Technology

Is Sustainable Packaging Possible?

The world is addicted to plastic. Plastic pollution is one of the most urgent environmental issues of our time. Each year, 78 million metric tons of plastic packaging is produced across the world and of that, only 14% is ever recycled. What isn’t recycled ...

Article - Arthur Fong - Mar 10 2021 - 3:46pm

End Of The Uncanny Valley? The COVID-19 Pandemic Made Us Love Machines More

Whatever Uncanny Valley when it comes to machines still existed in 2019 got a lot smaller in 2020. We're even being nicer to them since 2020. People mostly dispense with social norms of human interaction and treat machines differently. The behavior ho ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 22 2021 - 12:58pm

Can 5G Cell Phone Tech Eventually Bring Us Tesla's Wireless Electricity?

At the height of his career, the pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla became obsessed with an idea. He theorised that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly through the air at long distances – either via a series of strategically positioned to ...

Article - The Conversation - Apr 10 2021 - 6:01am

What Skynet? People Trust Computers More Than Humans

Though it is common to complain that advertising is following you everywhere and algorithms control our news, it is instead the case that the more tedious or challenging a task becomes, the more humans trust computers instead. Not many people listen to 4,0 ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 13 2021 - 1:35pm

Can AI Help Slow Future Pandemics?

If you missed the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, wait a few years and catch the next one. One happened in 2012, and in 2003, and since it was only discovered as distinct from the common cold in the 1960s, they may have been happening forever. If it isn' ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 14 2021 - 9:33am

Uncanny Valley: A Webcam That Looks Like A Human Eye

Are you being monitored all of the time? You certainly are, by both corporations and the government. It just may not be obvious in the U.S., whereas in London you are filmed by government 300 times each day, and that concerns privacy advocates. What if the ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 16 2021 - 6:01am

People Who Try Drone Delivery Love It

In 2019, Christiansburg, Virginia's 22,000 residents became the first place in the U.S. to have a residential drone delivery service. Yellow-winged drones with small cardboard boxes owned by Wing, a company owned by Alphabet (basically, Google) are no ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2021 - 3:05pm

Acceleron Makes History By Getting FDA's First Notice Of Noncompliance For Not Posting Results To ClinicalTrials.Gov

The ClinicalTrials.gov data bank, managed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Library of Medicine, requires trial sponsors to register applicable clinical trials within 21 days after the first human subject is enrolled and submit certain su ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 28 2021 - 5:47pm

Quantum Computing In Finance – Where We Stand And Where We Could Go

Quantum computers (QCs) operate totally differently than classical computers. Due to the quantum effects known as superposition and entanglement, quantum bits (called qubits) can take on non-binary states represented by complex numbers. This facilitates c ...

Article - Joseph Byrum - May 13 2021 - 1:07pm

New Device Turns Mental 'Writing' Into Onscreen Text

Researchers working with a paralyzed participant who has sensors implanted in his brain have deciphered the brain activity associated with trying to write letters by hand. They used an algorithm to identify letters as he attempted to write them. Then, the ...

Article - News Staff - May 17 2021 - 2:07pm