Changing Seasons

If you’ve found yourself suffering from seasonal allergies more often in recent years, climate change might be to blame.

Recorded shifts in when the four seasons begin and end are just one example of how man-made climate change is affecting our planet. Now, a new study provides evidence that places in the United States where spring is starting earlier or later than normal are seeing an increase in seasonal allergies — and U.S. economy could be suffering as a result.

Allergic Reaction

For the study, published Thursday in the journal PLOS One, researchers from the University of Maryland (UMD) performed a clever statistical trick.

First they examined satellite data collected by NASA to calculate the start of spring (SOS) for every county in the contiguous United States for each year from 2001 though 2013. Then they compared that data to the prevalence of seasonal allergic rhinitis, also known as hay fever, reported by more than 300,000 respondents to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey between 2002 and 2013.

“We found that areas where the onset of spring was earlier than normal had 14 percent higher prevalence of hay fever,” researcher Amir Sapkota said in a press release. “Surprisingly, we also found similar risk in areas where the onset of spring was much later than what is typical for that geographic location.”

Nothing to Sneeze At

Not only does this increase in hay fever mean a decrease in Americans’ quality of life — just try living your best life with a runny nose, itchy throat, and nonstop sneezing — but it could also be taking a toll on the economy.

According to the UMD team’s study, hay fever costs the U.S. economy an estimated $11.2 billion annually, and if the number of people forced to deal with seasonal allergies keeps increasing due to climate change, that cost is likely to increase along with their suffering.

READ MORE: Changes in Onset of Spring Linked to More Allergies Across the US [University of Maryland]

More on the seasons: Spring Might Come Earlier, but Food Shortages Will Still Happen

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Climate Change May Be Giving You Seasonal Allergies

BibleBot

Seniors in search of some high-tech companionship may find comfort in a small robot that can listen to them and read relevant scripture.

SanTO is a foot-and-a-half tall robot resembles the sort of altar or figurine a Catholic may use to decorate their home. But it’s equipped with software it uses to listen to people, scan their faces for signs of specific emotions, and select religious texts that may be relevant to their troubles, according to The Wall Street Journal — heralding a new marriage of religion and technology that challenges who, or what, can influence a person’s faith.

Copy and Paste

When Waseda University roboticist Gabriele Trovato designed SanTO, he was warned by religious leaders to not let AI interpret scripture, just recite it, the WSJ reports.

“They said there is a human factor which is very important in the communication of faith,” Trovato told the WSJ. “Even choosing the right text, the right part of the Bible, is not something you can do easily.”

When Trovato told SanTO that he’s worried about the future, for instance, the robot recited a Bible verse about taking life one day at a time.

Human Interaction

As robots and AI technology improves, both have become increasingly intertwined with religion — robots are delivering sermons, the pope is endorsing apps, and people are praying to robotic statues of Buddhist deities.

But while Trovato told the WSJ about how his little robotic idol could help spread religious ideas, it seems far more useful as a buddy for the lonely and elderly, not unlike a robotic dog or other sorts of high-tech companions.

“It is interesting to focus, to study, how this change of the medium is influencing the relation of people with God and the activity of religion,” Travato told the WSJ.

READ MORE: Deus Ex Machina: Religions Use Robots to Connect With the Public [The Wall Street Journal]

More on high-tech religion: Microsoft’s President Met With the Pope to Talk About Ethical AI

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This Robot Reads the Bible to Old People in Nursing Homes

Injuries Out

A team of bioengineers has successfully 3D-printed tissues they believe doctors could one day implant into patients to help heal the knee, ankle, and elbow injuries that have ended the careers of countless athletes.

“I think this will be a powerful tool to help people with common sports injuries,” Rice University researcher Sean Bittner said in a press release — though the impact of the group’s work could extend far beyond the turf or pitch.

Transition Complete

In a study published in the journal Acta Biomaterialia, Bittner and his fellow researchers from Rice University and the University of Maryland (UMD) detail their efforts to engineer an implant that would replicate the body’s osteochondral tissue.

This is the tissue found at the end of long bones, and because its consistency changes — it transitions from cartilage to bone — bioengineers have had trouble mimicking it in the lab.

At least, they did until now. The Rice and UMD researchers used different materials to 3D print each part of their osteochondral tissue scaffold: a polymer mixture for the cartilage and a ceramic for the bone.

Personalized Medicine

The researchers also added pores to the scaffold that the patient’s own cells and blood vessels could infiltrate. This would allow the implant to seamlessly merge with the recipient’s natural biology, helping heal their injured bone and cartilage.

The next step for the researchers is figuring out how to print implants designed to perfectly fit specific patients.

