Category Archives: The Bleeding Edge

News of The Future This Week: March 12, 2019

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“I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.”–Leo Durocher

Is nothing sacred?  A year after World Team Tennis went to all-automated line calls, Major League Baseball is upping the robotic ante with a potential move to eliminate the human factor in calling balls and strikes.  The human factor of a Billy Martin or Leo Durocher kicking dirt on an umpire was largely eliminated with the advent of replay reviews.  Who knows where this will lead?

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Argue this!

Robotics/automation–The independent Atlantic League will serve as MLB’s testing ground for robotic umpires.  We’ll leave the other proposed rule changes they are testing to the sports blogs.

–If accurate ball and strike calls is a sublime use of automation, an opera singing robot might just be ridiculous. (see YouTube video below.)

–If a singing robot doesn’t make you scratch your head, how about a holographic virtual singer–who just happened to pack them in at a concert hall in China

–Cancer patients have been getting robotic surgery.  The New York Times reports the results may be less than stellar.

–Artificial intelligence may be better at diagnosis, though.  Science Daily reports that robots can detect breast cancer as well as radiologists. But I bet the robots get paid less.

Climate change–There’s something refreshing about a politician who actually has a long-term view of our future–one that goes well beyond the next election.  You and I may not agree with everything that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocates, but as  futurist, I have to admire her use of scenarios to envision a better, more sustainable world in 2050.

Space Commerce–Elon Musk continues to push for a permanently manned moon base.  But Discover says we need to learn how to mine there, first.

Electric Vehicles–For electric cars to become pervasive, they are going to have to become profitable for manufacturers.  A new McKinsey report suggests a path to that end.

Seeking Delphi™ podcast/coming attractions: In the weeks ahead. look for David Wood on his newest book, Sustainable superabundance, Verne Wheelright on personal futures, and highlights from the 2019 Undoing Aging Conference (Berlin, Germany, March 28-30).

Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

News of The Future This Week: March 4, 2019

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“Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.”–Franklin Pierce Adams

Is artificial human memory possible?  Today’s lead story deals exactly with that possibility–and it links rather directly to a question I have about the quest to end, and even reverse, human aging.  If we live indefinitely, will we need some sort of artificial enhancement in order to hold decades or evern centuries of additional memories?  When you reach a certain age, after all,  it’s hard enough to remember what you had for breakfast.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

 Neuromorphic Computing/Memory–Researchers at UCLA claim they have created a neuromorphic “brain” out of synthetic nanowires.   They say it exhibits behavior similar to human memory.

Image: undoing-aging.org Click for link.

 Aging Research/Rejuvenation–Aubrey de Grey has become much more upbeat about the progress being made toward reversing human aging.  He now thinks robust human longevity extension could be here by 2037.  You can here his preview of the 2019 Undoing Aging conference (Berlin, Germany March 28-30) on the Seeking Delphi podcast here.   The YouTube slide show version of the interview is embedded at the bottom of this page.

Houston, the Dragon has landed. Image: NASA

NASA/Space Launch/Space Commerce–SpaceX successfully tested an unmanned launch of the first private passenger vehicle, reaching the International Space Station late last week.  If all goes well, the first manned mission will bring astronauts there later this year.  It would be the first manned U.S. space launch since the space shuttle was retired a decade ago.

—NASA intends to test a nuclear powered rocket by 2024, per it’s 2019 budget.  Other advance propulsion systems are also in the works.

CRISPR/Biotech–Switzerland-based CRISPR therapeutics has become the first non-Chinese entity to use CRISPR genetic editing to treat a human medical condition.  The procedure was done in attempt to correct a genetic blood disorder.  Previously, Chinese researchers have used CRISPR to treat cancer.

—A Chinese research group claims to have given a mouse night vision by a simple injection of nano particles into the animal’s eyes.  They say the effect has minimal side effects and lasts for up to ten weeks.

Breakthrough technologies—MIT has issued it’s annaul list of the top ten breakthrough technologies.  Custom cancer vaccines, a wearable ECG, and laboratory-grown meat are notable inclusions.

Wearables/Fitness–A university research team in Singapore says they have developed self-charging, fitness tracking socks.  The socks could also be used to power other wearables.

YouTube slide show of  the 2019 Undoing Aging preview podcast with Aubrey de Grey

Seeking Delphi™ podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Podcast #28: Future Driving Part 3, Intelligent Traffic Control with Griffin Schultz

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 “They say the Universe is expanding.  That should help with the traffic.”–Steven Wright

 

Autonomous vehicles? Flying cars? The concepts are exciting, but the truth is:  most of us will still be driving manually on the ground for many years to come.  And that means dealing with the motorist’s most persistent annoyance.  Congestion.  It costs time and money and tries patience.  But  advanced vehicles are not necessarily required to solve the problem.  In the final episode of the Future Driving series on the Seeking Delphi™ podcast, we explore intelligent traffic control with Rapid Flow Technologies CEO, Griffin Schultz.  Advanced sensors, edge computing and artificial intelligence are helping cities to lessen the occurrence–and the frustration–of traffic congestion.

Future Driving, Part 1, Self-Driving Cars,with Alex Wyglinski here.

Future Driving, Part 2, Flying Cars, with Kaushik Rajashekara here.

All Seeking Delphi™  podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #28, Future Driving Part 3: Intelligent Traffic Control with Griffin Schultz

YouTube slide show, episode #28

Links

Rapid Flow Technologies

Griffin Schultz

Surtrac

Pittsburgh experience

A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

Podcast #27: Future Driving Part 2, Flying Cars, with Kaushik Rajashekara

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“The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.”–Elon Musk

“We wanted flying cars; what we got is 140 characters.”–Peter Thiel
 

  

Well, guess what?  We now have 280 characters, and we may finally be getting flying cars.  Well, some of us may get the flying cars.  They clearly won’t be mass market cheap for a very long time, if ever.  Part 2 of the Seeking Delphi™ Future Driving series presents an interview with  Kaushik Rajashekara. He is a University of Houston professor and IEEE fellow who has been tracking the subject for decades.  Me? I’ve been vaguely following it ever since The Jetsons.

