Robots Have Quietly Become Ohio’s Booming Workforce – Cleveland Scene Weekly

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Over the last decade or so, automated labor has grown as a robust presence throughout the state and its impact is starting to be more directly seen and felt, both commercially and politically

This week, the Brookings Institute released a new study looking at the regional locations of industrial robots. Or, in the institutes phrasing, 'automatically controlled, reprogrammable machines capable of replacing labor in a range of tasks.

A closer look at the Brookings study shows where, exactly, in Ohio these robots are most likely to be found. Both Toledo, with nine robots for every 1,000 people, and the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman metro area, with 4.5 robots per 1,000 people, rank in the top 10 of the 100 largest metro areas from the study.

The Youngstown-Warren area is a bit more interesting, though. While that metro are has famously struggled with the shrinking steel manufacturing economy, its beginning to see success in more high-tech jobs, like the Youngstown Business Incubator which has a focus on additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing).

And its that sort of development that could help serve a region that, as The Daily Beast notes, is already home to thousands of companies producing metals, plastics, and polymers as well as the regions biomedical, automotive, and defense industries.

But this isnt the only area of robotics thats made a big impression in Ohio. Gov. Kasich made a big push to set aside a few stretches of highway throughout the state as Smart Mobility Corridors, including a stretch near Columbus.

There are also efforts to bring such tests to corridors throughout Northern Ohio, too.

The central Ohio hub, a 35-mile stretch of State Route 33 around Marysville, is being wired with fiber optic cables for data collection. Ohio State and Honda are both nearby, as are the Transportation Research Center and NHTSA Vehicle Research Test Center. And Wind River, a subsidiary of Intel, has already announced a program with OSU, the TRC, and the city of Dublin to test self-driving vehicles on this stretch of road.

As for the larger impact of robot labor, the Brookings study points toward, but stops short of, larger conclusions behind the placement of these industry robots, including economic anxiety around robots taking human jobs and the political impact.

And that political impact is certainly worth paying attention to. That Daily Beast story highlights the disconnect between the growing high-tech industry in Youngstown and the manufacturing plans that President Trump has touted for the area, promising that cracking down on the unbalanced steel trade of other nations will magically revive an industry that many consider long gone from the area.

To see the other side of the impact of robotics, though, look no further than the Carrier plant near Indianapolis. Despite President Trumps boast of saving jobs at the factory last fall, it was later determined that many of those supposedly saved jobs will be lost to automation at the plant. More robots.

Brookings plans to release another study later this year that more closely examines the disruption to metro areas brought by the changing robotics world. We can only hope that Brookings doesn't hire robot researchers to taint the data.

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Robots Have Quietly Become Ohio's Booming Workforce - Cleveland Scene Weekly

Are Amazon’s robots job robbers or dance partners? – The Providence Journal

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From the sharp stones wielded by our early ancestors to the internet, every step in the evolving relationship between humans and their tools has awakened new possibilities, and new fears. The bottom line on 'bots: There will be human displacement, but fresh opportunities, too.

NORTH READING, Mass. Every day is graduation day at Amazon Robotics.

Here's where the more than 100,000 orange robots that glide along the floors of various Amazon warehouses are made and taught their first steps.

Here they practice their first pirouettes. And heavy lifting too, as they twirl while hauling shelves filled with cinder blocks.

And finally once they've been given the green light by their makers about 38 robots assemble in a tight four-row formation and in orderly fashion wheel themselves up onto pallets that will be shipped to one of the 25 Amazon warehouses that employ automatons.

Amazon staffers call it the "graduation ceremony," and it takes place several times a day. So far this year the company has graduated more than 55,000 robots.

These robots, and the thousands of Amazonians who build, program and use them, are laying out the next episode in a very old story the evolving relationship between humans and their tools.

From the sharp stones wielded by our early ancestors to the internet, every step along the way has awakened new possibilities, and new fears too.

Now, it's the turn of robotics, a discipline that after decades of experimentation and recent big leaps in artificial intelligence has finally reached a maturity that allows mass deployment.

"We're at an inflection point the ability of robots to be useful at a low-cost point," said Beth Marcus, a robotics expert and startup founder who recently joined Amazon Robotics as a senior principal technologist.

This latest wave of automation has spurred anxiety among scholars and policymakers. They warn it might contribute to a growing economic divide, in which workers with more education or the right skills reap the benefits of automation, while those with inadequate training are replaced by robots and increasingly left out of lucrative jobs.

It's not a novel concern: Spinning jennies, which revolutionized the weaving industry, sparked similar resistance in 19th-century England. And in the 1960s, the U.S. government created a task force to study the impact of technology on livelihoods.

"If we understand it, if we plan for it, if we apply it well, automation will not be a job destroyer or a family displacer," President Lyndon Johnson said at the time.

History has shown that, over time, job losses in rapidly advancing sectors are offset by gains in other activities spurred by a growing economy.

That perspective doesn't quell contemporary concerns. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has proposed taxing robots to pay for other jobs, such as teachers. Some scholars also seem to be losing faith in the old playbook.

"There's never been a worse time to be a worker with only 'ordinary' skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate," Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee wrote in their 2014 book, "The Second Machine Age."

In a recent report, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that technology is contributing to the disappearance of middle-skill jobs, both in manufacturing and in clerical work, even though it helps create both highly skilled and low skilled positions.

Amazon is the poster child for automation, and not only because of the orange warehouse robots. Its machine-learning software lets the company predict customer behavior. New retail concepts, such as the Amazon Go convenience store in downtown Seattle, heavily rely on sensor technology in an effort to do away with the need for cashiers.

Amazon is also working hard to have drones deliver items to people's homes, a move that may replace a lot of delivery drivers.

But automation certainly hasn't slowed down Amazon's colossal appetite for people. The company's payroll expansion has long exceeded revenue growth: In the quarter that ended last June, its workforce grew by 42 percent to 382,400 jobs, versus sales growth of 25 percent.

It's hard to say, in the case of Amazon, how many potential human jobs have gone to the robots, or inversely, how many new positions have been created to handle this new feature of working life.

But Amazon says that warehouses equipped with robotics typically see "greater job creation with more full-time employees," due to the increased volume of orders these centers can handle. Amazon also says automation has meant the creation of desirable, high-skilled jobs designing robots and teaching them how to do things, as well as middle-skilled jobs such as repairing the robots, or simply focusing on more sophisticated warehouse tasks while letting machines do the boring stuff.

Marcus says that there are plenty of tasks humans will monopolize for a long time.

"There are many things humans do really well that we don't even understand yet," she said.

Amazon Robotics' facility, in suburban Boston, was first established by Kiva Systems, a company founded on the concept of flipping warehouse logistics around. Instead of having workers walk to products, it sought to bring items to the workers. The solution: flat, wheeled robots called "drive units" that navigate a warehouse by reading stickers on the floor, all while carrying merchandise on their backs.

Amazon bought Kiva in 2012 for $775 million in cash and started introducing the robots into its warehouses in 2014.

Since then, the robotics facility stopped selling to other customers, while its orange robots, now in their fourth generation, have come to play an important part in Amazon's operations. In fact, robotics seem to be more important to Amazon's bottom line than to other tech giants also making big bets in the field, such as Google, experts say.

A few steps into the Amazon Robotics building, a small sign warns visitors in jest to please not feed the robots.

Some 500 employees work in the facility, mostly engineers and scientists, as well as technicians who assemble the robots. The hardware side is led by Parris Wellman. As a kid he wanted to build cars and went on to earn a mechanical-engineering degree at the University of Pennsylvania. There, studying under prominent roboticist Vijay Kumar, Wellman discovered robots. After a Ph.D. from Harvard and a few years in biotech and in medical devices, he joined Amazon Robotics, returning to what he calls his "first love."

