Do you see what I see? 😎⚾🚀⛳

This week we’re talking about MLB getting in on virtual reality, Danish augmented reality windows, blockchain for environmental sustainability, and the PGA using augmented reality to up their viewers’ game.

VIRTUAL REALITY  . 

MLB joins in on 3D fun ⚾
This coming June the MLB is launching their own virtual reality app. The MLB has been really stepping up to the tech-plate lately, with the recent approval of new wearables during competitive gameplay. The first wrist-based wearable for the MLB, WHOOP, just got approval in March to help players measure strain levels. So, what kind of stuff can you do in the MLB’s VR app?
First off, the VR app is actually an update to the MLB’s At-Bat game-streaming app. Bad news, it’s only compatible with Google’s Daydream platform. Sorry Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard users 😞. And not to steal the fun, but the actual games will be displayed in a boring old two-dimensional form. For this app, imagine around walls, with each wall being an app screen with player statistics and scores. Doesn’t seem like a home run of an app, but maybe a 1st base hit?

AR .

Smarter windows better than AR goggles & glasses? 🚀
If you’re not looking to sport those hip Google Glasses, or Microsoft’s own version announced last week, then maybe the idea of augmented reality windows is up your alley. The Danish 🇩🇰 company Realfiction cleverly announced their new AR window product in Copenhagen this week. This is DeepFrame. If there’s an AR engineer reading this, don’t you wish you thought of that name?
At the national aquarium in Copenhagen, the Realfiction team stealthily set up a deep frame and simulated a rocket launching out on the water to the shock of onlookers. It was part of the marketing move, sure, but the spectators seemed pretty impressed. There’s already a lot of interest in this technology for advertising, with big clients like Louis Vuitton and Tag Heuer working with the Danish company. Will we need smart glasses just to tell us what is real and what isn’t? 🤔

“SusTECH” .

Blockchain adding accountability to environmental sustainability?
The blockchain is doing more than make some cryptocurrency speculators rich. Its use can be applied to enforcing intellectual property, data security, and health & life insurance to name a few. And now, it’s helping protect the environment. First, a refresher on the blockchain. Blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions are recorded publicly, and immutable. What’s key is that these transactions can’t be modified or copied, building trust. These transactions don’t need to trade a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, but any piece of information.
When it comes to environmental problems, many issues can be traced to a fundamental corruption of information. This past week, Swedish ecologist Guillaume Chapron walked through an example of how falsified information in the supply chain of fish and other natural resources results in environmentally unsustainable products entering the market. Hypothetically, a blockchain-based supply chain would guarantee that the products you buy are truly coming from their purported sources. That extreme accountability could go a long way. 🌱

AR .

AR now being used for analyzing golf ⛳
In a sport all about evaluating distance and elevation, being confined to a 2D screen can be a bit limiting. This past week hosts of the PGA TOUR incorporated augmented reality in its golf analysis during The Players Championship. Well, they actually filmed the segment with a paper model and then added augmented images in post-production. But for the purposes of the viewer, they were able to navigate the course in a completely new way.
For a sport looking to engage younger users, this might do the trick. Much like the MLB’s efforts, the PGA TOUR has been offering virtual reality content through a Samsung Gear App, and augmented reality content with Microsoft’s HoloLens.
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week. ✌️

La la la. We’re all in this—cyber-hacked world—together 🌐

This week we’re talking about the cyber insecure world we live in and a potential digital Geneva Convention, bovine wearables, the trouble of tracking sleep, and how 3D printing has led to the gift of (mouse) life.

SECURITY  . 

Is it time for a digital Geneva Convention?
If you haven’t heard, this past Friday was one of the worst cyber attacks of all time. The Russian Interior Ministry’s computers froze, British hospitals couldn’t access their patients’ files, and more than 74 other countries from Ukraine to Taiwan were affected. Corporate IT departments, national intelligence agencies, and big technology companies like Microsoft have all been receiving blame. Ok, so what can we do to stop this from happening again?
Microsoft has publicly come forward urging for a digital “Geneva Convention”, emphasizing major inter-continental cooperation. Their President Brad Smith recommended an agency be established similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency, however instead of cooperating to prevent a nuclear meltdown, they would work together to prevent a technological one.
Microsoft is getting quite a bit of praise online for such a public move. It’s not necessarily in a company’s best interest PR-wise to admit that their systems are vulnerable. Much respect, Microsoft. 👏

WEARABLES .