Future Driving, Part 1, Self-Driving Cars,with Alex Wyglinski here.

All Seeking Delphi™  podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler 

 

 

 

Click for opening theme video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #27: Future Driving, Part 2, flying Cars, with Kaushik Rajashekara

 

YouTube slide show of Episode #27.  Captioning recommended.

Terrafuggia TF-x click for video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aeromobil demonstration video

PAL-V test flight video

A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

Podcast #26: Future Driving Part 1, Interconnectivity and Self-Driving Cars with Alex Wyglinski

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 “The Promise of Autonomous Vehicles is Great.”–Dan Lipinski

“My opinion is that it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous vehicles.”–Elon Musk

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There’s no shortage of opinions on the viability of self-driving cars.  Be you a bull or a bear, though, there is no denying that there is a plethora of big players banking on them with R&D spending.

The issues surrounding the technology are too many and complex to deal with all of them in a single podcast.  And while things like collision avoidance, navigation, regulation, liability and public acceptance take up much of the debate over the technology, one key element has not so often been discussed.  That would be connectivity.  To assure safety and efficiency, to any degree greater than currently exists with manually driven cars, they need to be able to talk to each other.

In episode #26 of Seeking Delphi™ host Mark Sackler talks with Alex Wyglinski, president of IEEE’s Vehicle Technology Society and co-chair of the Community Development Working Group for IEEE Future Networks,  on how wireless connectivity might enable the technology.

All Seeking Delphi™  podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

Alex Wyglinski. Click for bio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #26: Future Driving Part 1, Interconnectivity and Self-Driving Cars

 

YouTube slide show of episode #26

A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

Podcast #23: A Conversation With Joanne Pransky, Robot Psychiatrist

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 “I can’t imagine a future without robots.”–Nolan Bushnell

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In the popular HBO series Westworld, robotic hosts are depicted as being placed into a kind of psychiatric analysis by their creators.  Could this actually happen one day?  Joanne Pransky thinks it will.  She bills herself as the World’s First Robotic Psychiatrist® (yes, she even registered that title!).  She was dubbed the real life Susan Calvin by Isaac Asimov, after the robot psychologist he created in his classic 1950 short story anthology, I, Robot.  In this episode of the Seeking Delphi™ podcast, host Mark Sackler talks to her about this and other significant issues in the man/machine relationships to come.

All Seeking Delphi™  podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

 

Asimov with Pransky c.1989

Pransky and friend.

 

 

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Podcast #23 A Conversation With Joanne Pransky, Robot Psychiatrist

YouTube slide show of podcast #23 with Joanne Pransky

Cover of a 1950’s edition of Asimov’s I, Robot

Sofia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joanne Pransky bio

 

SXSW 2018 Minicast #2 Redux: Can We Create Consciousness In A Machine?

A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

News of the Future This Week, March 28, 2018

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 “A space station is a rangy monstrosity, a giant erector set built by a madman.”–Mary Roach

Oh, how jaded we’ve become.  Remember Skylab?  When it became the first orbiting space station to crash back to earth, away back in 1979, it provoked a wide range of bizarre cultural outcroppings, from Skylab crash parties to insurance against it landing on your head.  This time?  Not so much.  If the cable news channels can’t politicize it, they won’t give it much mention.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Chinese Space Station: look out below!

Space–The Chinese space station will hurtle back to earth this weekend.  Time Magazine reports that you don’t have to worry–much–about it landing on you.

—According to a paper by Gregory Matloff, published in Centauri Dreams, the combination of the SpaceX Falcom Heavy rocket, a Bigelow inflatable habitat, and huge solar sail, would be the perfect combination for manned expeditions to near earth objects in the 2020’s.

–NASA’s next Mars rover isn’t scheduled for launch until 2020.  In advance of that,  today they’re testing the parachute designed to deploy at supersonic speeds and drop it gently to the Martian surface.

James Webb telescope or Klingon battleship? Image Credit: NASA

—Speaking of NASA, they’ve delayed the launch of the James Webb Space Telescopte–again.  The successor to Hubble is now scheduled for launch in May of 2020.   Anyone taking bets?

Electric Vehicles–Speaking of betting on late deployment, FedEx has apparently ordered 20 of Tesla’s new electric semi-trucks.  The scheduled roll out for these is 2019.  Based on Mr. Musk’s timetable track record, I’d set an over-under on actual delivery to Fedex at January 2021.

Artificial Intelligence—According to Mashable, NVIDIA’s new supercomputer will create A.I. that’s “terrifyingly smart.”  Well, maybe not–most experts believe we won’t AGI–artifiicial general intelligence–for least 15-30 years, if ever.  But even they don’t agree.

Automation/Future of Work–Hardly a week goes by without some new forecast of an automation driven job-killing apocolypse.  The latest one, from Bain Consulting, foresees 50% of current jobs eventually going away, and specifically forecasts that U.S. employers will need 20-25% fewer workers by 2030.

Extreme Bionics–In case you missed it, here’s the link to the final Seeking Delphi™ podcast from SXSW 2018, on Extreme Bionics: The Future of Human Ability.  It feature two bilateral amputees,  paralympian and actrees Aimee Mullins (Stranger Things, Unsane) and MIT Media lab associate professor, Hugh Herr.  (YouTube slide show link below).

You can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook