European and American scientists discover a star that may possibly be orbited by alien megastructures.
Read more
As part of its new plan to build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and unveil 30 new models by 2025, Volkswagen announced that they plan to debut one of these 30 new electric car models at the Paris Motor show next month.
VW CEO Hebert Diess confirmed the news in an interview with German magazine Wirtschafts Woche.
He said that the vehicle will achieve a range of 400 to 600 km (248 to 372 miles), but he could have been referring to the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), which is much more forgiving than the EPA rating and doesn’t really reflect real-world range, but a range of ~300 miles sounds likely.
Read more
Flooding of Coast, Caused
Posted in transportation
Five hundred miles down the Atlantic Coast, the only road to Tybee Island, Ga., is disappearing beneath the sea several times a year, cutting the town off from the mainland.
And another 500 miles on, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., increased tidal flooding is forcing the city to spend millions fixing battered roads and drains — and, at times, to send out giant vacuum trucks to suck saltwater off the streets.
Scientists’ warnings that the rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline are no longer theoretical.
By JUSTIN GILLIS SEPT. 3, 2016
Read more
Rose’s Law for Quantum Computing highlights the new platforms sheer power to solve humanity’s and society’s most complex problems on, and off, Earth
When Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director of the investment firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DJF) first met Geordie Rose, now CTO and former CEO of D-Wave back in 2002 he was struck by his ability to explain complex quantum physics and the “spooky” underpinnings of a new class of computing platform – Quantum Computing.
DFJ first invested in D-Wave in 2003, and Rose predicted that he would be able to demonstrate a two-bit quantum computer within 6 months – years, if not decades ahead of the competition and there was a certain precision to his predictions. With one bit under his belt, and a second coming, Rose went on to suggest that the number of qubits in a scalable quantum computing architecture should double every year. Sound familiar?
Read more
Rocket Baby
Posted in internet
Over the course of the next year, Finland is putting Universal Basic Income to the test. Thousands of individuals are going to be getting a basic income to trial (what could be) the economics of the future.
The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Futurism or its affiliates.
Finland is about to launch an experiment in which a randomly selected group of 2,000–3,000 citizens already on unemployment benefits will begin to receive a monthly basic income of 560 euros (approx. $600). That basic income will replace their existing benefits. The amount is the same as the current guaranteed minimum level of Finnish social security support. The pilot study, running for two years in 2017–2018, aims to assess whether basic income can help reduce poverty, social exclusion, and bureaucracy, while increasing the employment rate.
Read more
Wound-Closure Technologies
Posted in biotech/medical
The year was 2012, and IBM’s AI software Watson was in the midst of its heyday.
Watson beat two of Jeopardy’s all-time champions a year earlier in 2011, and the world was stunned. It was the first widespread and successful demonstration of a natural language processing computer of its class. Combined with the popularity of Jeopardy, Watson became an immediate mainstream icon.
Later in 2012, IBM announced one of the first major practical partnerships for Watson—a Cleveland Clinic collaboration to bring the system into medical training.
Read more