What he likes about the opportunity is that he can build something and deploy it en masse pretty quickly.

Another interesting aspect of the work, he said, is that the roboticists get plenty of feedback from the warehouse associates who will be dealing directly with the robots. For example, associates helped designers pick out the color of the new lightweight shelves that the robots carry: yellow, because that makes it easier to see the items they carry.

And it was a maintenance worker at a warehouse who designed, and patented with Amazon's help, a metal rod that staffers use to push inactive robots around the factory floor (it's easier than picking up the 750-pound devices).

"Innovation is not restricted to a particular set of people," Wellman said.

One of these centers is in DuPont, Washington, a warehouse dedicated to mid-size and large items, where 500 humans work alongside hundreds of robots. There the automatons have the run of the core of the warehouse, a maze brimming with metal shelves stocked with merchandise.

They operate in a different space from the humans, who are mostly on the outskirts of the facility. But they work together in an elaborate, seemingly seamless dance.

This interaction with the robotic workforce has created new types of roles.

Barry Tormoehlen, a former electrician and conveyance mechanic, is one of a dozen people at DuPont who do preventive maintenance on the drive units, vacuum their interiors, "wipe them down" every once in a while and fix them when needed.

Over time, Tormoehlen has learned to recognize the individual units, which each have a number and a maintenance history of their own. The collaboration between these robots and humans has created a local folklore.

Workers have painted some of the robots to give them personality: A robot with fiery flames on its sides is known as the "devil drive." Another, decorated by warehouse workers in blue and yellow instead of the usual orange, is dubbed "The Minion," after animated characters who have the same color pattern.

During a recent visit to the DuPont center, 29-year old Ashley Parks, a former medical assistant from Yelm, Washington, stowed newly arrived items of various shapes and sizes onto a shelf atop "The Minion."

"They kind of dance around you," she said of the automatons, adding that they make her more efficient in her job.

As for fears of one day losing her job to a machine, she seemed nonchalant. "I don't think they're going to take away our jobs," she said. "They stay on their side, I stay on my side."

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Are Amazon's robots job robbers or dance partners? - The Providence Journal

Robotic Industries Association – Robotics Online (press release)

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Robotic Industries Association Posted 08/17/2017

Organization's Research Provides Guide for Robotics and Automation Sales, Likelihood of Additional Growth in 2017

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN The Association for Advancing Automation (A3), the leading global advocate for the benefits of automating, announced today the results of its research on robotics and automation trends, sales, and growth. A3 provides quarterly statistical reports to its members for benchmarking and business intelligence purposes. As expected, many records were set in the areas of robotics, machine vision, motion control and motor technology for the first half of 2017.

A snapshot of some of A3's research findings includes:

Robotics The North American robotics market had its best opening half ever to begin 2017, setting new records in all four statistical categories (order units, order revenue, shipment units, and shipment revenue). In total, 19,331 robots valued at approximately $1.031 billion were sold in North America during the first half of 2017, which is the highest level ever recorded to begin a year. These figures represent growth of 33% in units and 26% in dollars over 2016. Automotive related orders grew substantially in that time, increasing 39% in units and 37% in dollars, while non-automotive orders also grew 21% in units and 10% in dollars over the first half of 2016.

Motion Control & Motors For the first half of 2017, orders for motion control and motor products amounted to $1.622 billion, up 14% over the first six months of 2016. Shipments totaled $1.757 billion, up 10% over the first half of 2016, and the fastest growing categories in that timeframe, in terms of shipments, were Motion Controllers (21% to $97 million), Sensors & Feedback Devices (20% to $76 million), Actuators & Mechanical Systems (17% to $318 million), and AC Drives (17% to $199 million).

Vision & Imaging In 2017, the machine vision market in North America also posted its best first half performance compared to any other year. A total of $1.241 billion was sold in the first six months of the year, with an increase of 11% over the same period in 2016. Machine vision component markets were up 11% in total to $177 million and systems increased 10% to $1.058 billion. Some notable growth rates were: Lighting (20% to $35 million), Smart Cameras (16% to $183 million), and Optics (16% to $20 million).

Experts expect software to trend up, cameras, lighting, and imaging boards to be flat, and optics to trend down over the next six months. Additionally, expectations are for Application Specific Machine Vision (ASMV) systems to increase and smart cameras to remain flat in the next two quarters.

A3 Expertise A longtime advocate for and supporter of the robotics, machine vision, motion control and motor markets, A3 is comprised of three sister associations: the Robotic Industries Association (RIA); the Advancing Vision + Imaging Association (AIA); and the Motion Control & Motor Association (MCMA). A3 is currently at a record combined membership of 1,064 as of July 31, 2017.

"Year over year, our membership has been on a steady growth trajectory, the result of more companies understanding, and embracing, the direct impact automation can have on their bottom line," said Jeff Burnstein, president of A3. "We look forward to the continued advancement of our industry and helping companies of all sizes access the connections, information, and training they need to succeed with automation."

A3 On the Road A3 will host several events in the fall of 2017 that support the organizations and industries noted in its research findings. They include:

For more details or to sign up, visit the A3 website.

About Association for Advancing Automation (A3) The Association for Advancing Automation is the global advocate for the benefits of automating. A3 promotes automation technologies and ideas that transform the way business is done. A3 is the umbrella group for Robotic Industries Association (RIA), AIA - Advancing Vision + Imaging, and Motion Control & Motor Association (MCMA). RIA, AIA, and MCMA combined represent over 1,060 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, system integrators, end users, research groups and consulting firms from throughout the world that drive automation forward.

For more information, visit: A3. RIA. AIA. MCMA.

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KES Robotics Club comes first in national competition after disaster averted, heading to worlds – The Hants Journal

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The Hants Journal
KES Robotics Club comes first in national competition after disaster averted, heading to worlds
The Hants Journal
After weeks and months of intense coding and late nights of robot building, a scrappy team from King's-Edgehill School in Nova Scotia ended up placing first against 12 other teams from Quebec and Ontario during the Canadian qualifier for the World ...

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KES Robotics Club comes first in national competition after disaster averted, heading to worlds - The Hants Journal

Kids equipped for futureafter success with robotics – The West Australian

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Pilbara students proved their mastery with robots at the RoboCup Junior WA competition in Perth last week.

Six teams from Wickham, Tambrey and Baynton West primary schools excelled at their first time at the annual educational robotics tournament, competing in dance and rescue challenges with a range of advanced robots.

A four-person team from Tambrey Primary, consisting of Year 6 students Ben Gillon, Daniel Dang, George Ralph and Trey Jankowski, won gold in the competition primary dance competition, beating 54 other teams.

Their creative dance, The 4 Wall-Es, involved several robots acting out Pixar film Wall-E.

Two Pilbara teams also collected medals in the primary rescue category.

Kade Higgins and William Kinninmont, of Wickham Primary School, won silver while Bailey Smith, of Baynton West Primary, took home bronze.

It comes after the first Pilbara RoboCup Junior event, which was also the first in regional WA, was held at Wickham Primary School in June.

Scitech Statewide director Nick Wood said the Pilbara students had excelled at their first showing at the Perth event. The Pilbara teams demonstrated a high skill level and strong problem-solving abilities I think that is testament to the efforts of students, teachers and the school communities to make robotics and coding part of the core school activities, he said.

All the Pilbara schools Scitech work with have done a fantastic job integrating technology into the classroom, and the students are going from strength to strength in coding and computing as well as literacy, numeracy and problem solving.

Tambrey Primary principal Troy Withers said its teams gold medal in the primary dance vision was a fantastic result and the school community was very proud.

Theyve gotten a fair bit out of it and had to get out of their comfort zone, he said. That division was about combining their own physical movement with what the robots were doing, but they pulled it off really well.

