Friday Futures: asteroid sunscreen, digital puppies and Alan Turing’s carols

Image credit: Sensay / Shutterstock.com

Welcome to Friday Futures, our weekly guide to the latest visions of  The Future from around the web. This week: an asteroid wearing sunscreen, a hyperloop speed record, digital puppies for senoirs, and Alan Turing’s computerized Christmas carols

This asteroid arrived wearing sunscreen

Our first interstellar visitor, ‘Oumuamua, has captured the attention of scientists around the globe. In one of the latest studies, a team has found that the object has a natural layer of protection against the sun’s cosmic rays, and it could be covering an icy core. Read more…

Virgin’s Hyperloop One breaks speed record

In a recent test, Virgin Hyperloop One’s system beat all previous speed records, hitting nearly 387 km/hour (240 mph). With Richard Branson now in their corner, the company could dominate the future of hyperloop transportation. Discover the breakthrough…

A digital puppy makes seniors happy

A new digi­tal eldercare service called CareCoach has developed interactive digital pets (actually a human-powered avatar) to watch over a homebound person 24 hours a day. Read on…

Here are the coolest gadgets you can’t buy (yet)

Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. Digital Trends selects the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there. Look ahead…

And finally, listen to a couple of carols from Alan Turing’s computer

Just in time for the holidays, computer scientists released a couple renditions of iconic Christmas carols once played by Alan Turing’s computer. Though to our modern ears, the tracks sound more eerie than festive, they marked a major milestone as some of the first computer-generated sounds ever played. Good King Wenselas looked out….

(Compiled by Alex Leslie; Edited by John C Tanner)

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