Hardware Battlefield entrant Pocket Drones blew past their initial goal of $30,000 last night after launching on our stage at CES 2014. The company, run by long-time friends and moderators of the Drone User’s Group, Tim Reuter, TJ Johnson, and Chance Roth, built their drones as an alternative to expensive, bulky toy drones.
Joel Flickinger’s two-bedroom home in the hills above Oakland, Calif., hums with custom-built computing gear. Just inside the front door, in a room anyone else might use as a den, he’s placed a desk next to a fireplace that supports a massive monitor, with cables snaking right and left toward two computers, each about the size of a case of beer. Flickinger has spent more than $20,000 on these rigs and on a slower model that runs from the basement. They operate continuously, cranking out enough heat to warm the house and racking up $400 a month in electric bills. There isn’t much by way of décor, other than handwritten inspirational Post-it notes:
“I make money easily,” one reads. “Money flows to me.” “I am a money magnet.”
Flickinger, 37, a software engineer and IT consultant by trade, doesn’t leave the house much these days. He’s a full-time Bitcoin miner.
Ryan Bushey — Business Insider
At The University of Southern California, Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has built a colossal 3D printer that can build a house in 24 hours. Khoshnevis’s robot comes equipped with a nozzle that spews out concrete and can build a home based on a set computer pattern.
We first saw this on MSN.com. The technology, known as Contour Crafting, could completely revolutionize the construction industry. Discover Magazine’s Brad Lemley explains that workers would lay down two rails for the robot to operate on.
By John O’Donnell — IEEE Spectrum
While the idea of an Amazon Prime Air drone dropping onto my doorstep and delivering my latest purchase might seem fun and cool, the reality is it simply may not be needed.
The only reason delivery trucks—such as the large brown trucks we see everywhere—only deliver to me around 4 p.m. each day is simply the time taken for one driver to take each parcel to an address. I call this one at a time parcel delivery. It’s the same story for the USPS service. Each day our excellent delivery guy comes to our neighborhood and then spends a long time going door to door.
By Tim Sandle — Digital Journal
Scientists have developed nanoparticles that carry two different cancer-killing drugs into the body and deliver those drugs to separate parts of the cancer cell where they will be most effective.
Nearly 50 years ago, Gordon Moore suggested that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would continue to double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future. Known as Moore’s law, the truth of that observation has made computers cheap and ubiquitous. Cellphones are so inexpensive there are now more than six billion of them—almost one for every person on the planet.
By Emily Siner — VPR
Thanks to new research out of MIT, you might one day be able to subtly manipulate your picture to make it more memorable — meaning that people should be more likely to remember your face.
According to the research article: “One ubiquitous fact about people is that we cannot avoid evaluating the faces we see in daily life … In this flash judgment of a face, an underlying decision is happening in the brain — should I remember this face or not? Even after seeing a picture for only half a second we can often remember it.”
Written By: Cameron Scott — Singularity Hub
After years running on the fumes of hype, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are beginning to hit the road.
Toyota made a big splash when it announced at the annual Consumer Electronics Show that it would market such a car beginning in the 2015 model year. Hyundai has also committed to roll out a fuel-cell vehicle next year. And Honda has already begun leasing its hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity to customers in California.
Rob Wile — Business Insider
Last week we told you how Texas Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) became the first sitting elected official in Washington to accept Bitcoin for his 2014 campaign against Sen. John Cornyn.
Dan Backer is going to make sure Stockman is not the last.
Written By: Cameron Scott — Singularity Hub
Even the most adamant techno-optimists among us must admit that new technologies can introduce hidden dangers: Fire, as the adage goes, can cook the dinner, but it can also burn the village down.
The most powerful example of unforeseen disadvantages stemming from technology is climate change. Should we attempt to fix a problem caused by technology, using more novel technology to hack the climate? The question has spurred heated debate.
