Using "Superblimps" to unlock riches in Africa

Lockheed Martin and Hybrid Enterprises have created the Hybrid Airship, a blip that can revolutionize the mining industry in Africa. It's powered by helium, can travel thousands of kilometers at a top notch speed of 60 knots in one journey, can carry loads of 20 tons, and does not need a runway. These qualities allow the blimp be better equip to provide transportation of materials for mining companies and projects, as no roads or railway lines need to be built allowing miners to bypass the most expensive and time-consuming aspects of mining. All that is needed for the blimp to be able to land is a space of 2-3 football fields. This is especially for Africa, as an estimated 90% of ore is located in remote locations. Before the blimp, a mining company would first have to build roads and railways before they could begin the actual mining, which wastes time and money. Hybrid Enterprises is currently undergoing FAA certification, and they hope that the ships will be in operation by 2018, with each unit being expected to cost tens of millions of dollars. 

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Samsung Debuts its First VR Camera, the Gear 360

The Gear 360 is small, white, orb-like camera that fits in the palm of your hand and only weighs a little less than half a pound. The camera has two lenses, each of which can capture 195 degrees of HD visual, allowing the camera see 360 degrees. It has a microSD storage card up to 128 GB. The settings are easy to use, and you are able to see  preview of your image before you shoot. The final product can be shared to a Samsung Galaxy Phone, online to YouTube or Facebook, or viewed with a Gear VR headset. The camera is expected to start selling in the second quarter, yet there is no word on pricing yet. By selling the camera, they hope to spur help spur the growth of VR and 360-degree video entertainment, as well as helping them sell their Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones.
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New Crystals That Can Store Data for Billions of Years

Researchers in the UK have created crystals that can store 360 terabytes of data, which is equivalent to the storage of 22,500 basic iPhones. They take the shape of small glass discs which encodes information using a sophisticated laser in the nano structures inside fused quartz. The data is stored in 5D, as the information is translated into the height, length, width, position, and orientation (five dimensions) of the nano structures. The data can be read by special optical devices, as the structures alter the way that light travels through the glass.
They have already used these crystals to store historic documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Bible. By using this technology, we ensure that the evidence of our civilization and all that we have learned will not be forgotten. The scientists who are presenting this research are looking for industry partners so that they can further develop and commercialize their technology. 
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The Future of Virtual Assistants

All major mobile operating systems have digital personalities, such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google Now. However these are not true virtual personal assistants, as they can only preform simple tasks such as scheduling appointments, setting reminders, looking things up on the internet, and a few other simple tasks. They have limited capabilities, and struggle to understand things that humans would have no problem with. Maluuba, an artificial intelligence company based in Canada has partnered with artificial intelligence researcher Yoshua Bengio. In order for machines to interact better with humans, they are looking to train networks on stories written by humans, starting with children's stories, rather than documents found on the web. By tracking the characters narratives, they are hoping the system will be able to know more about what the user wants, allowing it to be more effective. This could mean your phone using GPS data to know that you like to go to the grocery store before the bank, so it could automatically bring up your shopping list or a recipe, or bringing up something work related because of an email you received the previous day, as it now understands the flow of your day.
 

Other researchers and developers are looking to create a whole team of digital experts as you would in real-life scenarios, rather than making the current virtual assistants better. They could be bankers, financial planners, personal shoppers, etc., and the companies creating these fleets of bots call them virtual personal specialists. Sentient Technologies is one such company, and they have already put one such bot out into the field on Shoes.com, which helps people buy shoes. The site uses an algorithm that uses the costumer's choices to suggest products that they may want. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that it is his personal goal to build his own true virtual assistant this year.

 

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Advanced Web Design

In this class I expect to learn computer coding.