And while athletes are more likely to be on the receiving end of these implants, Bittner points out that a pro sports contract isn’t a prerequisite for an osteochondral injury — anybody can suffer from one, meaning we could all benefit if the team is able to perfect its engineered tissue.

READ MORE: 3D-printed tissues may keep athletes in action [Rice University]

More on healing bones: A New Implant Heals Broken Legs by Transforming Into Real Bone

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These Scientists Are 3D-Printing New Body Parts for Athletes

Deep Mars

Researchers at the University of Southern California dropped a bold claim Thursday: based on a new analysis, Mars likely harbors a “deep groundwater” system that probably extends far beyond the planet’s poles and bubbles to the surface through cracks in craters.

“We have seen the same mechanisms in the North African Sahara and in the Arabian Peninsula, and it helped us explore the same mechanism on Mars,” researcher Abotalib Abotalib said in a press release.

Water World

In a new paper published in the prestigious journal Nature Geoscience, Abotalib and his colleagues detail their analysis of data from a radar instrument on Mars Express, a European Space Agency probe that orbits the Red Planet.

Last month, the probe provided evidence of a wider Martian groundwater system than scientists had previously believed to exist. But the Southern California team’s analysis takes this a step further, hypothesizing that pressurized water under the surface spills out through cracks to form visible above-ground streams.

READ MORE: USC researchers find new evidence of deep groundwater on Mars [University of Southern California]

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Researchers Detect “Deep Groundwater” on Mars

Early Grave

Participants in a canceled basic income trial aren’t giving up the money without a fight.

In April 2017, Ontario, Canada, announced plans to launch a basic income experiment. It was supposed to last for three years, but Ontario canceled it after just one — and now several of the project’s participants have filed a class-action lawsuit against the province for the hardship that early cancellation has allegedly caused them.

Syke

In Ontario’s basic income project, 4,000 residents were told they’d each receive up to C$17,000 (US$12,733) per year for three years, no strings attached. The purpose: to test whether basic income can make a positive difference in people’s lives.

Those plans changed when a conservative government replace the liberal one that launched the project. Just weeks after taking office, the new government announced plans to end the project in March 2019, two years earlier than scheduled.

On Thursday, four participants in the project — Dana Bowman, Grace Marie Doyle Hillion, Susan Lindsay, and Tracey Mechefske — filed a C$200 million (US$149 million) class-action lawsuit against the Ontario government alleging that the early cancellation amounts to a “breach of contract” between the province and the program’s participants.

Money Matters

Based on reports, Ontario may have designed the project to improve the lives of participants, but it has thrown them into turmoil instead.

One woman, Harley Worden, saw her income double through the project, which led to her signing a lease on an apartment she can no longer afford, according to a CBC News story. Doyle Hillion, meanwhile, claims in the suit that she will no longer be able to pay the tuition for a broadcasting program she enrolled in after finding out she’d be a part of the basic income project.

The lawsuit alleges that other participants have reportedly suffered “mental distress” and “psychological injury” due to the program’s early cancellation — but whether they find any relief through this lawsuit remains to be seen.

READ MORE: Class action lawsuit filed over cancelled basic income project [CBC News]

More on basic income: Ontario Ends Its Three-Year Basic Income Trial After Just One Year

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Canadians Sue Ontario for Canceling Its Basic Income Trial

ISS Success

It wasn’t the spacewalk that was planned, but it was a success nonetheless.

On Friday, NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch left the relative safety of the International Space Station’s (ISS) interior to embark on a nearly seven-hour-long spacewalk that wrapped up at 2:27 p.m. EDT.

Substitute Spacewalker

Astronaut Anne McClain was originally supposed to join Koch on this ISS spacewalk, which would have made it the first to feature only female astronauts.

A last-minute equipment issue led to Hague filling in for his colleague, but Koch’s participation in the walk is still worth celebrating — she’s now just the fourteenth woman to take part in a spacewalk.

Battery Swap

During the spacewalk — ISS’s 215th to date — the duo replaced the six nickel-hydrogen batteries that previously powered one pair of the ISS’s solar arrays with three more powerful lithium-ion batteries.

They also completed several other tasks designed to facilitate future upgrades, according to a NASA news release.

READ MORE: NASA Astronauts Complete 215th Spacewalk at Station [NASA]

More on spacewalks: NASA Cancels First All-Female Spacewalk

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NASA Announces Successful Completion of ISS Spacewalk

“Barely Trained”

In a new paper, social scientist Matthew Beane found a troubling trend: doctors were “barely trained” in how to operate robots in the operating room, Axios reports. The use of surgeon robots in hospitals has become a growing trend — but not without growing pains.