Mr Withers said the teams success had inspired other students to take more interest in robotics.

Wickham Primary deputy principal and STEM co-ordinator Melissa Reimers said the results showed how much robotics and STEM talent there was among children in the Pilbara.

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Kids equipped for futureafter success with robotics - The West Australian

Students learn critical thinking, problem solving during PLCC Robotics Camp – Suburbanite

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Carolynn Mostyn TheSuburbanite.com correspondent

Middleschoolers Owen Garee,of Green,and Dylan Snyder,ofLake,were working together to make the final adjustments to their robot for competition at Portage Lakes Career Center during the VEX Robotics Camp.

Two camps ran July 24 through 28 at the school. The first was a beginner camp and the second an advanced camp. Many of the campers attend both camps.

The team of Garee and Snyder found after programming the robot and making a trial run that the robot's wheels were not steady and were"whacky and wiggly," they said. They then tightened all of the bolts and nuts to keep the robot going in straight lines and staying on the course.

The camp instructors are high school teachers and college students working with IST (Integrated Systems Technology).

Michael James, atech teacher at Elgin High School near Marion,said they put competition into the days at camp.

"Anytime a kid can have competition they will learn and do better," he said.

Jamessaid critical thinking, problem solving and working as a team are important lessons the campers learn.

"If you look at any engineering or any project, you have to work as a team. It is not just 'hey I can do it all myself,' " he said.

James added they do, sometimes, match kids up as teams but for the most partthe kids just sit down and start working together.

"It is amazing how few problems you have with that," Jamessaid. "A lot of them are kids from different schools and they don't know anyone. They start making friends."

The team of instructors travel all over the state doing camps throughout the summer.

Jarrett Taylor and Ben Casper were working to program code their robot to follow the course and pick up a cone and place it on top of another one. The boys explained that instructors are keeping score of each team's progress of different tasks to earn a ranking within the 12 teams.

The students at camp were from various school districts in the area and are going into sixth through ninth grade. This is the fourth year the robotics camp has been held at the career center.

Maria Schlenk, programming and software development instructor for PLCC, said on the first day the kids worked from an instruction book and parts and pieces to build their robots. Once they completed the robots, they use a game controller to drive them around and play with them. The second day, they competed going through mazes and picking things up.

"That was fun for the kids," she said.

Students also began programming the robots, writing a program in a language calledRobotics C, whichtells the robot how to move and what to do. Robots then areoperated autonomously (without a human controlling them).

The STEM camp is primarily engineering and the students are hands-on inbuilding the robots and using their creativity. During the programming or coding, logic, thinking step-by-step and control comes in to play.

"It is thinking logically, critically and problem solving," said Schlenk.

She said the students sometimes want to hurry and get the robot together so they can play with it. That is when they find out that the wheels might fall off and parts don't work. But they learn, Schlenk.

"The more work you put in ahead of time the better the first results," she said. "Take time to do it right the first time and you won't have to redo it. They also learn interpersonal skills. You have to model teamwork and teach teamwork."

The last day of camp parents are invited to watch the competition between the teams.

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Students learn critical thinking, problem solving during PLCC Robotics Camp - Suburbanite

Robots can now heal themselves – Wired.co.uk

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Science Museum / Heritage Lottery Fund

Roboticists have designed soft robots that can heal themselves.

Cutting your hand or tearing a muscle are both injuries that heal over time for living organisms. But what if robots could heal too? New research published in the Science Robotics Journal suggests this may be the case in our near future.

Researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) have extended this self-healing property specifically to soft robots. These are robots constructed from flexible materials that enable them to be used to grab delicate objects in the food industry or in minimally invasive surgery. They play an important role in rehabilitation and arm prostheses.

Bram Vanderborght

"A robot is very complex and difficult to repair. And the soft robots are particularly susceptible to sharp objects and high pressure" explains professor Bram Vanderborght of VUB, one of the five researchers behind the project. "This research is the first step in introducing self-healing materials in soft robotics, which we think will start a whole new research field of self-healing robotics," Vanderborght continues.

During their experiments, the team built soft robots made entirely from rubbery polymers. When damaged, these materials first recovered their original shape and then healed completely. "This principle was tested on three self-healing robotic components: a gripper used for robots to pick up items, a robot hand, and an artificial muscle," he continues. "Realistic damage could be healed completely without leaving any weak spot. The prototypes were able to fully resume their tasks."

Once a soft robot is damaged, the material is able to heal after being heated for 40 minutes at 80C. After 24 hours at 25C, the damaged robot's strength and flexibility would also be restored.

The polymer material used does this because it consists of a network of cross links that allow the Diels-Alder reaction to take place. This reaction allows new bonds to be made by the molecules. "By applying heat, those cross-links will break, which gives the polymer material more mobility. This mobility allows the molecules to close the gap made by the damage. When healed the material has to be cooled down, during which the initial properties are almost completely regained," explains Vanderborght.

The team, which has backing from the European Research Council, also has big hopes for the impact of this research. "We hope that humans will develop a new kind of trust in robots, knowing that their functional performance is not depending on the human detection and repair of damages," the team said in a statement.

Indeed, the gap in this field of industry makes this research particularly exciting. "The inability to heal is one of the major shortcomings of our mechanical systems versus their biological counterparts," confirms electrical engineering expert, professor Russell Tedrake of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Suitable progress in this direction could substantially improve the robustness of our machines." However, Tedrake questions the extent to which this technology is completely groundbreaking, noting that we already have self-healing tyres.

But Fumiya Iida, soft robotic researcher at the University of Cambridge, argues the research is a major step-forward for the field. "Self-healing soft robot technology is a significant breakthrough. Self-recovery makes the entire mechanical system cheaper and safer in a human-oriented environment".

More immediately, the VUB team is hoping to work towards adding a sensor network to detect the health status of robots and even new materials.

Updated 17.08.17, 12:50: This article was amended to correct the spelling of Fumiya Iida's name and clarify a statement given by Russell Tedrake.

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Robots can now heal themselves - Wired.co.uk

Matrix Design, LLC – Robotics Online (press release)

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Matrix Design, LLC Posted 08/17/2017

New Modular Robotic Deburr Demo Cell Includes interchangeable stations and FANUC robot

South Elgin, IL - Matrix Design, LLC will be exhibiting at Gear Expo 2017 from October 24-26 in Columbus, OH. Thousands of gear industry professionals are expected to attend the event to discover cost-effective solutions and new technologies.

Gear Expo, owned by the American Gear Manufacturers Association, offers learning opportunities and educational options designed to give technology professionals and those that serve the industry tools to succeed in the future. This event takes place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center where attendees will get a one-stop shopping experience that covers all their manufacturing needs including automation, forgings, bearings, heat treating, inspection, and more than 75 other product categories.

Matrix will exhibit in booth #422, a 20 x 20 space, and will feature their brand new Deburr Demo cell. Here, attendees will have the opportunity to see live advanced robotic deburring technologies. This modular-designed automation system includes four interchangeable stations arranged in a quadrant formation around a single M-20iA35M FANUC robot, each featuring various deburring solutions that address the unique challenges associated with deburring.

We are very excited to unveil our new robotic deburring applications system, says Jeff Bennett, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. This new system will allow us to demonstrate our automated deburring technologies to manufacturers as well as qualify new potential deburring applications. Matrixs staff will be on hand to present, answer questions, and to help end users understand how manufacturers operations can benefit from increased productivity, improved safety and work environment, decreased costs, and consolidation of processes.

About Matrix Design Matrix works closely with end users to develop, build, and install robotic automation systems. Specializing in machine tending, deburring, and a range of material handling systems, Matrix has built a reputation for designing and delivering the most optimal and robust industrial automation systems to manufacturers worldwide.

