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Archive for the ‘habitats’ category: Page 108

Oct 25, 2017

Drone Footage of Europe’s First 3D-Printed House

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, drones, habitats

Russia has become the first country in Europe to use a 3D printer to construct a real residential house. https://sptnkne.ws/fKYu

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Oct 17, 2017

Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance Announce Agreement to Place a B330 Habitat in Low Lunar Orbit

Posted by in categories: business, habitats, space travel

Las Vegas, NV and Centennial, Colo. (Oct. 17, 2017) – Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are working together to launch a B330 expandable module on ULA’s Vulcan launch vehicle. The launch would place a B330 outfitted module in Low Lunar Orbit by the end of 2022 to serve as a lunar depot.

“We are excited to work with ULA on this lunar depot project,” said Robert Bigelow, president of Bigelow Aerospace. “Our lunar depot plan is a strong complement to other plans intended to eventually put people on Mars. It will provide NASA and America with an exciting and financially practical success opportunity that can be accomplished in the short term. This lunar depot could be deployed easily by 2022 to support the nation’s re-energized plans for returning to the Moon.

”This commercial lunar depot would provide anchorage for significant lunar business development in addition to offering NASA and other governments the Moon as a new exciting location to conduct long-term exploration and astronaut training.”

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Oct 15, 2017

Startup Iron Ox is developing small farms in suburbia that will be run by robots

Posted by in categories: finance, food, habitats, robotics/AI, sustainability

You could drive past and never see the only farm in San Carlos, California. The tiny city of 30,000 that sits between San Francisco and Silicon Valley has all the charms of suburbia—sprawling office parks and single-story homes—but doesn’t seem a likely suspect for agriculture.

The farm, run by startup Iron Ox, is nestled between three stonemasons and a plumber in a nondescript office park building; there’s no greenhouse, no rows of freshly-tilled soil, or tractor parked outside. Only peeking in the large bay door reveals the building’s tenants: a few hundred plants and two brightly-colored robot farmers.

Iron Ox looks a lot like a tech company. One of its co-founder is an ex-Google engineer and it raised $1.5 million in pre-seed venture capital from Y Combinator, Pathbreaker, and Cherubic Ventures in April 2016. Instead of fake food, or plant-based meat meals, or even a food delivery service tethered to an app, Iron Ox is reinventing farming, raising real, not faux, food. Think hydroponically raised lettuce and basil, like what you’d get at an ordinary farmers market.

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Oct 15, 2017

Your future companion in your old age could be a robot

Posted by in categories: food, habitats, robotics/AI

The market is definitely there. But, it needs to be able to do a minimum amount of practical things, in about this order: 1. it needs to be able to cook even the most basic of meals, being unable to cook for themselves is usually the main reason someone has to go into a nursing home; 2. being able to clean your average kitchen and bathroom; 3. being able to do basic yard tasks, operating a lawnmower and a snowblower. Those would be the most important, after those get mastered have it equipped to do more niche tasks and entertainment features.

As to when, we have clumsy humanoid robots right now, and AI will supposedly reach human level around 2029. It will just be a task of merging those two between now and then, and getting that robot down to a reasonable cost, which i think would be in the neighborhood of a brand new SUV.


As artificial intelligence advances, we humans will form relationships with our robot helpers and caregivers.

Continue reading “Your future companion in your old age could be a robot” »

Oct 11, 2017

A Robot Can Print This $32,000 House in as Little as 8 Hours

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, habitats, robotics/AI, solar power, sustainability

Building a house by hand can be both time-consuming and expensive. Numerous homebuilders have chosen to automate part of the construction (i.e., by printing the home’s parts) instead.

A new Ukrainian homebuilding startup called PassivDom uses a 3D printing robot that can print parts for tiny houses. The machine can print the walls, roof, and floor of PassivDom’s 380-square-foot model in about eight hours. The windows, doors, plumbing, and electrical systems are then added by a human worker.

When complete, the homes are autonomous and mobile, meaning they don’t need to connect to external electrical and plumbing systems. Solar energy is stored in a battery connected to the houses, and water is collected and filtered from humidity in the air (or you can pour water into the system yourself). The houses also feature an independent sewage system.

Continue reading “A Robot Can Print This $32,000 House in as Little as 8 Hours” »

Oct 10, 2017

The Secrets of Google’s Moonshot Factory

Posted by in categories: habitats, robotics/AI

How the tech giant is trying to leverage the science of breakthroughs and resurrect the lost art of invention

A snake-robot designer, a balloon scientist, a liquid-crystals technologist, an extradimensional physicist, a psychology geek, an electronic-materials wrangler, and a journalist walk into a room. The journalist turns to the assembled crowd and asks: Should we build houses on the ocean?

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Oct 3, 2017

Ikea has debuted an indoor farm that grows greens three times faster than a garden

Posted by in categories: food, habitats, sustainability

Ikea is known for its flat-pack kitchen tables, islands, and cabinets.

Now the home furnishings retailer is experimenting with products that allow people to harvest food at home.

Space10, Ikea’s innovation lab, has designed a prototype of a mini-farm that can grow greens and herbs indoors.

Continue reading “Ikea has debuted an indoor farm that grows greens three times faster than a garden” »

Sep 27, 2017

Investors should wake up to Japan’s robotic future

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education, habitats, robotics/AI

Out of necessity, Japan has been pushing on the robotics frontier for years. As a result, the proliferation and embrace of robots goes well beyond the Japanese factory floor to include schools, hospitals, nursing homes, airports, train stations and even temples.


Unfavourable demographics are spurring innovation — and investment opportunities.

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Sep 25, 2017

Humans could soon live on the moon and Mars in LAVA tunnels

Posted by in categories: habitats, space

Two separate teams of researchers have been working on ways to exploit these lava tubes.

They are found in many volcanic areas on Earth, including Lanzarote, Hawaii, Iceland, North Queensland in Australia, Sicily and the Galapagos islands.

Continue reading “Humans could soon live on the moon and Mars in LAVA tunnels” »

Sep 24, 2017

This guy proposed to his girlfriend in a VR version of her grandmother’s house

Posted by in categories: habitats, virtual reality

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