Fwd: Abundance Insider: June 3 Edition

In this week's Abundance Insider: Straddling buses, music created by artificial intelligence, and fuel-producing bacteria.

Cheers,
Peter, Marissa, Cody, Maxx, Kelley and Greg

P.S. Send any tips to data@diamandis.com, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

Straddling Bus Can Drive Itself Over Cars

What it is: Transit Explore Bus is a Beijing-based transportation company with a novel public transit concept: a giant electric bus that straddles roadways, enabling passenger cars to travel underneath it. The concept is 26 feet wide and 200 feet long, and can carry up to 1,400 passengers at a time -- which means it could replace as many as 40 traditional buses.

Why it's important: This concept leverages existing infrastructure to solve two major problems in Beijing -- pollution and traffic -- in a completely different fashion than other mass transit concepts like Hyperloop. What's more, the designers report that this straddling bus would be cheaper than a subway to implement and would require far less maintenance and construction. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Cody Rapp

Harvard Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

What it is: Harvard Professor of Energy Daniel G. Nocera has genetically engineered a bacteria called Raistonia eutropha to consume carbon dioxide and hydrogen, convert them into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), convert the ATP into alcohol, and excrete alcohol fuel. "I can just let the bugs grow exponentially," he told Forbes. "They're eating hydrogen, that's their only food source, and then they breathe in CO2, and they keep multiplying. They procreate, and that goes into an exponential growth curve."

Why it's important: Nocera's plan is to develop his technology in areas without electric grids -- like parts of India, where 300 million people don't have access to electricity. Because this strategy removes any chances of competing against established industry players, it enables major renewable energy breakthroughs right where people need them the most. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Gabriel Delgado Ayau

Artificial 'Hive Mind' Does Live Reddit 'Ask Me Anything'

What it is: UNU, the artificial hive mind that has correctly predicted Oscar winners and the Superfecta at the Kentucky Derby, participated in an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit this week. The swarm intelligence system offered predictions on the U.S. presidential election, campaign finance reform, marijuana legalization, and voter turnout.

Why it's important: It won't be long until it will feel completely natural for us to consult an artificial hive mind when making important decisions, because the process will yield more conclusive, authoritative and unbiased responses than if we were to bridge the same topic with our best friends, close colleagues or mentors. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Cody Rapp

Tesla Tests Self-Driving Functions With Secret Updates to Its Customers' Cars

What it is: Over the last 18 months, Tesla's amassed 780 million miles of Model X and S autonomous driving data, and every 10 hours, it gets another million miles' worth. That's largely due to Tesla's over-the-air updates: engineers can pull high-res data from vehicles and remotely install inert autonomous software so that, as MIT Technology Review writes, "[the software] can react to real road and traffic conditions, without controlling the vehicle."

Why it's important: Because of this capability to digitally perform software updates to customers' cars -- and test new self-driving features without affecting how the vehicle operates -- Tesla now gathers more Autopilot data in a single day than Google's autonomous driving program has gathered since 2009. Every day, Tesla's fleet of data-gathering vehicles grows, and drivers are already experiencing the benefits of this test data. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Microsoft's Latest HoloLens Trailer Looks Ripped From a Sci-Fi Blockbuster

What it is: At Computex 2016 this week, Microsoft showed off its latest HoloLens trailer and opened up the API of two of its key platforms -- Windows Holographic and Windows Hello -- to external developers. If you're interested in how AR and VR might affect how we work, don't miss the video trailer featured in this article.

Why it's important: By opening up its API to let developers code their own programs -- and by enabling cross-platform compatibility so that HoloLens programs will work equally well on Vive and other rival devices -- Microsoft is making a platform play in the mixed reality space. We're watching this development closely. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Google's Art Machine Just Wrote Its First Song

What it is: Can machines create art? According to Google, yes -- its Magenta program, announced last week at Moogfest, has already composed a 90-second piano melody. The composition was created with a trained neural network built on top of the open-source TensorFlow system.

Why it's important: Google wants to build an artists' community around machine-generated art, and Magenta is the first step to building generative systems that musicians and artists can use as part of their natural creation process. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Detroit's Grand Plan to Lead the Self-Driving Revolution

What it is: Michigan's lawmakers are hoping to put Detroit back on the map by making the state the best place in the world to develop and test autonomous vehicles. "Manufacturers would have nearly free rein to test their autonomous technology on public roads," writes Wired. "They'd be allowed to send platoons of autonomous cars on cross-state road trips, and even set up on-demand fleets of self-driving cars -- like the one General Motors and Lyft are building."

Why it's important: Disruptive technologies like autonomous cars threaten linear systems like government legislation. Will we see the global auto industry agree on a unified set of laws, or will individual local and state regulations prevail? Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

The Future of Humanity's Food Supply is in the Hands of AI

What it is: This article provides a compelling overview of the ways artificial intelligence is being used in agriculture to help solve food scarcity. It includes drought-detecting satellites, sensor-enabled tractors that selectively remove sick plants, AI-powered apps that identify crop diseases in seconds, and robots that only apply herbicides to weeds.

