The announcement of Tesla’s solar products caught the media off guard, instantly capturing our attention with their draw-dropping beauty and simplicity. We held a collective breath—how much are these going to cost, exactly? Are they scalable? Endless Energy The sun is a free and relatively endless source of energy. The Tesla website reminds us that, “The sun provides more than enough energy in just one hour to supply our planet’s energy needs for an entire year.” Harnessing that power simply makes sense. To help consumers utilize that power, Tesla finalized the acquisition of SolarCity for roughly $2.6 billion in November 2016. Together, the entities aim to  “provide customers with full-stack solutions for owning their own energy production, storage and consumption.” To date, that stack includes solar tiles, Powerwalls and Powerpacks. Solar Tiles Tesla solar tiles create stunning, energy efficient roofs that are also affordable. Fortune estimates the solar cell costs to be $0.40 per watt, comparable to commodity solar panels. The difference comes in their efficiency: Tesla’s solar tiles are nearly 15 percent more efficient. The solar roofs can also be less expensive. Tesla CEO Elon Musk states that he aimed for an installed cost that is less than the cost of a conventional roof and the electricity bill for a home. Some of the cost savings come in the form of shipping. Tesla’s tiles are one-fifth the weight of similar products. That makes the lightweight and ultra durable material easier and less expensive to transport. They are also harder to break than asphalt shingles or terra cotta tiles, reducing the cost of wasted materials. The durable tiles will not need to be replaced or repaired as often as conventional roofing or competitors’ solar panels. Where traditional roofing shattered under impact, the Tesla glass...

CES in Las Vegas was yet again a groundbreaking tech event, but aside from self-driving cars, next-gen TV’s, drones and virtual reality, there was one item that made waves —Razer’s Project Valerie. A couple of years have passed since the PC gaming peripheral brand brought something bold to CES (Project Christine in 2014), but this year the company went all out and unveiled the world’s first automated triple-display laptop. Founded in 1998, the innovative tech company once only known for its gaming accessories, like keyboards and mice, has quickly become an industry leader with its Blade series laptops, and Razer Edition PC’s. The newest addition to the Razer family, Project Valerie, which is just a prototype as of now, is quite different from any other laptop currently on the market. The firm showcased the device at CES and it was available for testing as well. In fact, it attracted so much attention, that two of the laptops were actually stolen and later popped up in China, listed for around $22,000, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s see Valerie’s specifications. Besides the three obvious screens, each 17.3-inch wide with 4K displays, making the laptop actually 12K (I know, right?), Project Valerie weighs approximately 12 pounds and is 1.5 inches thick. It boasts lighting strips under the two side monitors, a low-profile mechanical LED keyboard which features 16.8 million colors with vibrant lighting effects, and a touch pad and roller on the right side of the device. At its core, Project Valerie features the top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card and Intel’s 6th generation i7-6700HQ quad-core processor. Since it is a concept design, the rest of the specifications and battery life have not yet been released. Moreover, the price tag and...

Mark Zuckerberg recently unveiled his personal AI assistant, Jarvis. It seems to be one of his most curious inventions. In addition to his work at Facebook, Zuckerberg takes on self-development challenges, like learning Mandarin. In early 2016, he committed to an even more ambitious project: to build an Iron Man-inspired artificial intelligence (AI) system to help him around the house. The transition from database software creation like Facebook to AI is a massive leap, even for a mind like Zuckerberg’s. AI is intelligence exhibited by a machine. It is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. Zuckerberg’s creation resembles Marvel’s Iron Man Comics and Movies’ J.A.R.V.I.S, and not just by name. Like Tony Stark, Zuckerberg aimed to build a system that could control his home, including lights, temperature, appliances, music and security. He also wanted Jarvis to learn his tastes and patterns, new words and concepts. Zuckerberg brought J.A.R.V.I.S to life–basically. The video above is intended for presentation proposes rather than an actual demo of the AI robot. It’s a bit unclear what is actually real and what is overproduced. Here is what we know: Zuckerberg’s Jarvis comes with a variety of impressive features, not the least of which is the voice of God, Morgan Freeman. Natural language processing, speech recognition, and face recognition software make interacting with Jarvis as natural as carrying out a conversation with a friend. He even has a sense of humor. The AI includes smart home features. His vision (via cameras and customized software) can tell people and objects apart, and detect movement. Zuckerberg also installed unique features in the house and connected them to Jarvis, including the toaster and a t-shirt cannon that dispenses clothing...

