Show Notes 29 July 2022
Story 1: Fully autonomous grocery store offers computerized “no-human-contact” checkout system
Source: Intel Corporation Newsroom
Link: https://intel.ly/3vvZpMj
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6eoPkQ9s68
- In February of this year a super high-tech grocery store in Fayetteville, Georgia called Nourish + Bloom started offering customers a fully autonomous checkout experience powered by computer and digital vision technologies from Intel.
- The store is the brainchild of Jamie and Jilea Hemmings, the first black entrepreneurs in the world to establish a completely self-operating grocery store.
- And here’s how it works:
- First you download the Nourish + Bloom app to your smartphone. Then as you shop you scan each item.
- The super high-tech market has 30 ceiling cameras and shelves with scales that track what customers pick up based on the weight of each item.
- The technology driving the autonomous market includes Intel Core processor-powered computers and Intel RealSense depth perception cameras.
- By the way, the Intel RealSense technology used in the store is particularly interesting as it offers a range of depth and tracking camera technologies designed to give machines and devices depth perception capabilities.
- RealSense technologies are used in autonomous drones, robots, augmented and virtual reality systems, and smart home devices.
- And together this technology array offers computer vision, on-site analytics, and advanced freezer and chiller temperature tracking.
- When you finish shopping, you just walk out the door. No checkout lines, no cashiers, no waiting. The moment you walk out the door, your credit card is charged for your purchases.
- It’s a cool idea, with the only downside being if this were to take over the grocery industry, we’d see the loss of millions of jobs.
Story 2: There’s a California startup that’s developing genetically modified trees to help fight climate change
Source: Futurism.com Story by Maggie Harrison
Link: https://futurism.com/the-byte/startup-gene-hacked-trees-co2
Source: LivingCarbon.com
Link: https://www.livingcarbon.com/
Source: CNN Story by Matt McFarland
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/business/living-carbon-gene-edit-trees/index.html
- We all know that trees play a key role in fighting global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- Many cities throughout the world are actively encouraging the planting of more trees to help fight climate change.
- But, of course, trees take a long time to grow making the benefits they can offer a long-term proposition.
- But what if you could engineer trees that could grow twice as fast as normal?
- San Francisco-based startup Living Carbon has developed genetically modified, super fast-growing trees, which the company is hoping to plant 4 million of by 2023.
- As noted in the Futurism.com article, the company claims its genetically altered photosynthesis-enhanced hybrid poplar tree seedlings can grow about 53 percent more mass during five months of growth than its average un-modified counterpart — which, the company told CNN, is the equivalent of 27 percent more carbon being removed from the atmosphere per tree.
- The findings are a proof-of-concept, so they will need to be proven to hold up over the long term of a tree’s life, and at a scale large enough to have a significant impact on the climate.
- Here’s where the effort stands today:
- The Living Carbon team has planted more than 600 photosynthesis-enhanced trees as part of a four-year partnership with Oregon State University.
- Those trees will be evaluated over four years to see how the trees handle real world conditions.
- In addition, the company has secured more than 3,000 acres of land in the Southeast and Appalachia to demonstrate their new “super trees”.
Story 3: IBM’s artificial intelligence-powered Mayflower ship crossed the Atlantic last month
Source: Artificialintelligence-news.com Story by Ryan Daws
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpEM9oMBJuA
- Back in February we talked about IBM’s ambitious “Mayflower” project to sail an artificial intelligence-guided, fully autonomous sea vessel across the Atlantic this year.
- The vessel, named in honor of the famous Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to America, set off in April, but encountered several glitches, and several failed attempts.
- But finally, last month the ship made it from Plymouth, England to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
- The ship uses a wind/solar hybrid propulsion system and features a range of sensors for scientific research on its journey including acoustic, nutrient, temperature, and water and air samplers.
- IBM says the ship’s autonomous artificial intelligence system, developed by an outfit called MarineAI in the UK, was able to navigate challenging North Atlantic Ocean conditions and even report back mechanical issues along the way.
- And the ships’ AI was also able to recognize various obstacles and objects in the water, including other ships, boats, debris, land obstacles, and even marine life.
- This is one more step towards a future where we’ll see autonomous cargo, and perhaps even passenger, ocean-going vessels.
Story 4: Experimental solar tower helps make “green” jet fuel
Source: Popular Science Story by Rahul Rao
Link: https://www.popsci.com/science/solar-tower-jet-fuel/
Source: Newsweek
- In a suburb of Madrid, Spain a team of scientists from Switzerland and Germany have created a solar energy-based system that can make kerosene using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.
- And it offers a new, remarkable, and green way to make kerosene, the key ingredient of jet fuel, and other fuels as well.
- It’s an experimental 50-foot tower surrounded by an array of 169 mirrors on the ground.
- Here’s how it works:
- First, the powerful sunlight bouncing off the 169 sun-tracking mirrors is focused to strike a porous ceramic box at the top of the tower made from cerium, the rare-earth element number 58.
- Once the box reaches an extremely hot temperature [that’s from 700 Celsius up to 1,500 Celsius – from 1,292 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit, as I understand it based on looking at a chart published by the research team] it starts sucking in the surrounding air.
- Once inside the box the water and carbon dioxide atoms in the captured air split producing hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases.
- Next, the newly created hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases sink to the bottom of the tower, where they enter a shipping container.
- The shipping container then goes to a special gas-to-liquid conversion facility where the hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide are processed in a reaction that rearranges their atoms to produce water vapor and hydrocarbons.
- And here’s the final payoff — The resulting hydrocarbons include kerosene, diesel, and other fuels that usually are produced by refining petroleum.
- Reality check: Meeting the entire aviation’s sector would require solar kerosene plants to cover an area of around 17,500 square miles, roughly the size of Estonia.
- My take, there’s a lot of desert land that could, in junks, be allocated to such solar towers.
- One thing I did not see was a mention of gasoline as a potential byproduct of this process.
- I did some searching and found a National Geographic article that talks about gasoline made of carbon sucked from the air. In specific, the fuel was made out of carbon dioxide from the air, plus hydrogen. But I don’t know if this solar tower could play a role in this process. This would be a good follow up question!
- I give this an A+ for a climate friendly and sustainable idea that pulls global warming carbon dioxide out of the air to make green kerosene fuel for airplanes, and also diesel fuel, and more!