Why it's important: Exponential technologies are relevant for every business and industry on the planet. By supercharging farmers' efficiency and "hacking" the traditional growing process, AI might be humanity's best ally in feeding our ever-growing global population. Discuss on Facebook

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by Marissa Brassfield in preparation for Abundance 360. Read more about A360 below.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, Peter's 250-person executive mastermind, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. The program is highly selective and we're almost full, but we're still looking for a few final CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. You can apply here.

Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up.

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PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Suite 350, Culver City, CA 90230

Fwd: Abundance Insider: May 27 Edition

In this week's Abundance Insider: Self-charging stretchable 'skins,' virtual reality department stores, and real-time in-ear language translation.

Cheers,
Peter, Marissa, Cody, Maxx, Kelley and Greg

P.S. Send any tips to data@diamandis.com, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

Otto is Turning Trucks Into Self-Driving Giants

What it is: Otto is a startup founded by ex-Google employees that has created a kit enabling companies to retrofit a commercial truck into a self-driving car. In tests, Otto's sensor-laden hardware and OS transformed a Volvo VNL 780 into a self-driving truck; the team's next step is to work with Class 8 trucks.

Why it's important: Otto's kits let companies create their own self-driving fleets without replacing every single vehicle. While this solution won't replace drivers entirely -- currently, a human still needs to be in the vehicle -- it will hopefully provide long-haul human drivers the critical backup they need for safer, more efficient drives.

Spotted by Aryadeep S. Acharya

Go Shopping Inside a Virtual Reality Department Store

What it is: Ebay and Myer have partnered on what they're calling the first virtual reality department store. After donning the VR headset of your choice -- for this launch, the companies gave away branded Google Cardboard headsets called "Shopticals" -- users can browse over 12,500 Myer products. To avoid overwhelm, eBay's Sight Search technology learns your preferences and enables you to "create a unique shopping experience, picking only from categories of products [you're] interested in."

Why it's important: Peter's written about the future of retail before, and this VR department store is a promising glimpse into our (ever-nearer) future of personalized virtual shopping.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Self-Charging Battery Stretches Over Skin to Power Wearables

What it is: An international team of researchers led by the University of Illinois' John Rogers has developed a flexible solar-powered battery that could revolutionize the wearables industry. The array contains tiny, thin tiles made of solar cells, chips and biometric sensors, and it can stretch up to 30 percent larger than its original size without losing functionality.

Why it's important: When we don't have to constantly plug wearables into power, these wearables become far more versatile and useful. Imagine putting on a "smart" workout shirt that can measure a wide variety of biometric data to share -- and generate its own power while you run outside. Or perhaps a set of biometric sensors that you can apply directly to your skin like a bandage, or even an outdoor jacket that can charge your devices as you walk to work.

Spotted by Steve Polus

IBM's Optical Storage: 50x Faster Than Flash, Cheaper Than Ram

What it is: IBM has just achieved a breakthrough in optical storage, and specifically in phase-change memory, or PCM. This crystal-based storage isn't new -- we've seen it in tech like optical disks for almost two decades -- but IBM's researchers have now found a way to save 3 bits of data per cell. By doing this, PCM becomes much cheaper than DRAM, and much closer to the price of flash memory.

Why it's important: IBM says that the breakthrough "...provides fast and easy storage to capture the exponential growth of data from mobile devices and the Internet of Things." It will enable faster machine learning algorithms and online query processing; when combined with flash storage in, say, a mobile phone, it would enable the phone to boot up in seconds.

Spotted by Dan Swift

In-Ear Gadget Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

What it is: Waverly Labs' Pilot is a set of earpieces that performs real-time translation for users speaking different languages. Each person inserts a Pilot into their ear, and an accompanying app translates what you hear and feeds the message to your ear in your native language. At launch, Pilot will support English, Spanish, French and Italian, with plans to launch East Asian, African, Hindi, Arabic, Semitic and Slavic "soon after."

Why it's important: Who are your customers, clients and business partners when there truly are no language barriers? How might instant, accurate and discreet translation influence where and how we conduct business? Powerful implications indeed.

Spotted by Cody Rapp

Australian Engineers Achieve World Efficiency Record for Solar Power

What it is: University of New South Wales engineers have developed a new solar cell configuration that converts sunlight into electricity at an efficiency of 34.5 percent -- a new world record that, according to UNSW, "nudg[es] closer to the theoretical limits for such a device." It's almost 44 percent better than the previous record, and was confirmed by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Why it's important: More efficient solar cells lowers the initial cost of investment while accelerating the return on investment. What's even better: we haven't hit the theoretical limit of photovoltaic cells, so this growth will continue.

Spotted by Troy MD

Microscope Uses Artificial Intelligence to Find Cancer Cells Faster

What it is: UCLA scientists have created a device that images cancer cells (without destroying them) and identifies 16 physical characteristics. It's comprised of a photonic time stretch microscope and a deep learning computer program that can analyze 36 million images per second and spot cancer cells with 95 percent accuracy.

Why it's important: According to a UCLA press release, the researchers believe their system could "...lead to data-driven diagnoses by cells' physical characteristics, which could allow quicker and earlier diagnoses of cancer, for example, and better understanding of the tumor-specific gene expression in cells, which could facilitate new treatments for disease."

