InnovationHouse
Latest
DARPA Innovation House project wants teams to take imaging data, see the big picture
Where are the bad guys? The military has eyes and ears everywhere these days, including drones large and tiny, satellites, radar imaging, LIDAR, infrared, thermal and even the enemy's own cellphones. The problem is how to take all that imaging and create a single picture of the environment. To that end, DARPA and George Mason University in Arlington have created the first Innovation House Project, which will put eight teams together for eight weeks in a "crucible-style" living environment to try to invent new ways of crunching the diverse sensor info. The military's research arm wants those units to think way off-piste "without fear of failure" to dream up solutions, and will have access to specialists and mentors from the military and academia. Unlike DARPA's usual challenges which have a grand prize, all teams accepted to the project will receive $30,000 in funding, but groups who go on to survive a four week cut will get an additional $20K. Proposals will be accepted up to July 31 (with no academic credentials needed), and the competition will begin in earnest on September 17. DARPA will get a license of any software created, allowing teams to hold the rights -- and hopes to continue the concept down the road, with new themes for team-based research on a tight deadline. So, if you're a data, imaging or "geospatial" whiz -- and don't mind being locked in a house and put under the brainstorming gun by DARPA -- check the PR for all the details.
Shanghai Science and Technology Commission proposes 100 'innovation houses' for DIYers
Here we call them hackerspaces and generally they're sustained through the contributions of paying members. The Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality has decided to go with the more esoteric "innovation house" and is expecting support from the government, but the concept is the same -- a pubic place where those with an idea can go and make it a reality. The commission is proposing building 100 such studios equipped with wood and metal lathes, drills, saws and milling machines. Shanghai may be a sprawling city of over 23 million (the largest in the world), but if even just half of those hackerspaces are eventually constructed it would have one studio for every 460,000 citizens and become one of the most DIY-friendly metropolises in the world. By comparison, New York City's roughly 8 million residents share just eight.
