Category Archives: Technology

Innovations In Cocktails: “Barsys Coaster” Weighs Ingredients, Guides Mixing With AI Smart App

The Barsys CoasterThe Barsys CoasterThe Barsys CoasterFrom a Yanko Design online review:

This is the Barsys Coaster, a smart coaster with a mini weighing-machine and an AI inside it that coaches you through the fine cocktail-mixing process. The coaster works with the Barsys app, which lets you select a recipe, while the coaster itself sits on a table with an empty glass above it. The app tells you how to build your cocktail, by telling you what to pour into your glass, while the coaster and its weight-sensor lets you know when to stop pouring. 

The incredibly precise weight-sensor within the coaster can know exactly when you’ve poured the right amount of gin, or vodka, or orange juice, while the app itself then tells you to stop pouring and proceed to the next step. The result? Precisely crafted cocktails courtesy an AI bartender and your passion for drinking fine cocktails from the comfort of your own house as Netflix cues the next episode of whatever it is you’re watching!

To read more: https://www.yankodesign.com/2019/11/08/this-coaster-has-an-ai-bartender-that-guides-you-through-the-cocktail-making-process/

Online Ads Explained: How Google Operates Its Advertising Machine (Wall Street Journal)

From a Wall Street Journal online article:

In interviews, dozens of publishing and advertising executives said Google is doing just that with an array of interwoven products. Google operates the leading selling and buying tools, and the biggest marketplace where online ad deals happen.

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Overall, Google made $116 billion in advertising revenue last year, a 22% rise from the previous year and 85% of the company’s total revenue. Most of that ad revenue came from Google’s own properties, but the company’s vast role in brokering online ad sales off its own platforms gives it an added level of dominance.

Alphabet Inc. ’s Google is under fire for its dominance in digital advertising, in part because of issues like this. The U.S. Justice Department and state attorneys general are investigating whether Google is abusing its power, including as the dominant broker of digital ad sales across the web. Most of the nearly 130 questions the states asked in a September subpoena were about the inner workings of Google’s ad products and how they interact.

To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-edged-out-rivals-and-built-the-worlds-dominant-ad-machine-a-visual-guide-11573142071?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Automobile Trends: Ford Unveils “Mustang Lithium” High-Performance EV

From a Ford online release:

Ford Mustang LithiumBuilt in collaboration between Ford and Webasto, Mustang Lithium project vehicle generates more than 1000 ft.-lbs. of instant torque and more than 900 horsepower for new levels of performance and technology with its 800-volt Webasto battery system with EVDrive technology.

Best of both worlds, Mustang Lithium accelerates the next generation of performance: unique 6-speed manual shifting, track handling and stunning quarter-mile acceleration with instant electric torque, and zero emissions.

Ford and Webasto today reveal Mustang Lithium, an ultra-high-performance battery electric Mustang fastback prototype. With more than 1,000 ft.-lbs. of torque and more than 900 horsepower instantaneously available, this Mustang amps muscle car performance to a new level and helps gauge the level of interest the next wave of performance customers have in lightning-quick performance that only fully electric powertrains can deliver.

To read more: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2019/11/05/webasto-ford-team-up-mustang-lithium-battery-electric-mustang-car-sema.html

Medical Research: Single Gene Therapy Treatment For Multiple Age-Related Diseases Seen (Harvard)

From a Harvard news online release:

Harvard Medical School“The results we saw were stunning and suggest that holistically addressing aging via gene therapy could be more effective than the piecemeal approach that currently exists,” said first author Noah Davidsohn, a former research scientist at the Wyss Institute and HMS who is now chief technology officer of Rejuvenate Bio. “Everyone wants to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible, and this study is a first step toward reducing the suffering caused by debilitating diseases.”

New research from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School (HMS) suggests that it may be possible someday to tend to multiple ailments with one treatment.

The study was conducted in the lab of Wyss core faculty member George Church as part of Davidsohn’s postdoctoral research into the genetics of aging. Davidsohn, Church, and their co-authors homed in on three genes that had been shown to confer increased health and lifespan benefits in mice that were genetically engineered to overexpress them: FGF21, sTGFβR2, and αKlotho. They hypothesized that providing extra copies of those genes to nonengineered mice via gene therapy would similarly combat age-related diseases and bring health benefits.

