SMART CITY FANATIC

 Satellites are CHANGING. At a speedy, stunning rate. Their formation, shape, deployment, ownership. With that, inevitably, come new applications, too. Each of which has an innate utility, a benefit, an environmental and socio-economic progress attached. Can it save the world? No. Sorry. That's on YOU. And how you USE the tools!  But even so, IF we do continue to advance this (and 'we' as a world can and will)? Then it might just be good news that comes from said satellites and not some end of the world disaster, so much as a news story about SAVING things? Case in point: RAIN FORESTS!  Swarm satellites are used by the Texas-based Rainforest Connection to monitor illicit logging and poaching in more than 32 nations.  'Guardians' are solar-powered acoustic sensors that sit high in the treetops and appear to be part of the tree from the ground up. The sensors send a signal to one of Swarm's satellites overhead if they detect the sound of illegal activity up to 1...

There is a problem: environmental and economic concerns continue to clash. If unabated, a crisis looms. And insurance is the first battle ground, it seems? Via litigious possibilities.  Corporate insurance rates are rising due to legal actions related to climate change. In response to the alleged inability of Shell's management and non-executive directors to present a strategy to reduce emissions swiftly, ClientEarth is considering legal action against them.  Environmental difficulties are "a new and substantial issue," according to David Powell, head of technical underwriting at the Lloyd's Market Association, and are "very much on the agenda of D&O underwriters. "Insurers are enquiring more about their clients' climate policies and talking about "enhancements" to those policies.  The Bank of England issued a warning in May that specialised D&O insurance were particularly vulnerable to lawsuits relating to climate change.  According t...

The photos produced by DALL-E 2, which was released just last year, are four times as detailed as those produced by the original DALL-E. It makes sense given that, just five years ago, AlphaGo, a deep learning model created by Google's DeepMind, was the greatest story in the A.I. world. Nice gimmick! Just not the advancement most people care about, right? . Bigger picture here: Observe what happens with text produced by artificial intelligence.  Screenplays, communications, and game development can all be done by large language models like OpenAI's GPT-3. Medicine: MILLIONS of proteins, now MAPPED!  Over a million individuals have joined up for GitHub's Co-pilot, which enables programmers to work more quickly by completing code snippets automatically. AI is also writing code. In short? Growth is accelerating. Applied to EVERY sector! Use AI as a buddy to stay ahead of the game! To see other super applications of new tech: Sustainability Roadmap And:  City Maps Or:  ...

Here we go, as part of the influencer series on inspirational women.  DRUSILLA HARRIS: A name to watch. A talent to observe. A creative drive to learn from!  1:   Musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, teacher: rank those in order of enjoyment, priority and fulfilment. Also, how does one intersect with and drive the other?    The musician and the dancer developed together as a child. My parents were musicians and the whole family had to practice every day. I had weekly dance lessons - ballet from 3 and then tap and jazz as a teen- but I also used to find music to play and dance to as my number one leisure activity from as young as 5, when my Grandma gave me and my younger sister our first tiny little transistor radios.  We would get up early, go down to the basement, find the same station on each radio so it was louder and felt fuller, and dance away together before anyone else was up. We would always dress up for this. Basically, I danced every d...