Lifeboat Foundation

Solar roofing provider GAF Energy announced today its Timberline Solar product uses solar shingles that you can nail to a roof.

GAF Energy, a division of Standard Industries, has made a solar roof system that integrated easily into traditional roofing processes in materials thanks to what it calls the first “nailable” solar shingle, the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle, which will be assembled domestically at GAF Energy’s manufacturing and R&D facility in San Jose, California. The company showed off the tech at the CES 2022 trade event in Las Vegas.

The project will create local American jobs and hopefully create more demand for residential clean energy. One of the challenges to date has been the need to house solar tiles on platforms that have to be attached to roofs, making a solar roof installation more complicated than putting on a traditional roof.

Such is the promise and peril of NFTs.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, offer many potential benefits to creators. They apply the mechanisms of scarcity to digital assets by allowing artists to render them as one-of-a-kind collectibles, like a painting or a baseball card. This means artists — especially digital artists — who have struggled to make their streamable, screenshot-able or reprintable work hold value — can price their items at rates appropriate for something in short supply.

However, the digital trading mechanism is still in nascent stages, and rife with scams, hacks and copyright issues. Beeple was hit by an organized hack, for example. While artists can sometimes find financial solvency with NFTs, other times, they lose millions.

An evolution of its 2018 ‘Valkyrie’ hypersonic airliner concept.

If you work out of an office, you know that the coffee machine is the favorite spot in the office to hang out or have conversations at. From giving us the first cup of the day to keeping us awake for late-night meetings, that machine is a lifesaver. But just for a day, try not getting your coffee from the coffee machine. Don’t skip coffee entirely, but instead, go out to your local coffee shop that doesn’t use coffee machines or make yourself a flask at home. You will realize that hand-made coffee is inherently better than the one that is made from a machine. Not just making coffee, but highly creative jobs–like designing an outfit or writing a book–are considered best left to human creators. Many do not think that machines could emulate them. But with the takeover of artificial intelligence, this belief is steadily being challenged. Creativity and AI are together transforming many spaces that were traditionally reserved for the “artists.” In this article, we’ll be exploring these spaces and how AI is making a significant impact on them.

Continue reading “Can AI Emulate Human Creativity?” »

One of the best thing about electric and hybrid vehicles is that the energy doesn’t get completely wasted when you need to brake. By using an electric motor as a generator, you can slow a vehicle down and put some of that kinetic energy into a battery pack so you can use it again later. Sure, there are conversion losses both going into the battery and coming back out to the wheels, so you don’t get a lot more than half of the energy back, but an ICE vehicle turns all of that energy into heat, which gets dissipated into the air.

Electric bikes, scooters, and other micromobility options can do regenerative braking, too. This is great for getting better range and doing fewer brake jobs, just like in a car.

Continue reading “Regenerative Braking & Energy Storage Without Batteries? Hobbyists Are Figuring It Out” »

BayWa r.e., in partnership with Grüne Energien, has received planning permission for the development of the Rag Lane Solar Farm project near Bristol, UK.

Construction of the 49.9 MW solar project in South Gloucestershire is planned to commence at the beginning of 2023, with grid connection expected in the second half of 2023. When complete, Rag Lane will deliver approximately 52 GWh/year of clean renewable electricity for distribution to the national grid, the equivalent to the annual electrical needs of approximately 15,000 family homes.

BayWa r.e. is committed to ensuring maximum benefit to the local community and environment in the development of Rag Lane. As part of the construction of the project, BayWa r.e. will provide biodiversity enhancements to the local area including the reinforcement and planting of 1.7 km of new hedgerows as a haven for wildlife, as well as ecological connectivity and improvements to the public footpath that runs across the site.

Continue reading “49.9 MW solar farm with biodiversity enhancements” »

Top futurologist Marian Salzman tells us her predictions for 2022 with robots stealing our jobs, political upheaval, hybrid schooling, angst and electronic pets.

The largest solar project in Kentucky will be built on an abandoned coal mine in Martin County and provide jobs for former coal workers.

2.7 billion people on this planet have “deskless jobs,” many of which require bending, lifting, moving, and carrying. German Bionic just released the fifth generation Cray X AI-enhanced power suit, or exoskeleton, to help those billions of people with almost 70 pounds of additional lifting capacity, reducing the risk of back injury and repetitive stress injuries. The Cray X is already in use at BMW, IKEA, and the French delivery service DPD, and will be launched internationally in January 2022.

The AI-powered suit boosts productivity, reduces error rates, decreases accidents, and results in a 25% reduction in the number of sick days workers take, German Bionic says.

The smart exoskeleton market has been estimated to be growing 41.3% a year to a nearly $2 billion industry by 2025, with applications in construction, shipping and receiving, healthcare, and the military. But it’s not just for the billions in the workforce.

A robot avatar that mimics the motions of a human controller could take the place of workers in several dangerous jobs, such as tree trimming and construction, by the end of 2022.

The challenge: If a tree branch gets too close to a power line, it can cause electrical outages or, even worse, dangerous fires (as Californians know all too well). To avoid this, utility companies have to regularly trim trees near their lines.

Continue reading “Robot avatar safely trims trees around active power lines” »