Instead of reflecting on the unlikelihood of rare catastrophes after the fact, Stanford risk analysis expert Elisabeth Paté-Cornell prescribes an engineering approach to anticipate them when possible, and to manage them when not. Her research suggests that other fields could borrow risk analysis strategies from engineering to make better management decisions, even in the case …
Elon Musk dropped a few further hints about his Hyperloops transit plan in London last night, saying it was “a cross between a Concorde and a rail gun” whose biggest hurdles included “right-of-way” issues.And it seems that the ultimate destiny of the futuristic system would be to shift aging tech entrepreneurs around their retirement communities …
Aviation Week – NASA says operations aboard the International Space Station should not be affected if the SpaceX CRS-2 cargo delivery mission currently slated for January slips as a result of the ongoing investigation into the first-stage engine loss that occurred on the Oct. 7 CRS-1 mission. The supply cache delivered to the station in …
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory launched a new era of scientific supercomputing today with Titan, a system capable of churning through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second—or 20 petaflops—by employing a family of processors called graphic processing units first created for computer gaming. Titan will be 10 times more …
1. USA Today – The phone will launch with the Android 4.1 mobile operating system. It’s also the first Samsung phone for the U.S. to house a powerful quad-core processor. I’ve had a chance to check out the T-Mobile version for more than a week. Despite a few networking snags — T-Mobile’s 4G network was …
Phys Org – Northwestern University scientists have developed a thermoelectric material that is the best in the world at converting waste heat to electricity. This is very good news once you realize nearly two-thirds of energy input is lost as waste heat. This is a very environmentally stable material that is expected to convert 15 …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 122 is up at the ANS Nuclear Cafe If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science …
Small, light-weight and low-cost missions will become increasingly important to NASA’s exploration goals for our solar system. Ideally teams of dozens or even hundreds of small, collapsable robots, weighing only a few kilograms a piece, will be conveniently packed during launch and would reliably separate and unpack at their destination. Such teams will allow rapid, …
The Singularity Summit is the world’s leading dialog on the Singularity, bringing together scientists, technologists, skeptics, and enthusiasts alike. It was created to provide a much needed forum to discuss the risks and opportunities presented by our expanding relationship with technology. Visit our registration page for the 2012 Summit, where you can buy tickets before …
Researchers from the FOM Foundation and Eindhoven University of Technology have successfully made a ‘magnetic domain-wall ratchet’ memory, a computer memory that is built up from moving bits of magnetised areas. This memory potentially offers many advantages compared to standard hard disks, such as a higher speed, lower electricity consumption and much longer life. Using …
Technology Review – In Automate This, a book due out next month, author and entrepreneur Christopher Steiner tells the story of stockbroker Thomas Peterffy, the creator of the first automated Wall Street trading system. Using a computer to execute trades, without humans entering them manually on a keyboard, was controversial in 1987—so controversial that Nasdaq …