1. One thing that helps
“We have pairs of shoes that last longer than our $2000 laptops,” says Nirav Patel, founder of Framework.
Patel envisions an ecosystem similar to the app marketplaces used by the likes of Apple and Google – but this time for hardware. Today’s gadgets, by design, encourage users to “upgrade” after a few years. If something in our laptop breaks, we usually have to buy another laptop. This business model is not only expensive to consumers, but it also greatly contributes to e-waste pollution.
Framework wants to solve this problem by offering modular laptops. That means you can either build your own laptop or buy a prebuilt one with components that you can freely customize. If something breaks, a replacement component is easily found.
Cheaper for you, better for the planet, and – let’s face it – just common sense.
2. One to be wary of
Would you want to talk to a digitised version of a departed loved one? If you do, just bring tons of data to one of several companies that offer customized chatbots. These companies utilise historical text and voice messages, as well as chats and emails to give you the ability to converse with someone you have lost – just like talking to Siri or Alexa (well hopefully better!). You can have voice-only conversations with them or you can also pay for an avatar. This tech promises to help grief-stricken people mourn the passing of their loved one. But there are costs to be considered.
For one, it is also possible to create a chatbot of a living person, as long as you have sufficient data to feed to the AI. This raises ethical and privacy issues and we should make sure that no person is digitised without their consent. There are currently no laws to cover this scenario.
Another issue is the possible psychological issues that could result from people speaking to deceased loved ones. It may be easy to forget you’re talking to just a piece of tech when emotions are involved. So if there’s a time to create safeguards, it is now, while misuse of the tech hasn’t become mainstream yet.
3. One to amaze
Imperial College of London and Switzerland’s Empa researchers have designed aerial drones inspired by bees. These drones don’t build hives: they 3D print whilst airborne! Equipped with 3D printers instead of stingers, they fly up and start printing to build or repair damage. What’s more amazing is the fact that the drones are organized just like bees!
There are two kinds of drones used: BuildDrones that do the actual construction, and ScanDrones that assess the builders’ output. They operate autonomously and work on a given blueprint of the project. A human operator is also on standby to make sure that the project proceeds as intended. When the BuilderDrones run out of cement, they return to their “hive” to load up on specialized cement then go back to work. The following video shows how the fleet coordinates in a lab environment.
Looks like we’ll need to update the idiom, “Busy as a bee” into “Busy as a drone.”