What technologies and innovations will shape our lives after few decades.
How much will your career advance in one or ten years. Where will your kids go to college, be brave and predict here.
How much will the Bitcoin be worth in 2015? How much will the Dogecoin be next month? Post your predictions.
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The ellipsis... ending with an exclamation mark!
At this day the little e. became а capital one. At this day the long term ellipsis between e. and s. was filled with letters ...n ...d ... l...e...s :.. the distance now seems to be endless but there was one sweet sweet unforgettable unique exclamation mark, that e. will always remember. Thank you s. , i wish you the biggest luck, which will transform every your question mark into colon, followed by a nicely curved bracket :) Thank you for all the little stars and pluses, that made this 4 years in school with you - an cosy, soft and soul-cuddling dream. Thank you for everything, i will always love you <3 and remember - on the other side of the dash there will be always an E. ready to hElp when you nEEd :)
Big ambitions
I want to open my own business,about pc (personal computer) and take orders. I wanna have a big flat in Europe(france,the czech republic,germany or in any scandinavian country ).I think that i will pass OGE/EGE(exams) and enter the university.
The 'New Tube for London' is due to enter service on the Piccadilly line
A new train design will deliver faster, more frequent and more reliable journeys with the first walk-through and air-cooled trains on the Tube lines that are deep underground. 250 new Tube trains for the Bakerloo, Central, Piccadilly and Waterloo & City lines Walk-through carriages helping to ease extra demand at peak times Air-cooled carriages for a more comfortable journey
More reliability as modern signalling systems will ensure fewer delays;
More capacity with a faster, more frequent service;
Improved accessibility with step-free access at platform level; A single design
We are creating a blueprint for a single train design that will be rolled out across the Piccadilly, Central, Bakerloo and Waterloo & City lines, allowing us to create more efficient procurement and long-term maintenance procedures.
250 new Tube trains
Around two-thirds of our lines are currently being or have been upgraded. We also have a programme of work under way to increase frequencies on upgraded lines even further.
More reliable service
As part of our ongoing investment in the Underground network and to meet the needs of London's rapidly growing population, we are continuing to invest in and improve our services.
By introducing new modern signalling systems and new trains on the Bakerloo, Central, Piccadilly and Waterloo & City lines, delays due to signal and train failures will be reduced.
Additionally, over the course of time we will also be introducing platform edge doors where possible (as used on the Jubilee line), helping to ensure customer safety and reducing delays due to litter and other obstructions on the tracks.
Meeting London's growing demand
London's population is set to increase from 8.4 million today to around 10 million by 2030. The new modern signalling systems and new trains we're introducing will increase capacity to help us meet this challenge.
Central line:
25% more capacity (the equivalent of up to 12,000 customers per hour)
Bakerloo line:
25% more capacity (the equivalent of up to 8,000 customers per hour)
Waterloo & City line:
50% more capacity (the equivalent of up to 9,000 customers per hour)
Piccadilly line:
60% more capacity (the equivalent of up to 19,000 customers per hour) The Piccadilly line currently serves 210 million customers a year and demand is expected to grow 20% by 2020. The Piccadilly line has therefore been prioritised as the first of the four lines to benefit from the new trains and signalling system.
Source: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/campaign/new-tube-for-london?cid=fs228
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tube_for_London
The 'New Tube for London' is due to enter service on the Piccadilly line
250 new Tube trains for the Bakerloo, Central, Piccadilly and Waterloo & City lines.Walk-through carriages helping to ease extra demand at peak times. Air-cooled carriages for a more comfortable journey. More reliability as modern signalling systems will ensure fewer delays. More capacity with a faster, more frequent service. Improved accessibility with step-free access at platform level.
NASA SWOT mission is launched to make the first ever global survey of Earth's surface water
MISSION
Overview
Why SWOT?
The SWOT mission brings together two communities focused on a better understanding of the world's oceans and its terrestrial surface waters. U.S. and French oceanographers and hydrologists and international partners have joined forces to develop this satellite mission to make the first global survey of Earth's surface water, observe the fine details of the ocean's surface topography, and measure how water bodies change over time.
Partners
SWOT is being jointly developed by NASA and Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and United Kingdom Space Agency.
CNES: SWOT
CSA: SWOT
Launch Vehicle & Launch Date
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for SWOT. Launch is targeted for September 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the SpaceX launch service.
