Emerging Technology News

Are you like me who doesn’t trust car mechanics when they tell you that you need to pay hundreds of pounds to fix some part in your car’s engine that you didn’t even know existed? Well, now there’s a really cool, more importantly cheap, DIY gadget that teaches you everything you need to know about an average car motor, thus saving you money on car repairs and maintenance as you become more educated about your car’s engine. Check it out…

A major breakthrough in medical advancement is the development of a tiny smart pill that monitors bodily responses to medication. The medical monitoring system could hit the shelves soon according to a recent announcement by the British pharmacy chain LloydsPharmacy, who partnered with the American technology firm Proteus Medical to produce the smart pill. The major question is whether consumers will buy the product from pharmacies and medical couriers, which on paper reads like something from a sci-fi movie.

The ICE Totally Gaming Exhibition hosted by the City of London kicks off today, showcasing three days of technological solutions for gaming experiences. The Intralot Group, a leading supplier of integrated gaming and transaction processing systems, will be one of the chief exhibitors at the gaming exhibition. Intralot is displaying a full range of innovation products and services from universal gaming frameworks to remote access to sporting catalogues. Their authority is confirmed by Malta businesses and gaming companies, who stated that Intralot is the operator of Malta’s public lottery. Below is a comprehensive overview of what gamers can expect from Intralot at this year’s UK gaming exhibition.

While many aspects of our world are going green, such as green architecture, eco recycling practices and hybrid cars, websites and web based companies aren’t something that you think can go green. As the first green search engine to launch in South Africa, Ads4Trees aims to change the environment, one search term at a time. So how does the internet search engine change the environment and conduct sustainable practices as it would seem already to be a low to minimal carbon footprint company? The catch is the pledge made by the company to plant a tree for every 500 searches conducted on its website.

When it comes to making the earth a cleaner greener place, the idea of renewable energy is one that lays out the foundation for that to be possible. Solar power is the champion of renewable energy since the Sun’s energy is abundant and at least for a long time (millions of years) in the foreseeable future it’ll produce more energy than we need or can harness. Fossil fuels, coal and oil have a very real limit and will one day run out completely; hopefully by then we’d have set up enough solar power facilities to keep the human race alive. So as one possible renewable energy source, we know it’s a fact solar power delivers the goods, but how can we use it practically in our day to day lives. Let’s look at some examples.

Welcome to the internet in 2012; on any given day you could be on YouTube watching a no-name cover a Beyonce song or a short Sweded (low-budget independent remake of popular films) video going viral. Now imagine internet censorship closing down YouTube simply for hosting these videos and without any judicial procedure; welcome to the internet of the future. Currently a debate in the Senate on US censorship of the internet is taking place and the bill that enforces it comes two-fold; one called SOPA and one called PIPA. SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that is supposedly designed to protect copyright holders and companies against intellectual theft that is ‘rife’ on the internet. However much of the power of the internet lies in the innovations and freedom of expression that SOPA could snuff out with internet censorship laws.

Despite our gadgets improving and becoming more portable, keeping them charged continues to be a major problem. However, the new solar charger kindle jacket by SolarFocus is a cleverly designed gadget that tops up your Kindle’s battery when it’s in the sun.

Turnitin is an online resource used by most university and college professors worldwide to check plagiarism. Created by iParadigms, the resource has proven incredibly popular yet controversial although used only to check a paper or essay for plagiarism. Some feel having their essays checked out by Turnitin is akin to an ‘admission of guilt’ which is unconstitutional by education governing bodies of universities although the jury is still out on how accurate that is. The process is that the college or university buys a licence to use the service and then submits papers for review. While on the surface the service seems straight forward enough its popularity is waning although the objective is positive. Plagiarism has no place in a learning institution and the danger of ignoring such practices can result in gross misconduct if one is indeed plagiarising. For example, if a doctor you see happened to pass his final examination through plagiarism and time comes for a medical translation that concerns you, you could be at risk of an uninformed practitioner who cheated his way into a qualification; your health is at risk. The software to check plagiarism is traversing a grey area though between two factions warring over its merits.

The British food distribution company Blue Skies has started using the TempTRIP monitoring device to ensure the high quality freshness of its fruits from African food distribution channels to European supermarkets. Employing more than 2000 people in South Africa, Ghana, Egypt and Brazil, Blue Skies sources freshly harvested fruit for supermarket chains in the UK, Europe and South Africa, transporting their cargo in under 48 hours. Fruit is cut and packed at the country of origin, ensuring fair trade in its global food distribution methods.

The Canadian company Ortsbo showcased its new online service Live & Global, which uses propriety technology and close-captioning for accurate real time translation for online video into fifty three languages. Translation options are impressive scanning a wide range of languages, from Maltese to Chinese and Italian to Yiddish. At the showcase in Las Vegas, audiences watched closely as the software achieved real time translation of Variety magazine’s Entertainment Summit via an online video platform. The Ortsbo president, David Lucatch, stressed the potential of the real time translation product for global corporate meetings, stating that that “regardless of the language you speak, today you speak your client’s language.” The company has already signed a deal with IndyCar for the real time translation of press conferences and social media events.