Hans Rosling, Swedish Statistician Predicts the Exact Date China and India Catchup to the West in Per Capita Income

Hans Rosling in a TED Talk discusses the history of individual health and wealth from 1858 through today and into the future. He discusses the importance of national sovereignty, which helped Japan from 1858 to 1949 when India and China did not have it. I will give the punchline date at the end of this …

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Natural and artificial atoms for quantum computation

Arxiv 21 page pdf – work by Japan Riken and University of Michigan – Remarkable progress towards realizing quantum computation has been achieved using natural and artificial atoms. On the one hand, natural atoms (such as neutral atoms and ions) have long coherence times, and could be stored in large arrays, providing ideal “quantum memories”. …

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3-dimensional batteries and fuel cells powered by sugar.

Bruce Dunn is a Professor of Materials Science at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Follow him (video below) around UCLA’s campus as he discusses 3-dimensional batteries and demonstrates fuel cells powered by sugar. Today’s batteries are two-dimensional, with a layer of anode, a layer of cathode and a layer of electrolyte. …

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Towards Real Time Computational Governance

In my 2010 Foresight presentation on high impact technology and processes, I initially mentioned an idea for computational governance. Computational governance mechanisms would assist in better decisions in government and business. The goal would be to use technology (sensors, imaging etc…) to as quickly as possible get accurate feedback on the results of new policies …

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DNA Nucleosides in a Tunneling Gap and Carbon Nanotube Nanopore DNA Reading Could Speed DNA Sequencing 1000 Times

Tunneling measurements with functionalized electrodes. (A) A gold probe and a gold substrate are functionalized with a monolayer of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid, and the size of the gap between two electrodes maintained under servo control at a value such that the two monolayers do not interact with one another, resulting in a tunnel current signal that …

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Brian Wang Interviewed for Public Access Show Future Talk on an Introduction to Nanotechnology

Public Access TV Show Future Talk has an episode on Nanotechnology and it’s future applications Host Martin Wasserman interviews technology forecaster and research director of the Lifeboat Foundation Brian Wang, and managing partner of Cleantech Circle and co-founder of the MIT-Stanford-Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum Wasiq Bokhari. The show is about 30 minutes long and was a …

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Norway Funds Innovative and Potentially More Cost Effective 10 Megawatt Wind Turbine

Enova will provide the Bergen-based company Sway AS with funding in the amount of NOK 137 million to demonstrate a new 10 Megawatt wind turbine prototype. The project represents a significant potential reduction in the cost of generating offshore wind power. The funding from Enova will contribute to the construction of a 10 MW wind …

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Progress on Laser Systems for Destroying Mosquitos and Missiles

1. Intellectual Ventures Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer, has assembled commonly available technology — parts used in printers, digital cameras and projectors — to make rapid lasers to shoot down mosquitoes in mid-flight. The laser mosquito zapping work was first covered here in early 2009 After hundreds of mosquitoes (which were kept in …

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Imec and Holst Centre achieve breakthrough in battery-less radios

At today’s International Solid State Circuit Conference, imec and Holst Centre report a 2.4GHz/915MHz wake-up receiver which consumes only 51µW power. This record low power achievement opens the door to battery-less or energy-harvesting based radios for a wide range of applications including long-range RFID and wireless sensor nodes for logistics, smart buildings, healthcare etc. Today’s …

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Eike Batista Forecasts 5-6 Million Barrels of Oil Per Day for Brazil by 2020

OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA rose to a two-week high in Sao Paulo trading after the oil company controlled by Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista said a well may hold as many as 900 million barrels of recoverable oil. The OGX oil is in shallow offshore oil on the continental shelf off of Brazil. The …

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