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Ekaterina Yanovskaya

Cities of the Future | INSEAD Knowledge - 0 views

    • Ekaterina Yanovskaya
       
      You think about the middle class in China, the middle class in India and you think about their consumption power, it is explosive," says Van Wassenhove. "It's good that these people get out of poverty but the constraints they're going to put on resources are just enormous. Sustainability is no longer a luxury; it is something that business will have to deal with
  • Singapore had the foresight to realise very early that they didn’t have resources. They didn’t have water, they didn’t have energy. So they were forced from the start to include sustainability in their thinking. They understood that economic sustainability for them was tightly linked to environmental sustainability
  • The infamous traffic in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, led to the first phase of a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) rail system to alleviate the strain on roads, to be announced this year
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  • Mumbai built the now-famous “Sealink” bridge to divert traffic away from the gridlock of the city and along its coast
  • There’s still the issue to develop a longer-term plan rather than chaotic management of cities. There may still be the issue of resources, where are the resources going to come from? Maybe companies can help by helping to create business which would generate economic resources.”
  • Globalisation has meant urbanisation, and by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. What should we do to survive and thrive in this brave new world?
  • You cannot attract highly educated people and become a knowledge centre if you have a lousy environment
Maria Gurova

Using ToyTalk Technology, New Hello Barbie Will Have Real Conversations With Kids | Fas... - 1 views

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    I've posted earlier about this ToyTalk company, they are founded by the guy who worked at Pixar for 20 years. The company develops the speech recognition technology, signed their first deal with a big toy company - Mattel. They are going to develop Barbie doll that will be able to sustain meaningful conversations with kids
Ekaterina Yanovskaya

Overconsumption? Our use of the world's natural resources | Christine Polzin - Academia... - 0 views

  • Calculations using “Ecological Footprint” illustrate that theworld is already using around 30% more biocapacity than theglobal ecosystems can provide in a sustainable manner.
  • above a certainthreshold an increase in material wealth does not improvelife satisfaction any further
  • stra-tegies based on more non-materialistic approaches couldachieve higher life satisfaction.
Maria Gurova

A New Version Of Monopoly That Isn't About Getting Rich And Bankrupting Your Friends | ... - 0 views

  • "Unlike Monopoly, the goal of Commonopoly is not the exhaustion, through monopolization, of a virtual stock of goods, but rather the expansion and preservation of a self-propelling sustainable system of recycling, production and distribution," the creators write.
  • Commonopoly, which has recently resurfaced in a couple of places online, demands that players brainstorm alternative economic systems through activities placed around the board.
  • Commonopoly also triggers another recent memory. In 2012, a team of psychologists from the University of California, Berkeley, designed several experiments to measure how wealth impacted unethical behavior.
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  • The results of the other experiments came to the controversial conclusion that those with wealthier backgrounds were more likely to cut off other drivers, lie in negotiating, or cheat.
Maria Gurova

New era of self-driving cars will transform cities - 0 views

  • it will certainly transform our daily routines: imagine driving hands-free while having the luxury of reading a book, taking a nap, or guiltlessly texting on the road. At the same time, something far more interesting - and still unexplored - is the potential transformation of our cities themselves
  • blurring the distinction between private and public modes of transportation. "Your" car could give you a lift to work in the morning and then, rather than sitting idle in a parking lot, give a lift to someone else in your family - or, for that matter, to anyone else in your neighbourhood, social media circles, or city.
  • This implies a city in which everyone can travel on demand with just one-fifth of the number of cars in use today
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  • Fewer cars may also mean shorter travel times, less congestion, and a smaller environmental impact.
  • Real-time data planning and smart routing are already a reality, and more advances are coming in the wake of "intelligent city" initiatives around the world,
  • Imagine a world without traffic lights, where vehicular flows "magically" pass through one another and avoid collision
  • Traffic accidents, though rarer, would still be a possibility; in fact, they might be one of the main impediments to implementation of autonomous systems, demanding a restructuring of insurance and liability that could sustain armies of lawyers for years to com
  • We are all familiar with viruses crashing our computers, but what if a virus crashes our cars? Resolving these issues is crucial, but none is insurmountable.
Maria Gurova