Spotted by Aman Merchant

India Successfully Tests First Tiny Reusable Space Shuttle

What it is: India's space agency has just successfully launched and recovered a seven-meter-long prototype reusable space vehicle called RLV-TD. It's part of a five-year reusable shuttle project that Engadget reports is "believed to cost as little as $14 million." In 2014, India's space agency put a satellite around Mars for an impressively frugal $72 million.

Why it's important: Innovation doesn't just come from traditional sources, and getting into space doesn't have to be costly. Engadget notes that a key enabling factor for India's successful yet frugal space program is that its team studies other countries' space missions rather than launching all their own experiments -- identifying past errors made and inventing shortcuts along the way.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Artificial Intelligence Replaces Physicists

What it is: Here's another big win for artificial intelligence, courtesy of the Australian National University. Physicists recently used AI to replicate the exact experiment that won the 2011 Nobel Prize: creating a Bose-Einstein condensate by trapping a cold gas in a laser beam. "I didn't expect the machine could learn to do the experiment itself, from scratch, in under an hour," said co-lead researcher Paul Wigley from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. "A simple computer program would have taken longer than the age of the universe to run through all the combinations and work this out."

Why it's important: In this article, the researchers explain some of their most surprising observations, and in these, we see the true power of AI to advance mankind. For starters, the AI system made decisions "a person wouldn't guess" to replicate the experiment, which means it may be able to conduct tests in complicated ways that humans haven't (or simply can't).

Spotted by Aman Merchant

Gene Helps Prevent Heart Attack, Stroke; May Also Block Effects of Aging

What it is: University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a veritable fountain of youth called Oct4. Despite previous theories that Oct4 is inactive in adults, KurzweilAI reports that the researchers found Oct4 actually plays a key part in preventing ruptured atherosclerotic plaques inside blood vessels, and may also be able to help heal wounds and repair cell damage.

Why it's important: "Finding a way to reactivate this pathway may have profound implications for health and aging," said researcher Gary K. Owens, director of UVA's Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research Center. "This could impact many human diseases and the field of regenerative medicine. [It may also] end up being the 'fountain-of-youth gene,' a way to revitalize old and worn-out cells."

Spotted by Peter Diamandis

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by Marissa Brassfield in preparation for Abundance 360. Read more about A360 below.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, Peter's 250-person executive mastermind, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. The program is highly selective and we're almost full, but we're still looking for a few final CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. You can apply here.

Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up.

If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription
PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Suite 350, Culver City, CA 90230

Fwd: Abundance Insider: May 20 Edition

In this week's Abundance Insider: AI lawyers, origami surgery robots, and the world's real early tech adopters.

Cheers,
Peter, Marissa, Cody, Maxx, Kelley and Greg

P.S. Send any tips to data@diamandis.com, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

In Global Shift, Poorer Countries Are Increasingly the Early Tech Adopters

What it is: Think early adopters only live in Silicon Valley, or in the major tech hubs in North America, Asia and Europe? Think again. New research from the World Economic Forum indicates we're actually in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where converging technologies enable new breakthroughs and the world's poorest -- not its richest -- are the first to benefit. This article outlines several examples, including nationwide drone delivery services in Rwanda, vaccination campaigns targeted via satellite-based geographic information systems, and genetic sequencing during the Ebola epidemic.

Why it's important: As Peter has often said, the Rising Billion won't come online with dial-up Internet -- they'll come online with gigabit Internet and powerful computers. The Fourth Industrial Revolution truly enables a world of abundance, where we can meet the basic needs of every person on the planet.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Artificially Intelligent Lawyer 'Ross' Has Been Hired By Its First Official Law Firm

What it is: Baker & Hostetler has just announced a new hire: Ross, the world's first artificially intelligent lawyer. Ross is the brainchild of IBM Watson, and it's been designed to "read and understand language, postulate hypotheses when asked questions, research, and then generate responses (along with references and citations) to back up its conclusions," as Futurism describes. "Ross also learns from experience, gaining speed and knowledge the more you interact with it."

Why it's important: A powerful glimpse into the future of professional services. Currently, even the most diehard legal assistants need time off for human needs. Ross doesn't have that problem -- and as a result, Ross can parse case law, secondary sources, legislation, and new court decisions around the clock, even delivering its curated results in natural language.

Spotted by Darryl Kraemer

Google Open-Sources Natural Language Understanding Tools

What it is: Google has just made two exciting natural language tools completely open source: SyntaxNet and Parsey McParseface. The former is a syntactic parser, which, as KurzweilAI explains, "allows machines to parse, or break down, sentences into their component parts of speech and identify the underlying meaning." The latter is a program that uses SyntaxNet in the English language -- and the most accurate model of its kind on the planet.

Why it's important: By completely demonetizing, dematerializing and democratizing its own powerful natural language processing tools, Google only stands to gain future customers, fans and new startups to acquire.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Ingestible 'Origami Robot' Lets Doctors Operate on a Patient Remotely

What it is: MIT researchers have created a pill-sized, folding "origami robot" comprised of biocompatible composite material sheets. After the patient swallows a tiny ice capsule containing the robot, the ice melts and the robot unfolds itself; meanwhile, in a remote location, a physician can maneuver the robot and perform a variety of clinical procedures. The robot then biodegrades and exits the body naturally. Its skill set includes drug delivery, foreign object location and retrieval, and wound care.

