Federal Government Aims to Develop a 500 Wh/kg Battery, 350 kW Charging System

http://www.hybridcars.com/federal-government-aims-to-develop-a-500-whkg-battery-350-kw-charging-system/

China surges further ahead in solar power production

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3098893/sustainable-it/china-surges-further-ahead-in-solar-power-production.html

Energy, For U.S. Security

http://breakingenergy.com/2016/07/26/energy-for-u-s-security/

Uncle Sam Wants You — Or at Least Your Genetic and Lifestyle Information

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/us/politics/precision-medicine-initiative-volunteers.html?_r=0

New Battery Could Overcome Key Drawbacks of Lithium-Air Batteries

http://scitechdaily.com/new-battery-could-overcome-key-drawbacks-of-lithium-air-batteries/

The Hyperloop: BUSTED!

Hmm, looks like the hyperloop has some probably insurmountable obstacles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk

And a follow-up video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDwe2M-LDZQ

Utahns’ enthusiastic embrace of solar power could cost the state $42M

http://www.sltrib.com/news/4123522-155/utahns-enthusiastic-embrace-of-solar-power#sthash.saiw2YSb.gbpl&st_refDomain=www.facebook.com&st_refQuery=/

Solar module prices hit all-time low as inventories pile up

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3098824/sustainable-it/solar-module-prices-hit-all-time-low-as-inventories-pile-up.html

Yale Researchers Cross the “Break Even” Point in Preserving a Bit of Quantum Information

http://scitechdaily.com/yale-researchers-cross-the-break-even-point-in-preserving-a-bit-of-quantum-information/

Why Can’t Consumers Stop Driverless Cars?

https://medium.com/@mitchturck/why-cant-consumers-stop-driverless-cars-3f1f27717638#.1usxmsr0v

Updated Brain Map Identifies Nearly 100 New Regions

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/science/human-connectome-brain-map.html?referer=

Musk Reveals Four New Vehicles and a Forecast for Tesla's Future

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-21/elon-musk-reveals-how-he-forecasts-tesla-s-future

Engineers Reveal a ‘New Universe’ of Organic Molecules That Can Store Energy in Flow Batteries

http://scitechdaily.com/engineers-reveal-a-new-universe-of-organic-molecules-that-can-store-energy-in-flow-batteries/

Peering into atomically thin transistors with microwaves, scientists make a radical discovery: a one-dimensional transistor

http://www.kurzweilai.net/peering-into-atomically-thin-transistors-with-microwaves-scientists-make-a-radical-discovery-a-one-dimensional-transistor

Obama makes new push on solar power

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/288340-obama-makes-new-push-on-solar-power

You’ll Never Believe How Cheap New Solar Power Is

Lots of encouraging news:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/18/3797907/solar-energy-miracle-charts/

How Far Away Is Commercial Electric Aviation?

http://insideevs.com/far-away-commercial-electric-flight/

Mayo Clinic researchers discover drug combination that helps immune system attack cancer cells

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mayo-clinic-researchers-discover-drug-combination-that-helps-immune-system-attack-cancer-cells

Record-Setting Hard Drive Writes Information One Atom At a Time

http://gizmodo.com/record-setting-hard-drive-writes-information-one-atom-a-1783740015

Still a long ways off, though....

Berkeley Lab scientists grow atomically thin transistors and circuits

http://www.kurzweilai.net/berkeley-lab-scientists-grow-atomically-thin-transistors-and-circuits

A New Design Strategy for Better Lithium Oxygen Batteries

http://scitechdaily.com/a-new-design-strategy-for-better-lithium-oxygen-batteries/

Cheapest Offshore Wind Farm In The World, Thanks To Shell

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/07/cheapest-offshore-wind-farm-in-the-world-thanks-to-shell/#

DARPA-funded prosthetic arm set to go on sale later this year

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/11/12147726/prosthetic-luke-arm-commercial-launch-2016

Canadian Company Turns Air Into Fuel In Climate Change Fight

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carbon-capture-fuel_us_577a177ae4b0a629c1aa7669

‘Soft Robots’ Look Nothing Like the Machines You Know

http://time.com/4391892/soft-robotics/

World's Largest Storage Battery Will Power Los Angeles...

