1. One thing that helps
It is expected that by 2025, around 1.8 billion people will live in places with absolute water scarcity, where water resources are insufficient to meet basic needs. That is in addition to around 4 billion people who experience water shortfalls at least once a month. To help in the fight against water scarcity, a Star Wars tech has come to the front: harvesting water from the air.
Bangalore-based startup Uravu Labs has developed an atmospheric water generator that uses desiccants to absorb moisture from the air. These desiccants are then heated to release the moisture that undergoes condensation that turns into water. A unit can produce about 2,000 litres of drinking water in 12 hours. The best part is that the unit can run on renewable energy. Over in Kenya, Majik Water uses a different approach. Their atmospheric water generator uses a cooling and condensation-based technique to harvest water from the air. It can produce 500 litres of water in 24 hours!
While the tech works, upscaling it is currently expensive. But in a world where water sources continue to dwindle, I hope that we can see this tech deployed in more places. After all, sometimes all we need is the air that we breathe.
2. One be wary of
Microsoft has introduced its “Recall” feature, which has attracted the attention of the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. Recall is an AI feature that allows you to essentially have a searchable history of what you do on your computer. It’s very similar to the browsing history in your web browser, but this time, Recall takes a screenshot of what is on your screen (every 5 seconds!).
Recall is arguably a nice feature to have. The ability to use natural language to search for something you forgot to save sounds great to me. I’m not willing, though, to have Recall take a screenshot of everything on my screen – from videos to passwords. I don’t really have a great level of trust in the big tech companies. Microsoft has said that everything is stored locally and that sensitive data like passwords and health information will not be removed. It seems like it would make a hacker’s job easier if they could just do a file search!
Recall is a good example of how a good feature can have unintended consequences, and why we all need to pay attention to our data privacy.
3. One to amaze
If you struggle to hear your conversation in a crowd or noisy environment, now, you can just look at who you want to listen to and engage in some targeted hearing!
A team from the University of Washington has developed AI-enabled headphones to help you hear what’s being said. They call it “Target Speech Hearing.” The headphones analyze the voice of your target and then cancel out every other sound except that voice. They call them Look Once to Hear.
Look Once to Hear is fitted with noise cancellation and microphones. You need to look at the person you’re talking to and press the record button. This is crucial because the microphones must pick up that specific person’s voice. Wait for around 5 seconds so the AI can train and then you’ll only hear that voice despite other environmental noises. As they keep talking, the AI gets better at recognizing their voice. You don’t have to worry about being stationary; it works even if you are walking!
Look Once to Hear is a great help for people with hearing impairments, and the team wants to incorporate it into earbuds and hearing aids. The code is also publicly available, so you can play with it if you want. I think this technology has amazing applications across many areas.