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Matrix Design, LLC - Robotics Online (press release)

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to … Interactive Biodegradable Funerary Urns? – WUWM

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Earlier this summer, a modest little startup in Barcelona, Spain, unveiled its newest product a biodegradable, Internet-connected funeral urn that turns the ashes of departed loved ones into an indoor tree. Just mix the cremains with soil and seedlings, and the digital-age urn will automatically water and care for your memorial sapling, sending constant updates to an app on your smartphone.

At first glance, the concept seems gimmicky evidently, we're running out of ideas for smart appliances. But the Bios Incube system can also be seen as the latest example of a gradual transformation in modern culture.

Technology is fundamentally changing how we deal with death and its attendant issues of funerals, memorials and human remains. Much of this change is for the good. Some developments are a little spooky. But one thing is for sure: You can do a lot of cool things with ashes these days.

The Bios Incube system, which went on sale in June after a successful crowdfunding campaign, is the latest iteration of a much older idea in which ashes are essentially used as compost for a memorial tree or plant. But the Incube system adds some high-tech twists. The biodegradable urn is placed within a 5-gallon planter with an elegant, off-white, minimalist design vibe call it the iUrn.

Actually, that's the Incube. Fill it with water and an internal irrigation system kicks in while separate sensors monitor the progress of your plant, taking constant readings on temperature, humidity and soil conditions. This information is wirelessly beamed to the included smartphone app, allowing the bereaved user to better care for and nurture the seedling as it grows into a tree.

Roger Molin, co-founder of Bios Urn, says the company offers two versions of its system. One provides the basic biodegradable urn and planter at $145. The more expensive version if you want all the high-tech bells, whistles, atmosphere sensors and smartphone apps tops out at $695.

"Interestingly enough, we have found so far that most have opted voluntarily for the high-tech option," Molin says.

He has a theory on that.

"Most of us are connected to the digital world, and we have become used to it," he says. "Perhaps by tying together this process with technology, there can be a sense of comfort that comes from using a familiar process with a new experience. We hope that it will push people in a new direction and perhaps make this process easier for those experiencing loss."

The Bios Urn concept is indeed part of a larger transformation in which technology is changing how we think about death and dying, says Candi Cann, author of the book Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-first Century.

"Their approach implies a different sort of afterlife than the religious one an afterlife that theoretically we can partake in," says Cann, who teaches religion and world culture at Baylor University.

"Recent theories on mourning reveal that having continued bonds with the deceased allow us to navigate everyday life while renegotiating our relationships with loved ones who are no longer present," she says. "So in this way, the Bios Urn might actually foster a healthy type of mourning that allows us to look after the dead in an active, daily way."

Caring for the dead via a smartphone app may seem strange, Cann says, but it makes perfect sense for those of us living in a perpetually connected world: "The generation today has grown up with online spaces and smartphones, so this is their medium."

Cann has done extensive research on modern mourning rituals around the planet, and the various ways that technology is impacting how we deal with death and dying. The Internet has certainly changed the way we do things. Obituaries are posted online, funeral arrangements are sent by email or text, and social media platforms like Facebook now offer a range of memorial pages and legacy contact options.

In general, this is all good healthy progress, Cann says. "Smartphones and social media spaces have forced a decline in the importance of a controlled obituary narrative, as more people can contribute to the communal memory of a person and the meaning of their life," she says.

A recurring theme in Cann's work concerns an odd and abiding reticence in mainstream Western attitudes toward death: In short, we just don't like to talk about it. Our aversion leads to a lot of unhealthy sublimation in the culture. "I would argue that the reason we see so much death in the media and in video games is precisely because we are not having real conversations about death," Cann says.

Technology is helping in that arena, too. Cann points to online communities like Death Cafe, which use Internet forums to arrange local meetups for people wanting to talk about death.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the remains. We humans have been navigating this dilemma since the dawn of civilization, but recent technological advances have opened up some options. You can have ashes incorporated into jewelry, blended into oil paintings, mixed into tattoo ink, submerged into coral reefs or even pressed into vinyl records. And don't forget about the festive fireworks option.

While developing the Bios Urn system, Molin explored how other cultures are processing cremains, like Tokyo's unique Ruriden columbarium, which utilizes LED Buddha statues and digital smart cards.

"I've seen some interesting things in China and Japan," he says. "Both have run of out burial space in larger cities and have created interesting ways of commemorating those who have passed."

Cann says that these new modern rituals, facilitated by various technologies, can help us get a little friendlier with death.

"In Brazil, I went to a public crematorium that cremates a body every 15 minutes, and is an actively used public park and picnic space," he says. "Families were playing and picnicking among the ashes. If we see deathscapes as friendly places, rather than where the dead are banished, we might be able to utilize them in healthier and more creative ways."

Looking to the future, however, Cann addresses more worrisome technologies.

"One of the areas I'm thinking more about is the use of artificial intelligence and digital avatars," Cann said. "These are people intending to upload themselves, via AI, into digital avatars."

Proponents of this idea contend that uploading the mind into a computer is entirely plausible. But science fiction has some cautionary tales in this area any technology that promises to defy death is usually nothing but trouble. Ask Dr. Frankenstein. Even speculating on this sci-fi scenario can get a bit dodgy, Cann says.

"Whenever people focus more on extending life rather than examining its quality, death loses its importance," Cann says. "If we are spending more time trying to deny death or prolong dying, then I think we are not living well."

In this light, the Bios Urn seems like a fairly gentle step forward. Technology can't yet provide us with digital immortality, but it can help us grow a memorial tree in our living room. What's not to like?

Glenn McDonald is a freelance writer, editor and game designer based in Chapel Hill, N.C. You can follow him @glennmcdonald1.

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Ashes to Ashes, Dust to ... Interactive Biodegradable Funerary Urns? - WUWM

Film Review: Patriots QB Jimmy Garoppolo vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars – Pats Pulpit

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Football is back! The first preseason game of the year ended in defeat for the Patriots, but more important than the score of the game is how individual players looked. With the debate surrounding the Patriots backup quarterback situation this off-season, how Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett perform this preseason could influence the plans for the position moving forward. With this in mind, I asked Patriots fans to decide which of the backups they wanted to see a film breakdown of. 60% of voters decided on Jimmy Garoppolo, so here we (after a slight NFL Gamepass-related delay) go.

With Tom Brady getting the night off, Jimmy Garoppolo was tabbed as the starter for the first preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Garoppolo put up impressive numbers, completing 22 of 28 attempts for 235 yards and two touchdowns. While the media provided effusive praise, Garoppolos performance doesnt quite live up the numbers. Lets take a closer look.

The biggest takeaway from the fourth year quarterbacks performance is that he showed an impressive feel for the pocket and where pressure was coming from.

The Jaguars get immediate pressure up the middle, and Garoppolo sees it and rolls away from the pressure as soon as he sees it. This isnt always the right thing to do, but in this situation Garoppolo had no other choice. He keeps his eyes downfield and finds his man to pick up a first down from third and long.

The touchdown everyone has seen by now is another good example of his pocket management. Dante Fowler gets inside leverage on LaAdrian Waddle (not a good look for Waddles roster hopes) and forces Jimmy to bail from the pocket. An argument could be made he shouldve stepped up with Jamil Douglas helping out on Fowler, but Fowler wouldve had an opportunity to get a hand on Jimmy if he did. Garoppolo resets his feet and looks downfield, making the throw for the touchdown to Austin Carr.

This wasnt a perfect playfading and throwing off his back foot is a recipe for disaster, and the throw wasnt particularly accuratebut when you evade pressure the way he did, and the result is a touchdown, those can be forgiven.

Beyond his pocket movement, Garoppolo flashed the ability (if inconsistently, more on that later) to make some impressive throws into tight windows.