...during peak demand. Note: the battery is not portable:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-s-largest-storage-battery-will-power-los-angeles/?wt.mc=SA_Facebook-Share

Discovery Could Boost Efficiency of Perovskite Solar Cells to 31%, and Perovskite is plentiful

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/07/discovery-could-boost-efficiency-of.html

Engineers Design Programmable RNA Vaccines That Protect Against Ebola and H1N1 Influenza

http://scitechdaily.com/engineers-design-programmable-rna-vaccines-that-protext-against-ebola-and-h1n1-influenza/

Big solar is leaving rooftop systems in the dust

Once again it's probably wise to wait before getting a rooftop solar system:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-solar-leaving-rooftop-systems-050001843.html

Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report

A great summary of how things are moving along in robotics and AI:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-the-artificial-intelligence-revolution-a-special-report-pt-1-20160229

Yale Engineers Turn Wasted Heat Into Power

http://scitechdaily.com/yale-engineers-turn-wasted-heat-into-power/

Falling Battery Prices Bring Opportunities and Pitfalls to EVs and Energy Storage

A 70% price drop in the last 18 months???

http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/01/falling-battery-prices-bring-opportunities-and-pit.aspx#.V3apwAfZ9E4.facebook

I keep wanting to get a solar system with battery backup, but the way prices keep dropping, it seems wisest to wait....

Tesla Driver Killed in Crash While Using Car’s Self-Driving System

http://time.com/4390853/tesla-self-drive-driver-killed-car-crash-auto-pilot/

I really hope this doesn't put a damper on robot cars. It shouldn't, since they're still a lot safer than humans...but you know, humans is weird.

Mad Scientist Builds a 200-Watt Laser Bazooka That Can Shoot Through a Computer Case

I want one of these hooked up to a motion sensor to blast mosquitoes, flies and ants!

http://laughingsquid.com/mad-scientist-builds-a-200-watt-laser-bazooka-that-can-shoot-through-a-computer-case/

Uber, Ford, and Google Teaming Up to Radically Change Driving Laws

It's gotta be done....

http://bigthink.com/stefani-cox/uber-ford-and-google-and-teaming-up-to-radically-change-driving-laws

SunPower's 24.1% Efficiency Record: Are We Near The Ceiling?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkanellos/2016/06/27/sunpowers-24-1-efficiency-mark-are-we-near-the-ceiling/#7112a51f2be1

Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york

Replacing the lawyers! Yay! That's the best way to have both sides have equal representation, so that one side doesn't have an advantage for being able to hire a better lawyer. Everyone gets the same software.

A.I. Downs Expert Human Fighter Pilot In Dogfight Simulation

Witness the birth of the Hunter-Killer unit from Terminator:

http://www.popsci.com/ai-pilot-beats-air-combat-expert-in-dogfight

Artificial synapse said to rival biological synapses in energy consumption and function

http://www.kurzweilai.net/artificial-synapse-said-to-rival-biological-synapses-in-energy-consumption-and-function

Powerful nanoengine built from coated nanoparticles

http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=7083

"The forces exerted by these tiny devices are several orders of magnitude larger than those for any other previously produced device, with a force per unit weight nearly a hundred times better than any motor or muscle. According to the researchers, the devices are also bio-compatible, cost-effective to manufacture, fast to respond, and energy efficient."

Nice!

Introducing Boston Dynamics' SpotMini Robot

I want one as a pet! Although it still has the creep factor in spades, especially with the "hand":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng

Watch to the very end. Amusing.

Solar Is Going to Get Ridiculously Cheap

I suspect they're being far too conservative:

http://fortune.com/2016/06/13/solar-to-get-crazy-cheap/?xid=yahoo_fortune&yptr=yahoo

How to convert graphene into a semiconductor for scalable production

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-convert-graphene-into-a-semiconductor-for-scalable-production

Real-time robot-motion planning

http://www.kurzweilai.net/real-time-robot-motion-planning

How the Science of CRISPR Can Change Your Genes

http://time.com/4377130/crispr-genome-editing/?xid=newsletter-brief

Pre and post testing show reversal of memory loss from Alzheimer's disease in 10 patients

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616071933.htm

New 'Artificial Synapses' Could Let Supercomputers Mimic the Human Brain

http://www.livescience.com/55114-artificial-synapses-could-improve-supercomputers.html?cmpid=NL_LS_weekly_2016-6-20

Samsung’s new solid-state drive hits 1TB mark, ships out next week

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/samsung-solid-state-drive-hits-180931958.html

Elon Musk Is Wrong. We Aren't Living in a Simulation

A long and annoying article against the possibility that we live in a simulation:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-dont-live-in-a-simulation?utm_source=mbtwitter

His argument is mostly semantics. Sure, even a simulation is made of matter/energy, but when we talk about a simulation we're talking about a software-driven representation of the "real" world. And we're not talking about a virtual reality-type simulation (which would be on the path but not the end goal), where a virtual apple can't nourish a real person, but a software simulation of a human mind on a computer in a software world where virtual apples can have actual taste and nourishment to virtual beings. And there only needs to be ONE person simulated (YOU!) and only a small part of the world simulated (the places you actually visit); all the rest can be nothing more than AI beings that SEEM human (everyone you interact with) and distant places (like the moon and stars) with limited rendering (a star only needs to be a dot in the sky, not an actual sun). Even places you've visited in the past wouldn't necessarily have to have ever been simulated...just applied to your mind as a memory.