Why it's important: The MIT researchers' next move is to make their origami-inspired robot autonomous, so that it can perform simple procedures without a physician's intervention. With so many similar nanorobots and "smart pills" in development, we're watching this area of healthcare closely.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Barsha Pump Provides Irrigation Water, But Doesn't Need Fuel

What it is: Dutch startup aQysta has created a Barsha irrigation pump (Nepalese for "rain pump") that GizMag reports "...can reportedly boost crop yields in developing nations by up to five times, yet requires no fuel or electricity to operate." The pump looks much like a stationary water wheel; when placed directly into a flowing river, it can pump one liter of water per second through a hose up to a height of 25 meters.

Why it's important: This emissions-free irrigation pump is a promising approach to end food scarcity in developing nations. With development plans in the works for Asia, Latin America and Africa, it's a matter of time before we see the network effects of abundant irrigation water.

Spotted by Aryadeep S Acharya

Can Artificial Intelligence Create the Next Wonder Material?

What it is: A growing number of scientists and researchers believe that computer modeling and machine learning are keys to discovering the next wave of "supermaterials" like graphene. This article describes the three database projects currently under development, outlines how they affect the discovery of new materials, and summarizes the history of materials genomics.

Why it's important: This is a perfect use case for data mining -- imagine all the gold that lies in centuries of failed experiments, scientific research, and discovery of tens of thousands of materials. With this knowledge, and ever-growing computing power, amateur and professional material scientists alike will be able to validate hypotheses on potential new substances and make new discoveries faster, easier and cheaper than ever before.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Coding School 42 Plans to Educate 10,000 Students in Silicon Valley for Free

What it is: 42 is a Silicon Valley-based coding university that hopes to teach 10,000 students to code in the next 5 years. Originally founded in France by Xavier Niel, 42 takes a truly disruptive approach to education. For starters, students from ages 18 to 30 are welcome to apply; before they're accepted, they compete in groups of 1,000 on a four-week, "Hunger Games"-style coding and logic competition. The students who survive that four-week challenge get to officially study at 42.

Why it's important: We know that the traditional educational system must change to accommodate the future of work and reflect the skills students will need to succeed in the modern workforce. With no teachers, no standardized testing (just peer reviews and coding projects), gamification and internships, 42 has all the makings of a disruptive solution.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Leaderless, Blockchain-Based Venture Capital Fund Raises $100 Million

What it is: The DAO, or The Distributed Autonomous Organization, is a decentralized venture capital firm created and run entirely using blockchain software. Instead of legally executed corporate bylaws, The DAO's bylaws are hard-coded into the blockchain itself, like a smart contract. And since late April, it's collected over $100 million worth of cryptocurrency -- all without a leader at the helm.

Why it's important: Technology is transforming every aspect of our daily lives, and The DAO is an example of how future organizations might digitize, dematerialize and demonetize from their inception. How do we begin to think about success when a firm led by an AI CEO makes it onto the Fortune 500 (partially because it doesn't have any executive or boardmember salaries to pay)?

Spotted by Cody Rapp

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by Marissa Brassfield in preparation for Abundance 360. Read more about A360 below.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, Peter's 250-person executive mastermind, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. The program is highly selective and we're almost full, but we're still looking for a few final CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. You can apply here.

Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up.

If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription
PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Suite 350, Culver City, CA 90230

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Fwd: are you ready to hyperloop?

Would you like to have Hyperloop in your city?

I'm proud to be a founding Board Member of Hyperloop One (the new name for what was formerly known as Hyperloop Technologies).

Last week, I was in the Nevada desert for the Hyperloop Propulsion Open Air Test with the rest of the board, the Hyperloop One team, and hundreds of members of the press.

If you're not familiar with Hyperloop One, consider what it would be like to travel on the ground at 760+ mph (faster than a jet airplane).

Here are some fun travel examples:

• L.A. >> San Francisco in 35 minutes
• Montreal >> Toronto in 30 minutes
• L.A. >> Vegas in 20 minutes
• Dubai >> Abu Dhabi in 15 minutes
• London >> Paris in 15 minutes

In this blog, I am going to give an overview of the Hyperloop and explain how you could bring this transportation system to your city through the Hyperloop Challenge.

What is Hyperloop?

In 2013, Elon Musk and a group of engineers from Tesla and SpaceX published a speculative design document for a concept they called "The Hyperloop."

Born out of frustration with California's plan for a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco (the slowest and most expensive per mile bullet train around, with an estimated cost of $70 billion), the vision for the Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system that could take travelers from San Francisco to L.A. in 35 minutes for a fraction of the cost.

In other words, it's a "vacuum tube transportation network" that will be able to travel at around 760 mph (1200 kilometers per hour) – on land and underwater.

The team is led by Brogan BamBrogan, who did the design work on the second-stage engine of SpaceX's Falcon 1 and was the lead architect for the heat shield of the Dragon capsule.

This team is going big and bold, and they're doing it the right way.

The just closed their latest round of funding of $80 million and achieved a MAJOR technology milestone last week.

