Polluting utopia

Non-polluting Automobiles

The advantages/disadvantages of energy storage devices, which can provide nonpolluting automobile systems are discussed. Four types of storage devices are identified: electro-chemical (batteries) hydrogen electro-mechanical (flywheels) Molten salt heat storage A high speed flywheel with a small permanent magnet motor/generator has more advantages than any of the other systems and might become a...

Ambient Utopia

This chapter presents an analysis of the ambitions that lie behind the concept of Ambient Intelligence as it is presented by the advocates and researchers working in the field. In particular it looks at the ideas regarding the forms of natural and intuitive forms of interaction that are envisaged including agents and robots from a philosophical perspective. The views on interaction are analysed...

A less polluting pig.

A Less Polluting Pig There's good news in the fight against farm pollution, say researchers in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. In August, John Phillips, Cecil Forsberg, and Serguei Golovan announced a new kind of pig that makes better use of phosphorus, a nutrient that in high concentrations can deplete oxygen levels in waters dow...

Engineering Utopia

The likely advent of AGI and the long-established trend of improving computational hardware promise a dual revolution in coming decades: machines which are both more intelligent and more numerous than human beings. This possibility raises substantial concern over the moral nature of such intelligent machines, and of the changes they will cause in society. Will we have the chance to determine th...

Utopia Rising