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Doug Vining

Chemical energy on demand

Posted: 22 May 2017

Here's another energy invention that promises to change the game. Australian researchers have built a reference model of a chemical loop energy system which essentially uses natural gas or electricity to 'charge' chemical particles in a reactor vessel. When that mixture is allowed to oxidise it releases heat, ...

The revolutionary redox system that produces and stores energy in the home

Imagine having a fridge-sized box in your home that generates and stores electricity, heats and cools the house, provides hot water and churns out oxygen ...

SUMMER'S SUN WILL KEEP YOU WARM IN WINTER

New energy storage system saves summer's heat for winter's chill

Dateline: 25 January 2021

We humans like our comforts, and temperature is one of the most important. In summer, we want our homes and offices to be pleasantly cool, and warm and ...

Doug Vining

Politics cannot save coal in the future

Posted: 22 May 2017

Whether you believe in climate change or not, it's abundantly apparent that coal as a primary energy source has a limited future. Globally, it will still take many years for alternative technologies to supplant coal, but as we can see happening in the United States, the economics of cleaner alternatives will make ...

In 2017 alone, enough US coal-fired plants have announced closures to power all of Qatar

Trump's coal magic has worked—but not in the way his voters had hoped.

COAL HITS US$10 PER TON AS SOLAR POWER SHINES

Nano solar films bring cheap energy to sunshine states

Dateline: 5 May 2018

It's hard to believe that a mere decade ago fossil fuels were at a premium, and everyone talked of 'peak oil' and the high prices of natural gas and coal. ...

Doug Vining

Google Lens is AI for cameras

Posted: 22 May 2017

Google's new app for cameras, Lens, is designed to let a connected camera, like the one in your smartphone, to understand the image and find related information about it. It's like Shazam for pictures. And although the demos were for identifying flowers and reading signs, you can be sure that it will also work for ...

Google Lens will let smartphone cameras understand what they see and take action

At Google's I/O developer conference, CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new technology called Google Lens. The idea with the product is to leverage Google's..

GOOGLE STAGES A HOME INVASION

With Google Screen you get more than just television, broadband and games

Dateline: 26 August 2015

Google has launched its pay TV service, with regular television channels on a broadband connection. But unlike 'on demand' services, this is an entirely ...

Doug Vining

Fake blood means no donors required

Posted: 19 May 2017

Well, it's not really fake - it's blood cultured in a lab from your own stem cells. Why go to all the trouble and expense of getting blood safely donated when you can "grow your own"? Biotech advances will revolutionise healthcare and extend human longevity. The future potential is amazing.

Stem-cell research a step closer to making blood donation redundant

Two different teams have managed to train stem cells to replenish a mouse’s blood supply.

214 SUCCESSFUL TRANSFUSIONS DESPITE HUMAN BLOOD SHORTAGE

Artificial blood saves earthquake victims

Dateline: 17 April 2021

"We're out of blood," was the chilling statement released by Sichuan University School of Medicine in Chengdu. 4,700 people were left homeless following ...

Doug Vining

Battle in the clouds

Posted: 18 May 2017

Google's announcement of new hardware for sale is interesting - because you can only buy it as a service. The second generation of Google's TPU chip is optimized for machine learning jobs, and is available as an option to users of Google's Cloud Platform. As a cloud provider, Google is currently running third ...

Google unveils next-gen TPUs to both train and run machine learning models

At Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google's high-power chips should make Google Cloud Platform the best public cloud for machine learning.

MindBullets Editors

ONE BELT FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER

Published on: 18 May 2017

China leads the push for Globalization 2.0

Dateline: 4 July 2035

It's taken two decades, but the demise of the United States as top nation was predicted way back in 2015. Now China is firmly #1 in economic terms, and the west looks decidedly lower-middle class. The global power shift to the east has been driven partly by demographics, but also by China's determination to expand its sphere of economic influence, and to co-opt key nations en route. Central to this ambition was the 'One Belt, One Road' initiative, which links up dozens of nodes from Guangzhou to ...

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