In a recent post I reported on the scheduled activation of the first autonomous train on the S-Bahn network in Hamburg. This is an example of the interest to revamp existing infrastructures by companies and institutions all over the world. Another example is the plan for the electrification of 2,000 …
Read More »A robot with a bee brain
At the turn of the century (2006) IBM launched a project to map the human brain as a starting point to create a “cognitive computer”. It was clear from the beginning that it was an impossible dream, yet the hope was that pursuing it would increase our knowledge of the computational structures …
Read More »This is your airplane speaking: I am going to land now
“Ladies and Gentlemen, is your pilot speaking. We will shortly be landing in XYZ”. Now that’s what we are used to hear (actually It is now almost a year since my last flight… courtesy of the pandemic) but in the future we might hear something slightly different: “Ladies and Gentlemen, …
Read More »The smartphone is moving into a laptop, as a start…
Few days ago I read an interesting article on Wired discussing the announcement of new Apple Mac products embedding the M1, the chip developed by Apple. It is not the first time Apple develops chips for its products but it is the first time it does so for its Mac …
Read More »Digital Twins at work II
Following on last post, an interesting presentation came from Sandvik, a company manufacturing heavy machines. The presentation focussed on the increased automation and the use of these machines in mining environment. The operating conditions are particularly demanding, often requiring the machine to operate in very narrow spaces. Something I did …
Read More »Landing in a plane whose pilot is on the ground …
Automation is a big part of today’s flying. When you are flying 90% of the time (probably more) the plane flies itself with the autopilot, air traffic for a big part is completely automated (you discover this when there is a problem with computers and everything stops down), airports function …
Read More »What about a thousands drones flying over your head?
As drones gained traction, both in the consumer market that has now reached several millions as well as in the business area where drones are really starting to be used and where they are expected to become part of industrial and delivery chains –2.4 million expected to ship in 2023-, …
Read More »Eventually anybody can land a plane…
Last years Garmin announced an auto-landing feature for its navigation system. If a pilot is no longer able to fly the plane all it takes is a passenger to press a button for 2 seconds to engage the auto-landing system. You might object that we have had planes able to …
Read More »Morphing a drone into a hummingbird
The news is not a recent one, goes back to 2019 and in technology one year is quite a long time, but what it makes it relevant today is its application in real life. Researchers at Purdue University, probably fascinated by the amazing capabilities of hummingbirds to hover with an …
Read More »Spreading the Wings
If you Google for Supermarket queues you’ll get plenty of articles and images/video on the lengthy snakes of people in line. No surprise that online shopping has seen a tremendous increase courtesy of the lock-down. However, this is not true in all merchandising sector. Whilst (Italy data for March 2020) …
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