Crowded pocket, hands jumping in his face, tight window, third and long, money throw. High enough the underneath LBs cant reach, behind his TEs ear so the safety cant come in and break it up, in a place that only his receiver can go get it, and Jacob Hollister did just that. First down.

30 yards down the field, 25 yards across the field. Find the length of the hypotenuse. Nearly 40 air-yard throw to the sideline, he may have been a little late getting to the target, but delivers a strike for a big first down on a deep comeback.

Lastly, probably my favorite throw he made on the night. Get to the top of your drop, set, back-shoulder throw the CB cant do anything about in 1-on-1 coverage, easy first down on a throw thats more difficult than it looks.

Garoppolo made some atrocious throws in this game, speaking to the inconsistency mentioned in the above section. He started the game off very slowly, which can be argued as just shaking off some rust and getting into a rhythm, or as struggling against the Jaguars starters and picking on the backups.

Garoppolo has a chance to put his team in the red zone, and correctly attempts to make a back-shoulder throw with a safety closing over the top and the defender step for step on Devin Luciens inside shoulder. Garoppolo cant even give Lucien a chance to make the play, however, as he leads him out of bounds.

The pocket movement here deserves to be in the Good section, but the throw lands it here. After a pump fake and stepping up in the pocket to evade the initial pressure, Jimmy finds his tight end wide open and completely misses him.

This couldve been 6. This shouldve been a big play. This was almost an interception. Garoppolo is late getting the ball out and not only underthrows his man, but leads him so far inside the ball almost landed in the safetys (who started about 10 yards to the right of the play) hip pocket.

I mean...come on. Yes, Dion Lewis managed to get a hand on it. Working from a completely clean pocket with a receiver more than 3 yards clear of any defender and facing directly at you, only ~9 yards away, there is no excuse for that ball to land anywhere other than his numbers.

Finally, a completed pass, but this is how you get your receivers killed. Open window to throw in and Garoppolo leads Hollister too far. Hollister makes a great play on the ball, and then pays the price for doing so, getting hit in the head twice immediately after catching the pass. (*Note: There was an issue uploading this gif, I had to use a different site to do so. It needs to be clicked on or hovered over to play, it will not autoplay like the others)

The Patriots did not ask Jimmy Garoppolo to do a whole lot. Most of his completions came on screens and dump-offs. He made some impressive throws but for every good one he had, he cancelled it out with an equally bad one. He heated up as the game went on, but as already mentioned, its tough to tell whether to attribute that to Garoppolo settling in, or him finding success against the Jaguars backups (Jacksonville played most of their defensive starters in the game).

Ultimately, my biggest takeaway was Garoppolos pocket movement. He was under pressure quite frequently in this game and generally knew when to step up and maneuver in the pocket and when to bail and try to extend the play with his legs. This was the one area of his game I came away from pre-season week 1 truly impressed with. This game provided us with more of the same from Garoppolo: Enough flashes to provide hope for the future, enough downside to question if hes actually a part of it.

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Film Review: Patriots QB Jimmy Garoppolo vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars - Pats Pulpit

Visit Chernobyl in virtual reality on PlayStation VR – Mashable

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Image: Sergey Dolzhenko/Epa/REX/Shutterstock

If you've always wanted to visit the abandoned location of the Chernobyl disaster, you'll be able to do that from the safety of your home soon with PlayStation VR.

The Chernobyl VR Project is coming to PS VR "in the near future," according to a PlayStation Blog post, sending people into the abandoned area of land around the site of the Chernobyl disaster.

In 1986, there was a disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, resulting in more than 30 deaths and sending radiation into the air. The area was evacuated and has been largely abandoned by humans ever since.

The Chernobyl VR Project is an "interactive journey" to the abandoned area of Ukraine, allowing players to experience the surreal scene that has gone largely untouched since the '80s.

Here's a glimpse of the game, which is already available on Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

The game takes a tour through the nuclear power plant, the iconic amusement park, a school, a hospital, and more.

"The Chernobyl exclusion zone, filled with a vast number of abandoned buildings, offers stories at every turn," developer Dawid Biegun said in the blog post. "You can spot everyday objects left behind by the populace during the evacuation, as they were told theyd return in a few days. 30 years later we came across rooms that seemed frozen in time, untouched since they were originally vacated."

While capturing footage for the project, the developers carried a Geiger counter to make sure they didn't step into radiated areas. They saw some of the structures falling apart while they were there, which further instilled their desire to document the area.

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Visit Chernobyl in virtual reality on PlayStation VR - Mashable

Is Virtual Reality the Future or Another Disappointing Technology? – Motley Fool

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When Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) bought Oculus in 2014, Samsung released Gear VR in 2015, and HTC released the Vive in 2016, it seemed like the world of virtual reality was upon us. Soon, we would all have VR headsets and we could live in a world of our own with the convenience of being at home. But Oculus Rift, Gear VR, and HTC Vive haven't exactly become household devices, and there are signs companies are starting to realize the disappointment.

Facebook recently lowered the price of its Rift headset from an original $800 to $399 for a short-term sale, ultimately settling on $499 recently. You don't discount a product that's selling like hotcakes, indicating that Oculus's flagship product isn't living up to expectations. According to SuperData, HTC Vive isn't selling much better. Is VR doomed to disappoint, like 3D TV did, or is the industry just setting up for growth?

Image source: Getty Images.

Rather than becoming a big business, VR has thus far been a small hobby for VR companies. According to Venture Beat and data from SuperData, the immersive VR systems of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are selling fewer than 100,000 units per quarter. And while Gear VR and Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)subsidiary Google's Daydream are selling more units, they're less expensive and less advanced and may be given away for free.

Data source: SuperData via VentureBeat.

To attract developers and content creator, hardware companies need to increase adoption rapidly. And they're not doing that today.

The problem with early VR systems is that they're either not powerful enough or so powerful they're difficult to use. Samsung VR uses common Samsung headsets, as does Google Cardboard, which limits their processing power. Sony (NYSE:SNE) Playstation VR requires a console and Oculus Rift and HTV Vive require high-powered computers, which aren't exactly items the average person has in their home today. The hardware dynamic doesn't make VR easy to adopt, even for early adopters.

Compounding the problem facing VR is that content is very limited. There aren't a plethora of immersive games people can spend days playing, like you could do on a console, or video content that would make movies a viable reason to go VR. And this is where we get into the chicken-and-egg challenge VR companies will face going forward.

If there was either amazing hardware or amazing content in VR, it may drag the other along, creating a virtuous cycle of adoption. But hardware isn't amazing yet and content that could attract users hasn't emerged yet.

The two biggest video game content creators haven't even gotten into the game. Activision Blizzardand Electronic Artshave looked into VR, but aren't developing much content yet. EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently said:

People seem to have come to terms of the fact that VR while an unbelievably wonderful innovation for how you consume interactive entertainment and all forms of entertainment for that matter is going to take a couple of years at least to going to get to a point where it is truly a mass-market consumer opportunity.

In other words, content creators think VR will be big someday but not today. And they're not going to take a chance investing on the bleeding edge.

VR is definitely an interesting technology, but hardware costs need to come down and content and quality need to improve to grow the industry. I think the early phase of growth will be in location-based VR, much like arcades were the home of the video game industry in the 1970s. Once computing power catches up, maybe it will make sense for VR to be something everyone has in their home.

The bottom line is that VR just doesn't move the needle for most big companies yet -- and it may not for years to come.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends ATVI, Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Facebook. The Motley Fool recommends EA. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Is Virtual Reality the Future or Another Disappointing Technology? - Motley Fool

6-Point Checklist for Investing in Virtual Reality – Motley Fool

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Virtual Reality (VR) is one of those technologies that's been promised for years, but has -- until recently -- failed to live up to the hype. There's plenty of evidence pointing to a bright future for VR, but investors need to know a few things first -- like how big the market will be, what the risks are, who the key players are, and why they should to play this strategy out over the long term. So, let's take a look at six things you should know before investing in VR.

