Holograms, Tattoos, and Research Yachts
It’s time to take a look at some of the weird things that happened in the world of technology this week. As always, you can check out previous week’s editions in my This Week In Tech column. Let’s get started!
1. How Hologram Technology Could Get A Cool, New Surge From Millennials
In the past 5 years Hologram Technology has become more popular a tool in political elections. Narendra Modi, PM of India, used it in his campaign, and more recently Jean-Luc Melenchon of France used the technology to promote themselves during to a wide variety of audiences and to increase reach to millenials. It’s a technology that has existed in entertainment in concerts for Michael Jackson, Tupac and others. My personal favorite use is definintely in the Star Wars movies. Beyond these uses, there are ton of other interesting and useful ones include biomedical imaging, scientific visualization, engineering, design, and more. Imagine having floating hologram desktops around you when you’re doing work.
2. These Color-Changing Tattoos Monitor Your Health, No Wearable Needed
Researchers at MIT and Harvard have created a tattoo ink that can react to your body’s changes. Glucose, Sodium and pH all efect the color of the tattoo so that you can easily tell if your body is in check or a bit off balance. This technology is a new foray into “beauty technology” that includes smart fake eyelashes, conductive makeup and RFID nail polish. This leads to a larger discussion about the body as an interface for design. Now the real question is if they can make these in the temporary tattoos that they give at fairs for those of us who are trypanophobic.
3. Billionaire Funding The World’s Largest Yacht To Research Saving The Oceans
Norweigian Billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke is funding the creation of a 596 foot Research Expedition Vessel in order to conduct research to relieve pressure on the world’s oceans and the marine wildlife. The yacht is decked out with all of the coolest technology and can almost circumnavigate the whole world in a single fill-up. A sick party boat that’s good for the environment? Sign me up.
4. NBD, Doughnuts Were Just Delivered By A Drone
LaMar’s Donuts and Drone Dispatch teamed up this week to deliver donuts via drone this week. The drones delivered four boxes of donuts to customers within a block of parking lots around Denver. This is just the start of drone delivery experimentation for LaMar’s donuts. This space is heating up with Amazon going deep into the space and other delivery methods like Starship Technologies and Marble. Soon enough even our food ordering experiences can be human-free!
5. Deep Mind’s AlphaGo Trades Games for Science
If you haven’t seen the news, Deep Mind, a Google AI project, recently developed AlphaGo, which is a machine that learned how to play the incredibly complicated game Go so well that it beat the world Go champion 3 times in a row. With this super impressive accomplishment, Deep Mind retired the system from games and is now going to use the technology to solve “complex problems in science”. This is an awesome technology that’s a lot of fun to watch and track and hopefully it provides some great value to the science world just as it did with the gaming world.