Beane, a professor from the University of California in Santa Barbara, examined the knowledge of those who were officially licensed to use robots like the Da Vinci —a high-tech robotic system that allows surgeons to perform operations through tiny incisions.

“Premature Specialization”

But since fewer surgeons are needed to operate the robots, fewer students get to have a shot at using it. “So the resident gets 10 to 20 times less practice,” said Beane, as quoted by Axios.

“I found that learning surgery through increasing participation using approved methods worked well in traditional (open) surgery, as current literature would predict,” Beane’s wrote in the paper. “But the radically different practice of robotic surgery greatly limited trainees’ role in the work, making approved methods ineffective.”

The Future of Medicine?

The trend of introducing robots for the sake of smaller incisions and faster recovery has been gaining a lot of momentum in recent years. Some hail is at the future of medicine, while others are more wary of having their tasks taken over by a robotic arm.

“The robotic arm becomes the master,” Anthony Adili, surgeon at St. Joseph’s Helathcare hospital in the Canadian province of Ontario, told the CBC. He was trained to operate an orthopedic surgical robot called MAKO. “I am just pushing the arm and it will only cut […] where it needs to go to match what I created on my 3D model.”

But to ensure that all license holders actually know what they’re doing in the operating room, they need to have ample training — “licensed” simply does not mean “practiced.’ And the best way to do just that is to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to spend supervised time with the technology.

READ MORE: Growing pains of tinkering with robots, disrupting society [Axios]

More on robot surgeons: Experts Want to Give Robot Surgeons a Sense of Touch

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Human Surgeons Are “Barely Trained” on Operating Room Robots

Terahertz Wireless

On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission has unanimously voted to clear “terahertz wave” (95 gigahertz to 3 terahertz) frequencies for engineers to start experimenting for uses for the next generation of wireless technology — possibly 6G. But how to take advantage of such high frequencies or what benefits they will bring to consumers in the future is still not entirely clear.

“Today, we take big steps towards making productive use of this spectrum,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a statement.

While FCC’s press release makes no mention of “6G” specifically, the frequencies could pave the way for the successor of 5G wireless technology (up to 86 GHz) that has yet to achieve mainstream use.

Device makers have been sprinting ahead to enable 5G connectivity in their offerings, promising blazing fast speeds and a whole new generation of “internet-of-things” devices. Cities like Chicago and Minneapolis will launch their own 5G service networks as soon as next month thanks to Verizon.

“5G and even 6G”

The news also comes after President Donald Trump tweeted last month that he wants “5G and even 6G” cell service in the U.S. “as soon as possible” — even though we don’t even have 5G service yet.

“Today, we take big steps towards making productive use of this spectrum,” Pai said in the statement. “This will give innovators strong incentives to develop new technologies using these airwaves while also protecting existing uses.”

Obstacles

But transmitting data over millimeter waves in the case of 5G and even shorter waves in 6G is extremely challenging. As wavelengths get shorter and shorter, connections become less reliable and far less capable of penetrating walls and other obstacles.

And not everybody is completely sold on the idea yet. “There is great uncertainty about what technologies will be introduced, what spectrum would be ideal, or what size channel blocks are needed,” said FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly in a statement. ” Therefore, I can support waiting to see what develops. Better that than being forced to undo a mess later.”

READ MORE: FCC opens up experimental spectrum licenses for 6G [CNET]

More on 5G wireless: NASA Is About to Test a Giant Solar Drone That Broadcasts 5G

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The FCC Clears Experimental Frequencies to Pave Way for 6G

Delete Facebook

During a public appearance at Stanford University on Wednesday, WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton told students to delete Facebook, BuzzFeed News reports.

He also criticized the profit models driving tech giants like Facebook and Google and how ineffective they tend to be at moderating content on their platforms.

“To be brutally honest, the curated networks — the open networks — struggle to decide what’s hate speech and what’s not hate speech. […] Google struggles with what’s a good website and what’s a bad website,” he said, as quoted by BuzzFeed News. “And we give them the power. That’s the bad part. We buy their products. We sign up for these websites. Delete Facebook, right?”

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur’s appearance comes days after Zuckerberg announced on March 6 that his company will shift towards a “privacy-focused” platform.

Acton sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion in October 2014. He left the company some three years later, following Facebook’s decision to allow for ads on WhatsApp.

“It is Time”

Earlier this month, Marketplace reported that millions of Facebook users left the platform in 2018. And people are finding other ways to stay in touch: during last week’s major Facebook and Instagram outage, three million people joined encrypted-messaging app Telegram.

