Five Interesting Things: Today’s Scan Hits
Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today.
- Aspiration and reality, while many people have a goal of healthier eating and avoiding high calorie fats, the truth can be quite different. McDonald’s has admitted that while salads make up a large part of image enhancement into healthy food, it only represents 2 to 3 percent of sales.
- In another step towards the Internet of Things, a start-up called August will offer a smart door lock. The $199 dollar Bluetooth device installs on an existing deadbolt and allows homeowners to give temporary access to guests or tradespeople, control access remotely, and keep a log of entries and exits.
- In a useful insight into regulatory thinking, the U.S. Department of Transportation has defined five levels of vehicle automation; few new cars are at level 0, and many are already at level 2.
- Drone airlines? The EU is financing a €30 million research project into developing airline flight decks that only require one pilot.The project is looking at how to reduce costs and pilot error through the use of a what amounts to an automated co-pilot.
- The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have created a robot bee, called RoboBee, that could eventually be used for pollination, search-and-rescue, or spying.