Scientists from MIT have come up with a new material that BMW has decided to use in their cars instead of the existing airbag system. The current system has a number of shortcomings: it needs constant maintenance to work at the right time and it takes up space in the body which could be used for additional electronics. The new material from MIT is printed on a 3D printer using gel and silicone rubber. After the substance is printed, the rubber hardens and an air space is created inside. The material is light, thin, and strong. Such a safety system does not require constant maintenance. In the future, BMW plans to use it to create parts of the car's body and even the seats so that they can easily be put together.
The British consulting and auditing company, Ernst & Young, together with the largest shipping company in the world, AP Moller-Maersk (Denmark), has created a marine insurance platform, Insurwave, built on blockchain. According to the head of the insurance department at AP Moller-Maersk, Lars Henneberg, the transition to Insurwave has helped to automate the ship insurance process and to reduce errors. The technology now supports more than a thousand vessels, and the platform will process about 500,000 transactions in 2018-2019. The platform utilization policy will be constantly updated to provide security for emerging IoT risks and smart contracts. Insurwave was developed on the basis of the R3 software from Corda which is available on the Microsoft Azure platform.
The first film which the viewer can directly influence during the viewing will be released in the summer of 2018. “The Moment”, filmed by director Richard Ramchern, consists of 101 trillion different events and variations that will change according to the desire and mood of the viewer. The viewer needs to wear a special helmet which will monitor the impulses coming from the brain. If the viewer is bored, the music changes. If the viewer is more interested in a side storyline, the film is adjusted to their desires and shows it instead. If the viewer likes a more orderly narrative, the film will tell everything linearly and at a more relaxed pace. The whole plot of the film will fit into 27 minutes, but only one person can watch it at the same time because the film can not adapt to the desires of every person in a large theatre.