Tag: society
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Network Earth
The world is a complicated place. Our planet is made up of millions of networks from microscopic ecosystems to global migration. How can we ever hope to understand and predict the complexity of our mulit-networked world? New research may have the answer…
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Interview with Pavel Smetana
Pavel Smetana was born in Ústí nad Labem, Bohemia. From 1979-1982 he studied at the Arts and Crafts School in the Prague Žižkov neighborhood. He was not accepted to the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague because of political reasons, which was one of the reasons why he decided to leave for France…
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Interview with Christa Sommerer
Christa Sommerer studied Biology and Botany (1982-85), followed by Art Education and Art Study in Modern Sculpture (1985-90) in Vienna, Austria. She concluded her post graduate study at the Staedelschule Institut for New Media, Frankfurt (1993-94). Subsequently, Christa Sommerer was an artist-in-resident at the NCSA National Center for Supercomputing Application, Beckman Institute (US) and at…
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Interview with Alberto Abruzzese
[ITA – English below] Alberto Abruzzese è un sociologo, scrittore e saggista italiano. Ha insegnato presso l’Università IULM di Milano (dove è stato Prorettore per l’Innovazione Tecnologica e le Relazioni Internazionali, Direttore dell’Istituto di Comunicazione e Preside della Facoltà di Turismo, Eventi e Territorio); presso l’Università “La Sapienza” di Roma, Corso di laurea in scienze…
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Body odor as a biometric identifier
The research of the Group of Biometrics, Biosignals and Security (GB2S) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) in collaboration with unveils that there are recognizable patterns of each person’s body odor that remain steady. Therefore, every person has his/hers own odor and this would allow his/her identification within a group of people at an accurate rate higher than 85%.…
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The future of the human machine interface
Four converging technologies are going to transform our interaction with the world radically: genetics, robotics, information and nanotechnology. With a few exceptions, such as pacemakers and artificial hips, technology has always been at one distance removed from our bodies and brains. Not for much longer. The interface between the made world and us is going to become…
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Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is a mix of technologies (software) built into a smartphone or laptop equipped with a webcam that allows you to observe and enrich surroundings with layers of informations, and virtual and multimedia elements. Creating new models of communication in real time, ranging from advertising to home automation, for different kind of markets: from tourism to consumer. Already used by military research or in academic or medical studies, augmented reality, since 2009, has reached people’s attention through adv campaigns, on newspapers or on the web. The fact that augmented reality applications are normally accessible by standard Internet browsers has boosted…
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Flexible Display Using Printing Technology
There is at least one connection between printing technology and flexible displays. The connection between these two innovative technologies resulted into a huge flexible display with 42-inch diagonal. The display is the result of collaboration between Toppan Printing and Plastic Logic, and the first demo was presented at Retail Tech Japan. The 42-inch bendable display…
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Face of the future rears its head
A virtual “talking head” which can express a full range of human emotions and could be used as a digital personal assistant, or to replace texting with “face messaging”, has been developed by researchers. The lifelike face can display emotions such as happiness, anger, and fear, and changes its voice to suit any feeling the…
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Recyclable organic solar cells on cellulose nanocrystal substrates
Solar energy is potentially the largest source of renewable energy at our disposal, but significant advances are required to make photovoltaic technologies economically viable and, from a life-cycle perspective, environmentally friendly, and consequently scalable. Cellulose nanomaterials are emerging high-value nanoparticles extracted from plants that are abundant, renewable, and sustainable. Here, we report on the first…
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Openarch – the house of the future?
Openarch is a real prototype of a smart home. The first home designed from scratch to incorporate a digital layer connecting the house and its elements to the Internet. Its inhabitants lead a new digital and connected life. It is flexible and thanks to its ability to transform, it can adapt to any condition that…
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David Deutsch on our place in the universe
[ITA] Il leggendario scienziato David Deutsch lascia per un attimo da parte la fisica teorica per discutere di un problema più urgente: la sopravvivenza della nostra specie. Il primo passo per risolvere il riscaldamento globale, dice, è ammettere che abbiamo un problema. [ENG] David Deutsch’s 1997 book “The Fabric of Reality” laid the groundwork for…
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Top 10 emerging technologies for 2013
New challenges need new technologies to tackle them. Here, the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies identifies the top 10 most promising technology trends that can help to deliver sustainable growth in decades to come as global population and material demands on the environment continue to grow rapidly. These are technologies that the Council…