Category: Technology
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Monday, July 21, 2014
TransTech Digest: Super Battery Bio-Power vs. Dirty CleanTech / Companies / Technology
By Patrick Cox
Technological civilization runs on energy. Second only to health care in economic clout, energy accounts for slightly less than 10% of GDP depending on the actual fuel prices. Everything depends on energy, even the biological world inside and around us.
Energy is a cost component in all goods and services, from manufacturing to overhead and transportation. As such, the price and availability of energy is a major determinant of all price levels and, inversely, the standard of living.
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Thursday, July 17, 2014
Artificial Intelligence and Genuine Stupidity / Companies / Technology
By Patrick Cox
Editor, TransTech Digest and Transformational Technology Alert
In the in-depth article below, I discuss the recent headlines about a supercomputer supposedly passing Alan Turing’s “Turing Test.” I also trace out complex questions regarding how little we still know about the human brain.
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Friday, June 27, 2014
Thomas Edison’s Dream Smashed / Companies / Technology
By Adam J. Crawford, Analyst
The incandescent light bulb was invented in the very early 1800s, but at that time was a device too crude and impractical for mass adoption. Over the next 80 years, at least 20 inventors contributed to its improvement, until, in 1880, Thomas Edison developed and patented a bulb that would last a miraculous 1,200 hours. Edison’s product was the first to offer the levels of functionality, durability, and affordability necessary for widespread commercial appeal. That’s why he gets credit for inventing the light bulb, even though he was decades late to the party.
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Sunday, June 15, 2014
The Age of Transformation / Companies / Technology
One of the many luxuries that my readers have afforded me over the years is their willingness to allow me to explore a wide variety of topics. Not all writers are so blessed, and their output and responses to it tend to stay focused on specific, often quite narrow topics. While this approach allows them to dig very deep into particular subject matter, it can reduce the total scope of their research, vision, and advice. But don’t get me wrong; these types of letters are very important. I benefit greatly from being a subscriber to a number of letters that give me detailed analysis for which I simply don’t have the time to do the research. There’s just too much going on in the world today for any of us to be an expert in more than a few areas.
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Thursday, June 12, 2014
Networks and Hierarchies / Politics / Technology
I have a big-picture piece for you today from a big-time thinker, my good friend Niall Ferguson. This is a little bit different for Outside the Box, but then isn’t that what this letter is supposed to be? Something to make us think and to come at a problem with a little bit different viewpoint?
At our recent Strategic Investment Conference, Niall focused on the dangers of US isolationism, the degeneration of American culture, and the immense problem of government debt whose trajectory is in the hands of a dysfunctional political system. In today’s Outside the Box, Niall examines a related issue: the dynamic interplay of networks and hierarchies that has led to the creation and destruction of economic systems in generations past… and will ultimately drive political outcomes in today’s unbalanced and rapidly changing global economic system.
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Saturday, April 26, 2014
I’d Like You to Meet “Cortana” My Artificial Intelligence / Companies / Technology
Michael A. Robinson writes: I’d like to introduce you to Cortana.
And let me tell you: She’s awesome.
Cortana can search the Internet, set up reminders, shift calendar appointments, manage your mishmash of meetings, find restaurants, send text messages, and place phone calls. And, as good as she is right now, Cortana only seems to get better the more that I deal with her. The longer we work together, the more she seems to understand my habits and anticipate my needs.
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Sunday, April 13, 2014
Matt Drudge on Information Overload! / Politics / Technology
Jeff Deist writes: Opening comments presented at the Mises Institute’s High School & College Seminar: “Inflation: Causes, Consequences, and Cure,” April 11, 2014.
Good morning and welcome!
My name is Jeff Deist; I’m president of the Mises Institute.
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Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Technological Evolution of Nonlethal Weapons / Companies / Technology
By Doug Hornig, Senior Editor
The rise of humans from fearful creatures huddled around cave fires to the dominant species on the planet largely parallels the evolution of weaponry. Different subgroups rose and fell, spreading their culture or declining in influence as they either came up with the new best thing with which to slaughter their neighbors or fell behind in the innovation game.
Club, axe, spear, atlatl, sword, longbow, crossbow, catapult, gun, bomb, artillery, really big bomb—all have had their day.
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Friday, June 14, 2013
Transformative Energy Technologies / Companies / Technology
The synergy of temperament and intellect has fostered much success for the father-son team of Michael Berry, editor of Morning Notes, and Chris Berry, founder of House Mountain Partners LLC. In this Father's Day interview with The Energy Report, the Berrys reveal what they've learned from each other's investment strategies over the years, and mull energy metals and emerging green technologies that could be "compelling investment opportunities." They also reveal that, for all the familial camaraderie, there are energy issues about which they strongly disagree.