Grand View Research estimates that that the global VR market will be worth $48.5 billion by 2025.That's the top-end of some estimates and others range from$7.5 billion and $22.5 billion.The VR market was worth just $1.8 billion last year, which means virtual reality is poised for huge growth no matter which estimate is more accurate.

Image source: Getty Images.

VR investors need to keep in mind that this technology will likely need more time to get off the ground, mainly because of virtual reality's expensive hardware costs. Consider that when Facebook's (NASDAQ:FB) Oculus launched its high-end Rift headset. It priced the device at $599 and its Touch controllers at $199. That's a hefty price tag for most consumers and Oculus ended up dropping the price of its VR package twice to its current $399 price tag for both the headset and controllers.

But most consumers still don't have an extra $400 to just spend on VR equipment, and these price points are going to keep mainstream consumers away from high-end VR tech for a while.

Additionally, high-end VR equipment requires lots of processing power to deliver high-quality graphics with low latency (so that the virtual world moves smoothly as a user looks around). NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) noted last year that less than 1% of PCs were capable of running high-end VR, and while that percentage has likely gone up this year, investors need to remember that most consumers won't be using high-end virtual reality for many years.

One of the great things about VR investing is that there are several avenues investors can take in order to benefit. If you're interested in chipmakers, then you can invest in NVIDIA, which makes graphics processing units (GPUs) that are the go-to high-end chips that PC makers choose for their graphics processing needs. NVIDIA makes about 53% of its total revenue from the gaming segment (chips for gaming processing), which makes the company a keyer in the VR space.

If you're looking for a solid hardware and software VR play, then there's Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google. The company has focused its attention on the mobile VR market, and it's already getting far out ahead of its competition. Google's Cardboard and Daydream View headsets are by the far the best selling mobile VR headsets on the market, accounting for 69% of mobile VR headsets sold last year.

Additionally, the company's Daydream platform -- where users can download more than 100 VR apps -- is one of the first, and only, of its kind. Google is quickly building its mobile VR dominance in the same way it did with Android and is already figuring out how to earn money from VR through advertising.

I've already mentioned Facebook, NVIDIA, and Google, but plenty of other technology companies are looking to virtual reality for more growth. Sony (NYSE:SNE) has an advantage in the console market after the company released its PlayStation VR headset that works on current versions of its PlayStation 4. The company has already sold 60.4 millionPS4s to date and has already sold more than 1 million VR headsets since its launch last October.

The sheer number of PS4 consoles on the market make Sony an attractive VR hardware play, and considering that the company's Game and Network Services segment (which includes its console sales) accounts for the majority of its total revenue,then Sony could certainly benefit if headset sales continue to expand.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has also made several moves indicating that the company wants to be a serious virtual reality player. Most recently, the company has started hiring engineers that can build high-end graphics processors. The company may still be a few years away from fully realizing those ambitions, but in the meantime Intel is working on a VR headset, called Project Alloy, that can has all the internal processing power built into it. This means that the headset doesn't need to be tethered to a PC in order to deliver a high-end VR experience.

One thing VR investors should remember is that many companies that are betting on VR are also making plays in the augmented reality (AR) space as well. Augmented reality is the digital overlay of information onto the real world and its so entwined with VR that investors may end up benefiting from both.

For example, I mentioned earlier that Google is doing quite a lot in VR, it also just relaunched its Google Glass device, which is being tested out by healthcare professionals, factory workers for General Electric, and package distribution for DHL. Because VR and AR share similar tech (like headsets, displays, 3D digital information, and graphics), there'slots of overlap between the two that could end up being a hidden benefit for VR investors. IDC expects the combined total spending for AR/VR products and services to skyrocket from $11.4 billion this year to $215 billion by 2021.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that VR could take at least five to 10 years to truly take off.It's worth remembering that this timeframe is coming from one of the most forward-thinking tech billionaires of our time. So if Zuckerberg is playing the long game with his company's VR investments, then you can expect that you'll probably have to do the same.

And as with any investment, picking a good VR stock starts with finding a solid business that you can stick with over the long-haul. All of the companies listed above have lots of potential in VR, but none of them are betting on it entirely or even earning significant profits from it right now. Rather, each company is creating a long-term strategy right now so that they can benefit from VR later -- and investors should take a similar approach.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Chris Neiger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A and C shares), Facebook, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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6-Point Checklist for Investing in Virtual Reality - Motley Fool

UPS is training drivers with virtual reality | WTNH Connecticut News – WTNH Connecticut News (press release)

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(CNN) New UPS drivers will have to prove themselves in virtual reality before they can get behind the wheel of one of the companys 10,000-pound trucks.

The delivery company announced Tuesday that it will add virtual reality tests to its driver training program starting next month. UPS expects virtual reality will make its drivers safer and smarter. Its a game-changer for training. Laura Collings, UPS training and development manager, told CNN Tech. Nothing can really replace real-world training, but virtual reality complements it in a way that engages our employees.

During the virtual reality tests, new trainees will experience trips around city environments. Theyll have to identify hazards along the way by shouting out hazard left or hazard right. The virtual reality tests last about three to six minutes.

UPS wants its drivers constantly scanning roadways to be aware of potential trouble ahead. Virtual reality allows UPS to include a heavy dose of hazards in training, that a driver might not otherwise see when practicing in the in real world.

Related Content:Virtual Reality Headsets Should Be Used in Moderation by Children, Doctor Says

For example, in one instance a ball rolls out onto the street ahead of the virtual driver. UPS wants its drivers to immediately watch for a child that may dart into the street to recover it. The drivers are also taught to identify other problems, such as a billboard, tree or building that blocks their view.

With virtual reality, drivers have a chance to learn lessons and make mistakes without doing any damage.

Drivers of UPS package delivery trucks spend a month training. The first week is spent at a driver training center, followed by three weeks in the field shadowing an experienced driver.

UPS drivers used to train by having to identify hazards in virtual environments that were displayed on computer screens. But UPS executives wanted the more immersive experience that virtual reality provided.

The company told CNN it sees additional chances down the road to use virtual reality, such as for training mechanics on how to service an engine.

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Virtual Reality, Mental Health and Identity – HuffPost

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An emerging technology and its challenges

As AWE is preparing its second conference in Munich Germany in October, the momentum of its Silicon Valley conference is still percolating.

This year AWE in Silicon Valley was the first conference on AR/VR/MR to give Tech for Good an exclusive focus. There were several talks and panel discussions that dealt exclusively with this emerging theme. As VR/AR/MR are maturing and finding varios use cases, its positive potential in the mental/digital health arena is becoming clearer. Its positive role for the enhancement and support of human connection is evident as well.

VR and AR are unique platforms in the way they affect the brain and the visual networks. The sense of presence, the sense of embodiment that is generated through the activation of specific brain networks makes both AR and VR unique platforms for a wide range of applications. In its ability to generate feelings of empathy, in its ability to work with pain, its possibilities as a support for graceful aging and in its ability to support anxiety and depression therapy it is truly unique and versatile.

The segment on AR/VR for Good at AWE was coordinated by the Virtual World Society which was founded by Tom Furness, the grandfather of VR, as he is affectionally called. The DigitalRaign community converged with VWS to invite producers and consumers for VR for Good to witness its new social outreach program. This outreach program is to further the adoption of an ethical and empowering Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality platform.

One full day was devoted entirely to speakers in the area of VR/AR. Many different aspects of the platforms were examined, as well as shortcomings, technological difficulties and barriers to entry and current as well as future possibilities for building a better world. This is also the core of VWSs mission.

