Archive for High Tech's Future
Search for extraterrestrial life: look for city lights on distant planets
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s difficult to look at the night sky and not wonder whether intelligent life exists out there. Indeed, the odds are very much in favor of there being countless civilizations scattered throughout the heavens, but the challenge remains in proving it. Recently, two scientists hit upon the novel but common-sense idea of searching for city lights on the dark side of distant worlds – a task advanced next-gen earth and space-based telescopes will likely be able to tackle in the not-too-distant future.
Shell is making good on its promise to build the largest object ever to float on water, announcing Friday it would build the Prelude FLNG Project to harvest offshore natural gas fields. The gargantuan ship will suck up the equivalent of 110,000 barrels of oil per day.
The floating liquified natural gas facility will dwarf the biggest warships, weighing in at 600,000 metric tons. By contrast, the U.S.’ next-generation Ford-class supercarrier will displace 101,000 metric tons of water. Shell says its ship will be able to withstand a category 5 typhoon.
MIT’s Quadrocopter Carries a Kinect for Autonomous Flying
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MIT’s Robust Robotics Group seems to be as thrilled with the Kinect and the hacking possibilities that emanate therefrom as we are. They’ve attached a Kinect to a quadrocopter, which enables completely autonomous 3-D mapping and flight–even the processing is done on board.
Visionary Habitats Roaming Future Earth
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In the 21st century, humans are increasingly on the move, traveling across the globe and perhaps, sometime in the future, across the galaxy. We’ve already got enormous cruise ship ‘cities on the sea’, but what about other kinds of mobile cities? Science fiction, concept designers and architects have brought us these 11 awesome ambulatory urban centers ranging from post-apocalyptic escapes on wheels to massive castles that float around in the sky.
Ron Herron’s Walking City