Mission Development Timeline
SWOT was one of 15 missions listed in the 2007 National Research Council Decadal Survey of Earth science missions that NASA should implement in the subsequent decade (full report available here). In its earliest stages, the mission underwent Concept Studies (Pre-Phase A) and Concept & Technology Development (Phase A).
In early 2015, SWOT entered Phase B, Preliminary Design & Technology Completion. In 2016, SWOT was approved for implementation and thus entered Phase C (Final Design & Fabrication).
To learn more about SWOT's latest progress towards launch, visit the Flight Systems and Ground Systems pages. To learn about the airborne instrument making measurements similar to those that will be made in space by SWOT to prepare for the hydrology post-launch Cal/Val, visit the AirSWOT page.
SWOT will launch in Phase D. Approximately the first six months after launch, it will be in a "fast-sampling" phase with a 1-day repeat orbit at an altitude of 857 km (532.5 mi). This initial period will focus on achieving calibration and validation objectives while studying rapidly changing phenomena. Members of the international ocean science community may participate in this phase by creating programs to deploy in situ assets in the regions covered by the SWOT fast-sampling orbit. This will provide a global series of experiments with fine-scale ocean campaigns, as well as ground-based data for comparison with SWOT's daily 2-D sea surface height data. The fast-sampling phase will end with an increase in the observatory's altitude to 891 km (553.6 mi).
Phase E (Operations & Sustainment), nominally lasting three years, will have a 21-day repeat orbit to balance global coverage and frequent sampling. This non-sun-synchronous orbit was chosen to minimize tidal aliasing and ensure coverage of major water bodies on land. SWOT's 120-km-wide (~75-mi-wide) swath will result in overlapping measurements over most of the globe with an average revisit time of 11 days.
Resources
SWOT Calibration / Validation Plan (Initial Release)
(2018) This document provides the scope of planned Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) activities for the SWOT Mission. It contains an overview of the objectives of Cal/Val work, details of planned Cal/Val activities, and provides the organizational context for how the work will be undertaken.
SWOT Project Mission Performance and Error Budget
(2017) This document presents the top-down error budget for the SWOT mission and its ability to meet the scientific requirements. It includes all of the different systems and subsystems that have a significant contribution to the overall performance of the mission.
SWOT Science Requirements Document
(2018) The SWOT mission is a partnership between two communities, physical oceanography and hydrology, to share high vertical accuracy and high spatial resolution topography data produced by payload configuration for making swath measurement of the elevation of land surface water and ocean surface topography. This document summarizes the scientific objectives for each community.
SWOT Orbit Information
(2014) Information on SWOT orbit characteristics and requirements, as well as reference orbit and swath files.
SWOT Mission Science Document
(2012) This document summarizes the findings from meetings of the SWOT Science Working Group (SWG) with a purpose to provide information on the potential opportunities in science investigation and applications as well as on the preliminary design of the SWOT mission concept.
Source: https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/overview/
Mission website: https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov
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Samsung releases Vert-X: the first ever smartphone with camera able to "see" around corners
While thoughts of Big Brother watching you might immediately spring to mind, the technology doesn't have to have such a dystopian purpose.
It could, for example, help self-driving cars avoid accidents, or improve the navigation skills of autonomous robots working in disaster areas.Or this is supposed to solve the problem of the last decade "Selfie with visible phone in it"
Dear Tomorrow
Dear future world, 10 years ago I've sent this letter on this website. I'm not sure where I'll be 10 years from now. But I hope and pray that God would guide me to realize my dreams. Through him everything is possible.
~Kyl
10 000 Amazon custom electric delivery vehicles invade the Cross-Country American Roads
Amazon unveiled the first of its three custom electric delivery vehicles made by Michigan-based Rivian on Thursday morning.
The vans would hit the road in 2021, it said, and can last up to 150 miles on a single charge.
The vehicles are Alexa-integrated, and have multiple exterior cameras to give the driver a 360-degree view of their surroundings.
The custom vans also include a "dancefloor" inside the driver's cabin, Amazon added — likely referring to the open space where the driver can move around.
Amazon aims to have 10,000 of these vans in operation as early as 2022, and 100,000 by 2030.
Amazon unveiled its first custom electric delivery vehicle on Thursday morning – and it plans to have 100,000 on the road within a decade.
