There was a long period of stronger productivity growth from 1917 to 1973 driven by low-cost oil and increasing usage of cars and more efficient factories. We are entering a new period of stronger productivity growth from energy cheaper than oil, self-driving cars making transportation cheaper than car ownership, AI-Big Data and robotics boosting the …
University of Michigan researchers created a reservoir computing system that reduces training time and improves capacity of similar neural networks. A new type of neural network made with memristors can dramatically improve the efficiency of teaching machines to think like humans. The network, called a reservoir computing system, could predict words before they are said …
Japanese RIKEN researchers are trying to adapt existing the silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) to integrate qubits with current electronics, offering the potential for scaling up quantum devices and bringing quantum computing closer to becoming a reality. Keiji Ono and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and the Toshiba Corporation in Japan, …
Thermoelectric (TE) materials could play a key role in future technologies. Although the applications of these remarkable compounds have long been explored, they are mostly limited to high-temperature devices. Recently, researchers at Osaka University, in collaboration with Hitachi, Ltd., developed a new TE material with an improved power factor at room temperature. Their study, published …
Making the wakes of ocean ships brighter could cool the Earth by 0.5°C and help combat global warming, according to a new modeling study. Other geoengineering studies have examined how greenhouse gas warming could be counteracted by making Earth’s atmosphere more reflective. But this is one of the first to look at using the bright, …
Protests are spreading unpredictably fast in several cities in Iran. They are protesting against high unemployment, a stagnant economy with inflationary prices and expensive overseas military interventions. A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran’s weak economy swept into Tehran on Saturday, with college students and others chanting against the government just hours after hard-liners held …
Makerbot has created lesson plans to help kids work toward a project with a real-life application. Jackson Sanborn is helping them find “A problem that we can create a fix for.” This year, one high school student will print a gimbal camera mount to film projects for his acting class. MakerBot 3D Printers are the …
Construction of China’s 600 MWe demonstration fast reactor at Xiapu, Fujian province, has officially begun with the pouring of the first concrete for the reactor’s basemat. The reactor is scheduled to begin commercial operation by 2023. A 65 MWt fast neutron reactor – the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) – near Beijing achieved criticality in …
OneWeb is launching a global 2.5 gigabit per second satellite internet service by 2021. OneWeb received permission from the FCC in June to deploy a global network of 720 low-Earth orbit satellites using the Ka (20/30 GHz) and Ku (11/14 GHz) frequency bands. Earlier in 2017, OneWeb started building a satellite manufacturing factory which will …
Another Cryptocurrency doubles in one week. This time it was Ripple. Ripple is used for transactions on Ripple’s open-source RippleNet cryptocurrency network, reached $1.82. The price rally arrived after a long period of inactivity in the market, which had held steady at $0.20 over the past six months. As a result, the market capitalization of …
ARPA-E has announced funding for about $199 million for which atomically precise catalysts and atomically precise membranes could qualify. ARPA-E announced up to $100 million in funding for new projects as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA‑E) latest OPEN funding opportunity. OPEN will support America’s top innovators through dozens of early-stage research and …