The wearables trend shows no signs of abating, and for older adults suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes, a simple “smart sock” could be a lifesaver. For sufferers of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, foot issues abound, from swelling to numbness and tingling in the toes. Unfortunately, because of the nerve damage triggered by the disease, some foot injuries go unchecked, leading to painful and dangerous complications, including infection and amputation. For older adults, these types of issues are all too common, which is why Siren Care’s Siren Smart Sock could be a game changer. “Diabetic foot ulcers are serious problem,” says Podiatric Surgeon Alexander M. Reyzelman, Co-Director for the UCSF Center for Limb Preservation, in a video about the Siren Sock. “1.5 million patients will develop foot ulcers in the United States, and 20% will develop amputations,” he warns, “and 50-70% will go on to lose their life within five years.” A Different Kind of Wearable While fitness trackers and smart watches grab the spotlight, a quiet revolution is afoot. The number of wearables designed for medical use is growing every day, especially in the senior care market. For the 11.8 million senior citizens suffering from diabetes, using test strips and blood pricks can be complicated. Because self-monitoring can be difficult for older adults, specially designed wearables can help with compliance and improve overall health by flagging small issues before they become a big crisis. Be it socks or wristbands, the simplicity of the system is one of the main advantages. “…it is simply not possible to design a device that meets the expectations of a millennial while being operable by an octogenarian,” explains Thor Schrock, developer of the Allen Band, a wristband that helps detects falls. “The most important thing to...

For caregivers in economically depressed communities, even the simplest tests can be too expensive. But thanks to the Paperfuge, spinning biological samples for testing just got a whole lot more economical. The Paperfuge allows health care workers to perform important diagnostic tests in just a few minutes, all for less than a twenty-five cents. Understanding the need to provide low-cost, and low-tech, testing and diagnosis options to the developing world, Stanford Bioengineer Manu Prakash alighted on the idea of modifying a children’s toy into a cheap, functional centrifuge. It’s all a part of Prakash’s commitment to improving healthcare across the globe by pursuing the art of Frugal Science. “To me, Frugal Science is really designing with constraints in mind,” says Prakash in a video about the Paperfuge. “When we say ‘bringing tools the masses,’ we truly do mean the billions of people on the planet.” Low Energy, High Results Traditional centrifuges are bulky, expensive and require a robust energy supply, making them almost impossible to operate in far-flung reaches of the world. A StatSpin MP centrifuge, for example, can cost thousands of dollars and runs on electricity. For many economically challenged communities, standard medical equipment is too costly and resource intensive. Prakash and his team took on the challenge of making a more accessible – and affordable – version of this valuable diagnostic tool. “We told ourselves, we can design one, but it cannot require any electricity, and it needs to be light and portable – I need to be able to carry it in my pocket – and it needs to cost less than a dollar in parts.,” explains Prakash in the video. “By boxing ourselves in with constraints, we were able to think outside the box.” The Paperfuge fits all of those...

In many ways, 2016 will be known as the year of the hack. Between Russian Hackers, DDoS attacks bringing down the eastern seaboard, or the little matter of over a billion compromised Yahoo! Accounts, last year marked the moment “cyber” security went mainstream. While there’s no doubt more of the same is on the way, Wired has put on its prognostication cap to ponder what new security threats will emerge over the next 12 months. After all, as they say, forewarned is forearmed. “It’s hard to know for certain what lies ahead, but some themes began to present themselves toward the end of 2016 that will almost certainly continue well into next year,” begins Wired. “…the more we can anticipate them, the better we can prepare.” Dawn of the Drones Military drones have been fighting proxy battles across the globe for quite some time now, but private, commercial drones could soon turn deadly. Though they’re smaller than their battle-worn counterparts, commercial drones have existed in an unregulated, wild west-type no-man’s-land. Though the FCC currently requires drone owners to register their devices, internationally, there’s little oversight. Wired reports small drones have already been used for terrorist activities and guerrilla warfare, including an attack on US-allied Kurdish soldiers in October of last year. “What better way to deliver deadly ordnance across enemy lines or into secure zones of cities than with remote-controlled accuracy and off-the-shelf hardware that offers no easy way to trace the perpetrator,” Wired asks. “The US government is already buying drone-jamming hardware. But as with all IEDs, the arms race between flying consumer grade bombs and the defenses against them will likely be a violent game of cat-and-mouse. iPhone goes to Court Wired predicts the conflict between federal authorities and mobile-phone providers, which hit...