A first snapshot from the two days-

William Barry, (adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame de Namur and founding director its VR/AR immersive learning support lab) used Glassers five basic human needs (Glasser, W. (2000). Reality therapy in action. New York, NY: Harper & Row) to analyze the difficulties and the barriers to entry existing in trying out Virtual Reality for the first time. The five needs of Glasser are survival, love, power, freedom, fun. Dr Barry examined the reluctance of people to try VR. What were and are the motives for the reluctance to experience an immersive adventure? Dr Barry found in his research that the block revolved around the role of self-identity in the VR world. The questions addressed in his research were:

When people come to VR what is their identity?

Who are we really really anyways? was the question that was brought up in conjunction with the usage of this new technology.

Is ones identity then different once in VR? How is this existential anxiety triggered in Virtual Reality? Where is the actual divide with the real world? Dr Barry found that the Ontological weight of the experiences in VR can actually be added to a persons reality. Besides this people are also free to choose experiences and thus create their own profile and further add to their ontological weight. The question: what part of you do you want to experience?

In conclusion, VR can be used as a tool to meet the basic needs listed by Glasser. The user can explore himself/herself in the context of her/his needs: survival, love, power, freedom, fun. In this way VR can support people in understanding and exploring their very own identity. If we understand who we are as a personality we can also understand how to relate with the world in a connective and constructive manner.

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Small business – Telegraph.co.uk

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Most reports on virtual reality tend to focus on gamers battling invisible enemies while wearing VR headsets or hi-tech cinema experiences such as the VR pods coming to iMax cinemas. But the impact of this technology on business could be even more powerful affecting everything from training to sales or even recruitment.

Simon Willies, head of commercial, Currys PC World Business, says: Although frequently touted as the future of entertainment, there is an increasing groundswell of support in the idea of applying VR technology to a wider range of industries. Educational institutions, for example, can use VR to provide students with immersive classroom experiences.

VR makes it possible for engineers and manufacturers to experience their creations before theyre builtMark Miles, managing director, RenderMedia

For retailers, VR could revolutionise the in-store experience and from an e-commerce perspective the potential impact is even bigger, allowing sellers to deliver catalogues and products straight into customers living rooms.

The ability to catapult someone directly into a job means VR is also an extremely effective training tool as well as highly useful for manufacturers, which can use VR headsets to design and show off products in 3D before they need to start making a prototype. It is clear that VR holds a lot of potential for many industries, including these five.

Thomas Cook has been investing in virtual reality in the travel industry, using it to enhance the sales experience, says Jo Allison, behavioural analyst at Canvas8. One in 10 users of the technology at its Bluewater [Kent] store is booking a holiday there and then. A VR helicopter tour of Manhattan boosted revenues for the real thing by 190pc.

For engineers and designers, the technology offers a way to show off goods and services to potential clients something that would have been impossible before.

Imagine a situation where any number of trainee surgeons could be in the room with the consultant performing a procedureAlex Guillen, go-to-market manager, Insight UK

Mark Miles, managing director of VR agency RenderMedia, has already partnered with a number of engineering businesses, including aerospace company Airbus.

He says: VR makes it possible for engineers and manufacturers to experience their creations before theyre built. We have developed applications that allow people in different countries to appear next to one another on an oil rig and interact. It creates that heightened sense of reality.

Estate agents are already using virtual reality to show people round properties, with Rightmove trialling VR tours last year. The technology is also having a huge impact on architecture and even home improvements, with Ikea now trialling VR in stores.

Adam Blaxter, co-founder of the lettings app Rentr, says: In architecture and construction, the ability to turn designs into virtual models is already becoming part of a normal workflow. In residential property we have already seen Ikea coming forwards with virtual makeovers for your home.

VRs most powerful impact may well be on training with the technology already used across a huge range of industries.

Alex Guillen, go-to-market manager at Insight UK, says: Imagine a situation in healthcare where any number of trainee surgeons could be in the room with the consultant performing a procedure. To get multiple people that close to the experience is extremely powerful.

The potential uses of virtual reality may soon transcend all industries and become ubiquitous in all workplaces

And it does not stop there. The Holovet company is already creating 3D guides to animal organs using Microsoft Hololens headsets; Samsung employs virtual reality to train its sales teams in how to deal with customers; firefighters in Britain are already training with Oculus Rift headsets, allowing them to gain experience of hostile and possibly deadly environments; and footballers at Arsenal use Oculus Rift headsets to review their moves on the pitch.

The ability to expose people directly to what it is like to do a job means that VR is also a highly powerful recruiting tool, which is already being used by the British Army.

Nick Terry, of Capita Army Recruitment, says: Virtual reality helps us bring the British Army experience to life for young people. Potential recruits can experience the type of training they might receive, such as the exhilaration of parachute jumping or the skills needed for urban combat training.

The potential uses of virtual reality may soon transcend all industries and become ubiquitous in all workplaces. Ms Allison says that VR headsets can turn the computer desktop into a space that workers can enter.

She says: The app Breakroom lets officers turn their VR headsets into multimonitor systems. The idea is that you can be working anywhere; a beach, a mountain, even space.

This seems great for workers who are sick of being chained to a desk, transporting them to tranquil places free from distraction.

This means that employees could one day hold meetings in virtual environments, allowing them to be anywhere they want, with anyone, regardless of geographical boundaries. It seems the opportunities are indeed endless.

As Europes leading specialist electronics provider, Currys PC World Business is on hand to help you find the right technology for your business. Visit curryspcworldbusiness.co.uk for expert tips on how to transform your business today.

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Social virtual reality startup AltspaceVR may not be dead after all – TechCrunch

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What is dead in VR may never die, perhaps?

Social VR startup AltspaceVR may not be shutting down after all.

The company, which raised more than $15 million in funding from GV, Comcast Ventures and others, announced last month that it was unexpectedly closing its virtual doors after a funding deal fell through at the last second. But oddly, less than a month later, the startup has shared that its not going anywhere thanks to new interest from third parties.

We are now in discussions with third parties to develop a sustainable solution to continue development and growth for the future. We look forward to communicating more as details solidify over the coming weeks and months, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch in an email. The company said it will be revealing more details in the coming weeks and months, AltspaceVR CEO Eric Romo did not offer further details when reached for comment.

For now, the service is available to users thanks to askeleton crew at the startup keeping things going.

Last month Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey sent a message to his Twitter followers polling them on whether or not he should save the startup.Today, soon after a blog post detailing AltspaceVRs continued operation went live on the companys site, Luckey tweetedout a link to the story.

We have reached out to Palmer Luckey on Twitter for comment.

The startup had initially announced it would be shutting down the social network earlier this month and hosted a large community event to mark the sunsetting, but that day came and went with its CEO latertweeting Im thinking we keep the lights on a little longer. Just in case Sound ok to you?

Its honestly unclear what to make of the sudden shutdown and un-shutdown announcements and whether they were just efforts to grab attention and put together a last minute deal, but it is apparent that AltspaceVR still has their work cut out for them as they look to carve out a niche in a crowded social VR space that still has Facebook to compete with.

The startup has also laid off several of its employees and has shut down the majority of its servers, a source close to the company tells TechCrunch. The company revealed last month that its service had just 35,000 monthly active users, despite its presence on most major VR headsets as well as a desktop web interface.

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Social virtual reality startup AltspaceVR may not be dead after all - TechCrunch

Husband of China’s first cryogenics subject keeps his love and hope … – South China Morning Post

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South China Morning Post
Husband of China's first cryogenics subject keeps his love and hope ...
South China Morning Post
It has been three months since Gui Jumin's wife Zhan Wenlian became the first Chinese person to be cryogenically frozen. He is convinced that advances in ...
Sci-fi movie in reality: China's first cryonics practice accomplished in Mayecns
Woman cryogenically frozen after dying of lung cancer as husband ...Mirror.co.uk
China performs its first full cryogenic operation - Global TimesGlobal Times
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Husband of China's first cryogenics subject keeps his love and hope ... - South China Morning Post

This Company Freezes Your Body So That You Could One Day Be Resurrected – Billionaire BLLNR | Singapore (registration)

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Robert Ettinger, the father of cryogenics, who introduced the concept in 1962.