The Hyperloop Propulsion Open Air Test

Last Wednesday, the Hyperloop One team held what was essentially its first test run, conducting a "propulsion open-air test."

The team built a half-mile track 35 miles north of Vegas to test its custom-designed linear electric motor at speeds of 540 km/hour.

The motor accelerated from zero to 100 mph in about 1 second and proceeded down the track until stopped by a custom, sand-based braking system. It was a smashing success!

This was the first of a series of unique innovations from the Hyperloop One team, including advancements in propulsion, tube design and fabrication, levitation systems, pod designs, and thermodynamics and systems engineering.

Hyperloop One's new CEO Rob Lloyd (past Global President of Cisco) notes that passing this hurdle means they are well on their way to having a full-scale hyperloop to test by the end of the year – on a projected 2-mile track reaching full speeds of over 700 mph.

Hyperloop's Kitty Hawk Moment -- End of This Year!

In 1903, the Wright brothers flew their aircraft for the first time in Kitty Hawk, NC.

The flight lasted only 12 seconds and covered a distance of just 120 feet, but it marked a major milestone in human history: humanity realized that powered flight was real.

This moment changed the face of transportation forever.

Today, every major city throughout the world has an airport, and thousands of airlines fly between them, transporting millions of passengers daily.

Rob Lloyd calls this week's Open Air Test Hyperloop One's "pre-Kitty Hawk Moment."

He expects the Hyperloop One team will have their real Kitty Hawk moment by the end of this year.

Just as in 1903, when few people realized how much the world would change as a result of that first flight, we have likely not yet fully grasped how much the world will change because of Hyperloop.

Lloyd is already looking towards the future -- noting that once the Hyperloop is fully functional, "we then imagine how we're going to take this technology and solve the world's toughest problems."

As to where the Hyperloop goes, well… maybe it's up to you! Keep reading…

The Hyperloop Challenge

Want the Hyperloop to come to your city?

Hyperloop One is hosting a global competition inviting teams from around the world to submit a commercial, transport, economic and policy case for their city, region or country to be considered to host the first Hyperloop networks.

The challenge, a first-of-its-kind competition, aims to identify and select locations around the world with the potential to develop and construct the world's first Hyperloop networks.

Our goal is to get different key stakeholders (government officials, academics, private investors and architects, to name a few) involved to facilitate the implementation of this technology.

We are asking for teams comprised of these stakeholders to make the case for how Hyperloop can drive economic growth and create new opportunities in their community.

If you or someone you know is interested, register for the challenge here.

As a member of the Judging Committee, I am excited to hear about your proposals.

Hyperloop is just one example of the amazing transformations that exponential technologies are causing across industries.

Join Me

This is the sort of conversation we explore at my 250-person executive mastermind group called Abundance 360.

The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

P.S. Every week I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to Diamandis.com and sign up for this and Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. My dear friend Dan Sullivan and I have a podcast called Exponential Wisdom. Our conversations focus on the exponential technologies creating abundance, the human-technology collaboration, and entrepreneurship. Head here to listen and subscribe: a360.com/podcast

If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription
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Fwd: Nanorobots… inside you

This blog is a status update on one of the most powerful tools humanity will ever create: Nanotechnology (or nanotech).

My goal here is to give you a quick overview of the work going on in labs around the world, and the potential applications this nanotech work will have in health, energy, the environment, material sciences, data storage and processing.

As artificial intelligence has been getting a lot of the attention lately, I believe we're going to start to see and hear about incredible breakthroughs in the nanotech world very soon.

Origins of Nanotechnology

Most historians credit the concept of nanotechnology to physicist Richard Feynman and his 1959 speech, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom."

In his speech, Feynman imagined a day when machines could be miniaturized and huge amounts of information could be encoded in miniscule spaces, paving the way for disruptive technological developments.

But it was K. Eric Drexler's 1986 book, "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology," which really put the idea on the map.

Drexler posited the idea of self-replicating nanomachines: machines that build other machines.

Because these machines are also programmable, they can then be directed to build not only more of themselves, but also more of whatever else you'd like.

And because this building takes place on an atomic scale, these nanobots can pull apart any kind of material (soil, water, air, you name it), atom by atom, and construct, well, just about anything.

Drexler painted the picture of a world where the entire Library of Congress could fit on a chip the size of a sugar cube and where environmental scrubbers could clear pollutants from the air.

But before we explore the possibilities of nanotechnology, let's break down the basics.

What Does "Nanotechnology" Actually Mean?

Nanotechnology is the science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.

Essentially, it's manipulating and controlling materials at the atomic and molecular level.

To give you perspective, here's how to visualize a nanometer:

• The ratio of the Earth to a child's marble is roughly the ratio of a meter to a nanometer.
• It is a million times smaller than the length of an ant.
• A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.
• A red blood cell is about 7,000-8,000 nanometers in diameter.
• A strand of DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter.

A nanorobot, then, is a machine that can build and manipulate things precisely at an atomic level. Imagine a robot that can pluck, pick and place atoms like a kid plays with LEGO bricks, able to build anything from basic atomic building blocks… C, N, H, O, P, Fe, Ni, and so on… ​ While some people dismiss the future of nanorobots as science fiction, you should realize that each of us is alive today because of countless nanobots operating within each of our trillions of cells. We give them biological names like a "ribosome," but they are essentially machines programmed with a function like 'read messenger RNA to create a specific protein.'

