Thursday, November 25, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Planned Portuguese Eco-City Is Controlled By A Central Computer Brain
Urban Operating System Living PlanIT via Fast Company
A new eco-city planned in Portugal takes a cue from biology, using a centralized computer “brain” to control functions like water use, waste processing and energy consumption. It’s the biggest attempt at urban metabolism, which attempts to compare cities to living organisms.
Orbiting 3-D Printers Could Print Out New Space Stations
Now that we’ve begun 3D printing anything and everything here on Earth, it’s time to move to the final frontier: printing space stations in orbit. It was only a matter of time. Now new company Made in Space is seeking investors and beginning tests to make space printing a reality, according to Space.com.
It just makes more logical and economical sense to print parts for spacecraft and space stations in space, says the company's founder. If parts do not need to withstand the G-forces of being launched, their mass can be reduced by 30 percent. NASA could just launch the gray goo known as feedstock into orbit, to be dealt with later. Manufacturing parts in space also means that anything that breaks wouldn’t have to be shuttled down to Earth for repairs. The broken part could be recycled back into feedstock, and the printer could just crank out a new one.
When we eventually make it to Mars, we could take the printers with us to create dwellings out of Mars dirt, or to print out robot components. Despite these big plans, Made in Space is still in its early stages. It’s already printed out some space-ready parts, but it needs to see how the printers will perform in zero gravity. If the printer passes that test, the next step could be a trial aboard the International Space Station.
Ginormous Traffic-Swallowing Straddling Bus Coming to U.S.
Overhead power lines, bridges and box trucks beware: The giant, lane-straddling bus Chinese engineers hope will someday conquer that country’s legendary traffic by swallowing it whole is one step closer to cruising over rush hours from Los Angeles to Boston.
The Straddling Bus is one part monorail, one part monster truck. As the incredibly awesome illustration above shows, the extra-wide, extra-tall bus straddles two lanes of traffic, allowing passenger cars and small trucks to pass underneath.
It’s the brainchild of Song Youzhou of Shenzhen, who announced yesterday the formation of a U.S. company that will develop business links stateside. U.S. Elevated High-Speed Bus (Group) is looking for manufacturers to build the vehicle and representatives to sell it.
“The word ‘revolutionary’ is so overused, but this new bus actually is revolutionary,” said company spokesman Mark Shieh. “Relative to the cost of a subway line or other rail transit, our bus delivers extraordinary value. Aside from the low cost, the time for construction is about one third that for a subway.”
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Artic Drifter
– Studio Les Bêtes
Antony Gormley @ the Denver Art Museum
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