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Archive for the ‘engineering’ category: Page 236

Apr 15, 2014

A low-cost vehicle that gets 84 miles per gallon

Posted by in categories: energy, engineering, transportation

Paul Elio believes he’s found a niche in the personal transportation market with a low-cost vehicle that can go really far between trips to the gas station.

Elio Motors has designed a three-wheeled vehicle that gets 84 miles per gallon. And with an eight-gallon tank it can get more than 670 miles in one fill up. The car’s price tag: $6,800.

“We’re not just creating a new vehicle,” Elio said in a press release announcing that more than 10,000 people have already reserved the vehicle. “We’re creating an entirely new industry segment that appeals to people who want a low-cost, highly efficient mode of transportation, but still want to own a unique vehicle that will turn some heads. The Elio gives people the best of both worlds.”

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Apr 15, 2014

Nanoelectronic circuits that operate more than 10,000 times faster than current microprocessors

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, nanotechnology

Kurweil AI
nus-focused-electron-beamCircuits that can operate at frequencies up to 245 terahertz — tens of thousands times faster than today’s state-of-the-art microprocessors — have been designed and fabricated by researchers at National University of Singapore and Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

The new circuits can potentially be used to construct ultra-fast computers or single-molecule detectors in the future, and open up new possibilities in nanoelectronic devices. For example, by changing the molecules in the molecular electronic device, the frequency of the circuits can be altered over hundreds of terahertz.

The invention uses a new physical process called “quantum plasmonic tunneling.” Plasmons are collective, ultra-fast oscillations of electrons that can be manipulated by light at the nanoscale.

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Apr 13, 2014

The Explosive Evolution That Took Rocket Cars and Trains to Space Flight

Posted by in categories: engineering, space travel

Amy Shira Teitel — Motherboard

The Explosive Evolution That Took Rocket Cars and Trains to Space Flight

One night in the spring of 1914, what appeared to be an impossibly large comet whizzed through the skies over Innsbruck, the capital city of Tyrol in western Austria. It terrified the locals; it was too big and too low in the sky to be something as innocent and ordinary as an actual comet or a planet. It turned out to be something equally innocuous, however alien: a rocket-powered model airplane. Nineteen-year-old high school student Max Valier had launched his model with a firecracker as its engine. It was the first in a series of rocket-powered vehicles he would test in his short lifetime, all in the hope of eventually seeing rockets carry men into space.

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Apr 1, 2014

The White Swan’s Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments! [TREATISE EXCERPT] By Mr. Andres Agostini at www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, alien life, astronomy, automation, big data, biological, bionic, bioprinting, biotech/medical, business, chemistry, climatology, complex systems, computing, cosmology, counterterrorism, cybercrime/malcode, cyborgs, defense, disruptive technology, driverless cars, drones, economics, education, energy, engineering, environmental, ethics, evolution, existential risks, exoskeleton, finance, food, futurism, genetics, geopolitics, government, habitats, hardware, health, homo sapiens, human trajectories, information science, innovation, internet, law, law enforcement, life extension, lifeboat, military, mobile phones, nanotechnology, neuroscience, open access, open source, philosophy, physics, policy, posthumanism, privacy, robotics/AI, science, scientific freedom, security, singularity, space, supercomputing, surveillance, sustainability, transhumanism, transparency, transportation

The White Swan’s Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments: How To Fundamentally Cope With Corporate Litmus Tests and With The Permanent Impact of the Dramatic Highly Improbable And Succeed and Prevail Through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! [TREATISE EXCERPT]. By © Copyright 2013, 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini — All Rights Reserved Worldwide — « www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini AND www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini » — The Lifeboat Foundation Global Chief Consulting Officer and Partner, Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador —

(An Independent, Solemn, Most-Thorough and Copyrighted Answer. Independence, solemnity, thoroughness, completeness, detail, granularity of details, accuracy and rigor, hereunder, will be then redefined by several orders of nonlinear magnitude and without a fail).

[TREATISE EXCERPT].

To Nora, my mother, who rendered me with the definitiveness to seek the thoughts and seek the forethoughts to outsmart any impending demand and other developments. To Francisco, my father: No one who has taught me better. There is no one I regard most highly. It is my greatest fortune to be his son. He endowed me with the Agostini family’s charter, “…Study and, when grown up, you will neither be the tyrants’ toy, nor the passions’ servile slave…” I never enjoyed a “…Mom…”, but considerably enjoyed a gargantuan courageous Mother, Father, Grandparents and Forbears.