Ultra-flexible solar cells thin enough to wrap around a glass stirring rod

1/17 the thickness of a human hair!

http://www.kurzweilai.net/ultra-flexible-solar-cells-thin-enough-to-wrap-around-a-glass-stirring-rod

China’s Sunway TaihuLight tops world supercomputer ratings

I'm not a fan of China, but...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/chinas-sunway-taihulight-tops-world-supercomputer-ratings

Could deep-learning systems radically transform drug discovery?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/could-deep-learning-systems-radically-transform-drug-discovery

Bionic leaf 2.0

http://www.kurzweilai.net/bionic-leaf-2-0

"Harvard scientists have created a system a system that uses solar energy plus hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels with 10 percent efficiency, compared to the 1 percent seen in the fastest-growing plants."

This autonomous, 3D-printed bus starts giving rides in Washington, DC today

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/16/11952072/local-motors-3d-printed-self-driving-bus-washington-dc-launch

These Experiments Are Building the Case to Terraform Mars

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/06/14/terraform-mars-experiments/#.V2L1irsrL-g

Man builds 100 mpg engine using 200-year-old technology

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/stirling-hybrid-engine/

THE HYPERLOOP COMPETITION: Here are the transportation pods of the future being built right now

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-hyperloop-pods-could-one-day-look-like-2016-6

MIT graphene breakthrough could make chips one million times faster

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mit-graphene-breakthrough-could-make-chips-one-million-times-faster/

and

http://scitechdaily.com/graphene-provides-a-new-way-to-turn-electricity-into-light/

Future Weapons are Here

A nice summary:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/06/14/1526936/-Future-Weapons-are-Here

How creating defective nanodiamonds could revolutionize nanotechnology and quantum computing

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-creating-defective-nanodiamonds-could-revolutionize-nanotechnology-and-quantum-computing

18 artificial intelligence researchers reveal the profound changes coming to our lives

http://www.techinsider.io/researchers-predictions-future-artificial-intelligence-2015-10

Everything You Know About Artificial Intelligence is Wrong

http://gizmodo.com/everything-you-know-about-artificial-intelligence-is-wr-1764020220

Should We Fear Supersmart Robots?

http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/papers/sciam16-supersmart.pdf

Solar Energy Is Now as Cheap as Fossil Fuels

http://singularityhub.com/2016/06/09/solar-energy-is-now-as-cheap-as-fossil-fuels/

Here's how much of the world would need to be covered in solar panels to power Earth

http://www.businessinsider.com/if-the-earth-was-covered-in-solar-panels-2016-6

Apple is making so much clean energy, it formed a new company to sell it

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/9/11896502/apple-clean-solar-energy-subsidiary-wholesale?yptr=yahoo

Movie written by algorithm turns out to be hilarious and intense

AI has a ways to go before it makes a decent screenplay, but at least this is amusing and weird as hell!

http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/06/an-ai-wrote-this-movie-and-its-strangely-moving/

Researchers Turn CO2 Into Stone in Climate Change Breakthrough

http://time.com/4364038/co2-stone-climate-change/

Scientists Turn Bacteria Into Living Hard Drives

Only 100 bytes, but still way cool:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a21268/scientists-turn-bacteria-into-living-hard-drives/

The voice-first user interface has gone mainstream

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/7/11868200/the-voice-first-user-interface-has-gone-mainstream

Former NASA chief unveils $100 million neural chip maker KnuEdge

http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/06/former-nasa-chief-unveils-100-million-neural-computing-chip-company-knuedge/

Google and Amazon are slowly killing the gadget as we know it

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-amazon-slowly-killing-gadget-192343379.html

Why Corporate America's Love of Renewable Energy Should Terrify Traditional Utilities

http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/05/why-corporate-americas-love-of-renewable-energy-sh.aspx

3 Reasons To Believe The Singularity Is Near

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2016/06/03/3-reasons-to-believe-the-singularity-is-near/#6d8dbd441cbe

Are Soldiers Getting Too Emotionally Attached to War Robots?