It’s not the first time Acton publicly encouraged users to delete Facebook. He tweeted “it is time. #deletefacebook” back in March 2018, mere days after the UK’s Channel 4 News published a report about whistleblower Christoper Wylie, who brought light to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

Focus on Privacy

Acton criticized Facebook’s motives and its failures to ensure the privacy of their users’ data and wished there was a way out. “The capitalistic profit motive, or answering to Wall Street, is what’s driving the expansion of invasion of data privacy and [..] a lot of negative outcomes that we’re just not happy with,” he said.

“I wish there were guardrails there. I wish there was ways to rein it in. I have yet to see that manifest, and that scares me.”

READ MORE: The WhatsApp Cofounder Who Sold To Facebook For $19 Billion Tells Students To Delete Facebook [BuzzFeed News]

More on #deletefacebook: Don’t Just Delete Facebook — Delete Well

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WhatsApp Cofounder Tells Students to Delete Facebook

Poor Turnout

While tech companies like Waymo, Uber, and Tesla race to be the first to build a fully-autonomous vehicle, the public is left eating their dust.

About 71 percent of Americans say that they don’t trust self-driving cars, according to a new American Automobile Association (AAA) survey. That’s roughly the same percentage as last year’s survey, but it’s eight points higher than in 2017, according to Bloomberg — and just 19 percent say they’d put their children or family members into an autonomous vehicle.

Overall, the data is a striking sign of public fatigue with self-driving cars.

Track Record

Autonomous vehicles, unlike some other emerging technologies, have suffered very public setbacks, including when an Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian a year ago.

“It’s possible that the sustained level of fear is rooted in a heightened focus, whether good or bad, on incidents involving these types of vehicles,” said AAA director of automotive engineering Greg Brannon in a statement obtained by Bloomberg. “Also it could simply be due to a fear of the unknown.”

Uphill Battle

The AAA survey found that Americans are more accepting of autonomous vehicle tech in limited-use cases. For example, 53 percent of survey respondents were okay with self-driving trams or shuttles being used in areas like theme parks, while 44 percent accepted the idea of autonomous food-delivery bots.

Self-driving car companies are currently engaging in public relations efforts to earn people’s trust, Bloomberg reports. But if these AAA numbers are any indication, there’s a long way to go.

READ MORE: Americans Still Fear Self-Driving Cars [Bloomberg]

More on autonomous vehicles: Exclusive: A Waymo One Rider’s Experiences Highlight Autonomous Rideshare’s Shortcomings

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Just 19 Percent of Americans Trust Self-Driving Cars With Kids

A Familiar Car

First, it was supposed to feature Model-X-style “falcon wing” doors, and then it didn’t. It was supposed to be built in the Shanghai factory, but that didn’t work out either.

Tesla finally unveiled its fifth production car, the Model Y, at its design studio outside of Los Angeles Thursday evening.

“It has the functionality of an SUV, but it will ride like a sports car,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the event. “So this thing will be really tight on corners.”

Bigger than the 3, Smaller Than the X

Yes, acceleration is still zippy: zero to 60 in 3.5 seconds.

But the vehicle is less than revolutionary. It’s arguably the company’s second crossover sports utility vehicle, after the Model X, and it borrows heavily from the company’s successful Model 3. In fact, 75 percent of its parts are the same, according to CEO Elon Musk.

The back of the Y is slightly elevated in the back for a roomier cargo space. A long-range model will feature seven seats — just like the Model X, despite being slightly smaller. Range: still 300 miles with the Long Range battery pack, thanks to its aerodynamic shape.

It will also be “feature complete” according to Musk, referring to the fact that the Model Y will one day be capable of “full self-driving” that he says “will be able to do basically anything just with software upgrades.”

10 Percent Cheaper

As expected, the Model Y is ten percent bigger and costs roughly ten percent more than the Model 3: the first Model Y — the Long Range model — will be released in the fall of 2020 and will sell for $47,000. A dual-motor all-wheel drive version and a performance version will sell for $51,000 and $60,000, respectively.

If you want to save a buck and get the ten-percent-cheaper-than-the-Model-3 version, you’ll have to wait: a Standard Range (230 miles) model will go on sale in 2021 for just $39,000.

Overall, the Model Y seems like a compromise: it’s not a radical shift, but it seems carefully designed to land with a certain type of consumer — and, if Musk is to be believed, without sacrificing Tesla’s carefully-cultivated “cool factor.”

Investors seemed slightly underwhelmed, too — the company’s stock reportedly slid up to five percent after the announcement.

READ MORE:  Tesla unveils Model Y electric SUV with 300 miles range and 7-seats [Electrek]

More on the Model Y: Elon Musk: Tesla Will Unveil Model Y Next Week

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Elon Musk: $47,000 Model Y SUV “Will Ride Like a Sports Car”

Punch It

Just last month, South Korean tech giant Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S10, a phone with just a single hole punched in the screen to accommodate its front-facing camera.