An estimated 2,500 bodies around the world have been frozen in the hope of some future resurrection.

If you have around US$90,000 to spare and are of a gambling disposition, perhaps your final journey should be to Australia. A company called Southern Cryonics is looking to open a facility in New South Wales this year that will allow its customers to freeze their bodies after death in the hope of one day being resurrected. If it goes ahead, it will make Australia only the third country, after the US and Russia, where such a service is available.

But, especially for those of a futurist bent perhaps, its as valid a thing to do with ones body as burial or cremation. Last year, a terminally ill 14-year-old girl in the UK became the first and only child so far to undergo the cryonic process. This is technically not freezing but vitrification, in which the body is treated with chemicals and chilled to super-cold temperatures so that molecules are locked in place and a solid is formed. An estimated 2,500 bodies around the world are now stored in this condition.

Supporters concede that the technology to revive the infinitely complex interactions between those molecules may never exist, but are nonetheless hopeful, pointing to shifting conceptions of what irreversible death actually is. If, for example, cessation of a heartbeat used to define it, now hearts can be re-started todays corpse may be tomorrows patient. They point to experiments such as that announced last year by 21st Century Medicine, which claimed to have successfully vitrified and recovered an entire mammalian brain for the first time, with the thawed rabbits brain found to have all of its synapses, cell membranes and intracellular structures intact.

SLIDESHOW: Cryostats are insulated tanks for long term patient storage in liquid nitrogen.

Its not just cryonics. Stem-cell research, nano-tech, cloning, the science just keeps plugging away towards a future [of reanimating] that may or may not come to exist, says an upfront Dennis Kowalski, president of the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute. His company was launched just over 40 years ago to provide cryostasis services. Lots of things considered impossible not long ago are possible today, so we just dont know how cryonics will work out. For people who use the service its really a case of theres nothing to lose.

Naturally, not everyone is hopeful that such processes will ever work out for those in the chiller. The problem with cryonics is that the perception of it is largely shaped by companies offering a service based on something completely unproven, says Joo Pedro De Magalhes, biologist and principal investigator into life extension at the University of Liverpool, UK, and co-founder of the UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation Network. Youre talking about a fairly eccentric procedure that only a few people have signed up to and into which little reported research is being done. That said, I think the people providing these services do believe theres a chance it may work one day, although I would have to say theyre optimistic.

But this is not to say that living longer wont, in time, prove possible as a result of some other method; just that arguably this is more likely to be based around preserving a life that has not experienced death, rather than the promise of reanimating one after its demise. The chasm between the two is all the more pronounced given neurosciences still scant ideas as to what consciousness or mind is, let alone how it might be saved and rebooted; would the warmed and reanimated you be the you that died, or a mere simulacrum? Your body may well not be the same: many of those opting for cryo-preservation go for the freezing of just their brains.

Certainly while cryonics specifically may remain a largely unexplored field, Google is now investing in anti-ageing science, an area that, as De Magalhes puts it, now has fewer crackpots and more reputable scientists working in it, with stronger science behind it too. Indeed, as Yuval Noah Harari argues in his best-selling book Homo Deus, humanisms status as contemporary societys new religion of choice, combined with technological advances, makes some form of greatly extended lifespan inevitable for some generation to come. Whether this will be by melding man and machine, by genetic manipulation, by a form of existence in cyberspace or some other fix can only be speculated at, but everything about our civilisations recent development points to it becoming a reality.

Advances in medicine, after all, have greatly extended average longevity over the last century alone. With this has come a shift in perspective that sees death less as the natural end point to a life so much as a process of disease that could, and perhaps should, be tackled like any other disease that threatens existence. De Magalhes points out that for many working in the field it is less about the pursuit of immortality as of improved health.

After all, its not self-evident that we all want to live forever, and there are philosophical arguments for the idea that death is good, that its necessary to appreciate life, he says. But it is self-evident that nobody wants Alzheimers, for example. If you focus on retarding the problems of ageing then inevitably were going to live longer. The longevity we have now isnt normal; its already better than what we had not long ago. Extrapolate that to the future and in a century the length of time we live now might be considered pretty bad. One can envisage a time when we might live, if not forever, then perhaps thousands of years so much longer than we live now that it might feel like forever.

That, naturally, would bring with it profound changes to the way in which we perceive ourselves and to how the world operates and all the more so if living considerably longer became a possibility faster than society was able to inculcate the notion. How would such a long lifespan affect our sense of self? Would institutions and mores such as lifelong marriage and monogamy remain the norm? When would we retire? How would our relationships with the many subsequent generations of our family be shaped? How would population growth be managed? How would such long lives be funded?

Such questions are, for sure, of no concern to those currently in cryostasis. These people tend to be into sci-fi, and into science too, suggests Kowalski, who has signed up himself, his wife and children for cryonic services when the time comes. I think for a lot of them its not necessarily about the fear of death. Its more a fascination with the future. Theyre optimistic about what it will bring. Theyre more Star Trek than Terminator.

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Why Alternative Medicines Should Not Be The Main Treatment For Cancer – Medical Daily

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As alternative medicine becomesmore and more popular to defend against everything from the common cold to depression, researchers at Yale University looked athow effective these nontraditional routesare when it comes to combating cancer. The study included 281 people with breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancer who tried these alternative options instead of doctor-recommended treatments.

The data was then compared against 560 cancer patients who received conventional treatments. Overall, people who tried the unproven methods were 2.5 times more likely to die. Breast cancer patients were at a five times greater risk of death, while lung cancer patients doubled their chances of not surviving after trying alternative therapies. Those with colorectal cancer were 4.5 times more likely not to beat their cancerwhen forgoing a prescribed treatment.

Dr. Skyler Johnson, oncologist at the Yale School of Medicine and study co-author, wasnt able to identify specific alternative treatments, but sayshis own patients haveused a wide variety of remedies. They could be herbs, botanicals, homeopathy, special diets or energy crystals, which are basically just stones that people believe have healing powers, he told New Scientist.

From the results, it may appear that these atypical treatments work for some patients, however,Johnson says this is likely because some people actually undergo conventional treatments when their conditions worsen,New Scientist explains.

The magazine reports that people who typically pick these nontraditional methods are wealthy and well educated, as medical insurance doesnt extend to experimental options.

Herbs and diets dont sound expensive, but when these things are delivered through providers, they can come with a hefty bill, John Bridgewater, oncologist at University College London Hospital, told the publication. Its a multibillion dollar industry. People pay more out-of-pocket for alternative treatments than they do for standard treatments.

While medical professionals dont recommend using alternative medicine as the primary treatment, some will give the OK when used to counteractthe unpleasant symptoms accompanying cancer. People dealing with anxiety, fatigue, nausea, pain, sleep problems and stress may turn to things like acupuncture as a way of feeling better, reports Mayo Clinic. According to the hospitals website, aromatherapy may provide relief of stress, pain and nausea.

The American Cancer Society explains when these methods are considered complementary and alternative. We call these complementary because they are used along with your medical treatment. You may sometimes hear them when discussing methods that claim to prevent, diagnose, or treat cancer. We call these alternative because they are used instead of proven medical treatments, the organization writes on its site.

However, the organization also points out, The choice to use complementary or alternative methods is yours, offering a list of items cancer patients should consider before choosing their treatment plan, including not giving up proven treatments for those that havebeen disproven.

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Why Alternative Medicines Should Not Be The Main Treatment For Cancer - Medical Daily