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Circa 2021 o.o


In less than two years, you might be able to buy a smartwatch —powered with a radioactive diamond battery—that will outlive you and your progeny for generations.

The potentially game-changing battery comes from the San Francisco–based startup Nano Diamond Battery (NDB), which lauds its namesake “high-power diamond-based alpha, beta, and neutron voltaic battery” for its ability to give devices “life-long and green energy.” Imagine: Just one battery could power your insulin pump or pacemaker for your entire life (with loads of time to spare). Or it could provide the juice for a space rover, collecting Mars regolith samples for decades without any human assistance.

Those are ambitious goals. So, could NDB’s bold claims actually become reality?

Culinary Herbs & Spices For Health, Wellness & Longevity — Dr. Hamed Faridi Ph.D., Executive Director, McCormick Science Institute


Dr. Hamed Faridi, Ph.D. is the founder of Faridi Strategy Group LLC and serves as the Executive Director of the McCormick Science Institute (https://www.mccormickscienceinstitute.com/).

Hamed is renowned as an innovative food industry leader, business executive, strategist, and board director. He is a visionary leader who conceives and implements innovative approaches — often using technology — to create and sustain business growth in the highly competitive food manufacturing industry. Hamed is known as someone who creates “momentum” and superior customer intimacy.

At first glance, Cui is depicted as a beautiful young professional in her 20s who joined Vanke’s accounting department in February 2021 and is the recipient of the company’s Best Newcomer Award. Cui has a 91.44 percent success rate in collecting overdue payments. In December 2021, Baixin Bank launched its first virtual employee named AIYA, and Jiangnan Rural Commercial Bank launched its VTM digital employees. Earlier in April 2019, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank introduced its first AI-powered digital employee named Xiaopu, capable of serving its bank users at different posts Notably, China’s first “meta-human” AYAYI made its debut on Chinese e-commerce platform Xiaohongshuin in May 2021. The hyper-realistic digital human garnered three million views on its first post.

According to a 2019 report compiled by Deloitte, a global professional services network, experts predict that using AI at a larger scale will add as much as $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.Deloitte’s report shows that from 2015 to 2020, the average annual compound growth rate of the global artificial intelligence market was 26.2 percent, while the growth rate of the Chinese AI market during the same period was 44.5 percent. Another report by Deloitte suggests that in 2025 the scale of China’s artificial intelligence industry will exceed $85 billion.

Presently, there are about 2,600 artificial intelligence companies in China. Most located in Beijing’s Haidian District technology hub, The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), a U.S. think tank, estimated the CCP’s total R&D investment in artificial intelligence in 2018 was between $2 billion and $8.4 billion.


From news anchors to company employees, AI-powered virtual humans have quickly taken over human posts in China.

𝐔𝐧𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬


By Jason Arunn Murugesu.

The sleeping brain is more active if it hears unfamiliar voices rather than familiar ones. The finding suggests that we can process information about our environments even in the depths of sleep.

Manuel Schabus at the University of Salzburg in Austria and his colleagues monitored 17 people, with an average age of 23, in a sleep lab over two nights. Brain activity was monitored using an electroencephalography (EEG) machine.

If you’re looking to get a fresh start on a new career in 2022, may I suggest a new occupation as a virtual reality robot delivery driver?

Yes, that’s a job – or at least a new gig – being offered by a startup out of Minneapolis called Carbon Origins. The company, which is building a refrigerated sidewalk delivery robot by the name of Skippy, is looking to assemble a roster of remote robot pilots who will utilize virtual reality technology to pilot Skippy around to businesses and consumer homes.

The company, which launched in early 2021 and participated in Techstars Farm to Fork accelerator this year, will be showcasing the new technology at CES 2022 in January. This past summer, the company started testing an early version of the VR-piloted robot in the above-street skyway system around St Paul, Minnesota and plans to begin testing deliveries to offices and homes in the Minneapolis market starting in January.

READER QUESTION: My understanding is that nothing comes from nothing. For something to exist, there must be material or a component available, and for them to be available, there must be something else available. Now my question: Where did the material come from that created the Big Bang, and what happened in the first instance to create that material? Peter, 80, Australia.

“The last star will slowly cool and fade away. With its passing, the universe will become once more a void, without light or life or meaning.” So warned the physicist Brian Cox in the recent BBC series Universe. The fading of that last star will only be the beginning of an infinitely long, dark epoch. All matter will eventually be consumed by monstrous black holes, which in their turn will evaporate away into the dimmest glimmers of light. Space will expand ever outwards until even that dim light becomes too spread out to interact. Activity will cease.

Or will it? Strangely enough, some cosmologists believe a previous, cold dark empty universe like the one which lies in our far future could have been the source of our very own Big Bang.