On Thursday, a Samsung exec shared new details on the company’s intentions to create a “perfect full-screen” phone, with an “invisible” camera behind the screen to eliminate the need for any visible holes or sensors — confirming that one of the biggest players in tech sees edge-to-edge screens as the future of mobile devices.

Hidden Tech

During a press briefing covered by Yonhap News Agency, Samsung’s Mobile Communication R&D Group Display Vice President Yang Byung-duk said the company’s goal is to create a phone with a screen that covers the entire front of the device — but consumers shouldn’t expect it in the immediate future.

“Though it wouldn’t be possible to make (a full-screen smartphone) in the next 1-2 years,” Yang said, “the technology can move forward to the point where the camera hole will be invisible, while not affecting the camera’s function in any way.”

Quest for Perfection

This isn’t Samsung’s first mention of an uninterrupted full-screen phone — as pointed out by The Verge, the company discussed its ambitions to put the front-facing camera under a future device’s screen during a presentation in October.

That presentation included a few additional details on how the camera in a full-screen phone would work.

Essentially, the entire screen would serve as a display whenever the front-facing camera wasn’t in use. When in use, however, the screen would become transparent, allowing the camera to see through so you could snap the perfect selfie — and based on Yang’s comments, that new innovation could be just a few years away.

READ MORE: Samsung Seeks Shift to Full Screen in New Smartphones [Yonhap News Agency]

More on Samsung: Samsung Just Revealed a $1,980 Folding Smartphone

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Samsung Is Working on Phone With “Invisible” Camera Behind Screen

So, Readers –

As always, we’ve got some news about the future. Except this time, it’s about us.

We’re about to enter the next chapter of Futurism, one that will usher in a new era for this site. It’ll come with new ways we’ll be able to deliver on everything you’ve grown to read, watch, subscribe to, and love about what we do here. And also, more in volume of what we do, with larger ambitions, and ultimately, a higher level of quality with which we’re able to bring those ambitions to fruition.

As of today, Futurism Media is proud to announce that we’re joining operations with Singularity University. In other words: They bought us, they own us, and quite frankly, we’re excited about the deal.

It’s an excitement and an occasion we share in with you, our community of readers — aspiring and working technologists, scientists, engineers, academics, and fans, who carried us to where we are, who helped make this independent media company what it is today. We’ve always been humbled by your support, and we’ve worked to reciprocate it by publishing one of the most crucial independent technology and science digital digests, every day, full stop.

What this changes for you? Nothing. Really. Except: More of what you’ve come to count on Futurism.com to deliver every time you’ve read our stories, opened our emails, swiped up on our ‘Gram, watched our videos, dropped in on our events, clicked through a Byte, and so on. This partnership represents the sum total of the work you’ve engaged with, and the start of a new chapter in which we’ll be able to deliver on more of the above.

That means increased coverage of the emergent, cutting-edge innovation and scientific developments changing the world, and the key characters and narratives shaping them (or being shaped by them). It means an expanded, in-depth feature publishing program, arriving this Spring (it’s rad, and it’s gonna blow your socks off). It means more breaking news reporting and analysis. It means original media products you haven’t seen from us before — new verticals, microsites, other ways for you to get in the mix with our coverage. And yes, by working in concert with Singularity University, we’re going to have a pretty decent competitive advantage: Direct access to the characters and personas shaping our future, the people, ideas, and innovations right at the frontier of exponential growth technologies. Our branded content team, Futurism Creative, will also continue to produce guideline-abiding, cutting-edge, thoughtful and engaging content for our partners, and for the partners of SU, too. And finally, our Futurism Studios division will continue to push the envelope of feature-length narrative storytelling of the science fiction (and science fact) stories of that future.

Will this change our journalism? Not in the slightest. We’ll still be operating as an independent, objective news outlet, without interference from our partners, who will continue to hold us to the same ethics and accountability standards we’ve held ourselves to these last few years. There might be more appearances from the folks at SU in our work (not that SU’s proliferate network of notable alumni or board members haven’t previously made appearances around these parts prior to this), but by no means will SU be shoehorning themselves into what we do here.

Yet: Where the opportunity exists, we’ll absolutely seize on the chance to co-create and catalyze action together to shape the technology and science stories on the horizon, to say nothing of that future itself. We’ll continue to make quality the primary concern — and they’re here to support that mandate, and augment this team with additional resources to accomplish it. If even the appearance of a conflict presents itself, as always, we’ll default to disclosure. But it’d be absurd of us not to take advantage of the immense base of knowledge our new partners in Mountain View have on offer (an apt comparison here would be, say, Harvard Business Review to H.B.S. or M.I.T. and our contemporaries at the MIT Technology Review).