Imagine that it is the end of the month. It’s time to balance the books. Now, imagine that the entire process is gone from your schedule. Every transaction that your organization made that month was automatically balanced and recorded by an automated, accurate, secure and self-regulated system—completed within seconds. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of blockchain in real estate. Today, most organizations maintain double-entry bookkeeping, a written record of invoices and payables. Those records are easily lost, manipulated, or remain unfulfilled. Blockchain does not possess such flaws. The Economist excellently describes blockchain construction and how the transactions occur anonymously, securely, and accurately. In gist, blockchain is a database that securely tracks bitcoin transactions. It relies on cryptographic technology to store completely paperless ledgers of transactions. Once a transaction occurs, it cannot be easily manipulated. The ledgers are self-enforcing and practically impregnable. Workflow efficiency effortlessly improves. Blockchain replaces third-party financial systems, such as banks, which tend to slow down transaction processing. The automated system decreases human error. The technology could replace double-entry bookkeeping. But that barely depicts the sophistication of the database. It has even greater potential and companies are exploring its vast applications. A recent Deloitte survey reveals just how many companies are investing in blockchain. The survey reflects the responses of 522 senior executives at companies with annual revenues exceeding $500 million. Of respondents, 12 percent were knowledgeable of blockchain and have projects in the works to capitalize on the technology.  Of that group, 28 percent have invested more than $5 million into their projects. About 10 percent invested $10 million or more. An additional 25 percent of respondents reported project plans for 2017. Each company has earmarked approximately $5 million for those endeavors....

The smart home’s weakest link may be that unassuming router tucked neatly next to your modem. [Update: Netgear has released firmware updates for the affected products. Click here for more information.] While the breach of one billion Yahoo! Email accounts continues to dominate the new, another internet security crisis continues unabated. As Lily Hay Newman reports in Wired’s latest issue, Nighthawk line of Netgear routers can be remotely exploited, allowing third-parties to take control of the devices, leaving thousands of home networks open to hackers and “”havoc-wreaking botnets.” “While Netgear has finally released a tentative fix for some models,” writes Newman, “the delays and challenges in patching all of them help illustrate just how at risk the Internet of Things is—and how hard it is to patch up when things go wrong.” Hacking the Home Like many of the smart devices that make up the “Internet of Things,” routers seem as common – and as low-tech – as a toaster or thermostat. But as has already been noted, the ubiquitous nature of many of these ‘wired” versions of our beloved devices make them almost invisible; and for many smart home inhabitants, invisibility is a weakness. “If we want to put networked technologies into more and more things, we also have to find a way to make them safer,” Michael Walker, program manager and computer security expert for the Pentagon’s advanced research arm recently told the New York Times. “It’s a challenge for civilization.” Routers Gone Wrong Andrew Rollins, a security researcher with the handle Acew0rm, notified Netgear about the security flaw back in August but never heard back from the company. As months went by with no fix – presumably exposing thousands of users in the interim – Rollins eventually chose to go public....

Developing financially successful retail centers is a challenging task anywhere in the world.  Investors and managers involved in retail assets must be sound strategic planners who can successfully assimilate a number of disparate factors, such as demographics, macro and micro economics, as well as cultural and political circumstances.  Rising e-commerce makes a competitive business environment even more acute. Successful strategies require engaging shoppers with the right product, creating a tenant mix that suits geographic and regional trends, and accommodating local culture, demographics, regional economics and other factors.  Many malls are adding themed restaurants and attractions to attract more customers. As consumers start to buy more of their clothing items online, dancing fountains, amusement park experiences, and themed restaurants are almost as important to attracting footfall as an anchor tenant’s spring clothing fashions or new video game boxes. A mall can be regarded as an ecosystem that needs full financial, maintenance and leasing information to be meaningful and easily accessible. Across all markets—the Americas, Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East—the tendency toward large malls mean operators must be able to handle large tenant counts. For example, due to the sheer size of the shopping area, instinct and walk-throughs are insufficient for detecting inefficiencies and troubled tenants.  Only reliable data and metrics will serve that purpose. Single Platform Global ‘Glue’ With the retail sector generating more data in a single month than many other vertical real estate markets do in a year, and with investors expecting strong returns for their money, the imperative to store, maintain, manage and utilize retail property data bonds the industry like glue.  These operations are as important as inventory, location and demographics in determining the success of a retail center. As a result, retail owners and operators around the world are turning...