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/are-soldiers-getting-too-emotionally-attached-to-war-robots

I guarantee it'll happen to anthropomorphic robots:

Norway to 'completely ban petrol powered cars by 2025'

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/norway-to-ban-the-sale-of-all-fossil-fuel-based-cars-by-2025-and-replace-with-electric-vehicles-a7065616.html

What I Learned Installing Solar Panels

http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/06/what-its-like-to-install-solar-panels/485156/?utm_source=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

Can one company account for more than half of a country’s CO2 reduction?

This is one dong that isn't screwing the environment as much...

http://www.triplepundit.com/podium/dong-energy-denmark-co2-reduction/

Renewable Energy Is Now Inevitable, Energy Secretary Says, Citing Price

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2016/06/03/renewable-energy-inevitable-energy-secretary-says-because-of-plunging-prices/#1421c3001ec9

Tesla Executive Implies Battery and Autonomous Driving Breakthroughs

http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-executive-implies-battery-and-autonomous-driving-breakthroughs/

Storage sunrise: Solar battery makers eye take-off as prices fall

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-storage-sunrise-solar-battery-makers-eye-take-off-as-prices-fall-2016-6

"Australian energy retailer AGL expects costs to fall by 60 per cent over the next five years as materials performance and chemical technology improve."

New Process Efficiently Uses Solar to Produce Hydrogen

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/06/new-process-efficiently-uses-solar-produce-hydrogen/#

Stanford researchers ‘stunned’ by stem cell experiment that helped stroke patient walk

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/06/02/stanford-researchers-stunned-by-stem-cell-experiment-that-helped-stroke-patient-walk/

A guy trained a machine to "watch" Blade Runner. Then things got seriously sci-fi.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11787262/blade-runner-neural-network-encoding

This One Chart Says It All for the Future of Solar Energy

http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/01/future-solar-energy/

Dead or Alive, Schrödinger's Cat Can Be in 2 Boxes at Once

Just too cool:

http://www.livescience.com/54890-schrodinger-cat-can-be-in-two-places.html?cmpid=NL_LS_weekly_2016-5-30

Your brain is not a computer

Our model of the brain as a computer may be fundamentally flawed:

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

However, weather patterns follow dynamic rules that aren't like how computers think, yet we can model them quite well. So why wouldn't it be possible to model how brains work on computers, even if brains don't work like computers?

Robots learn to cut through clutter

http://www.kurzweilai.net/robots-learn-to-cut-through-clutter

"The robot’s wrist has a 270-degree range, which led to behaviors we didn’t expect. Sometimes, we’re blinded by our own anthropomorphism."

Language in Ohio bill would ‘basically shut down’ solar

http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/05/23/advocates-language-in-ohio-bill-would-basically-shut-down-solar/

May 23, 2016 Discovery of new catalyst materials for lithium-air batteries could enable batteries with five times the energy density of lithium ion batteries

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/05/discovery-of-new-catalyst-materials-for.html

"But he said it could take five to 10 years before the research translates into new batteries that can be used in consumer devices and electric vehicles." Bugger!

Self-driving cars? Nobody wants one

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-google-cadillac-self-driving-cars-160441498.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

I'm willing to bet that'll change as people experience the advantages.

Nanomaterials could double efficiency of solar cells by converting waste heat into usable energy

This could reduce (or even eliminate?) the need for batteries to store excess solar production:

http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/24/nanomaterials-could-double-efficiency-of-solar-cells-by-converting-waste-heat-into-usable-energy/?ncid=rss

Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report

Long but definitely interesting:

Part 1: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-the-artificial-intelligence-revolution-a-special-report-pt-1-20160229?page=11

Part 2: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-the-artificial-intelligence-revolution-a-special-report-pt-2-20160309

A Huge Solar Plant Caught on Fire, and That’s the Least of Its Problems

http://www.wired.com/2016/05/huge-solar-plant-caught-fire-thats-least-problems/

100% Clean Energy Economy Is Much Closer Than You Think

http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/21/clean-energy-economy/

Faced by Falling Oil Prices and Plunging Profits, Big Oil Invests in Renewables

http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/22/big-oil-invest-renewables/

I like that they're essentially being forced to do this in order to survive.

Walt Disney Co Sets Its Sights on Lightning-Fast 3D Printing

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/24/walt-disney-co-sets-its-sights-on-lightning-fast-3.aspx

10 million self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020

http://www.businessinsider.com/report-10-million-self-driving-cars-will-be-on-the-road-by-2020-2015-5-6

Portugal Sets Record, Runs on Renewables for 107-Hours Straight

http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/18/portugal-runs-on-renewables/

Thanks to push away from coal, power plant emissions fall to lowest level since 1993

http://mashable.com/2016/05/18/power-plant-emissions-drop/#D2eCQNhCdmqx