tough to make here on Earth because the planet’s strong gravitational pull induces imperfections in the ZBLAN crystal lattice, Made In Space representatives said. [3D Printing: 10 Ways It Could Transform Space Travel].

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Anyone who does not have QC as part of their 5+Yr Roadmap for IT are truly exposing their company as well as shareholders and customers. China, Russia, Cartels, DarkNet, etc. will use the technology to extort victims, destroy companies, economies, and complete countries where folks have not planned, budget, skilled up, and prep for full replacement of their infrastructure and Net access. Not to mention companies who have this infrastructure will provide better services/ CCE to svc. consumers.


In a recent article, we highlighted a smart beta ETF called the “Sprott BUZZ Social Media Insights ETF” that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to select and weight stocks. If we stop and think about that for a moment, that’s a pretty cool use of AI that seems well ahead of its time. Now we’re not saying that you should go out and buy this smart beta ETF right away. It uses social media data. We know that on social media, everyone’s an expert and many of the opinions that are stated are just that, opinions. However some of the signals may be legitimate. Someone who just bought Apple is likely to go on telling everyone how bullish they are on Apple shares. Bullish behavior is often accompanied by bullish rhetoric. And maybe that’s exactly the point, but the extent to which we’re actually using artificial intelligence here is not that meaningful. Simple scripting tools go out and scrape all this public data and then we use natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to determine if the data artifacts have a positive or negative sentiment. That’s not that intelligent, is it? This made us start to think about what it would take to create a truly “intelligent” smart beta ETF.

What is Smart Beta?

We have talked before about how people that work in finance love to obfuscate the simplicity of what they do with obscure acronyms and terminology. Complex nomenclature is suited for sophisticated scientific domains like synthetic biology or quantum computing but such language is hardly merited for use in the world of finance. We told you before what beta is. Smart beta is just another way of saying “rules based investing” which has in fact been around for centuries, but of course we act like it’s new and start publishing all kinds of research papers on it. In fact, a poll offered up by S&P Capital IQ shows that even 1 out of 4 finance professionals recognizes the term “smart beta” to be little more than a marketing gimmick:

Nice!!!! Plus, we must keep in mind advances are accelerating like never before because tech industry is helping us knock out 2 things under each program due to the new usage of synthetic bio in systems and hardware. Example, DNA storage, MSFT’s work in other Synbio is also streamlined to find a cure for diabetes, Google and its own Synbio work is also inherently able to be used to help find a cure for cancer, etc.


In Brief:

  • Author and researcher, Vivek Wadhwa, expects the tech industry to push medical science further than we have ever imagined.
  • With the influx of tech’s heaviest hitters tackling medical science ventures, focus has shifted from treatment to the total eradication of disease.

The team of NASA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), and online educational platform Future Engineers has been a lot of fun to follow over the last year. Their collaborative 3D Printing in Space Challenges have resulted in some amazing, ingenious inventions from children as young as five years old, all aimed at improving the daily lives of astronauts now and in the future, on the International Space Station and, one day, on Mars.

mars

The winners of the last challenge, the Think Outside the Box Challenge, were announced a few weeks ago, and now the three organizations have announced the fifth challenge in the series. This time, it’s geared directly towards a future Mars mission. The Mars Medical Challenge asks participants to create a digital 3D model of a medical or dental item that an astronaut could use on a three-year mission to Mars.

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