Lifeboat Foundation

As oil was to Saudi Arabia, could solar be to Morocco?

Morocco has turned on its enormous solar power plant in the town of Ourrzazate, on the edge of the Saharan desert. The plant already spans thousands of acres and is proficient of generating up to 160 megawatts of power. It’s already one of the largest solar power grids in the world, capable of being seen from space. And it’s only going to get bigger.

The present grid, called Noor I, is just the first phase of a planned project to bring renewable energy to millions living in Morocco. It will soon be followed by expansions, Noor II and Noor III, that will add even more mirrors to the present plant. Once the project is finished around 2018, the whole grid will cover 6,000 acres. It will be capable of producing up to 580 megawatts of power, comparable to that of a small nuclear reactor.

Continue reading “Morocco Turns on What will Become the World’s Largest Solar Power Plant” »

The budding carmaker is investigating technology for plugless recharging its EVs.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG-_Dz6nseQ&feature=youtu.be

Israel latest technology 2016 unmanned military technology subscribe and thumbs up.

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Photochemical tissue bonding (PTB) is a light-based method to repair tissues and is an alternative to traditional sutures and staples used to close wounds. Unlike the latter, PTB does not cause inflammation and scarring at the repair site. PTB works by applying light-sensitive Rose Bengal dye to the exposed tissue. When the dye is exposed to green light, the dye absorbs the light, thereby causing the tissue to crosslink and form a water-tight seal. While PTB can seal incisions sans inflammation, the technique is limited by how deep the light can penetrate the tissue. Researchers from the University of St Andrews and Harvard Medical School have developed a bioabsorable optical waveguide, which can deliver light deep into tissues before being absorbed.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers fabricated optical waveguides from a variety of polymers, but ultimately tested the degradation times of the polymers PVP and PLGA (50:50) in vivo. They inserted 1 × 5 mm x 500 µm pieces of bulk polymer subcutaneously in mice and examined the implant at different time points. The PVP waveguide dissolved within one hour of implantation, whereas the PLGA polymer began to lose shape after 17 days, illustrating that researchers can tune the degradation time (ranging from hours to days) of the optical waveguide for a specific application.

After establishing the biodegradability of the polymer waveguides, the team showed how the waveguides could extend the penetration depth in PTB. Light was coupled to the device via pigtail fiber, which was trimmed off after light was applied, thus leaving only the bioabsorable polymer within the wound. Immediately after a pig was killed, they made a “full-thickness incision” (1 cm) on the dorsal skin and applied Rose Bengal dye. In the control, they applied 532-nm light (1 W) for 15 minutes at the surface of the wound. In waveguide assisted PTB, they inserted the polymer waveguide and applied light through the waveguide, effectively increasing the penetration depth of the light. The shear tensile strength of the control PTB was 0.33 kPa compared to 1.94 kPa in the waveguide assisted PTB, illustrating that the optical waveguide enabled tissue crosslinking and wound healing at greater depths.

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And it could save you some battery too.

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Chameleons are masters at rapidly changing the color of their skin to camouflage themselves or communicate with others. Scientists worldwide have long sought to mimic the skins of these reptiles to render people effectively invisible with chameleon suits.

Now a mechanical chameleon from China can change color to almost every hue in the visible spectrum with the aid of bumps made of gold and silver on its skin, researchers say. The scientists published their work this past month in the journal ACS Nano.

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Eva Galperin, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Morgan Marquis-Boire, Citizen Lab, University of Toronto.

Protecting high-risk individuals has always been a problem for the security industry. While many enterprises focus on mitigating scenarios that will affect the greatest number of their users, harm from attacks is not distributed proportionally. Cyber-attacks on high-risk individuals in dangerous situations can lead to torture, kidnapping, and worse. But dealing with targeted attacks is time-consuming and resource intensive. This problem is exacerbated when the target is an individual or small NGO rather than a large enterprise. This talk will discuss the challenges of protecting high-risk, targeted users using the experience of the speakers in assisting targeted NGOs and individuals.

Continue reading “USENIX Enigma 2016 — Protecting High Risk Users” »

Interesting article, and one thing that I have thoroughly enjoyed over the years is helping companies developed new products and services through innovation, or changing their IT organization into real profit centers like this article highlights. And, as part of these types of transformations it has always been key to change/ reinforce the culture’s mindset that business owns the definition of the strategies and solutions.

However, as AI becomes more and more prevelant across businesses; we could eventually see that IT ends up owning the definition as well as the enablement of the solutions for the company/ business. So, it is almost like we come full circle through AI after all. And, this is just one of many business/ corporate cultural questions that we will need to address with AI in the coming years.

There are many reasons to run IT as a well functioning business instead of the traditional cost center model. Below are the top 5 consequences of continuing to run IT in the traditional manner.

Continue reading “Why should you run IT as a business?” »