Important Innovations

D A ILY INNOVATION BRIEF   By Journalists Edward  Kane & Marya nne Kane  GOOGLE IS USING AI TO MONITOR CORAL REEFS THROUGH THEIR FISH INHABITANTS                                             Source:  Coral Reef stock Google DeepMind is listening to fish as a means of monitoring the coral reefs that they inhabit.  It's a remarkable use of AI technology to determine the health of coral reefs during this time of Climate Change.  Here are some key facts: Google used deep learning and trained an AI model on thousands of real fish recordings that were identified by marine biologists The public also helped by listening to reef fish recordings on the website Calling in Our Reefs Healthy reefs are noisy with the sounds of fish Unhealthy reefs sound like radio static All of the information has resulted in the AI-powered SurfPerch tool t...

The Flyer Takes-Off Flying cars are part of our transportation future.  A number of companies are working on prototype models globally.  But Google co-founder Larry Page and his company Kitty Hawk Corporation have just taken off with their Flyer, a sleek, good looking, one seat, flying car.  It's a pleasure craft that doesn't require a pilot license. Wow Technology The Flyer is engineered quite differently than other flying car prototypes like Terrafugea's Transition, which is a small plane-car hybrid that runs on gas.  The Flyer is powered by ten electric fans along the sides of the craft.  On the underside are slim pontoon-like "wheels" for landing.  It's designed to fly over water and can stay aloft for 20 minutes.  Flyer cruises up to 20 mph and hovers over the water at 3 to 10 feet.  It's categorized by the FAA as an ultra-lite craft and consequently doesn't require a pilot's license.  It's restricted right now to uncontrolled,...

Smarter Sensing Cities Building cities smarter by using advanced digital technologies as their design and operating base.  It's a concept promoted by the World Economic Forum at Davos. Their specific reason is to impact and reduce accelerating climate change. A staggering 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings.  Lighting, heat, cooling and power for homes, office buildings, schools and hospitals account for 1/5th of global emissions yearly. Looking for Energy Miracle World Economic Forum officials believe smarter cities are a key factor that could change that.  Microsoft's Bill Gates is part of a group which has created a fund to invest in climate change solutions through technology.  As Gates puts it "we need an energy miracle".  Meanwhile, a company called Sidewalks Labs is putting the smarter cities theory into practice.  Sidewalks is owned by Google's parent company Alphabet. Non-fossil fuel energy will power it. Toronto P...