Technology

Scenario: Life in the Year 2100

Energy and Living Well

Life in the year 2100 is all about energy. No, that’s no longer true. It’s about living well.

We had to completely reinvent civilization in the face of fossil-fuel shortages and increasing climate change. Permaculture become the basis of our new sustainable civilization.

Housing looks familiar, if a little fatter with all the insulation that was added. The retrofit passivhaus concept went global as energy prices rose. These days, excess energy is very expensive, but for most people it just doesn’t matter. Most communities are locally self-sufficient. Everyone grows food using permaculture principles. Agricultural monoculture became deeply unfashionable during the great GM disease outbreaks of the 2030s.

During the chaos, we were

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The Leman Make Festival 27/28th of June

Gadget Guru is a short weekly radio show on World Radio Switzerland that I do with Tony Johnston.

Here’s the show from June 23rd, 2015:

Links for this show:

Most of the links are in French, but the vast majority of the makers at the festival speak English too (and many other languages – we’re a mixed bunch!)

The Leman Make website and Facebook group.

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Google Chrombit and Amazon Dash

Gadget Guru is a short weekly radio show on World Radio Switzerland that I do with Tony Johnston.

Here’s the (breakfast) show from May 19th, 2015:

Here’s the usual set of links & videos from the show:

Google Chromebit

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2893364/is-chrome-os-right-for-you.html

http://gizmodo.com/googles-chromebit-turns-any-tv-into-a-chrome-pc-for-und-1694793903
http://www.cnet.com/products/asus-chromebit/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-chromebits-and-compute-sticks-could-work-for-business/
Amazon Dash

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

https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button

Don’t forget you can meet Pangloss Labs members every month at our networking events. This month it’s in Divonne-les-bains in the Pays de Gex. For more information check out our web site.

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White sticks and solar bike paths

Gadget Guru is a short weekly radio show on World Radio Switzerland that I do with Tony Johnston.

Here’s the show from May 12th, 2015:

Here’s the usual set of links & videos from the show:

Xplor Mobility Cane

http://phys.org/news/2015-05-facial-recognition-cane.html
http://www.bcu.ac.uk/news-events/news/a-pioneering-facial-recognition-cane-for-the-blind

Solaroad:

A bike lane with a surface made of solar panels

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/11/solar-bike-path-results/

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Robots!

Gadget Guru is a short weekly radio show on World Radio Switzerland that I do with Tony Johnston.

Here’s the show from January 27th, 2015:

Here’s the usual set of links & videos from the show:

Our list of Pangloss Labs events so you won’t miss our next robot workshop

The Open Source (hardware and software) Thymio robot from EPFL and it’s programming environment

The NAO robot

and the much more serious and large ATLAS robot from Boston Dynamics:

And one of my favourite French open source robot projects, InMoov:

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Have a good week, and remember that according to the original Terminator movie humanity should have been destroyed by now, so we are definitely not in that future.

Paul Leave a comment

French – English translation on the go & a giant robot suit

Gadget Guru is a short weekly radio show on World Radio Switzerland that I do with Tony Johnston.

Here’s the show from January 20th, 2015:

Here’s the usual set of  links from the show:

The Google Translate app for iPhone and iPad

The Google Translate app for Android

The Kuratas Giant mech suit from Suidobashi Industries in Kyoto on Amazon for $1million

Why would you want one of these?  Just watch…

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CES Roundup 2015

Gadget Guru is a short weekly radio show on World Radio Switzerland that I do with Tony Johnston.

Here’s the show from January 13th, 2015:

Here’s some links from the show:

More information than you ever wanted about CES.

A round up of wearable technology from Engadget.

How to get and avoid tech neck (hint – lift your phone up).

The Belty smart-belt is easier to see than read about.

and the Sharp freeform display technology, so I can get my hexagonal screens 🙂

Paul Leave a comment