Continue reading “The White Swan's Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments! [TREATISE EXCERPT] By Mr. Andres Agostini at www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini” »

Apr 1, 2014

Dirigible Drones Will Watch the World From 13 Miles Up

Posted by in categories: drones, engineering, surveillance

— Wired
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sGqQek3pqQ#t=106
With UAVs crowding navigable airspace and plans underway to put giant mega-satellites into orbit, it was just a matter of time before a drone-satellite hybrid was developed to fit between the two spaces. StratoBus, a new project out of France, is conceptualized to do just that. Designed to be about the length of a football field and 25 yards in diameter, the blimp-shaped vehicle’s shell will be made of carbon fiber.

Without a launcher, StratoBus floats to the lower stratosphere at an altitude of about 13 miles where developers say it will be in a perfect position to carry out a range of functions, including surveillance, border security monitoring, communications reinforcement and facilitating navigation — all from a stationary position with the help of two self-adjusting electric motors. The StratoBus will be able to endure missions of up to a year with a total lifetime of five years.

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Mar 29, 2014

This Enormous Rolling City Is Designed To Re-Plant The Desert

Posted by in categories: engineering, habitats

Adele Peters — Fast Company

Every year, more than 46,000 square miles of arable land turns to desert. As deserts spread–a process that keeps moving faster thanks to climate change and practices like clear-cutting–the UN estimates that more than 1 billion people will be directly affected. Many of them, living in places like Northern Africa and rural China, are already struggling with poverty, so the loss of farmland would be especially hard to handle.

One potential answer: An enormous mobile oasis that roams over drylands planting seeds. The Green Machine, originally designed by Malka Architecture and Yachar Bouhaya Architecture for the Venice Biennale, may some day be rolling around the borders of the Sahara Desert holding back the dust and sand.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3028173/this-enormous-rolling-cit…esertp://” target=“_blank”>Read More

Mar 24, 2014

The Future of Scientific Management, Today!

Posted by in categories: big data, biotech/medical, business, cyborgs, economics, engineering, futurism, science, scientific freedom

LIST OF UPDATES (MARCH 24 THROUGH MARCH 30/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

lba

Smartphone app reads blood oxygen levels, forewarns of life-threatening pre-eclampsia
http://www.kurzweilai.net/smartphone-app-reads-blood-oxygen-…-eclampsia

Stanford lab launches new privacy-based social network
http://www.kurzweilai.net/stanford-lab-launches-new-privacy-based-social-network

Continue reading “The Future of Scientific Management, Today!” »

Mar 21, 2014

Futureketing: How to Systematically Understand and Succeed in a World of Frantically Accelerating Pace of Change! ─ An Omnimode Exploration.

Posted by in categories: business, economics, education, engineering, finance, futurism, innovation, philosophy, science, scientific freedom, singularity, supercomputing, transhumanism

Futureketing: How to Systematically Understand and Succeed in a World of Frantically Accelerating Pace of Change! ─ An Omnimode Exploration. By © Copyright 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini ─ All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

(This Proprietary Book excerpt may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.

Please recall that “…if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.…”)

FUTUREKETING

Continue reading “Futureketing: How to Systematically Understand and Succeed in a World of Frantically Accelerating Pace of Change! ─ An Omnimode Exploration.” »

Mar 20, 2014

The Future of Space-Age Risk Management: Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! By Mr. Andres Agostini [BOOK]

Posted by in categories: automation, big data, business, complex systems, computing, counterterrorism, cybercrime/malcode, disruptive technology, economics, education, engineering, ethics, existential risks, finance, futurism, innovation, lifeboat, physics, science, scientific freedom, security, singularity

The Future of Space-Age Risk Management: Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! [BOOK] By © Copyright 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini (AA) ─ All Rights Reserved Worldwide ─ « www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini »

(An Independent, Solemn, Most Thorough and Copyrighted Answer. Thoroughness, hereunder, will be then redefined by several orders of magnitude and without a fail).

NasaAndy

What is a White Swan?

Continue reading “The Future of Space-Age Risk Management: Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! By Mr. Andres Agostini [BOOK]” »

Mar 20, 2014

The Future May Be Getting Close to Reality in Vancouver, With D-Wave and General Fusion

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, supercomputing

By Liz Gannes — Re/Code

Vancouver is a land of scenic harbors, tall mountains and startups trying to harness the limits of physics.

In town for the TED conference, I had the occasion to visit two such companies yesterday: D-Wave and General Fusion. D-Wave, a quantum computing company, is all about the very cold and the rather tiny. It has built enormous refrigerators that each house a single chip, laced with “qubits” that can be in the superposition of both 1 and 0 at the same time and can carry an electric current with no resistance at low temperatures.

Meanwhile, General Fusion is all about huge and hot. The company is putting together the pieces for an alpha version of a nuclear reactor plant that would use magnetized target fusion. That is, it slams together hydrogen atoms by shooting donut-shaped electrified plasma into a chamber where it’s squished by synchronized pistons from all angles. This happens at a temperature of 150 million degrees. The point: To create clean and cheap energy.

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