Think Global Macro

http://www.eejournal.com/article/sunshine-changing-the-world/
NovaSolix is a silicon valley startup developing a process to manufacture solar panels that use carbon nanotubes as antennas – combined with nanoscale rectifiers – to generate power from a much broader swath of the solar energy spectrum than conventional PV cells. The company claims that 80-90% efficiency may be possible. They are also working to develop a process to manufacture the panels on a substrate of glass, thus dramatically reducing the cost compared with silicon-based PV technology.
If the company is successful in hitting their efficiency and cost targets, they could quite literally change the world. The economics and practicality of solar versus other forms of energy is already at a tipping point, so tiny changes in the cost-per-watt of deploying solar can have massive effects on the economics of energy. Changes of the magnitude NovaSolix envisions could slam a brick on that balance scale, completely transforming the energy landscape (and wiping out entire major industries in the process).
In order to harness the full spectrum of visible and infrared light, we need antennas of varying lengths. NovaSolix is working to create just the right mix of manufacturing variation in their carbon nanotubes to give the optimal distribution of antenna lengths. The carbon nanotube antennas are “grown” between electrical contacts, and they create diodes at the interface point. Each successful nanotube pair creates an antenna and a full-wave rectifier. NovaSolix has now successfully created demo wafers, and the IV curve of the resulting devices is interesting. Conventional PV cells have a fairly flat IV curve, with current remaining relatively constant and voltage increasing proportional to output. The nanotube antennas, however, produce a more linear IV curve, which should allow for a simpler controller than conventional PV cells, as well as greater immunity to partial shading effects.
NovaSolix is currently doing wafer fabrication in the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and growing carbon nanotubes in their own labs. Their plan is to work toward a small-volume production capability with a “boutique” version of the technology aimed at specialty markets where power-per-area is the critical factor. This includes portable applications such as solar aircraft, wearables, and satellites. This production will be done using primarily older-generation semi-automated IC fabrication equipment. NovaSolix can see bringing the cost per watt down from $10 to around $1 with this approach.

https://theconversation.com/no-more-playing-games-alphago-ai-to-tackle-some-real-world-challenges-78472
The game of Go provided a nicely constrained development platform for optimising these learning algorithms. But many real world problems are messier than this, and have less opportunity for the equivalent of self-play (for instance self-driving cars).So are there problems to which the current algorithms can be fairly immediately applied?
One example may be optimisation in controlled industrial settings. Here the goal is often to complete a complex series of tasks while satisfying multiple constraints and minimising cost.
As long as the possibilities can be accurately simulated, these algorithms can explore and learn from a vastly larger space of outcomes than will ever be possible for humans. Thus DeepMind’s bold claims seem likely to be realised, and as the company says, we can’t wait to see what comes next.

An IBM Breakthrough Ensures Silicon Will Keep Shrinking – WIRED https://apple.news/Af8OwPEr9TyiJWyIQ0EijlQ

    Today, an IBM-led group of researchers have detailed a breakthrough transistor design, one that will enable processors to continue their Moore’s Law march toward smaller, more affordable iterations. Better still? They achieved it not with carbon nanotubes or some other theoretical solution, but with an inventive new process that actually works, and should scale up to the demands of mass manufacturing within several years

You can imagine that FinFET is now turned sideways, and stacked on top of each other,” says Khare. For a sense of scale, in this architecture electrical signals pass through a switch that’s the width of two or three strands of DNA.

    “It’s a big development,” says Hutcheson. “If I can make the transistor smaller, I get more transistors in the same area, which means I get more compute power in the same area.” In this case, that number leaps from 20 billion transistors in a 7nm process to 30 billion on a 5nm process, fingernail-sized chip. IBM pegs the gains at either 40 percent better performance at the same power, or 75 percent reduction in power at the same efficiency.

J

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/06/04/milton-friedman-told-us-the-answer-decades-ago-now-itll-probably-be-ibms-watson/#28b00be11bce
Physician specialty groups have created “societies” to provide education, establish clinical guidelines and handle public relations. These range from the Society of Surgical Oncology to the group that represents me and my ear, nose and throat colleagues, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. They are also lobbyists, charged with maximizing the incomes of member doctors by influencing pricing decisions made by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Those prices become the benchmarks for private health insurance companies, too.

There are so many specialty organizations because each develops authority over a niche market and vigorously guards its turf. Imagine building a house by allowing each workman to do his own thing. The plumber would put a sink in every room. The electrician would install chandeliers on every ceiling. The carpenter would panel every room in luxurious wood. That’s how health care works.

This is good race commentary. And important to understand. But this is a long race…

Google Is Already Late to China’s AI Revolution – WIRED https://apple.news/A8flImUxTRAyf5GyBrNZTQQ