AM signals: 3D TV’s demise, extraterrestrial life, personal car to follow path of ‘personal horse’
Cars are among people’s most expensive possessions, yet they are in productive use only 4% of the time, according to Wolfgang Fengler, lead economist in trade and competitiveness at the World Bank. Most of the time they just occupy valuable real estate. Writing at Brookings, Fengler envisions a future in which driverless and shared cars let you order the type of car you need when you need it, cutting the required number of vehicles by two-thirds. As for people who just like to drive? “Most likely the personal car of today will end up the same way as the ‘personal horse’ of yesterday: as a recreational activity, reminiscent of a past that has been overtaken by modernity,” he concludes.
Samsung and LG Electronics are cutting the number of new TVs that will have 3D functionality, according to Korean publication etnews. Samsung employs the SG (Shutter Glass) method, requiring special, relatively expensive glasses to implement 3D, and a Samsung partner says Samsung has not reordered the glasses for this year. LG, which uses the FPR (Film Patterned Retarder) method that can make use of less expensive glasses, said it will continue to offer 3D on its premium products, representing about 20% of all sets sold (vs. 40% of all sets sold last year).
It’s time to stop asking whether we are alone in the universe, according to Evgenya Shkolnik, a professor in Arizona State University’s School for Earth and Space Exploration. “The answer has always been staring us in the face. No. We are not alone. Of course, as a scientist, I cannot say this with 100% certainty, but experience suggests that this is the reality,” she writes in Slate. “We’re now…discovering planets in the ‘habitable zone,’ in which liquid water can exist on the surface. We discovered the first one in 2012. Three years later we’re up to 30 such planets, and the probable result of this explosion of discovery will be the confirmation of thousands.” She adds that “…knowledge of extraterrestrial life will provide us a new context for our planet both culturally and scientifically.”
