Category: tomorrow

Amazon drones, live-action Excel and life after iTunes

[ad_1] The company expects to have these in use within “months.”Amazon’s new delivery drone is a helicopter-airplane hybrid The new delivery drone Amazon showed off is a “hybrid design” that can take off and land vertically like a typical hexacopter drone, but it has aerodynamics (and thus efficiency) more like that of a fixed-wing aircraft. […]

UK university will study students’ social media data to prevent suicide

[ad_1] According to a press release, the university already looks at data like grade patterns, lecture attendance and library use to flag potential mental health issues. Now, funding provided by the Office for Students will allow researchers to develop more data points. Given that most students likely use social media more than the library, the […]

This AI-powered subreddit has been simulating the real thing for years

[ad_1] The bots comment on each other’s posts, and things can quickly get heated. Topics range from politics to food to relationships to completely nonsensical memes. While many of the posts are incomprehensible or nonsensical, it’s hard to argue that much of life on social media isn’t. A great deal of the posts come off […]

Autonomous ‘roboats’ can assemble into floating structures

[ad_1] The docking mechanism itself is a ball-and-socket system that uses a laser to tell when the ball is inside, locking the arriving robot into place. The socket, meanwhile, is a funnel that gives the boats leeway to bounce around in the water. There’s no guarantee you’ll see production versions of this tech. Roboat has […]

Americans consume an alarming amount of microplastics

[ad_1] The study estimates that annual microplastic consumption ranges from 39,000 to 52,000 particles, from food sources alone. When you factor in the microplastics Americans inhale, the numbers jump to 74,000 and 121,000. Americans who drink exclusively from plastic water bottles may be ingesting an additional 90,000 microplastics annually, which at the very least should […]

Amazon’s StyleSnap puts fashion from photos in your shopping cart

[ad_1] To use StyleSnap, users click on the camera icon in the corner of the Alexa app and take a photo of the fashion look they hope to replicate. Amazon will then respond with a list of recommendations of similar items. By relying on deep-learning technology, StyleSnap can distinguish between different styles of clothing such […]

Google shares its Street View air-quality data with scientists

[ad_1] Known as Project Air View, Google first began equipping its Street View cars with air pollution sensors in Oakland back in 2012 after a proposal by the Environmental Defense Fund. The company teamed up with Aclima, a San Francisco-based company that makes internet-connected air quality sensors, and has since expanded to other regions of […]

Robert Downey Jr. wants to clean up Earth using nanotech

[ad_1] The actor was there to open Amazon’s Las Vegas based conference covering MARS, short for Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space. Downey Jr. didn’t explain how the Footprint Coalition would achieve its goals, or who it will partner with to achieve its aims. He was at the event mostly to speak about the benefits […]

‘Unprecedented’ 3D magnetic interactions could change computing

[ad_1] In a paper published today in Nature Materials, a team led by University of Glasgow physicists describe how they were able to pass information from a series of tiny magnets arranged on an ultra-thin film to magnets on a second film below. This new form of magnetic interaction makes a formerly two-dimensional phenomenon three […]