Category Archives: Reviews

Top Invention Review: Time Magazine – Nov 21, 2022

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TIME – TIME’s Best Inventions of 2022:

Intuition Robotics ElliQ

Chaperone robots have helped the world’s elderly overcome loneliness and social isolation worsened by the pandemic. But where most bots need prompting, ElliQ is proactive: the voice-operated AI-powered “personal sidekick” initiates conversation and helps its human companion develop healthy habits—social, physical, and mental.

Phonak Audéo Fit

Hearing aids are often stigmatized as a device for the old or infirm. But the latest hearing aids are anything but old–fashioned: they’re teched out with AI, fitness trackers, streaming capability, and more. Now Phonak is out with the first commercially available hearing aid with a heart-rate sensor. Audéo Fit’s receiver-in-canal device tracks fitness data, such as steps, activity level, and distance walked, while also monitoring the wearer’s heart rate when paired with the MyPhonak app.

Esper Hand

Capitalizing on advances in artificial intelligence and digital signal processing, Esper Bionics’ prosthetic hand is the first AI-powered, cloud-based robotic prosthetic that gets smarter over time. The lightweight device has up to 24 wearable sensors that detect and process muscle activity and brain impulses; machine learning from Esper’s platform enables the hand to act more “intuitively” over time.

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Previews: The Economist Magazine – Nov 12, 2022

The Trump effect

The Economist – Inside the November 12, 2022 issue:

The Trump effect

Despite the former president’s efforts, America and its democracy look stronger after the midterms

Imagining peace in Ukraine

How a stable and successful country could emerge from the trauma of Russia’s invasion

Great powers must talk

Refusing to speak is what children do when they are angry

Aging: ‘Healthy Longevity’ Journal – November 2022

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Inside the November 2022 Issue:

Research & review on #Alzheimers, global burden of benign prostatic hyperplasia, #WHO def of vitality capacity, IPD meta on social connection &  #cognition#oralhealth for older people & more.


Hope on the horizon for Alzheimer’s disease treatment?

Social connectedness and cognitive decline

Time to take oral health seriously

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Nov 10, 2022

Volume 611 Issue 7935

nature – Inside November 10, 2022 issue:

A natural experiment shows electric scooters really do cut traffic

A US city’s crackdown inadvertently reveals the vehicles’ value.

Extra-strength mRNA vaccine fends off a bevy of flu strains

A vaccine upgraded to target four influenza proteins instead of the usual one protects mice against a range of viral variants.

How the dinosaur got its long neck: slowly

A Brazilian fossil suggests that the super-stretcher necks of Argentinosaurus and its ilk evolved gradually rather than in a rush.

Sounds of the stars: how scientists are listening in on space

In astronomy, the use of sound instead of light is breaking down barriers to participation and providing insight into the Universe.

Previews: New Scientist Magazine – Nov 12, 2022

New Scientist Default Image

New Scientist – November 12, 2022 Issue:

How JWST could find signs of alien life in exoplanet atmospheres

The James Webb Space Telescope can peer into alien skies like never before. With six potentially habitable planets within its sights, astronomers are entering a new era in the search for biology beyond our solar system

What age do you really become an adult? And why it’s vital to know

The age at which you are considered an adult differs around the world, but emerging research into the developing brain suggests we may have got the concept of adulthood all wrong. When do we really become a grown-up?

Canada Views: The Walrus Magazine – December 2022

The Walrus – December 2022 Issue:

Will John Irving’s The Last Chairlift Stand the Test of Time?

For decades, the celebrated author ruled the public’s imagination. But times change—how will he be read now?

Is There Such a Thing as a Universal Human Experience? Author Marie-Claire Blais Says Yes

In her new novel, Songs for Angel, Blais proves that the twenty-first-century heir to modernism is a francophone octogenarian living in Florida

Architecture/Design: Enki Magazine – December 2022

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enki magazine – December 2022 Issue:

Adam Knibb constructs eco home | Focusing on carbon reduction

Situated within the Surrey Green Belt in Hampshire, the sustainable three-bedroom house responds to its surrounding natural environment and creates minimal visual impact. Aggregate foundations, locally sourced flint, and a CLT timber structure shape the contemporary design, blending it harmoniously into its picturesque setting, and also proving that it’s possible to recycle, re-source, and reduce impact in construction. 

ForestBank forms new type of wood | Getting creative with debris

Japanese designer Yuma Kano has creatively worked with forest debris to create ForestBank, a new type of wood that looks to minimise waste. 

This pioneering material design makes use of debris from the forest floor that would normally be considered worthless for furniture construction. Formed out of small trees, foliage, bark, seeds, and soil, ForestBank seeks to determine the full value of our local woodlands and in turn it creates an artistic and aesthetically pleasing material out of unutilised debris. 

Previews: Times Literary Supplement – Nov 11, 2022

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This week’s @TheTLS , featuring Anna Reid on Zelensky; @pwilcken on a divided Brazil; @james_waddell on manuscript collectors; @LamornaAsh on Tammy Faye; @LinahAlsaafin on Qatar; and Peter Thonemann on how Herodotus would fare in today’s academic job market … – and more.

Indoor Farms: AppHarvest – 90% Less Water With Tech

Business Insider – AppHarvest is exploring the future of indoor farming and agriculture technology by using up to 90% less water, human-assisting AI, and the power of the sun for reliable food growth. Alongside local education efforts, AppHarvest’s main focus is to provide US consumers with sustainable, reliable produce so that we can all enjoy a healthier, more vibrant planet in the future.

Art /Architecture: Domus Magazine – November 2022

The November issue of Domus, the latest edited by Guest Editor Jean Nouvel, focuses on urban globalization and its relationship with architecture. In his concluding Editorial, the French Pritzker Prize winner tackles the issue by writing about the right to live well that is being challenged by a world that is cloning itself.

“Living well is fundamental to everyone’s life. It is the starting point: without a happy living space, nothing can prosper. Urban globalization is the result of selfishness with no awareness of the immediate future, of a general absence of empathy”. This is followed, again edited by Jean Nouvel, by a selection of fragments from the book Dériville by Bruce Bégout, an essay on the thought of Guy Debord and the imaginative work of the Situationists.

This is followed in the Essays by Tom Avermaete, Professor of the History and Theory of Urban Design at ETH Zurich, and Michelangelo Sabatino, Professor at the College of Architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, tracing a history of the global in relation to architecture and the city.