Editor’s note: The following piece and accompanying graphics are re-published with permission from Home Energy Magazine. Behavioral recommendations, or tips, are an integral piece of many energy efficiency programs, ranging from marketing materials (e.g., brochures) to in-home audits, to Home and Business Energy Reports (such as the report shown below). Though information is known to be a critical component of effective interventions, it is important to consider human motivations and needs for this to be effective. This article synthesizes findings from a series of empirical research conducted by See Change Institute and Yardi (formerly Pulse) Energy’s Business Energy Report (BER) program[1]. By breaking apart the tips from the energy report (sample below) and breaking down the components of those tips even further, we were able to test the impact of variations of different components of tips, with the goal of optimizing messaging to incite pro-efficiency behavior in BER recipients[2]. In synthesizing these findings, we identified five key insights on tip content, form, structure, and imaging, or “Tips for Tips”.     1. Put People in Pictures First, we tested the impact of having people in images above the tips – one tip had a picture of equipment, the other included someone actually engaging in the behavior being promoted. We found that tips with an image of a person engaging in the action were rated significantly higher in terms of behavioral intention (that is, how much someone self­-reports intention to complete the recommended action).We recommend considering images that do include people, especially people engaging in the recommended action. 2. Tell People What to Do Next, we tested the difference between a “subject title” (e.g., “Ceiling Fans”) and an “action title” (e.g.,”Use fans more & A/C less”). We found that using an action title led people...

Wi-Fi revolutionized the way we connect to the internet, but it’s not without flaws. Researchers have been busy looking for new kinds of technologies that could offer more reliable alternatives. One is called Li-Fi (Light Fidelity). Back in 2011, a group of scientists led by Professor Harald Haas from Edinburgh University in Scotland introduced the idea of “Wireless data from every light” during a TED Talk. The general term is visible light communication (VLC) and is similar to the Morse code; it dates back to the 1880s and includes any use of the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information. Li-Fi is a type of visible light communication system that runs completely on wireless communications by means of travelling at very fast speeds. Confusing or not, this emerging technology is projected to expand its market worth to $80 billion by 2021. So let me explain. Wi-Fi and Li-Fi are pretty similar—they both provide the same means of transmitting data electromagnetically; yet, Wi-Fi utilizes the usage of radio waves, while Li-Fi runs solely off of the visible light. Even though invisible to the naked eye, waves are transmitted from our devices, carrying bits of data that allow us to browse the internet. There is a constant communication with towers called cellular radio masts. According to the founder of Li-Fi, Harald Haas, there are approximately 1.4 million cellular radio masts worldwide. Li-Fi replaces this bulky infrastructure with a solution relying on LED lights that send data over visible light via pulses undetectable by the human eye. Moreover, on the electromagnetic spectrum the spectrum of visible light is 10,000 times as big as that of radio-waves, said Haas. Unlike Wi-Fi signals, which can penetrate walls, Li-Fi is based on light and can’t, so theoretically,...

Architecture is one of the great powers to enhance our lives, but it boasts some serious communication issues. Designers, even though they mean well, may present homeowners with tough to understand drawings, or renderings that don’t really reflect how to navigate a finished room. As a consequence, homeowners end up paying for space without knowing precisely how it will look. Yet, times are changing and homeowners, architects and builders have now the option to walk through a new house before it’s built. When Virtual Reality first made an appearance through Oculus, it was regarded with plenty of criticism and disbelief, but as time passed, industries started engaging in using VR in business. The real estate industry is one of the most immediately applicable to VR as it enables potential homebuyers view spaces without having to travel to them. Here’s where New York-based IrisVR enters the stage with the launch of two new apps. “Most of our team started their careers in AEC before coming to the tech world.  We pulled from our industry expertise to design tools that are comfortable, easy to use, and non-technical,” IrisVR CEO & co-founder Shane Scranton said in a prepared statement. “Our virtual environments can be generated within seconds from multiple file formats and provide true-to-scale perspectives that both inspire design and reduce errors.  We’re also seeing significant added value to our clients as they offer virtual reality as a selling point.” The startup announced that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding, which it plans to use to bring virtual reality to architecture and design. Iris Prospect and Iris Scope encompass a wide range of VR headsets. The former allows customers to take their 3D plans and blueprints and turn them into VR experiences, viewable on...

Hurricane Sandy is a terrifying memory, but out of its darkness, plenty of luminous people came out with innovative ideas meant for a better world. One such company is the New York-based clean tech start-up EnGoPLANET. They signed a partnership with the city of Las Vegas and installed their solar-kinetic streetlights solution at Boulder Plaza in the Arts District, becoming the first-ever installation in the world of this street lighting technology that combines solar and kinetic energy. Built in the Nevada desert, Las Vegas’ popularity is fueled by the entertainment variety that makes it one of the leading entertainment hubs in the U. S. Moreover, it is quickly becoming a leader in municipal sustainability and the partnership with EnGoPLANET attests it. These cool-looking streetlights work via kinetic pads installed under or near the light posts. Inside the pads are generators, which react to the steps of pedestrians stepping over them, the pressure creating kinetic energy. The energy is then converted into electricity and stored into batteries that light up the lamps at night. Depending on the pressure, each generator can produce 4 to 8 watts per footstep, according to Petar Mirovic, CEO of EnGoPLANET, meaning that for the locations where there are many pedestrians, the ration between solar and kinetic can be somewhere between 30 to 40 percent kinetic and the rest solar. Solar panels mounted on top of the polls are also a source of power, collecting solar energy throughout the day, and we all know how sunny Las Vegas is. Furthermore, the lights can change colors, complementing the city’s atmosphere. In addition, the system can serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot and even offer passers-by both contact-less and USB-cable charging for mobile phones. “If you look at traditional street light poles, you will...