The vehicles are made by Michigan-based Rivian, and Amazon is aiming to deploy the first of them in 2021. The firm told Business Insider the vehicles can last up to 150 miles on a single charge.
Drivers would be able to use Amazon's integrated AI software Alexa to access route, traffic, and weather information hands-free, the company said.
The vehicles also have exterior cameras linked to a display, giving the driver a 360-degree view of the vehicle's surroundings.
Amazon added that the vehicles have a large floor area inside the driver's cabin, which it calls a "dancefloor."
Amazon aims to have 10,000 of the vans in operation as early as 2022, and 100,000 by 2030.
The e-commerce giant designed and built the vehicle in partnership with electric vehicle maker Rivian. The companies first announced the partnership in February, and are working together to develop two other electric vehicle models.
Amazon partnered with Rivian after being unable to find suitable electric vehicles on the market, it said.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rivian-unveil-first-custom-electric-delivery-vehicle-2020-10
Samsung releases Vert-X: the first ever smartphone with camera able to "see" around corners
The fact we're living in a world where surveillance is becoming more common is unlikely to be a surprise to you. But even when you're out of sight, you might not be safely hidden: researchers have developed a computer program that lets cameras see around corners.
The technique is called computational periscopy, and it works by analysing shadows cast on a wall and applying some seriously powerful decoding algorithms to them. The end result isn't perfect, but it's very impressive (see the image below).
While thoughts of Big Brother watching you might immediately spring to mind, the technology doesn't have to have such a dystopian purpose.
It could, for example, help self-driving cars avoid accidents, or improve the navigation skills of autonomous robots working in disaster areas.
What really makes the program stand out is the way it can be applied to an image captured by any digital camera – you don't need any special equipment.
"It was thought to be practically impossible to reconstruct an image from only scattered light from a wall without any advanced instruments," optical physicist Allard Mosk from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who wasn't involved in the study, told Nature.
For a source image, the program needs a picture of the wall receiving light from a scene and shadows cast by an object hidden around the corner. More specifically, it needs a penumbra – the outer edge of a shadow cast by an opaque object.
Penumbras are most often talked about in relation to the shadows cast by planets and moons, but here the algorithms developed by the researchers can work backwards from them to reconstruct a picture of the original scene.
The algorithm is essentially unscrambling the light. When light from a scene hits a mirror (as in a conventional periscope), no unscrambling is needed, because the light travels without interference.
In this case, some heavy computational lifting is used to strip back the interference, and turn a matte wall into something like a mirror.
Importantly, there has to be an opaque object blocking the scene, with dimensions and a shape the algorithm already knows about. That helps the program figure out how the light has been scattered and how to put it back together again.
"Based on light ray optics, we can compute and understand which subsets of the scene's appearance influence the camera pixels," says one of the team, electrical engineer Vivek Goyal from Boston University.
"It becomes possible to compute an image of the hidden scene."
Cameras have been doing tricks like this with scattered light for several years, but here everything is done in the software rather than the camera itself.
Even though a specific scenario (with an opaque object) is required, as well as strong lighting illuminating the object, it's another tool that cameras of the future might be able to call upon when needed.
The team thinks that eventually the algorithm might be able to work out the dimensions and shape of the opaque object itself.
"In the future, I imagine there might be some sort of hybrid method, in which the system is able to locate foreground opaque objects and factor that into the computational reconstruction of the scene," says Goyal.
The system is only going to get better over time as well. Right now it takes around 50 seconds to reconstruct a scene from the light and shadows scattered on a wall, but the team thinks that could be improved upon.
Eventually, it might be able to process video footage in real time, the researchers say – but they're hoping it's going to be put to positive rather than sinister uses, like searching through burning buildings or for keeping people safe on the roads.
"I'm not especially excited by surveillance, I don't want to be doing creepy things," Goyal told Ian Sample at the Guardian.
"But being able to see that there's a child on the other side of a parked car, or see a little bit around the corner of an intersection could have a significant impact on safety."
The research has been published in Nature.
Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/
My Prediction: Samsung will be the first smartphone company that will adopt these futuristic camera technologies. Their patent will be name Vert-X, after the word "vertex" - the camera will see what is the view where is the vertex between the camera position and the objects behind the near corner. This will solve the problem of the last decade "Selfie without visible phone in it"
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