That being said, it's important to distinguish between "wet" or "biological" nanotech, which basically uses DNA and the machinery of life to create unique structures made of proteins or DNA (as a building material) and a more Drexlerian Nanotech which involved building an "assembler," or a machine that can 3D print with atoms at a nanoscale and effectively create any structure that is thermodynamically stable.

This is an area I am fascinated by and passionate about, and given how powerful it is for our future, it's something I track closely.

Let's explore a few of the different types researchers are developing.

Different Types of Nanorobots and Applications

There are many different types of nanorobots – here are just a few.

1. Smallest engine ever created: "A group of physicists from the University of Mainz in Germany recently built the smallest engine ever created from just a single atom. Like any other engine, it converts heat energy into movement — but it does so on a smaller scale than ever seen before. The atom is trapped in a cone of electromagnetic energy and lasers are used to heat it up and cool it down, which causes the atom to move back and forth in the cone like an engine piston." (Source)
2. 3D-motion nanomachines from DNA: Mechanical engineers at Ohio State University have designed and constructed complex nanoscale mechanical parts using "DNA origami" — proving that the same basic design principles that apply to typical full-size machine parts can now also be applied to DNA — and can produce complex, controllable components for future nanorobots. (Source)
3. Nanoswimmers: ETH Zurich and Technion researchers have developed an elastic "nanoswimmer" polypyrrole (Ppy) nanowire about 15 micrometers (millionths of a meter) long and 200 nanometers thick that can move through biological fluid environments at almost 15 micrometers per second. The nanoswimmers could be functionalized to deliver drugs and magnetically controlled to swim through the bloodstream to target cancer cells, for example. (Source)
4. Ant-like nanoengine with 100x force per unit weight: University of Cambridge researchers have developed a tiny engine capable of a force per unit-weight nearly 100 times higher* than any motor or muscle. The new nano-engines could lead to nanorobots small enough to enter living cells to fight disease, the researchers say. Professor Jeremy Baumberg from the Cavendish Laboratory, who led the research, has named the devices "actuating nanotransducers" (ANTs). "Like real ants, they produce large forces for their weight." (Source)
5. Sperm-inspired microrobots: A team of researchers at the University of Twente (Netherlands) and German University in Cairo (Egypt) has developed sperm-inspired microrobots, which can be controlled by oscillating weak magnetic fields. They will be used in complex micro-manipulation and targeted therapy tasks. (Source)
6. Bacteria-powered robots: Drexel University engineers have developed a method for using electric fields to help microscopic bacteria-powered robots detect obstacles in their environment and navigate around them. Uses include delivering medication, manipulating stem cells to direct their growth, or building a microstructure, for example. (Source)
7. Nanorockets: Several groups of researchers have recently constructed a high-speed, remote-controlled nanoscale version of a rocket by combining nanoparticles with biological molecules. The researchers hope to develop the rocket so it can be used in any environment; for example, to deliver drugs to a target area of the body. (Source)

Key Applications of Nano and Micro-Machines

The applications of these nano and micro-machines are nearly endless.

Here are some of the most exciting ones, in my eyes:

• Cancer Treatment: Identifying and destroying cancer cells more accurately and effectively
• Drug Delivery Mechanisms: Targeted drug delivery mechanisms for disease control and prevention
• Medical Imaging: Creating the nanoparticles to gather in certain tissues and then scanning the body with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could help highlight problems such as diabetes
• New Sensing Devices: With near limitless customizable sensing properties, nanorobotics would unlock new sensing capabilities we can integrate into our systems to monitor and measure the world around us
• Information Storage Devices: A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard's Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times
• New Energy Systems: Nanorobotics might play a role in developing more efficient renewable energy system. Or, they could make our current machines more energy efficient such that they'd need less energy to operate at the same or high capacities.
• Super-strong Metamaterials: There is lots of research going into these metamaterials. A team out of Caltech developed a new type of material, made up of nanoscale struts crisscrossed like the struts of a tiny Eiffel Tower, that is one of the strongest and lightest substances ever made.
• Smart Windows and Walls: Electrochromic devices, which dynamically change color under applied potential, are widely studied for use in energy-efficient smart windows – these can control the internal temperature of a room, clean themselves, and more.
• Ocean-cleaning microsponges: A carbon nanotube sponge capable of soaking up water contaminants such as fertilizers, pesticides and pharmaceuticals more than three times more efficiently than previous efforts has been presented in a study published in IOP Publishing's journal Nanotechnology.
• Replicators: Also known as a "Molecular Assembler," this is a proposed device able to guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision
• Health Sensors: These sensors could monitor our blood chemistry, notify us when something is out of what, detect spoiled food or inflammation in the body, and more
• Connecting our Brains to the Internet: Ray Kurzweil believes nanorobots will allow us to connect our biological nervous system to the cloud by 2030

As you can see, this is really just the beginning… the opportunities are near limitless.

Big Problem, Big Opportunity

Nanotechnology has the potential to solve some of the biggest problems that the world faces today.