We’ve been circling this partnership for a while; they, fans of ours, and us, fans of theirs. The original mandate of Futurism as written by our C.E.O. Alex Klokus was to increase the rate of human adaptability towards the future through delivering on the news of where that future is headed. Singularity University concerns itself with educating the world on the exponential growth technologies changing our lives. It’s a perfect merging of interests. Where exponential growth technologies are concerned: One only need look as far as the way online advertising and social platforms changed the economics of media to see this. To find a home with a growing institution that will prove increasingly vital to the growing global community they’ve already established in spades is the best possible outcome. And no, we didn’t get crazy-rich or anything. But we did galvanize the future (and all its possibilities) for everyone at this company, and our ability to keep serving you, our readers.

We’re immensely proud of the scrappy, tight team here; and especially you, our community of readers and partners we’ve grown with these last few years. We’re proud of the product we’ve created, especially last year, when we steered away from reliance on social media platforms for an audience, and reconfigured an editorial strategy around the priority of driving you directly to Futurism.com daily, by prioritizing quality, topicality, reliability, and on-site presentation (shocker: it worked). Now, we proud to be able to do more, better, of what we’ve always done here:

Tell the stories of tomorrow, today. On behalf of the entire Brooklyn-based Futurism team, thanks for being along for the ride so far, and on behalf of the new Futurism x Singularity University family, here’s to more of where that came from.

The future, as ever, is looking bright. We can’t wait to tell you about it.

– Foster Kamer
Director of Content

James Del
Publisher

Sarah Marquart
Director of Strategic Operations

Geoff Clark
President of Futurism Studios

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Special Announcement: Futurism Media and Singularity University

Looking Up

During the unveiling of Tesla’s highly anticipated Model Y Thursday night, CEO Elon Musk shared his vision for his company’s immediate future — and it had little to do with cars.

“This is definitely going to be the year of the Solar Roof and Powerwall,” he told the audience, according to Inverse — a sign that Tesla is shifting its focus from the road to the home, with the ultimate goal of creating a fully sustainable future.

Pretty Picture

In August 2017, Tesla gave the world its first glimpse of an installed Solar Roof, and it looked, well, a lot like any other roof. But that was the point — Tesla’s solar tiles didn’t have the jarring appearance of many home solar panels.

That aesthetically pleasing design — combined with the tiles’ affordability and “infinity warranty” — had solar energy expert Senthil Balasubramanian predicting Tesla would be a “game changer” for clean energy.

With the exception of the occasional massive battery project, though, we haven’t heard much about Tesla’s home energy products since then. The company spent much of 2017 and 2018 focused on getting through the Model 3’s “production hell” and dealing with the fallout from Musk’s latest public misstep.

Under One Roof

But now that Model 3 production is humming along, Tesla has the bandwidth to shift some of its engineering focus back to its Solar Roof and home batteries, according to Musk — and that should go a long way toward helping the company meet its ambitious goal of a more sustainable energy system.

“Solar plus battery plus electric vehicles, we have a fully sustainable future,” Musk told the audience Thursday. “That’s a future you can feel really excited and optimistic about. I think that really matters.”

READ MORE: Tesla Solar Roof: Elon Musk Declares 2019 Will Be the Year of the Roof [Inverse]

More on Tesla: Solar Expert Predicts Tesla Will Be a “Game-Changer” for Clean Energy

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Elon Musk: 2019 Will Be “the Year of the Solar Roof”

The Dumbest Thing

Jak Wilmot, the co-founder of Atlanta-based VR content studioDisrupt VR, spent 168 consecutive hours in a VR headset — that’s a full week — pent up in his apartment.

“This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but welcome to a week in the future,” he said in a video about the experiment.

To make the experience even more futuristic, Wilmot livestreamed the entire week on Twitch late last month, later uploading a wrapup video on his entire week on YouTube.

The rules were simple: he could switch from a computer-based Oculus headset to a different, untethered headset for thirty seconds while his eyes were closed. His windows were blacked out, he said, so that his physical body didn’t have to rely on the daylight-dependent circadian rhythm.

His more mobile VR headset had a built in camera in the front, so that he was able to “see” his physical surroundings — but not directly with his own eyes.

“Everything is in the Headset”

Wilmot worked, ate and exercised inside virtual reality. Sleeping in the headset turned out to be “more comfortable” than Wilmot anticipated, though his eyes burned a bit.

