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 price of Bitcoin 2016
Bitcoin will be worth 500$ and we will be rich!
World's most colossal solar park Quaid-e-Azam lights up the Pakistan's future
Some 400,000 solar panels, spread over 200 hectares of flat desert, glare defiantly at the sun at what is known as the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Park (QASP) in Cholistan Desert, Punjab, named after Pakistan’s founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The 100MW photovoltaic cells (PV) solar farm was built by Chinese company Xinjiang SunOasis in just three months, and started selling electricity to the national grid in August.
This is the first energy project under the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key part of China’s ‘new silk road’, linking the port at Gwadar in southern Pakistan with Kashgar in China’s western region of Xinjiang.
The 100MW plant is the pilot stage of a more ambitious plan to build the world’s largest solar farm. Once completed in 2017, the site could have capacity of 5.2 million PV cells producing as much as 1,000MW of electricity – enough to power about 320,000 households. Construction of the next stage is already underway, led by another Chinese company Zonergy.
Eighteen months ago, the site was nothing more than wilderness. Now a mini city has emerged in the middle of the desert, with over 2,000 workers accompanied by heavy machinery, power transmission lines, blocks of buildings, water pipes and pylons.
Reducing emissions, providing livelihoods
The Cholistan desert is an ideal spot for solar power, said Muhammad Hassan Askari, operating manager of the solar park. The area gets 13 hours of sunlight every day while the huge expanse of flat desert is ideal for a large commercial project like this one.
The big advantage of solar power, he said, is that a large park can be completed faster than thermal or hydropower projects, which take much longer and require a lot of maintenance.
The solar park will also shrink Pakistan’s carbon footprint, said Najam Ahmed Shah, the chief executive officer of QASP, displacing about 57,500 tonnes of coal burn and reducing emissions by 90,750 tonnes every year.
Pakistan aims to reduce its reliance on hydrocarbons, especially imported coal, oil and gas, to around 60 per cent by 2025 from the present 87pc. The country has a target to produce 10pc of its total energy mix from renewable sources (excluding hydro-power, which already constitutes 15pc of the total energy mix). The current generation from renewable energy is around 1-2pc.
While Pakistan contributes less than 1pc to global Green House Gas (GHG) output, the country’s carbon emissions are growing by 3.9pc a year. By 2020 it will spew out 650 million tonnes of Co2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) if the current trend continues, said climatologist Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the UN secretary general’s special advisor for Asia with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The solar park will also eventually generate 15,000 to 33,000 jobs for locals and attract investment to the region.
Unprecedented scale
Some experts worry the project is too ambitious. Former director general of WWF-Pakistan Ali Hassan Habib, who now runs a company providing rooftop solar solutions, welcomed the project but was uneasy about the government “jumping into untested scale”. The plant will be double the size of the existing largest solar PV generating facilities worldwide, he said.
“It may have been better to build the equivalent remaining 900MW closer to where electricity is consumed — on say the rooftops of large parking lots — rather than installing it in remote locations,” he said.
Environmental impact of clean energy
Because solar energy is still finding a foothold in the energy mix and technologies are evolving, not enough is known about the park’s impact on the environment and natural resources.
Some negative impacts have already become apparent. For example, solar power consumes lots of water. PV panels may require little maintenance, according to QASP, but they need to be kept squeaky clean. An estimated one litre of water is used to clean each panel. Water consumed to clean the eventual 5.2 million panels built will be colossal for a country that is fast becoming water stressed. Currently, 30 people take 10 to 15 days to clean the 400,000 cells.
“This year we’ve been very lucky as there have been unprecedented rains and so panels were cleaned automatically,” said Askari.
The construction of a new road network and supporting commercial activities associated with large solar PV projects do leave a substantial “footprint” on the land, agreed Habib.
Shah justified the project, saying it was built on “uninhabited” “waste” land. “An Initial Environmental Examination was carried out and we got a nod from the Environment Protection Department before embarking upon the project,” he explained.
To offset any negative impact, Habib suggested the government set up an “environment and social fund”.
Environmentalists are also concerned about the fate of the millions of PV panels which will wear out within 25 years. The panels will have to be recycled to extract the silicon used to make them, and then replaced.
Political risks
With just a little over two years left in his term, the success of the solar project is important for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
“The project has huge political implications for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (N),” said Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) M Hassan Malik, who is responsible for the security arrangements of the entire QASP area.