Even cows are getting in on it
There are now cows, elephants, and chickens getting into wearables before you. I guess we need more cowbell. However, you may not feel like you’re missing out on the new “ingestibles” wearables. Farmers are getting their animals to swallow these devices to track the contents of their stomachs to see when they are sick or in heat.
The smart devices for farm animals market is growing. One is the Cowlar. A farmer straps this small box to the back of the cow’s head, which tracks its movement, temperature, location, and other data. The data is transmitted wirelessly to “the cow router”, then processed and reported to the farmer. And it’s all about increasing milk yield and improving breeding. I’m guessing that didn’t convince you to join the wearables movement. sorry. 🐄 not sorry.

WEARABLES .

Forget exercise – zZzzZzz, track sleep
If sleep is as important as exercise for a healthy lifestyle, then we should try to learn from it. Problem is, tracking sleep isn’t as clear-cut. One example is how wearables track movement. With exercise, the internal accelerators can point to calories burned. Good. On the other hand, movement while sleeping is both natural and an indication of poor sleep quality. The lifestyle and medical takeaways aren’t so clear. These devices do use medical research and science, but they are by no means certified medical devices.
Fitbit’s new device the Alta HR takes a look at a different variable, with heart rate data adding an additional perspective to sleep quality. But as wearables provide more and more information to their wearers about their bodies, users will need to be careful to not misdiagnose themselves. Sleep researchers believe measuring brain activity would be most helpful. Keep an eye out for smart headbands in the next year or so…

3D PRINTING .

Helping mice give birth 🐁
Prosthetic ovaries made of gelatin have allowed mice to conceive and give birth to healthy offspring. Researchers at Northwestern University even derived the gelatin from collagen, a protein naturally found in animal ovaries. The disturbing part is that in order to conduct the experiment, they had to first remove the mice’s ovaries to then, surgically replace them with the prosthetic ovaries. In the end, three female mice were able to deliver healthy litters.
And if it works with mice then… researchers are looking ahead to the future and whether human patients could benefit. While that reality still seems to be years away, fans of 3D printing can already point to 3D-printed heart valves, skin, ears and bone scaffolds. If most of us didn’t foresee today’s 3D printed organs, who’s say that 3D printed human ovaries aren’t right around the corner?
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week.✌️

Robot written newsletters, AR that lets you lose weight, and turning air into water (seriously).

This week we’re talking about Ludlow.io & how it helped make this newsletter, a Microsoft patent helping people diet, AR giving surgeons x-ray vision, a new solar-powered device converting air to water, and a 21st century cassette player.

Introducing . 

Ludlow
This topical newsletter is through Ludlow.io, an internal project we’ve been working on at SWARM. Still in beta, Ludlow quickly pulls in articles based on subjects your audience is interested in, and automatically formats them into a newsletter.

AR .

Microsoft’s new patent helps you diet
How do you merge Augmented Reality with dieting?
Microsoft has a clue. Imagine grabbing a bag of skittles, and then your AR smart glasses project nutritional info over that bag. Seeing “43 grams of sugar” floating in the air may make you go ‘Uh, no thanks.’ So, Microsoft recently secured a patent to do just that.
So, how do the glasses identify the food?, or confirm it’s you eating it? An embedded camera recognizes the food, and an audio receiver confirms it’s you from your audible chewing. Pretty sweet stuff. The question is, will they end up more in the Google Glass or Spectacles territory…

More AR .

AR for surgical ‘x-ray vision’⚕️
The more information the better. A new augmented reality platform from Cambridge Consultants in Boston can build a 3D image of the inside of a patient’s body from MRI and CT scans. The different organs are color-coded by software and can be virtually tagged with notes for use by other doctors. It’s also interactive. If a surgeon wants to look behind a visually obstructed organ, they can simply tap the obstructing organ to have it disappear.
The platform is being considered for use in real surgeries. Hypothetically, a surgeon could let the AR platform guide them in real-time. This could reduce risk during keyhole surgeries, and potentially result in fewer incisions made solely for visual access. When? While they are testing on mannequins currently, real operations with this type of AR could be a few years to decades away.

