HelloTomorrow
Latest
Getting to and living on Mars will be hell on your body
While NASA and SpaceX figure out how to get to Mars, they're also thinking about how the 200-day journey and life on the red planet will affect humans. Astronauts will be dealing with nasty things like muscle atrophy and bone loss, intra-cranial pressure, psychological issues, lack of resources and long-term radiation exposure. NASA and its partners are working on things like "torpor," a type of space hibernation, and protective Mars cave dwellings with a view. To learn more, Engadget spoke with NASA scientist Laura Kerber and Spaceworks COO John Bradford at the Hello Tomorrow symposium in Paris.
For a dollar, an AI will examine your medical scan
A company called Zebra Medical Vision (Zebra-Med) has unveiled a new service called Zebra AI1 that uses algorithms to examine your medical scans for a dollar each. The deep learning engine can examine CT, MRI and other scans and automatically detect lung, liver, heart and bone diseases. New capabilities like lung and breast cancer, brain trauma, hypertension and others are "constantly being released," the company says. The results are then passed on to radiologists, saving them time in making a diagnosis or requesting further tests.
Smart sleeve warns you of impending forearm injuries
Wouldn't it be great if you could know that you're about to injure yourself moments before you actually do? A pair of students out of Rice University believe that they've developed a wearable that can do just that. Ziel's M2 Sleeve is a prototype device that's designed for baseball pitchers to monitor the stress on their forearm. Using a combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes and muscle sensors, the unit can track motion and raise the alarm just before someone does some real damage.
Smart trash can helps educate reluctant recyclers
France and recycling go together like hammers and fromage frais, which is why the country has some of the worst recycling rates in Europe. Local startup Uzer is hoping to encourage better habits with Eugene, a smart trash can that'll tell users what they can recycle and track what they're consuming. Essentially, it's a pedal bin with a barcode scanner bolted onto the top, but if that's what it takes to get folks separating their cardboard and plastic, it might just be worth it.
Blue dye could help keep Ebola doctors safe
If you're unfortunate enough to wind up in hospital with a dangerous infectious disease like Ebola, then keep an eye on what your doctors are wearing. If their hazmat suits are smeared with blue dye that gently evaporates as they work with you, you can rest easy. If they're sporting the odd tint, it means that they're taking proper precautions and keeping their biohazard gear nice and clean. It also means that they're using Kinnos Highlight, a new wonder dye created by three students out of Columbia University.
Science creates a cast that lets you scratch those itches
If you made a list of things that sucked about breaking your arm, the fiberglass cast to heal you would be close to the top. You can't shower with it, you can't get at your skin and you wind up an itchy, sweaty mess for months on end. Three college students out of Illinois believe that they can alleviate some of those bugbears with Cast21, a pretzel-esque sleeve that would replace traditional fiberglass castings.
Mythbusting with 'Mr. Hyperloop'
Dirk Ahlborn is two hours behind schedule, and it's no surprise, since the project that he represents has the potential to change the world. He's the CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, one of the firms that's dedicated to building those high-speed tubes people of the future are always traveling in. It's got so much potential that you can even see hope in the eyes of the people standing in his presence, waiting for their turn to speak to the German. You might have heard that Elon Musk dreamed up this idea, but it's Ahlborn who's most likely to make it a reality. Say hello to Mr. Hyperloop.
Fruit scraps and algae: It's what's for dinner
Supercomputers are dreaming up crazy new ways to cook the food that we have today, but will we eat the same things in the future? For instance, when news of California's drought began to hit, people wondered if switching to a diet rich in insects would be the only way to survive. A variety of factors, most notably the face you pulled when someone suggests insects in place of a McCheeseburger, was why that idea crashed and burned. So what sort of food will we be eating in our resource constrained, population-heavy future, aside from, you know, people? Here's two companies exhibiting at Hello Tomorrow in Paris that have very different ideas on the snacks of 2020.
Google could build a hoverboard, but won't
Buried deep in the bowels of Google's top-secret X lab is the technology that could, theoretically, enable us to all have a Back to the Future-style hoverboard. Unfortunately, according to the lab's director of moonshots, that's where it's going to stay, disappointing all of the bullied nerds of Hill Valley. Obi Felten revealed at the Hello Tomorrow conference in Paris that researchers had successfully developed a method to "levitate carbon on magnets," but that it struggled to see that too many people would actually want such a device. Yeah, we know.
Nikon shows off concept cameras in France, says hello to tomorrow
Nikon engaged in a bit of conceptual product show-and-not-as-much-tell at the French Cité des sciences et de l'industrie exhibit, Hello Demain (Hello Tomorrow). The four prototype cameras on display ranged from the clearly defined -- a fully customizable SLR that swaps the lens, grip and LCD screen at your whimsy -- to the mysterious webcam dongle-ish i-Ball of unknown purpose, to a mundane six-inch screener. But the real étoile of this forward-facing soirée is that Multi-Ball cam -- guaranteed to be a panoramic morning-after hit (or cause for much hungover consternation). While these concepts reside proudly in the province of tomorrowland, it's only a matter of time before they digitally immortalize your precious visage. Check the source for additional protoplastic photographic proof.
Hello Tomorrow: The 300+ new features of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
While Steve Jobs introduced ten major features coming in Mac OS X Leopard at last year's WWDC, the entire list of new features has finally been unveiled. We already knew about some of the enhancements coming in apps like Mail and the all-new Spaces and Time Machine, but Jobs today highlighted some significant new features such as an interesting new approach to the Desktop and a (finally!) updated Finder. This isn't all that's coming in Leopard, however; not by a long shot. In fact, along with a redesigned Apple.com, the company has unveiled the full Leopard features site, elaborating a lot more on most (but likely not all) the new features we'll get to play with in October. The list this time around actually tops over 300+ new features - the most significant upgrade in Mac OS X's history. Included in the list are apps we haven't seen featured on stage, including iCal, Parental Controls, DVD Player, Automator and more. There's a lot to look through here (and likely much more to discover that Apple hasn't detailed), so we're going to take some time to digest this all. As always, feel free to send us tips as we publish more info on new features as quickly as possible.
