Video timeline: 00:00 Pebble Flow RV 00:10 Development of the Pebble Flow 00:48 Dual Electric Motors 01:36 App-controlled Remote Parking 02:02 45 Kilowatt-hour Battery 02:31 Magic Hitch 03:10 Instant Camp Feature
Category Archives: Technology
Moon Missions: Launch Of The New ‘Lunar Economy’
The FT’s Peggy Hollinger asks if the next great leap forward in space is a lunar economy?
Harvard Business Review – November/December 2023
The Resale Revolution
Increasingly, companies are reselling their own products. Should you get into the game?
Summary: The average U.S. household contains a trove of potentially reusable goods worth roughly $4,500. That’s a lot of trapped value, and companies are at last getting serious about accessing it—by developing new resale capabilities. Resale has been with us for a very long time, of course—at yard sales, on used-car lots, in classified ads.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Real-Time Pricing
An advanced AI model considers much more than what competitors are charging.
Summary: In today’s fast-paced world of digital retailing, the ability to revise prices swiftly and on a large scale has emerged as a decisive differentiator for companies. Many retailers now track competitors’ prices via systems that scrape rivals’ websites and use this information as an input to set their own prices manually or automatically. A common strategy is to charge X dollars or X percent less than a target competitor. However, retailers that use such simple heuristics miss significant opportunities to fine-tune pricing.
World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Oct 14, 2023
0:15 Why engagement in the news is in decline – A massive media survey looked at trust and engagement in the news and found both are in steady decline. Just 48% of people say they are very or extremely interested in the news in 2023 down from 63% in 2017. Trust in the news has fallen 2 percentage points in a year. Now, only 40% say they trust the news most of the time and 36% say they actively avoid the news sometimes or often.
1:53 This robot can help people with disabilities dress – The robot was designed by a team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). They used a simulation to teach it how to perform its task. The team used an AI-driven approach called ‘reinforcement learning’. The robot was rewarded each time it correctly placed a shirt further along an arm.
3:25 Company captures and stores CO2 with limestone – Heirloom takes crushed limestone and heats it in a kiln powered by renewable energy. The reaction generates two products. These are CO2, which can be permanently stored underground or in materials like concrete and a powder, which is hydrated with water to make calcium hydroxide. When the calcium hydroxide is spread onto trays, it absorbs CO2 from the air to become limestone and the whole process can begin again.
5:24 How to use ChatGPT more safely – ChatGPT is an AI tool that gives detailed, natural language answers to prompts based on a database of 300 billion words drawn from books and articles. The AI learns from its interactions with you, so here are 5 ways to ensure you’re using it safely.
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The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
Space: NASA’s $1 Billion Metal Asteroid Mission
Video timeline: 0:00 NASA’s mission 0:46 The psyche asteroid 1:45 Why metal matters 3:04 What we can learn from the mission
The rocky inner planets of our solar system are thought to have mostly metallic cores. WSJ breaks down why this mission matters and what it could tell us about Earth’s origins.
Science And Technology: Issues Magazine (Fall ’23)
ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE (FALL 2023): The latest issue of @ISSUESinST features Lessons from Ukraine, Quantum Workforce, The Energy Transition, Why Space Debris Flies Through Regulatory Gaps and more…
Blue Dreams
Blue Dreams is an immersive video experience inspired by microbial networks in the deep sea and beyond. Using stunning undersea video footage, abstract imagery, and computer modeling, the work offers a glimpse into the complicated relationships among the planet’s tiniest—yet most vital—living systems.
Why Space Debris Flies Through Regulatory Gaps
MARILYN HARBERT, ASHA BALAKRISHNAN
Orbital debris has been a looming issue for decades, and it’s only getting worse as activities in space increase. With technical expertise and authority over space activities widely distributed across the US government, officials need to determine the appropriate regulations and policies to address how space is changing.
World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Oct 7, 2023
0:15 Start-up turns trees destined for landfills into products – Every year, US cities lose 36 million trees. They succumb to old age or disease or are felled to make space for development Much of this wood could be made into useful products but instead it’s turned into woodchips or used as firewood and 12 million tonnes end up in US landfills each year. To prevent this, Cambium Carbon partners with sawmills, arborists, and manufacturers to build local, circular supply chains. Wood destined for landfill is diverted and upcycled into siding, flooring, furniture and more. Cambium calls its product ‘Carbon Smart Wood’.
1:55 These solar panels work even on snowy days – A new coating causes snow to slide off panels ensuring they can generate power all year round. The coating was developed by a team at the University of Toledo. It can be easily retrofitted to existing equipment.
3:28 US women pay billions more for healthcare than men – Researchers at Deloitte analyzed data on 16 million workers with health coverage. They found women spend $15.4 billion more every year on healthcare than men,. That works out to a premium of $266 for the average womanor around 18% more than men. This discrepancy exists for all women of working age.
4:57 French supermarket launches packaging return scheme – Customers in 100 Carrefour stores can buy products in reusable packaging. They pay a small deposit which is refunded when they drop the empty packaging back at the store. This system is called Loop. It’s the brainchild of waste management firm TerraCycle
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The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
Special Report: ‘Homeland Economics’ (October 2023)
Homeland Economics
Governments across the world are rediscovering industrial policy. They are making a big mistake, argues Callum Williams
- Governments across the world are discovering “homeland economics”
- Attempts to make supply chains “resilient” are likely to fail
- “Homeland economics” will make the world poorer
- New industrial policies will make the world more unequal
- Green protectionism comes with big risks
- New industrial policies will not help economic stability
- Video: Busting globalisation myths
- Sources and acknowledgments
Technology Quarterly – The Economist (Oct 2023)
TECHNOLOGY QUARTERLY (SEPTEMBER 27, 2023) – The new issue features ‘In search of forever’ – Slowing, let alone reversing, the process of ageing was once alchemical fantasy. Now it is a subject of serious research and investment, Geoffrey Carr reports.
Slowing human ageing is now the subject of serious research
And some of it is making progress, writes Geoffrey Carr
“All my possessions for a moment of time.” Those, supposedly, were the last words of Elizabeth I, who as queen of England had enough possessions to be one of the richest women of her era. Given her patronage of alchemists—who searched, among other things, for an elixir of life—she may have meant it literally. But to no avail. She had her last moment of time in March 1603, a few months short of the three score years and ten asserted by the Bible to be “the days of our years”.
Eating fewer calories can ward off ageing
And various existing medicines may offer similar benefits
In 1991 eight volunteers sealed themselves into a huge greenhouse in the desert near Tucson, Arizona. They were part of an experiment seeking to discover whether a carefully curated selection of plants and animals could develop into a self-sustaining ecosystem: a “Biosphere 2” independent of “Biosphere 1”, aka the outside world.
Analysis: Meta, PayPal & X Race To Build A ‘Super App’
Video timeline: 0:00 App efficiency 0:37 The appeal 2:18 U.S. issues 4:03 Regulation 4:48 What’s next?
So what’s holding the U.S. back from having a super app available? WSJ explains why, despite challenges, companies still see it as their holy grail product.
Boomers Daily 