SUSTAINABILITY .

New device converts air to 🚰
This is truly mind-blowing. A new ‘water harvester’ uses a sponge-like material to convert air into water. This includes dry, low humidity air. The device can convert 3 liters of water a day, more than the daily recommended average of 2 liters. Yes, this could provide relief to billions of people, also in the driest areas of the world.
To best explain how, here’s a direct quote, “The new water harvester is made of metal organic framework crystals pressed into a thin sheet of copper metal and placed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate.” Clearly, a collaborative effort between researchers at University of California Berkeley and MIT. There are hurdles towards making the water harvesters more widely manufactured, such as the cost of the materials, but the researchers have already identified cheaper alternatives that could fulfill the same purpose. If this was a Kickstarter, it would be probably the most successful, ever.
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week.✌️

📡 All the cool kids are doing IoT

This week we’re talking about IoT manufacturing, Google better than Tesla at self-driving cars, whether police body cameras should use A.I., and IoT fighting air pollution.

INTERNET OF THINGS  . 

Manufacturing is loving IoT 📡

So you’ve heard of the Internet of Things (IoT), and all the buzz about it, but what about its actual adoption? A new study called the MPI Internet of Things Study, reveals that right now, half of the plant production and equipment processes are managed by IoT. And that number is climbing, 88% of surveyed companies said they would be expanding their use of IoT technology in the next two years.

The impact? The U.S. manufacturing sector has seen major increases in productivity and productivity. Of those using IoT, 72% saw increases in productivity, and 69% saw improved profitability. There is a whole range of benefits that IoT has provided factories, from helping to predict supply shortages, detect production line inefficiencies, to alerting maintenance crews about needed repairs. The more information these companies have to work with, the easier it is for them to manage plants that can run faster, longer, and more efficiently. 🏭

TRANSPORTATION .

On-demand self-driving cars are open to the public
Google’s/Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo is already offering self-driving car rides to the public. It kind of feels like they are way mo’ ahead of schedule than all the other self-driving car companies in the U.S.. For the past month, select customers in Phoenix, Arizona have been able to hail a self-driving car via a smartphone app. At the moment, each car does have an actual driver behind the wheel as a backup. But which self-driving car company is doing the best?

 

Waymo/Google has by far the lowest rate of interventions needed by real drivers per 1000 miles. There has been an overwhelming amount of news and adoration for Tesla, but Tesla’s record compared to other major car manufacturers is pretty bad. The latest report shows that Google, BMW, Ford, Nissan, Cruise and Delphi all had lower rates than Tesla for software malfunctioning. It’s actually not even close. Right now Waymo’s public experiment is limited to certain parts of Phoenix, but their success so far has led to a six-fold increase in vehicles.

AI .

Should AI be applied to police body cameras?
You may have seen Youtube videos of drone racing, but most people don’t know that it has an official league. More than 30 million viewers tuned into the Drone Racing League (DRL) last year when it aired on ESPN and Sky network. And one of the major issues with last season? Drones crashing. What a surprise.
The DRL is launching a new drone called the Racer3 for its pilots. Differing from NASCAR, the DRL provides the actual ‘vehicles’ for its pilots, not the design specifications for each team to build for themselves as in NASCAR. Before each race, pilots are free to crash dozens of drones while testing the course, and even tweak the drones’ responsiveness. These drones are sturdier and have LED lights to be more visible to their pilots. Oh, and they can go 0-80 MPH in under a second.

MOTIVATION .

IoT 📡 vs. Air Pollution 🌇

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 5.5 million people die each year as a result of air pollution, most of whom are in China and India. That’s more than deaths from obesity, alcohol, and drug abuse. Currently, every major U.S. city is equipped with ‘waggle chips’ that can read the presence of several air pollutants. While it is under debate, one estimate finds that for every dollar spent on air pollutant improvements in the U.S. there is a $4-$30 benefit in reduced health costs.

