Technology

Small Algae Canopy Produces as Much Oxygen as a Forest

- Adam Clare

Algae is amazing and as we find more ways to use the powerful, small, creatures we’ll improve our carbon footprints. Already algae is used to clean sewage, clean landfills, and so much more.

This week at the Milan Expo EcoLogics Studio revealed their algae canopy for urban centres. The canopy provides shade while cleaning the air in a very efficient way!

Created by EcoLogics Studio and demonstrated in Milan, Italy, this “world’s first bio-digital canopy integrates micro-algal cultures and real time digital cultivation protocols on a unique architectural system,” with flows of water and energy regulated by weather patterns and visitor usage. Sun increases photosynthesis, for example, causing the structure to generate organic shade in realtime. In addition to CO2 reduction, the canopy as a whole can produce over 300 pounds of biomass daily, all through a relatively passive system that requires far less space and upkeep than conventional civic greenery.

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Help NASA Find Asteroids

- Adam Clare

Everyday we face an existential threat to our planet from outer space! Asteroids can hit the planet at any moment and ruin our days. To help us prepare for such an event NASA (and other space agencies) are searching for and tracking asteroids. By knowing where they are we can potentially deflect an asteroid to not hit the Earth. Now you can help in this process using your computer at home.

The computer program was created through NASA’s Asteroid Data Hunter challenge, itself a part of the space administration’s larger Asteroid Grand Challenge, and was done in partnership with the Redmond, Washington-based Planetary Resources Inc. The contest, explains a NASA release, was launched at last year’s South By Southwest conference, to develop more sophisticated means of detecting and identifying asteroids by way of land-based telescopes.

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Using Drones in Nifty Ways

- Adam Clare

Toronto Skyline Porn from Ryan Emond on Vimeo.

Remote controlled drones are pretty neat! Sure, the military industrial complex uses them to murder people, but that’s just one way to use the technology. Artists and companies are finding ways to use the technology in nice friendly ways. In Toronto (like other jurisdictions) there are growing concerns about regulations and applications about the drones. Fortunately, the conversation between drone operators and the general public is going well!

Interestingly enough, Toronto Reference Library leads the way in its adoption and popularization of new technologies, drones included. (Take a look at this awesome drone’s eye view of the library tour!) Just a couple of weeks ago, 10,000 people gathered at Toronto Reference Library for Toronto Mini Maker Faire, where X4 Drones flew some smaller aircrafts from its impressive drones fleet. It’s hard to think of a better way to normalize drones than seeing them fly right in the library, one of the most well-known and accessible public spaces in the city.

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Toyota Releases 5,680 Patents for Fuel Cell Technology

- Adam Clare

Toyota has followed Tesla’s strategy of giving their patented technology away for free. The patent system is so obviously broken so it’s nice to see these large corporations just letting their patents go. Ultimately, this means that other car companies can now use fuel saving technology (or whatever Toyota has invented). Hopefully we will see less environmentally damaging vehicles on the road.

Perhaps the most newsworthy announcement came when Toyota said it would make all of its 5,680 patents related to fuel cell technology available, royalty-free, to other companies manufacturing and selling both fuel-cell vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations. The idea is to drive more innovation in this somewhat nascent sector of the automobile industry.

“It’s obvious that there can be a higher societal value in openly sharing our IP,” Carter said. “By eliminating the traditional corporate boundaries, we can speed the metabolism of everyone’s research and move into a future of mobility quicker, more effectively, and more economically. Indeed, I believe that today marks a turning point in automotive history.”

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Will Iceland be the “Switzerland of Data”?

- Adam Clare

Iceland is the de facto home of Wikileaks and is also a country concerned with privacy issues. The country is now considering leveraging their experience and reputation of being digital-data friendly to the next level. Presently, the country is considering branding itself as the “Switzerland of Data.”

If Iceland does move ahead with this, it means that the country will become one of the most important players in the 21st century similar to how Switzerland was with banks in the 20th.

The International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), a non-profit organisation, has played an instrumental role in designing and promoting the legal framework for Iceland’s new data privacy laws.

Following the country’s 2010 financial crisis, mass protests broke out against the nepotism, corruption and lack of transparency exposed by the collapse. A group of Icelandic activists began working on an initiative to create the world’s strongest media and free speech protection laws, as well as a state-of-the-art privacy law.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is IMMI’s spokeswoman and now represents the Pirate Party in the Icelandic parliament. She met Al Jazeera at her office in Reykjavik and explained that one of IMMI’s goals is “to allow people working on human rights or investigative journalists, as well as people who want to host data on a massive scale, to be free from worrying about privacy issues”.

She added: “Iceland should become for information what Switzerland is for money.”

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