A recent National Science Foundation report notes, "...Nanotechnology has the potential to enhance human performance, to bring sustainable development for materials, water, energy, and food, to protect against unknown bacteria and viruses, and even to diminish the reasons for breaking the peace [by creating universal abundance]."

If this wasn't exciting enough, the markets for nanotechnology are, as you might imagine, massive.

It has been forecasted that the global nanotechnology industry will grow to reach $75.8 billion (USD) by 2020.

As an entrepreneur, you need to be paying attention to these developments – there will be extraordinarily fruitful opportunities in actually building business cases around these technological developments and deploying them at scale.

Join Me

This is the sort of conversation we explore at my 250-person executive mastermind group called Abundance 360.

The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here.

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P.P.S. My dear friend Dan Sullivan and I have a podcast called Exponential Wisdom. Our conversations focus on the exponential technologies creating abundance, the human-technology collaboration, and entrepreneurship. Head here to listen and subscribe: a360.com/podcast

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Fwd: Abundance Insider: May 12 Edition

In this week's Abundance Insider: Mind-controlled cars, age-defying 'second skin', and MIT's $5 billion pledge.

Cheers,
Peter, Marissa, Cody, Maxx, Kelley and Greg

P.S. Send any tips to data@diamandis.com, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

Mind-Controlled Car Unveiled in China

What it is: Researchers at Nankai University in Tianjin, China have developed a vehicle for paralyzed or elderly drivers that operates using the driver's thoughts. Reuters reports that the car can drive forward, in reverse, brake, and lock or unlock its doors -- all thanks to an EEG headset with 16 sensors that translate brain signals into discrete instructions. The researchers are quick to note that the car won't crash if you lose your focus: you just need to concentrate when you want to change the vehicle's actions, which, as the Telegraph describes, "[is] something you do unconsciously anyway."

Why it's important: Professor Duan Feng says his technology helps cars -- autonomous or otherwise -- serve people better. His goal is to ultimately integrate this technology with driverless cars as a complementary interface, which opens up exciting possibilities. Imagine holding a business meeting in the back of your autonomous car, and recommending solely through focused thoughts that the car take a different route or decelerate so that you have more time to close the deal.

Spotted by Aryadeep S. Acharya

Siri Creator Reveals Next-Generation AI Assistant

What it is: This week, Siri co-founder and CEO Dag Kittlaus demoed Viv, a new artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant that he hopes will be "the intelligent interface for everything." Check out the demo video at this link to see Viv's natural language interface in action; one feature we're excited about is the so-called "stackability" of inquiries, meaning that Viv can remember conversational context and handle follow-up questions in real time.

Why it's important: The Siri team has already proven that it knows how to anticipate the future, and with Viv, Kittlaus repeats the feat with a focus on creating an easy interface for developers. Its dynamic program generation can, as TechCrunch describes, "understand intent and generate a program itself to best answer the query." Kittlaus describes the benefits further: "Instead of having to write every code instructed, you're really just describing what you want it to do. The whole idea of Viv is that developers can go in and build any experience that they want."

Spotted by Cody Rapp

'Second Skin' May Reduce Wrinkles, Eyebags, Scientists Say

What it is: Imagine "painting" an invisible film made of commonly used, nontoxic ingredients onto your face that makes under-eye bags and wrinkles disappear like magic. That's exactly what scientists at MIT and Harvard are working on, using siloxane polymers as a base -- and in a recent test of 170 subjects, no one reported allergic reactions or irritations. Biotechnology company Living Proof funded the research, while Olivo Laboratories owns the patents.

Why it's important: This materials science development is set up for major industry disruption. By 2018, it's projected that the global skin care industry will reach $121 billion in 2016, and anti-aging products comprise a significant portion of that industry. (In fact, in 2014, Procter & Gamble's Olay Regenerist, an anti-aging brand, was the No. 1 skincare brand in the U.S.) But this technology isn't just for treating wrinkles and age spots without makeup -- the researchers see it as a breakthrough treatment for skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema.

Spotted by Mike Dahn

Gene Therapy's First Out-and-Out Cure Is Here

What it is: Strimvelis, a treatment pending approval in Europe, will soon become "the first commercial gene therapy to provide an outright cure for a deadly disease," as MIT Technology Review reports. The treatment is for a rare disease called severe combined immunodeficiency (sometimes called "Bubble Boy" disease) and has been tested on 18 children over the past 15 years. All of the children who received the treatment are still alive. GlaxoSmithKline, which owns Strimvelis, plans to seek approval in the U.S. next year.

Why it's important: If Strimvelis is successful, it could usher in a new wave of treatment: instead of heading to the pharmacy for ongoing medication, patients could opt for one-time gene fixes.

Spotted by Peter Diamandis

Modded Ford Fusion Can Sniff Drugs a Quarter-Mile Away

What it is: Undercover cops now have a new secret weapon: a Ford Fusion that University of North Texas students have loaded with computers and sensors, enabling it to detect "unique chemical signatures up to a quarter-mile away and determine their point of origin within 15 feet [...] silently, and with complete discretion," as Digital Trends reports. "The car could just drive by it and keep moving down the road," said UNT's Guido Verbeck to CBS DFW. "It'll alert the officers there's something going on at the house, and where the location is."