Notably, a ten-year collaboration between IBM and Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau has led to drastically improved measurement of air quality. The project, named ‘Green Horizons’, can even identify exact pollutants and their sources. Vast amounts of data provided by IoT systems throughout China combined with IBM’s machine learning technology can forecast changes in air quality from factors ranging from seasonal change to new factories opening up. Got to the love that team spirit!

let’s end with… slick design + impressive technology =

Sony’s FES-2 is an e-ink watch. Paper-thin, infinite designs on your wrist. 😲

 
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week.✌️

Bon appétit to fake meat? 🍽️

This week we’re talking about… is 2017 the year of synthetic beef?, the ‘safe’ Russian FEDOR robot, 3D printed chocolate, and disposable drones for the U.S. military.

FOOD TECH  . 

The world is hungry for food innovation 🌍

The world’s population is expected to grow by over one third between 2009 and 2050, that’s roughly 2.3 billion people. Planet Earth will need some creative solutions and an open-mind for new methods of growing food, such as gene-editing for crops and indoor farming. We will certainly need an open mind toward lab-grown beef and chicken.

Synthetic beef and chicken, while strange, is very humanity-friendly. These methods of meat production have in some cases used 90% less land and water. Researchers are noting an emerging trend of conscious consumerism directed towards protein alternatives that are healthy and sustainable. This past month, Impossible Foods opened a new factory in Oakland, CA that is estimated to produce 1 million pounds of plant-based beef a month. Don’t knock it till you try it?

ROBOTS .

Russian gun-shooting robot, not Terminator, according to Russia
This isn’t The Onion. The Russian Deputy Prime Minister recently tweeted a video showing a humanoid robot, FEDOR, dual-wielding pistols, and shooting at least a dozen targets. It hit all the targets, accurately and quickly. The video even zoomed in the on the floor as the bullet shells hit the ground, Hollywood style. Surprisingly, rescue work is original purpose for FEDOR. What a nice thought.
But its new stated purpose is space exploration, and FEDOR has developed quite a few skills along the way. It can drive a car, screw lightbulb, do pushups, and use keys. The Russian Federatstiya spacecraft is heading to the moon in 2021 and FEDOR is to be the sole passenger on board. Despite the video, the Deputy Prime Minister wants to reassure the public that the Russian robot isn’t the Terminator. FEDOR’s shooting skills are strictly a demonstration of its improved fine motor skills. 🤖

3D PRINTING .

Belgians 3D printing chocolate. Delicious.
Innovation never tasted so sweet. The Miam Factory has developed a specialized 3D printing machine just for chocolate. Miam (French for ‘Yum’) came out of the University of Liege’s Smart Gastronomy Lab just a couple months ago. It has printed a variety of objects in chocolate, such as chocolate beer bottles. At the Bertinchamps brewery, winners of the Easter egg hunt this year received chocolate beer!
They make company logos out of chocolate and even etch people’s faces on macaroons. As of this writing, the Miam Factory does not have an Instagram. It is currently unknown as to whether they understand there is an entire social network built to share photos of their food, or whether they simply are too busy creating mini-Christmas trees out of chocolate to care.

DRONES .

More drones? U.S. military wants disposable drones
The future of drone technology is more than competitive racing and delivering your latest Amazon purchase. It’s been used to deliver medicine to remote areas of Africa, and now the U.S. military is finding applications for drone delivery on the battlefield. The TACAD system has recently debuted a new model that will begin development this year. It’s relatively cheap, goes longer distances than current methods, and is for non-military situations, such as disaster relief.

A serious challenge exists to deliver supplies to places where it’s too dangerous to land a helicopter. The current system involves dropping parachutes called JPADS from high altitudes. While the JPADS can carry very heavy loads, they don’t travel nearly as far as the new TACAD system. What’s next? The military has been envisioning a ‘flying drone aircraft carrier’ since 2014, which kind of makes Amazon look like slow-moving copycat for filing a similar patent this past year.

let’s end with some thought-provoking design =

The Exploded Chair. Would you feel comfortable sitting on this? 💥

 
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week.✌️