”Through this project the government also wants to send out the message to the outside world that it has the capacity to undertake mega projects and will provide foolproof security to investors.”
Working in an area known as a hotbed of criminals and extremists, Malik’s job is challenging. “Not only is the park a national asset, we have foreign nationals working at the plant, so the sensitivity is two-fold,” he said.
There are 800 to 900 men guarding the site, where around 400 Chinese workers and over 2,000 labourers work at any given time.
Source: http://www.dawn.com/
World’s largest 'ship' Prelude, which is bigger than the Empire State Building, takes to the water for first time
South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries floated partially built tanker-shaped vessel - Prelude - at its southern shipyard in Geoje
Liquefied natural gas platform cannot be called a ship as it is unable to move under its own steam and must be towed
Vessel's storage tanks have a capacity equivalent to approximately 175 Olympic swimming pools
Commissioned by Dutch energy giant Shell, the facility is due to be delivered by September 2016
Prelude will operate in a remote basin around 295 miles northeast of Broome, Australia, for around 25 years
Pity the poor deck hands on this monster. Its bow and stern are half a kilometre apart and you could fit four football pitches onto it.
Now, the world's largest 'floating facility', which is longer than the height of the Empire State Building, has taken to the water for the first time.
South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries floated the partially built tanker-shaped vessel - named Prelude - at its southern shipyard in Geoje on November 30.
The 1,601ft -long (488m) floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) platform cannot be described as a ship because it is unable to move under its own steam and must be towed.
But its specifications are impressive, outstripping the 1,453ft (443m)-tall Empire State Building in New York.
Once complete, the facility will weigh more than 600,000 tonnes fully loaded, displacing the same amount of water as six of the world's largest aircraft carriers.
And at 242ft wide and 360ft high, it is expected to produce 3.6million tonnes of LNG a year - and its storage tanks have a capacity equivalent to approximately 175 Olympic swimming pools.
Commissioned by the Dutch energy giant Shell, the vessel is due to be delivered by September 2016.
In a press release on its website, Shell said Prelude would operate in a remote basin around 295 miles northeast of Broome, a town in Western Australia, for around 25 years.
It is an all-weather facility designed to withstand the most powerful category-five cyclone.
Which is just as well as it will be producing enough gas to supply a city the size of Hong Kong.
As Prelude leaves dry dock for the first time, developer Royal Dutch Shell wants to consolidate its advantage as the first mover in floating liquefied natural gas - an as-yet untried technology for which Prelude will be the flagship.
The oil company's technicians are designing something even larger and tougher than Prelude, a vessel that will need to last 25 years moored in the Indian Ocean's 'cyclone alley' off Australia's northwest coast.
'Yes we will move bigger and move into more extreme environments,' said Bruce Steenson, Shell's general manager of integrated gas programmes and innovation.
'We are designing a larger facility. That will be the next car off the rails.'
Prelude, which analysts says may cost over £7billion ($12bn) to build, is a potential game changer for the oil and gas industry. Escalating costs forced backers to dump their original, land-based LNG plant plans, and in September this year, they decided to go ahead with Shell's FLNG technology instead. Browse's developer, Woodside Petroleum, said in October it may use as many as three of the FLNG vessels that Shell is developing along with Samsung Heavy and oil and gas engineers Technip.
An even bigger FLNG plant than the ones to be built for Prelude and Browse could make life more interesting for the competition.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518943/Worlds-biggest-ship-Prelude-takes-water-time.html
First tests on humans wth ET-D5 : Molecule that could kill tumor cells and treat cancer
For many years, researchers are looking for remedies to cure cancer. Today is Aurélie Juhem, a researcher in the Grenoble laboratory Ecrins Therapeutics, which could have found an effective way to kill cancer cells.
As early as the 1900s, it was already possible to cure patients with cancer. It is of course reminiscent of Coley toxins that have been invented by Dr. William Coley and allowed to cure a terminal cancer in only three months in most cases. Today, other scientists are trying to find cures for cancer and results begin to emerge.
If scientific laboratory Architecture and Reactivity of RNA were able to divert the AIDS virus to more effectively combat cancer, a French researcher was able to find a molecule capable of stopping and killing cancer cells in certain types of cancer . Called ET-D5, this molecule with anti-cancer properties "has the ability to stop the division and proliferation of tumor cells, and destroy the vessels that have formed and that feed the tumor."
