Important Innovations

Experts Say 3D Recognition Systems May Eliminate Need for Personal Passwords Australian researchers have developed a first of its kind 3D facial recognition system.  It's breakthrough tech that improves security measures and may eliminate the need for personal passwords. Experts say this model for scaling 3D facial recognition could transform the biometrics industry. Millions of Pictures Analyzed and Compared The University of Western Australia research team created a unique model that analyzed 3.1 million 3D scans of more than 100,000 people.  The model was trained to learn the identities of a large dataset group of "known" persons and then match "test" faces to those identities. The system worked. Instant 3D Recognition The researchers found the 3D scans are more accurate and robust.  It recognizes individuals in an instant, no matter what the pose, sees through masks and determines if they're legitimate.  This could considerably upgrade secur

Medical Breakthrough - Gene Therapy Repairs Spinal Cord Damage   Spinal Cord Neurons Spinal Cord Injuries The numbers are staggering.  270,000 Americans are paralyzed by spinal cord injuries.  80% of them are male and 16 to 30 years old.  There has been no regenerative treatment to reverse the spinal cord damage.  Now, there's reason for hope.  Researchers at Kings College London have demonstrated that rats with spinal cord injury re-learn skilled hand movement after being treated with gene therapy. Strong Human to Animal Correlation These findings are significant because humans and rats use a similar sequence of movements when reaching and grasping objects.  The hope and expectation is that it will work on human spinal cord victims too.  It's so important because people with spinal cord injury often lose their ability to do everyday functions like writing, holding a fork and brushing their teeth.  The very basic things that we take for granted. Top Priority Regaini

Trillion Sensor World It's called the Internet of Everything (IoE).  Networked connections between people,  data, devices and processes.  A prediction from The Engineer, out of the UK, that within 7 years there will be more than 100 billion devices, each with a dozen sensors collecting data.  That's a trillion+ sensors accelerating at a speed beyond the imagination.  It's also $19 trillion in newly created economic value by 2025. What Kind of World is That? Mega connected.  It's a world of 8 billion hyper connected people.  Global connectivity will be at 1 MB/sec.  That's going to increase the number of connected people from 3 billion to 8 billion, creating for the world economy 5 billion more customers. At the Epicenter - Exponential Information It's called by some a future world of perfect knowledge.  A trillion+ sensors collecting data from satellite systems, autonomous cars, cameras, drones.  The potential is impowering us to know what's goi

Search & Rescue RSTAR that Climbs Walls It's called RSTAR and is the creation of Ben-Gurion University Professor David Zarrouk, formerly of UCal Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab.  STAR means the Sprawl-Tuned Autonomous Robot. This one is on the rise...literally, it climbs walls.  It's an incredibly dexterous bot that just debuted at an international robotics conference in Brisbane. Sprawling Robots -Turtle Inspired RSTAR takes the sprawling wheel-leg mobility of its predecessor robots and adds a new degree of freedom.  And that's what's so significant.  The body of the robot can move separately from the legs.  This changes its center of mass and enables it to climb over obstacles.  Its inspiration comes from nature as do so many other robots.  In this case, it's the gait of turtles. STAR Series Professor Zarrouk has designed a series of sprawling, crawling, climbing robots.  They can handle all kinds of terrain.  RSTAR can climb ve

Crop Harvest That's Good for the Environment The technology was first introduced in 2010. Singapore is the site of the world's first vertical farm. In 2018,  China and Japan dominate this technology.  They also have the world's most vertical farms. Researchers think that vertical farming will become the predominant mode of agriculture by 2025. Here's why:  yields, eco-friendly, sustainable. Big Yield Bonanza With vertical farming, you can produce more than 300-times of the same crop on the same sized land acreage. New York City Just 150 vertical farms at 30 stories tall could supply New York City with a reliable and sufficient food source.  Consider the same for major cities around the world. Pollution and Transportation Costs Dramatically Cut Transportation costs and pollution are greatly cut as the food is sold at the vertical farm where it's grown. Environmentally Friendly and Sustainable Everything at vertical farms are re-cycled from water to o

Potential Remedy for 25 Million People with Autism More than 25 million people have autism globally. 4 million in the US alone.  For them and their families comes hopeful news.  Researchers have just discovered that editing a gene in the brain can decrease the repetitive behavior, which is a symptom of autism spectrum disorders. This is believed to be the first time that a causal gene for autism in the brain was successfully edited and the disease's symptoms were diminished.  The diminished symptoms were permanent. Nanoparticles at Work Like a Pair of Scissors on DNA Researchers at the University of Texas in San Antonio are behind this breakthrough.  They used nanoparticle carriers to inject a gene editing enzyme into the striatum, a brain region associated with the formation of habits. Enzymes are proteins that trigger biochemical reactions.  The  enzyme used by the team was Cas9. The researchers said Cas9 is like a pair of scissors which they used to cut the genetic blu

2020 Revolutionary Communications Tech  If you are fascinated by futuristic forecasts about the next big thing in communications, some experts think it's "Virtual Telepathy", particularly texting by thinking.  For the past couple of decades, a new cell wireless standard has been adopted.  Here's some futuristic thinking for  2020+.  Full-powered, large scale deployment of 5G providing a major leap forward in full coverage, speed, power and function.  That would include "Virtual Telepathy" - your thoughts are texting.  Highly Advanced Glasses and Visors with Displays to Text by Thinking Texting by thinking would be achieved by eye tracking technology and a mounted sensor. High end applications would be done by glasses or visors with displays built into the lenses. Some futurists say that will create the start of "virtual telepathy". It would be hands free texting and that would revolutionize communications. 5G Standard Full Blown w