Why it's important: This device is more evidence that privacy as we know it is dead -- but also offers tremendously positive applications for law enforcement, counterterrorism, travel safety, healthcare, emergency response, and any space where security is a primary concern.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

World Hunger is at Its Lowest Point in at Least 25 Years

What it is: The International Food Policy Institute's Global Hunger Index reveals some surprising and positive trends: global hunger is at "historic lows," and at the same time, the number of worldwide democracies has been at a "historic peak" since at least 2005. This article cites Ethiopia as a prime example: "Although the country is in the middle of yet another brutal drought, it's no longer leading to deaths from starvation... Ethiopia is no longer in the middle of a decades-long civil war, and the government has relief programs to fend off widespread famine."

Why it's important: The world is getting better by nearly every measure. This research represents more data proving that we're no longer in an era where famine would kill hundreds of thousands of people -- and that this decline in world hunger coincides with democracies increasing all over the world.

Spotted by Cody Rapp

Swarm AI System Beats 500-to-1 Odds, Predicts the Kentucky Derby Trifecta

What it is: Can a swarm-inspired artificial intelligence system beat 20 "knowledgeable Kentucky Derby fans" at predicting the top four finishers? Unanimous AI's UNU system did exactly this, beating 540-to-1 odds with its approach. "Personally, I was speechless," said Unanimous AI CEO Louis Rosenberg in a press release. "While the Swarm AI got the picks perfect, not a single individual who participated in the swarm got the picks right on their own -- not one." Since its 2014 inception, the AI system has also correctly predicted Oscar winners and Super Bowl winners, again outperforming human experts in the process.

Why it's important: Swarm intelligence uses groups to inform its choices -- in the wild, we see this in the behavior of birds, ants and bees. Unanimous AI proves that this approach is also successful in an artificial intelligence setting, with powerful implications on how machines might learn in the future.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Scientists Turn Skin Cells Into Heart and Brain Cells Using Only Drugs (No Stem Cells Needed)

What it is: Gladstone Institutes scientists have created a nine-chemical cocktail that replicates the natural regeneration behavior of animals like salamanders and newts, enabling them to turn skin cells into heart or brain cells without the use of external genes. Previously, initiating regeneration behavior was only possible by introducing external genes to the cells, making the Gladstone researchers' technique far more reliable and efficient (and less controversial).

Why it's important: One day, we might be able just use drugs to reprogram damaged or lost cells to regenerate themselves, completely independent of advancements made in genetic engineering and stem cell therapy. Describes Gladstone senior investigator Sheng Ding, Ph.D., "Our hope is to one day treat diseases like heart failure or Parkinson's disease with drugs that help the heart and brain regenerate damaged areas from their own existing tissue cells."

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

MIT Announces $5 Billion Campaign for a Better World

What it is: This week, MIT announced the Campaign for a Better World, a $5 billion "comprehensive fundraising initiative that will amplify the Institute's distinctive strength in education, research and innovation, and will advance MIT's work on some of the world's biggest challenges." The campaign has six major areas: Discovery Science, Health of the Planet, Human Health, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the MIT Core, and Teaching, Learning and Living.

Why it's important: Billion-person problems are billion-dollar opportunities. MIT has publicly declared its mission to attack some of humanity's biggest challenges -- and we expect this campaign to attract top-tier talent, ambitious ideas, and ultimately world-changing breakthroughs. Is this a model that other elite universities should emulate?

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

Hyperloop Technologies Becomes Hyperloop One, Plus All This Week's Announcements

What it is: This week, Hyperloop Technologies announced its new name, Hyperloop One, and conducted the first open-air test of its propulsion system. Other big announcements from Hyperloop One this week: it's raised $80 million in venture capital, it's poised to create a new global challenge to inspire innovators to make Hyperloop real, and it's forged several partnerships with "established transportation, engineering and infrastructure firms."

Why it's important: Hyperloop One's audacious mission -- dare we call it a "crazy idea" that will either lead to a breakthrough or a bust -- is one we're following with interest. This week's demo and announcements indicate that the Hyperloop train has no signs of stopping.

Spotted by Dan Swift

Nimble-Fingered Robot Outperforms the Best Human Surgeons

What it is: Here's an impressive development in robotic surgery: the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot, or STAR, has just taken an impressive step forward in the field of soft tissue surgery and stitch application. After SMART was taught to stitch soft tissue together with a needle and thread, its skills were tested with living pigs; as MIT Technology Review reports, "[SMART] proved capable of outperforming its teachers." The goal with SMART isn't to replace human surgeons entirely -- a surgeon is still observing the robot's work and can take over at any time -- but to improve patient outcomes and reduce complications associated with surgery.

Why it's important: In the U.S. alone, over 45 million soft tissue surgeries are performed each year -- and we don't currently have a robotic surgical system that can manipulate soft tissue. The researchers' next step is to enable SMART to teach itself through observing expert human surgeons, so that hospitals can deploy their surgical robots more efficiently.

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by Marissa Brassfield in preparation for Abundance 360. Read more about A360 below.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, Peter's 250-person executive mastermind, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. The program is highly selective and we're almost full, but we're still looking for a few final CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. You can apply here.

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