“If one is feeling stressed, they can load into a natural environment for ten minutes and relax,” he said in the video. “If one is feeling energetic, they can dispel energy in a fitness game — these are like the new rules of the reality I’ve thrown myself in. Everything is in the headset.”

VR Connection

Wilmot believes that virtual reality is what you make it. If you want to be alone, you can spend time by yourself in a gaming session, slaying dragons in Skyrim VR. Or you can chose to join the cacophony of VRChat — a communal free-for-all multiplayer online platform that allows you to interact with avatars controlled by complete strangers.

“VR is stepping into the shoes of someone else, or stepping into a spaceship and talking to friends,” said Wilmot. “It’s very easy to find your tribe, to make friends, to communicate with others through a virtual landscape, where its no longer through digital window [like a monitor], but actually being there with them. To me that’s what VR is — connection.”

Escaping Virtual Reality

After seven days of living inside the headset, Wilmot took off the goggles and relearned what it’s like to live in the real world.

Experiment_01… ????????

Subject Status… ????? pic.twitter.com/HC0Jqb3aZq

— jak (@JakWilmot) February 27, 2019

Apart from slight dizziness and some disorientation, he came back to normal almost instantly.

One major advantage to not living inside a VR headset: “oh my gosh,” he said, “the graphics are so good.”

READ MORE: This Guy Is Spending A Full Week In VR, For Science [VR Scout]

More on virtual reality: Sex Researchers: For Many, Virtual Lovers Will Replace Humans

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This Guy Spent a Whole Week In a VR Headset

By 2050, 6.5 billion people will choose to live in cities. These individuals will require employment and access to better healthcare from an infrastructure that is already extremely vulnerable. The Global Maker Challenge asked makers and innovators to help put forward solutions for this issue, and they delivered.

The post How Can We Build Cities to Accommodate 6.5 Billion People? appeared first on Futurism.

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How Can We Build Cities to Accommodate 6.5 Billion People?

Political Hack

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke just admitted to spending his teenage years as part of the Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC), a group of hackers that first coined the term “hacktivism.”

O’Rourke, who failed to unseat Senator Ted Cruz in the 2018 midterm election and recently decided to run for president instead of challenging Senator John Cornyn in 2020, told Reuters that he credits the hacker group for helping develop his worldview — an intriguing admission for an unusual candidate who skateboards and used to play in a punk band.

Hacker-Lite

According to Reuters, there’s no evidence that O’Rourke actually engaged in any sort of serious hacking, though he did cop to stealing the long-distance phone service necessary for reaching the online message boards of the day.

Rather, O’Rourke seemed to spend his time in the Cult of the Dead Cow writing and sharing fiction with the community, such as a short story he wrote at age 15 about running over children in a car, Reuters reports.

“We weren’t deliberately looking for hacking chops,” CDC founder Kevin Wheeler told Reuters, describing the group’s attitude during the period of time O’Rourke was most active. “It was very much about personality and writing, really. For a long time, the ‘test,’ or evaluation, was to write [text files]. Everyone was expected to write things. If we were stoked to have more hacker-oriented people, it was because we’d be excited to have a broader range in our t-files.”

Formative Years

“There’s just this profound value in being able to be apart from the system and look at it critically and have fun while you’re doing it,” O’Rourke said. “I think of the Cult of the Dead Cow as a great example of that.”

The presidential hopeful, who espouses a mix of traditional liberal and libertarian views, describes the group as a sort of network for outcasts from society.

“When Dad bought an Apple IIe and a 300-baud modem and I started to get on boards, it was the Facebook of its day,” he said. “You just wanted to be part of a community.”

READ MORE: Beto O’Rourke’s secret membership in America’s oldest hacking group [Reuters]

More on hacktivism: It’s Now Scary to Be A White Hat Hacker Thanks to the US Government

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Presidential Hopeful Beto O’Rourke Belonged to Infamous Hacker Group

Heart Hack

An implanted medical device can dramatically improve a person’s quality of life — or even save their life outright.

However, the devices come with serious security vulnerabilities, and it’s not hard to imagine the damage a person could do by hacking someone’s pacemaker, insulin pump, or brain implant.

Now, researchers from Purdue University have found a way to prevent hackers from intercepting the wireless signals used to communicate with implanted devices — and their creation could ensure the “internet of body” remains secure in the future.

Watch This

Many people monitor their implants via electronic devices, such as smart watches or smartphones, with the implants and devices communicating over Bluetooth.

Those wireless signals can extend as far as 10 meters away from a person’s body, according to the Purdue researchers – meaning someone in the vicinity of the implant owner could intercept the information — and perhaps manipulate it.

In a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers detail how they created a prototype watch that avoids this issue.

