The Innovation Report
Robot Allows Shoppers to Browse from Home
Many people are turning to online shopping now more than ever and stores are coming up with creative ways to make those sales. It’s not just apps and websites, but also robots you can browse a store from home with. It seems “futuristic,” but one local shop is already...
5G Getting Faster; U.S. Still Behind
A total of 14,643 cities worldwide had 5G at the end of Q3 2020, a 1,671 percent increase over the same period last year. Here, the U.S. fared well, with 7,583 cities with 5G, and a big increase in number of 5G deployments. Other countries in the top 10 leaderboard in...
Hybrids Outselling EVs
Hybrid cars are seeing a quiet resurgence as the boom in electric vehicles spurs automakers to give the older, cheaper technology a second look. This year has been an extraordinary one for electric-car manufacturers. Investors have embraced makers of pure-electric...
Gates-backed Startup Claims EV Battery Breakthrough
An electric vehicle battery startup backed by Bill Gates and Volkswagen is claiming a major breakthrough on a technology that it says could power the next generation of clean cars and make them as widely attractive to drivers as gas vehicles — though some experts...
Drones and AI Measure Soybean Maturity
Drones and artificial intelligence (AI) are now being used to measure soybeans’ maturity in less time while doing so accurately. Current methods require people to spend hours in the sun every day to check the soybeans. The drones have cut the time down to just two...
Green Buildings Key to Emissions Fight
The incoming Biden administration has been praised by some experts for its potential benefits for the nation's crumbling infrastructure and the smart city technology market, which includes areas like artificial intelligence (AI), smart grids, and other solutions. But...
Barra Defends GM’s Truck Production Despite EV Push
In a nearly hour-long interview on the Freakonomics Radio podcast, General Motors CEO Mary Barra talks about the automaker's electric vehicle strategy and President Donald Trump, among many other topics. One of the main subjects is GM's aggressive...
Using Drones to Replant Forest Devastated by Wildfires
The United States has had its most devastating wildfire season on record, with more than 8 million acres of land burned across the country this year. Regenerating the forests that sat on much of that land would ordinarily take years and involve hundreds of...
More than 500 Lives Saved by Drones
The latest rescue took place last month, when sherriff’s deputies found a missing 93-year-old woman in a dark field in Missouri – using a DJI drone with a thermal imaging camera. That brings the total to more than 500 lives saved by drones, according...
Spain Investing 600M Euros in AI
Spain is to invest 600 million euros (725 million dollars) in developing artificial intelligence over the next two years as part of plans to transform its national economy, the premier said Wednesday. The programme would run from 2021 to 2023, starting with an initial...