To read more: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/researchers-able-to-improve-reverse-age-related-diseases-in-mice/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Gazette%2020191105%20(1)

New Consumer Websites: “PureMarket” Rates Items For Purity, Efficacy, Accuracy And Nutrition

From a FoodDive online review:

PureMarketPure Market is offering consumers a chance to purchase products that have already been pre-graded in an effort to provide transparency and save time. Although the service just launched, it has reviewed the chemical compositions of several thousand products, with 805 in the food category and another 125 in beverages.

The service rates products in terms of purity, efficacy, accuracy and nutrition. Purity tests the level of contaminants in a product. Efficacy rates how well a product delivers on the promises on its label. Accuracy refers to the contents of the product being consistent with those on the label. Nutrition evaluates the ratio of “good stuff” to “bad stuff,” according to the website.

To read more: https://www.fooddive.com/news/will-consumers-use-a-new-site-grading-food-on-label-accuracy/566391/

Future Of Housing: “GO Homes” Are Prefabricated, “Highly Insulated, Air-Sealed” & 90% Efficient

Froom a Dwell.com online article:

GO Home by GO Logic Prefab Homes PhotosTo meet Passive House standards, the Cousins River Residence features an airtight building envelope, triple-glazed windows with a u-value of 0.16, a heat recovery ventilation system with 90% efficiency, and a 4.6 kW south-facing photovoltaic array on the garage roof that makes the house nearly net-zero energy.

With their three children grown up and out of the house, Nico and Ellen Walsh were ready to downsize from their old Victorian home to a smaller abode better aligned with their environmentally friendly principles.

The heart of every GO Home is a highly insulated, air-sealed building shell designed to use 90 percent less energy than a conventional new house, even in chilly northern New England. On sites with a favorable southern exposure, adding a modest array of photovoltaic panels yields a zero-energy home.

When the couple spotted Belfast-based design-build firm GO Logic’s LEED Platinum GO Home on the cover of Maine Home and Design Magazine, they instantly fell in love with the modern high-performance design and the possibilities of a nearly net-zero energy house.

To read more: https://www.dwell.com/article/cousins-river-residence-go-logic-opal-eead5541?utm_medium=email&utm_source=postup&utm_campaign=&list=1

Technology Podcasts: What To Consider With DNA Testing (Kiplinger)

KiplingerKiplinger’s vice president of content Sarah Stevens joins our podcast hosts Sandy Block and Ryan Ermey to talk about the advantages, risks, obstacles and other things to consider when having your DNA tested.

Future Of Avation: “Safe Return” Emergency Autolanding In A Cirrus G2 Vision Jet (Video)

From a New Atlas online review:

An important step towards autonomous aviation was taken today, as Cirrus Aviation announced “Safe Return” functionality for its G2 Vision jet, which will find the nearest airstrip, alert authorities and land itself in an emergency.

The Vision is a small private jet capable of seating seven people, cruising at over 300 knots at 31,000 feet. Small, quick and user-friendly, it’s good for those that wish to fly themselves, as well as being flown. It’s been a successful product for Cirrus, but its new functionality could represent something bigger. CEO Zean Nielsen calls it “a product that we believe is going to change personal aviation forever.”

Safe Return Autonomous Autoland, developed in conjunction with Garmin, manifests as a button on the roof of the Vision jet that is accessible to passengers. If something happens to the pilot, a passenger can hit the button and request an autoland.

To read more: https://newatlas.com/aircraft/cirrus-vision-g2-automatic-emergency-landing/

Halloween 2019: “Galaxy Of Horrors!” Video And Posters From NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Dubbed Galaxy of Horrors, the fun but informative series resulted from a collaboration of scientists and artists and was produced by NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Office, located at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The same program is behind the popular Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster series, which imagines humans visiting some of the thousands of known worlds outside our solar system.

Rains of Terror NASA Exoplanet Posters Halloween 2019

To read more: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7527&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nasajpl&utm_content=exoplanet20191029-1

Science Podcasts: Quest To Detect Gravitational Waves, First Hypothesised By Einstein (Nature)

Nature PodcastIn 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) facilities in the US directly detected ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. These waves were produced by the final spiral of two oribiting black holes that smashed into each other, sending ripples across the universe.

In this Podcast Extra, Benjamin Thompson speaks to Cole Miller from the University of Maryland about the quest to detect gravitational waves, which were first hypothesised by Albert Einstein back in 1916.