Thus, tumors may be destroyed due to this molecule, blocking their development and their blood supply, without damaging the organs affected by the tumor. For now, this molecule has only been tested on mice and the results are very promising. Aurélie Juhem can not do tests on humans now because it needs at least 500,000 euros in order to toxicological tests.
If the toxicity tests are conclusive, these drugs will be sold to a lab to produce the drug. They can then offer this drug to patients in the cancer center Léon Bérard in Lyon since 2016. This drug appears to be more effective on liver cancer, pancreas or kidney.
Source: http://www.depotekk.com/2015/02/et-d5-molecule-that-could-kill-cancer.html
Official website of the Ecrins Therapeutics Project: https://www.wiseed.com/en/startups/ecrins-therapeutics
Opening of the World's first robots theme park: "ROBOT LAND" in Incheon, South Korea
In 2009, we heard that South Korea was working on some sort of massive robot theme park that was scheduled to open in 2012. And then, we kind of didn't hear anything for a very, very, very long time. Now that it's 2014, Robot Land is back in the news and apparently actually really seriously no kidding getting built. Yay!
After years bogged down in environmental reviews (there's a stream that probably had some sort of endangered microbe in it on the build site), Masan Robot Land officially broke ground right about here in December of last year. The first phase of construction will include a robot research and development center, a convention center, a robot exhibition hall, and (most importantly) robot theme parks.
This is all supposed to be finished by September 2016 (with the theme park opening first, in January of 2015), which seems optimistic based on how this project has gone so far. But, 700 billion won (over US $660 million) has been promised, and 89 percent of the required land (300 acres) has been purchased, so things are definitely happening now. And once phase one is complete, phase two will add a bunch of hotels and condos and stuff, to open in 2018.
The Robot Land theme park could include:
Visitors can build their own droids
Roller coasters, a big wheel, rides and a water park.
An aquarium showcasing mechanical fish.
A night club, interactive cinemas and show spaces.
Shops selling hi-tech robots.
An R&D centre where engineers can build the next generation of robots.
A graduate school to educate future robotics engineers.
Huge exhibition spaces.
Detailed info about the robot park: http://www.robotland.or.kr/
Also detailed article about: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2549393/The-ROBOT-theme-park-South-Korea-plans-380m-attraction-visitors-build-droids-watch-mechanical-animals.html
Apple's New Spaceship Campus 2 will be the greenest building on the planet
APPLE: Our new home will be green from the ground up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Like everything we build, our new Apple campus in Cupertino pushes the boundaries of technology — it will be the most energy‑efficient building of its kind. Powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources, the campus goes beyond showing respect for the environment to forming a partnership with it. Air flows freely between the inside and outside of the building, providing natural ventilation for 75 percent of the year. And sunlight powers one of the largest onsite corporate solar energy installations in the world.
Our new home will be green from the ground up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Like everything we build, our new Apple campus in Cupertino pushes the boundaries of technology — it will be the most energy‑efficient building of its kind. Powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources, the campus goes beyond showing respect for the environment to forming a partnership with it. Air flows freely between the inside and outside of the building, providing natural ventilation for 75 percent of the year. And sunlight powers one of the largest onsite corporate solar energy installations in the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The building itself is just part of the story. Just under 80 percent of the site will be open space, populated by more than 7000 trees — including more than 6000 newly planted shade and fruit trees. Drought-tolerant plants will be used throughout the landscape to minimize water use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Getting to and from the new campus will be greener, too. We’re expanding our existing commute alternatives program by 20 percent. This means that over a third of our nearly 15,000 employees in Cupertino can commute to the new campus using our biofuel buses, public transit, bicycles, carpools, and their own two feet. And for drivers, we’ll have over 300 electric vehicle charging stations.The new campus is being built from the ground up to meet the highest environmental standards set by LEED, an internationally recognized green building rating system. When completed, Apple Campus 2 will be an ever‑present reminder of our commitment to sustainability and an example of what every corporate campus can be. Apple Campus 2 will use 30 percent less energy than a typical R&D office building. Over 1000 shared bicycles will be available at Apple Campus 2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Source: https://www.apple.com/environment/climate-change/
HI-SEAS 4 Reveals How deep Space Missions can Maintain Morale on Prolonged Voyages
Six people have begun a year-long mission to Mars without ever leaving Earth. Last week on the slopes of Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, the volunteers sealed themselves inside a dome habitat where they will live in isolation for one year on a simulated space mission. The fourth Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS 4) aims to study how deep space missions can maintain morale on prolonged voyages.