Modular data centers are one of the latest innovations in the IT world. In many cases, they are capable of increasing business productivity while reducing costs. We went looking for answers to some common questions about these data centers and what implications they have for the future. So, what is a modular data center? A modular data center, unlike a traditional data center, can be defined as a portable method of deploying data center capacity anywhere and everywhere it is needed. It incorporates contained units and standardized deployment options that give you flexibility and scalability. What’s so important about these ‘mobile facilities’? Modular data centers are designed for rapid deployment, are energy efficient and high-density computing systems that deliver services at lower costs than traditional construction methods, as well as reducing the construction time from years to a matter of months. In what kind of shape or form are these data centers available? Modular data centers typically come in two forms: The more common type, referred to as containerized data centers or portable modular data centers, fit data center equipment into a standard shipping container, which is then transported to a desired location. Containerized data centers typically come outfitted with their own cooling systems. For example, Cisco’s Containerized Data Centers fit in to this category. The other form of modular data center fits data center equipment into a facility composed of prefabricated components that can be quickly built on a site and added to as capacity is needed. HP’s version of this type of modular data center, Flexible Data Center, is constructed of sheet metal components that are formed into four data center halls linked by a central operating building. Modular data centers can be defined as more of an approach to a design...

Google has finally launched its own smartphone, the Pixel, and aimed it directly at Apple. The search giant is keen on showing what a premium Android can do when the hardware is tailored to the software by those who actually make it. Following the Nexus line, Pixel is now 100 percent Google, and even though HTC is the firm that has actually built the device, Google has made all the decisions on what goes into it and how it operates. The smartphone joins the Pixel C Android tablet and Chromebook Pixel as Google’s first in-house devices. Pixel shows off an all-metal body with an all-glass display, fingerprint scanner on the back and headphone socket, but lacks the waterproof feature. It brings a slightly different look with its glass panel covering the top third of the back and the wedge-shape, thicker at the top where the camera is placed. Its curved edges and flat sides make it easy to grip and surprisingly at first, the wedge shape gives it good weight distribution. At the bottom lies the USB-C port flanked by two grilles—one is a speaker and the other is hiding the microphone. It comes in three colors—Quite Black, Very Silver and Really Blue; the last one is a limited-edition option and Google still has to reveal how one can get hold of it. The smartphone exposes its abilities through a 5-inch full HD AMOLED screen on the front that’s crisp and vibrant, with rich blacks and pretty good viewing angles. Moreover, the device is Daydream VR-ready, which means it supports Google’s new virtual reality platform. However, for some, the excitement over this feature is somewhat shadowed by the fact that the display isn’t optimal for VR. Pixel is one of the first handsets to...

The future of urban planning lies in not just accessing information, but deploying it as a resource to enhance urban planning and improve the lives of residents. Every minute of every day, data is collected, stored and analyzed. So many of our daily activities now leave behind digital breadcrumbs, from trips to the grocery store to the books we check out of the library. Sometimes it can feel like we’re trapped in a dystopian nightmare reminiscent of 1984, but in reality, data is agnostic and nonpartisan. There is no opinion or bias, just facts and figures. So what’s the upside of all this statistical accumulation? For city planners, data collection provides the opportunity to fundamentally change public works and infrastructure. The more data shared, the better organization possible, from efficient traffic measures to responsive streetlamps. Thanks to organizations like Open Government Partnership and the Open Data Institute, urban planning is now in the midst of a “data revolution.” “We are helping build the data infrastructure for the UK and beyond” ODI CEO Gavin Starks recently declared. “As our economy and society continue to become data-driven, we need to address the fact that data is as important as roads, water and energy.” “Working with our partners and diverse communities, we will continue to support and convene data pioneers, helping them develop open standards, improve data literacy, build trust, address policy, create business models, and tackle challenges that impact everyone. Together, we will help build a robust data infrastructure that enables open innovation – at web scale.” Tracking Transportation According to the US Census Bureau, the average daily commute last about 25 minutes, one way. That’s almost an hour a day spent in traffic, and many nine-to-fivers will tell you that’s on a good day. Between...