Short Leash

According to the researchers, their watch can receive a signal from anywhere on a person’s body, but instead of communicating over Bluetooth, the electrical signals travel through the person’s own body fluids to reach the watch, never extending more than one centimeter beyond the person’s skin.

As a bonus, the system also requires 100 times less energy than Bluetooth, according to the researchers — but its ability to protect incredibly sensitive communications could be reason enough for the technology to replace Bluetooth for implant applications in the future.

READ MORE: Your body is your internet – and now it can’t be hacked [Purdue University]

More on implants: New Brain Implant Could Translate Paralyzed People’s Thoughts Into Speech

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This Tech Could Secure Medical Implants Against Hackers

Ocean’s Once

In April 2018, hackers stole the equivalent of $15 million from Mexican banks — and now we know how they probably did it.

Penetration tester and security advisor Josu Loza was one of the experts called in to respond to the April heist, and on March 8 he presented his findings at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco.

Based on his analysis, Mexico’s central bank wasn’t doing nearly enough to protect its clients’ money — but other financial institutions could avoid the same fate if they’re willing to work together.

Easy Money

On Friday, Wired published a story detailing the information Loza shared with the audience at RSA’s conference. Based on his assessment, the success of the heist was due to a combination of expert bank hackers willing to spend months planning their crime and a banking network rife with security holes.

During the presentation, Loza made the case that the hackers might have accessed the Banco de México’s internal servers from the public internet, or perhaps launched phishing attacks on bank executives or employees to gain access.

Regardless of how they first got access, Loza said, the main problem was putting too many eggs in one security basket. Because many of the networks lacked adequate segmentation and access controls, he argued, a single breach could provide the bank hackers with extensive access.

That enabled them to lay the groundwork to eventually make numerous money transfers in smaller amounts, perhaps $5,000 or so, to accounts under their control. They’d then pay hundreds of “cash mules” each a small sum — Loza estimated that $260 might be enough — to withdraw the money for them.

Cyber Insecurity

The bank hackers are still at large, but the heist appears to have served as a wake-up call for the Banco de México.

“From last year to today the focus has been implementing controls. Control, control, control,” Lazo said during his presentation, according to Wired. “And I think the attacks aren’t happening today because of it.”

He also noted the need for companies to collaborate to defend against cyberattacks.

“Mexican people need to start to work together. All the institutions need to cooperate more,” Loza said. “The main problem on cybersecurity is that we don’t share knowledge and information or talk about attacks enough. People don’t want to make details about incidents public.”

READ MORE: HOW HACKERS PULLED OFF A $20 MILLION MEXICAN BANK HEIST [Wired]

More on hacking: Hacker Figures out How to Drain $1 Million in Cash From ATM

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Violating Terms

Slack, the team collaboration app commonly used to connect people within workplaces, announced Thursday that it had deleted 28 accounts that were clearly affiliated with hate groups, according to the company’s blog.

The announcement, sparse on concrete details or specifics, states that hate groups are explicitly unwelcome on the app and that Slack will continue to investigate and act on any future reports of hate speech or illegal activity.

“Today we removed 28 accounts because of their clear affiliation with known hate groups,” the statement reads. “The use of Slack by hate groups runs counter to everything we believe in at Slack and is not welcome on our platform.”

Joining the Fight

In recent years, major platforms like Facebook and Twitter have struggled to keep white supremacists and other hate groups from spreading their messages across the internet, though both ban Nazi messaging in Germany, where Holocaust denial is illegal.

Smaller scale platforms like Discord also recently started acting against hate groups, according to The Verge, which speculates that Slack’s focus on business communications instead of cultivating largescale communities may have helped the company avoid the issue of online hatemongering.

Real World Consequences

When hate speech is allowed to propagate online, it can lead to real-world violence — like the murder of Heather Heyer at a 2017 white supremacist rally. But banning hate groups and de-platforming the people behind them, as Slack claims to have done, is a successful strategy.

When right-wing activist Milo Yiannopolous was no longer permitted by online platforms to spread his racist and misogynistic viewpoints, he found himself effectively powerless and millions of dollars in debt, according to The Guardian.

“Using Slack to encourage or incite hatred and violence against groups or individuals because of who they are is antithetical to our values and the very purpose of Slack,” the company’s statement reads. “When we are made aware of an organization using Slack for illegal, harmful, or other prohibited purposes, we will investigate and take appropriate action and we are updating our terms of service to make that more explicit.”

READ MORE: Slack says it removed dozens of accounts affiliated with hate groups [The Verge]

More on content moderation: The UK Government Is Planning to Regulate Hate Speech Online

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Slack Just Removed a Bunch of Hate Groups