Funded by NASA and conducted by the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Cornell University, the HI-SEAS project began in 2013 as a cost-effective way of carrying out isolation experiments in the context of a simulated mission to the Red Planet. It uses a solar-powered dome 36 ft (11m) in diameter and 20 ft (6m) high designed to simulate a Mars habitat. This dome is situated 8,000 ft (2,400 m) up on the slopes of Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii, which act as an analog of the Martian surface.
HI-SEAS 4 is the fourth and longest of the HI-SEAS missions , with prvious simulations only lasting four to eight months at a time. Its male/female crew consists of volunteers from France, Germany, and the United States and includes an MD, an architecture post-graduate student, a soil scientist, a space scientist, an astrobiologist, and a physicist.
Slated to last a full year, the purpose of the HI-SEAS 4 is to study how astronauts can maintain morale and continue to perform at an effective level not only in relative isolation from the rest of the human race, but also a small group in conditions of near-zero privacy. During the mission, the crew will eat freeze-dried foods to simulate astronaut diets and provide suggestions to improve menus for actual space crews, They are only allowed out of the dome while wearing simulated spacesuits for geological and microbial surveys.
"I’m looking forward to getting to act like an astronaut for a year, because I’ve wanted to be an astronaut for most of my life," says HI-SEAS crew member Andrzej Stewart. "I’m not a real astronaut yet but I’m getting closer and closer to that dream and this is a step in that direction."
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/
Full Public Release of JIBO - The World’s First Family Robot
WHAT JIBO CAN DO: [See] Two hi-res cameras recognize and track faces, capture photos, and enable immersive video calling. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Hear] 360° microphones and natural language processing let you talk to JIBO from anywhere in the room. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏,
[Speak] Hands-free reminders and messages, so you'll never forget and can always be in touch. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏,
[Learn] Artificial Intelligence algorithms learn your preferences to adapt and fit into your life. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏,
[Help] Like a personal assistant, JIBO proactively helps you, to make everyday tasks simpler and easier. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Communicates] and expresses using natural social and emotive cues so you understand each other better. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, JIBO'S SKILLS: [Assistant] Politely reminds you of important tasks and events to help you stay on top of things. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Photographer] Uses natural cues like movement, speech, and smile detection to know when someone’s posing for a picture. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Storyteller] Sound effects, graphics and physical movements make a responsive and interactive storytelling experience. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Messenger] Recognizes you and each member of your household, to deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time & place. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Avatar] See-and-track camera makes it easy to turn and look at people, to support video calling as if you are in the room. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, [Companion] Physical presence with helpfulness and heart, JIBO will put a smile on your face and make you feel better. ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏, ,๏,
Source: http://www.myjibo.com/
The world’s best whiskey Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 returns from space with new trendy alien flavour
The lonely astronaut is about to get a companion.
The Japanese distillery company, Suntory, announced that it is partnering with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the International Space Station to launch its world-class whiskey into space.
Last year, Suntory dethroned the Scots for the title of the world’s best whiskey with its Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013. It marked the first time that a non-Scotch whisky was given the title by the highly-esteemed Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible. (For more on whisky vs. whiskey, see here.)
Alas, according to the press release, the point of the mission is not to provide astronauts with fine whiskey, but to test the way zero-gravity affects the ageing and taste of the liquor. “With the exception of some items like beer, alcoholic beverages are widely known to develop a mellow flavor when aged for a long time,” the company writes. Scientists and Suntory hope that the alcoholic space mission will help determine the source of this mellowing process.
The whiskey’s launch date is August 16, when it will fly aboard JAXA’s transfer vehicle Kounotori. A spokesman for the company told the Wall Street Journal that Suntory will be sending two different whiskies: a single malt aged for 21 years and another whiskey that was just distilled.
Half of the samples will return to Earth after one year while the other half will remain in space for an additional year. Suntory has not announced plans for the space whiskey’s future consumption.
Source: http://qz.com
I will have quit smocking
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