The first around-the-world flight in a solar airplane will launch this March | The Verge - 0 views

  • In around two months, the team behind the solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 will attempt the first ever around-the-world flight powered only by sunlight.
  • After taking off in Abu Dhabi, the Solar Impulse 2 will make stops in Oman, India, Myanmar, China, the US, and Southern Europe or North Africa before landing back in Abu Dhabi sometime in August.
  • The Solar Impulse 2's across-the-world flight should clock 500 hours total flight time and around 21,748 miles
Maria Gurova

BBC - Future - Is e-waste an untapped treasure? - 0 views

  • Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a rapidly growing global problem
  • Yet many are realising that the gadgets we chuck away can be ripped apart and transformed into something new – brand new technology, or even art.
  • In 2012, we discarded 48.9 million tonnes of electrical and electronic products. If current trends continue, by 2017, the annual amount of e-waste produced globally will reach 65.4 million tonnes – that’s roughly 20% of the weight of all the people living on Earth.
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  • Using parts and wires from old computers, scanners and photocopiers (some of it for free, but most bought), and an Arduino electronics card as the brain, they managed to put together a working prototype for a few hundred euros (see below).
  • “In Togo, there are many people who can’t have access to computers, because they don’t have money to buy a new computer,” says Allahare. “But we have many computers that are broken and not working. It’s sometimes just a little piece that is spoiled in it. W.Jies can help people get connected, get information, and help kids learn ICT from low-cost computers.”
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    in 2012 china alone produced 11.1 mlm tones of e-waste, what can be considered trash in one part of the world, can indeed become a treasure in the other part of the world
anna_nelidova

The World's First Fully Robotic Farm Opens In 2017 | Popular Science - 0 views

  • A company in Japan is building an indoor lettuce farm that will be completely tended by robots and computers.
  • The company, named Spread, expects the factory to open in 2017, and the fully automated farming process could make the lettuce cheaper and better for the environment.
  • The plants can be grown hydroponically without exhausting soil resources.
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  • Up to 98 percent of Spread’s water will be recycled, and the factory won’t have to spray pesticides
  • Artificial lighting means the food supply won’t rely on weather variables, and the lighting can be supplied through renewable energy.
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    A Japanese company plans to open a fully automated farm by 2017 that will be very efficient and not harmful for the environment. They are hoping to increase production and to reduce labor costs and company's prices. 
Anna Dubinina

This Mini, Portable Wind Turbine Could Charge Your Phone Or Power Your House - 2 views

  • The largest size (2500 watt) could provide enough power for a small house (though would obviously need backing up). The 1000 is good for RVs and boat owners, the Agustssons say, while the smallest 50 watt one is right for USB devices and laptops. The turbines can also back up electric cars when the grid isn't available.
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    Mini, Portable Wind Turbine Could Charge Your Phone Or Power Your House
Vladimir Antonov

BMW Vision Next 100 shows future of BMW - Business Insider - 1 views

  • body of the concept car is designed to maximize aerodynamic efficiency and is constructed primarily out of recycled materials
  • BMW has also eliminated to wood and leather from the its interiors to promote sustainable manufacturing.
  • The BMW design study also incorporates full autonomous and manual driving modes, called "Ease" and "Boost" modes.
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  • In Ease mode, the car is fully autonomous, and the driver the able to sit back let the machine do the driving.
  • Boost mode affords the driver the opportunity to push the performance boundaries of the BMW at his or own pleasure. It's the traditional BMW driving experience. 
  • future of automobiles will be built upon four pillars
  • Artificial intelligence and intuitive technology
  • future cars will be able to learn, think and interact in a more human-like manner. 
  • future technology will be seamlessly integrated into the usage experience in way that the driver may not even know he or she is interacting with technology
  • According to BMW, the development of carbon fiber and composite parts along with new manufacturing techniques like 4D printing may render old-fashioned pressed steel obsolete.
  • mobility will remain an emotional experience
  • BMWs will remain driver focused
  • Features such as autonomous drive are key because they keep the brand at the forefront technological development. But they may threaten the driver-centric, pleasure-of-driving ethos BMW has built for itself over the past 100 years
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    1. BMW probably won't be exist in 100 years from now :) 2. Those cars will be on our roads much much sooner 
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