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Profit from the Breakthrough in Liquid-Cooled Computers / Companies / Technology
Michael A. Robinson writes: When Ray Harroun came out of retirement in 1911 to race in the first Indianapolis 500, he made one request: He wanted to ditch the ride-along mechanic that the rules required in order to save weight and give his yellow Marmon Wasp a racing edge.
The Indy organizers balked: The mechanic provided a big measure of safety, they said, acting as a spotter who could watch for cars behind or on either side of the racer.
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Monday, March 11, 2013
How to Profit from The Next Technological Revolutions / Companies / Technology
The quantum leap in technological development in computing, molecular biology and material sciences is converging towards sparking the next series of technological revolutions the name to which will only be given many decades from now with the benefit of hindsight but all things considered I suspect that we come to call it the Graphene Age, as this wonder material becomes the building blocks for everything we use today including computers, nano machines and ultimately even new life forms.
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Friday, March 01, 2013
Epic Crisis... and Vast Prosperity / Stock-Markets / Technology
Porter Stansberry writes: I have become well-known in financial circles for doom-and-gloom themes.
That's mainly because my professional life as a financial writer and analyst happened to correspond with the largest speculative bubbles in history.
As a result, I spent most of my 30s writing about one disaster or another... from the collapse of MCI-WorldCom and the dot-com/telecom bubble... to the mortgage/housing bubble... to today's sovereign-debt bubble (which, by the way, is the largest and most dangerous bubble yet... by a wide margin).
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
How to Invest in Graphene, Silicon 2.0 / Companies / Technology
G.S. Early writes: When people ask how to invest in graphene, I think of a recent History Channel series called "The Men Who Built America."
It isn't about financial tricks, dark pool trading, mergers and acquisitions, derivatives and securities bundling. It's about a time when real things were built by real people.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Quantum Leap in Computing Will "Redefine" Tech by the End of 2013 / Companies / Technology
Michael A. Robinson writes: It promises to spot terrorists - before they strike. It will predict killer storms - warning us when and where they'll hit.
This new technology trend known as "Big Data" is sweeping the globe. It's expected to facilitate stunning - even life-saving - transformations in intelligence-gathering, meteorology, medicine, finance, and virtually every other field you can think of.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Best Way to Invest in the "Golden Age of Materials Science" / Companies / Technology
Michael A. Robinson writes: How often has your smartphone died during a conference call with your biggest client, or while you're enjoying the highlight replays of your favorite team's latest win?
A new substance that you've probably never heard of could end that worry - and a few others, as well.
Just created at the University of Buffalo, this advanced substance is billed as a portable hydrogen fuel cell. Just add water, and the chemical reaction will yield an instant way to charge your cellphone's dead battery.
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Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Augmented Reality: Do Smart Glasses Herald the End of the Smart Phone Era? / Companies / Technology
Computerised glasses are, at this moment, the wearable computing technology that is most likely to herald the beginning of the end of the Smartphone era. Although they are each taking slightly different approaches to these technologies, Apple, Google and Microsoft are all striving to define the market for wearable computers of which computerised glasses are an integral part. The US military, especially the Special Forces units, already use wearable computers for communications and satellite navigation tasks. That technology hasn't yet reached consumer or business users, but it soon will. Smart glasses are due to be launched selectively in the New Year.
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Thursday, November 01, 2012
The CIA and Amazon Are Investing in Quantum Computing / Companies / Technology
Michael A. Robinson writes: The CIA and the world's biggest Web retailer want to see the world of Big Computing turned upside down.
That's why they joined a $30 million investment round in a small supercomputing startup. The firm is taking a radical new approach to how these processors crunch massive amounts of data.
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Monday, October 15, 2012
Nobel Prize Heralds the Shining Future of Quantum Computing / Politics / Technology
Quantum Computing is one of the most interesting innovations happening in science today -- as ATCA 5000 has repeatedly pointed out -- and yet it is also one of the hardest to explain. The latest Nobel prize shows that "Quantum Computing" is not some esoteric mystical concept: it is extremely concrete.
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Thursday, October 11, 2012
Only 100 Geniuses Could Figure This Puzzle Out / Companies / Technology
Michael A. Robinson writes: Don't worry if you've never heard of "transient electronics."
They're so new, most investors have no idea what the field is all about.
But these new cutting-edge devices could find a wide range of uses in the very near future.
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Thursday, October 04, 2012
Is Quantum Internet Next? / Politics / Technology
Ever since Captain Kirk uttered the immortal words "Beam me up, Scotty!" in Star Trek, teleportation has always occupied a fascinating seat within the front rows of our pop culture. Science has not yet caught up with the fiction of beaming a person or object between two places, however, quantum teleportation is no longer a fantasy. In fact, it's been proven so many times that an international space race to develop quantum teleportation is currently underway.
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