The High-Tech Tools That Can Bust Careless Oil and Gas Drillers

Beyond its common application as a predictor of consumer purchasing behavior, AI can be utilized to tackle poverty issues, improve agricultural efficiency, and increase access to information for otherwise disconnected populations. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are putting global satellite photographs into a complex algorithm to gauge economic activity.

Prosthetics for most are frequently challenging, both in terms of mobility and associated pain. This video highlights a doctor in Sweden innovating new, more reactive prosthetics, aimed at addressing these challenges.

Villages along the Irrawaddy River delta in Myanmar have spent years replanting mangroves in at attempt to restore their ecosystem and guard against the negative effects of climate change, but it is a labor intensive and time-consuming process. Now, with the help of specially-designed tree planting drones from startup BioCarbon Engineering, as many as 10,000 trees can be planted in a single day, using technology that not only distributes seeds in special pods, but is able to calculate optimal soil conditions, locations, and species of tree most likely to survive in any given area.

Airplanes and birds don't mix - thousands of birds are tragically killed around airports each year, and collisions (or "ingestions," as the industry calls them) of birds and jet engines can be extremely dangerous to flights. Finding an effective way to keep birds away has proven tricky, as birds are clever and quickly acclimate to many traditional methods, so the Edmonton airport in Alberta is "piloting" an exciting new technology: a robotic falcon that moves like a real predator, and seems to have had success in trial flights.

For all the positive tools and platforms the internet has helped create over the decades, it can also be an extremely dark place, and has unfortunately enabled the horrific and wide-spread sharing of millions of images depicting child abuse, including of rape and torture. Artificial Intelligence - specifically the Arachnid web crawler launched by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection - is proving the most efficient and effective weapon in shutting down these abominable sites, combing through scores of data at a speed no human or government can match, and issuing takedown notices.

Despite advancements in technology in most sectors of life leading to an increase to access of information about practically anything, little is still known about the ocean and its behavioral patterns. Liquid Robotics – a Silicon Valley-based company – is trying to change that. Engineers here have created the "Wave Glider," which essentially acts as a router within the ocean powered by wave energy and solar panels. This invention can transmit data on tectonic activity that has the potential to predict tsunamis.

There's a robot revolution happening in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it's all in the name of mapping our oceans. This boom of technological innovation is helping bring lower-cost tools to both researchers and citizens. These consumers in turn use the devices to take photos during their excursions that ultimately create a network of ocean data that helps map the realities of concerns such as ocean acidification, rising water temperatures and overfishing.

Michigan is becoming a leader in the field of autonomous vehicles. Fifteen colleges and universities across the state have joined in an academic consortium to ensure students entering the workforce will have the necessary skills to advance mobility technology. Competitions in vehicle development and robotics are equipping students to become leaders in the field.

The advancement of technology has created the capability to consider solutions never before possible. Conservation X Labs, a startup based in Washington, D.C., has committed their focused on marrying the worlds of conservation and technology, to combat mounting concerns of international poaching and deforestation. While the scaling of the technology is stagnated largely due to the expense of technology, progress has been made and devices are actively being piloted.

After facing a shortage of bricklayers, the Netherlands found a housing solution which also doubled as a way of cutting development costs and damage to the environmental. Project Milestone, a development that creates 3D printed houses, is the first of its kind and is already drawing a steady residential candidate pool.