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Showing posts with the label Technology

Facebook and Microsoft are building a huge trans-Atlantic data cable

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The high-capacity system should be ready by October 2017. Microsoft and Facebook today have announced a partnership to build a massive underwater data cable connecting the US to Europe, an effort that'll help the two internet giants better move data back and forth around the world. The cable, dubbed " MAREA," should be ready by October 2017 and will have an insane estimated data capacity of 160Tbps, making it the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic. It's not hard to understand why having a better infrastructure for transmitting data is important to both Facebook and Microsoft. Facebook has a whopping 1.6 billion users, and that's not counting traffic from other hugely popular services like Instagram and Whatsapp. For Microsoft's part, its Azure cloud services use a ton of bandwidth, and that's without mentioning its other cloud-based products like Bing, Office, Skype and Xbox Live. The MAREA system isn't ...

SOLAR ROADWAYS

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Solar Roadways has taken the first step to creating the world’s largest solar panel: The company uses tempered glass and photovoltaic cells to create intelligent, energy-harvesting pavement, complete with built-in heating elements for melting ice and LEDs for signage. The technology is still in its infancy, but with funding from the Federal Highway Administration and an Indiegogo campaign, the company finished a prototype parking lot in Idaho earlier this year.  Solar Roadways

THE SKEYE NANO IS THE WORLD'S SMALLEST CAMERA DRONE

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The average camera drone today is a hawk-sized quadcopter with reels of FAA red tape wrapped around it. The SKEYE Nano is something a little different. This tiny drone weighs less than half an ounce, yet it is equipped with a video camera and full six-axis stabilization. It flies beautifully inside and out, and is small enough to avoid FAA regulations altogether. The Popular Science Shop has this pocket-sized eye in the sky for $49.99 with free shipping. You can launch the SKEYE by throwing it like a paper airplane, allowing the four tiny blades to take over. In flight, the drone is surprisingly agile. There are three levels of control sensitivity to suit pilots of varying abilities, with the most sensitive setting allowing experienced users to thread the drone through tiny gaps. You can also pull flips and rolls, and gyroscopic stabilization provides a steady view for the built-in camera. This offers video and still images, which are saved onto the provided memory card. The ...

A House that Walks

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A new prototype house walked around the campus of the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire, England. The eco-friendly house is powered by solar cells and minature windmills, and comes with a kitchen, a composting toilet, a system for collecting rain water, one bed, a wood stove for CO2 neutral heating, a rear opening that forms a stairway entrance, and six legs. A collaborative effort between MIT and the Danish design collective N55, the house walks about five kilometers an hour similar to the walking speed of a human. The legs reguire a software algorithm to calculate the movement and position of the legs to provide stability over varying terrain. The house can turn, move forward or backwards, or change height as required and can be programmed with GPS waypoints for traveling to destinations. Source: www.n55.dk

Car Gps Tracking

Car Gps Tracking is fairly common in new vehicles, providing drivers with tracking and navigation. However, latest technology inventions have made car gps tracking systems more sophisticated, allowing for a wide range of additional uses. Smartbox technology is one example of how car gps tracking systems are being used to lower car insurance. A comprehensive recording of a driver's habits allows insurance companies to provide "pay-as-you-drive" car insurance. City officials in New York City are considering how car gps tracking could be used as "Drive Smart" technology. Most large cities have a limited capability to change the infrastructure of their roadways. A car gps tracking system that integrates with traffic information would give drivers the ability to select routes in real time that were more fuel efficient, less congested, faster or shorter. A driver's recorded routing selection could then be used to penalize or reward drivers by lower...

3D Printed Car

The latest technology inventions in 3d printing are rapidly changing how things are being made. It's an emerging technology that is an alternative to the traditional tooling and machining processes used in manufacturing. At the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago, a little known Arizona-based car maker created a media sensation by manufacturing a car at the show. It was a full scale, fully functional car that was 3d printed in 44 hours and assembled in 2 days. The video below shows the car being made. The car is called a "Strati", Italian for  layers , so named by it's automotive designer Michele Anoè because the entire structure of the car is made from layers of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (A.B.S.) with reinforced carbon fiber into a single unit. The average car has more than 20,000 parts but this latest technology reduces the number of parts to 40 including all the mechanical components. “The goal here is to get the number of parts down,...

A multibillion-dollar robot dispatched to Mars to search for life.

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A multibillion-dollar robot dispatched to Mars to search for life must steer clear of promising “hot spots” for fear of spreading microbes from Earth, NASA project scientists said last week. The specter of a missed opportunity was thrown into sharp relief by smoking-gun evidence unveiled last week that liquid water, a prerequisite for life, existed not only in a distant Martian past, but is likely there today. “Curiosity isn’t designed to go to a place that can currently support microbial life,” said Michael Meyer, a scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. “For that we need a higher level of cleanliness,” which is more complicated and costly to achieve, he told AFP. This exasperating reality was the result of a fateful decision years ago to forego NASA’s most stringent microbe-removal standards for hardware visiting the moist environments in which Martian life — if it exists — will probably be found. The danger of letting Curiosity investigate the newly found s...