BMW has partnered with Swiss gaming platform AirConsole to bring in-car gaming to its new all-electric 5 Series.
Drivers and passengers can play the games to kill time while the vehicle is charging, for example. Sadly, but probably for the best, you can’t play while the car is moving.
In addition to the new BMW 5 Series, which debuted this week, the AirConsole app will be rolled out in other BMW vehicles. The service has been available on TVs for some time, but this is the first time it has been available in a car.
To use the gaming app, players need their smartphone, which acts as a controller, and the BMW Curved Display, which acts as a TV. After booting up the AirConsole app in the car, users simply scan a QR code to link their phones to the screen and then get gaming.
Around 15 titles are initially available including Go Kart Go, Golazo, Music Guess, and Overcooked, with the list expected to be continually expanded. While not exactly catering to the hardcore gamer, the console should provide enough entertainment for families or anyone partial to smartphone games.
To celebrate the launch of in-car gaming, BMW is presenting the electric i5 version of the 5 Series with a gaming wrap, featuring large pixels as a homage to the iconic 8-bit era of computer games.
Credit: BMW
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainabili Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainability, green tech, AI, and EU policy. With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.
Over a decade ago, a cycling accident left Gert-Jan Oskam paralysed after causing him a spinal cord injury. Now, he’s able to stand and walk again thanks to an innovative brain-spine interface (BSI) developed by a team of Swiss neuroscientists.
To walk, the brain must send a command to the region of the spinal cord that’s responsible for movement control. But a spinal cord injury interrupts this communication.
“Our idea was to reestablish this communication with a “digital bridge”, an electric communication between the brain and the region of the spinal cord that is still intact,” said Professor Grégoire Courtine, one of the project’s lead neuroscientists.
To do that, the team created a wireless interface between the brain and the spine using brain-computer interface (BCI) technology that transforms thought into action. As a result, Oksam can now stand, walk, and climb stairs naturally just by thinking about it.
Oskam walking with the digital bridge at Lausane University Hospital. Credit: EPFL/ Jimmy Ravier
To establish this digital bridge, two electronic implants in the brain detect neural activity when Oskam wants to move his legs. These signals are then transmitted to a processing unit, which he wears as a backpack. A specially-developed algorithm decodes them and sends them as instructions to another electronic implant, inserted in the spinal cord regions that controls leg movement. This implant works as a neurostimulator which, in turn, activates muscles to move.
Oskam had to undertake two surgeries and around 40 rehabilitation sessions to regain voluntary movement of his legs. “The most surprising thing, I think, happened after two days,” he said during an interview. “Within five to 10 minutes, I could control my hips.”
Oskam walking with scientist. Credit: CHUV/ Gilles Weber
What is particularly noteworthy is that Oskam can also walk short distances without the device if he uses crutches. The researchers believe that the device has not only improved his sensory and motor perceptions, but also helped develop new nerve connections.
Oksam is the only individual to have tested the technology, but the research team is currently recruiting three people to examine whether a similar device could restore arm movement. The neuroscientists believe that the BSI could also deliver promising results for stroke-caused paralysis.
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) along with project affiliated companies ONWARD medical and CEA have received funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) to develop a commercial version of the digital bridge and make the technology available worldwide.
Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy. Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy.
Microsoft’s appeal against a veto of its Activision Blizzard takeover offers a chance to “find a third way” in the feud, say legal experts.
The Xbox maker on Wednesday formally appealed a UK regulator’s decision to block the $69bn (€64bn) deal. The shock intervention was a potentially fatal blow to the bid for Activision, which owns the Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and Warcraft franchises.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had concluded that the purchase would give Microsoft an unfair edge in the nascent cloud gaming market.
The decision made the CMA an international outlier among antitrust regulators — and anathema to Microsoft. The tech giant’s president, Brad Smith said the move was “bad for Britain” and Microsoft’s “darkest day” in its four decades of working in the country. He promised to appeal the ruling.
That promise has now been fulfilled. A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed that a formal appeal was lodged on Wednesday — the deadline for filing one.
Gareth Mills, a partner at law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, said Microsoft’s rhetoric shows the company is taking “an extremely robust approach” to the appeal. He added that the company is willing to use its “considerable resources to test the CMA’s resolve.”
That resolve is already under significant strain. In addition to enduring heavy pressure from Microsoft, Activision, and countless gamers who support the deal, the CMA has become increasingly isolated.
In the last fortnight, both China and the EU have approved the deal. According to Microsoft, the takeover has now been cleared by 37 countries, which collectively represent more than two billion people.”
In the appeal against the CMA veto, the EU’s decision could be particularly influential.
“The EU’s approval of the Activision acquisition (albeit with conditions attached) may give both parties an opportunity to find a third way,” says Mills, “although such would represent a considerable change in tone and attitude from those currently being expressed.”
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
Experts estimate around 60% of buildings that will exist in 30 years’ time have yet to be built. This equals constructing a city the size of Stockholm every week until 2050. However, the construction sector currently doesn’t have the people or the skills to deliver the infrastructure and homes we need at the pace required. But what if we could offload some of the work to robots?
Enter 3D concrete printing — an emerging technology that uses 3D printers to create all manner of structures, from bridges and sculptures to houses and even whole neighbourhoods. These huge printers work much like their desktop equivalents, but instead of using ink, they extrude concrete. A giant robotic arm deposits the concrete layer by layer, like a tube of toothpaste, according to plans laid out in a digital blueprint.
This application of 3D printing technology has caused quite a stir in recent years, captivating millions on social media. Just take Aiman Hussein, director of printing at US-based startup Alquist 3D. His TikTok videos of 3D concrete printers building homes have racked up tens of millions of views and scored him over 60K followers.
But while the process of a robot depositing layer after layer of smooth concrete might be mesmerising to some, the real buzz around 3D concrete printing is in its potential to make construction faster, cleaner, and greener.
Building better
Construction is one of the oldest professions on earth and is vital to our everyday lives: it builds the houses we live in, the infrastructure we travel on, and the schools our children learn in. But, the sector is plagued by cost overruns, chronic inefficiencies, and labour shortages. What’s more, it has a gargantuan environmental impact — the built environment is responsible for almost 40% of global CO₂ emissions and accounts for a third of all waste generated in the EU.
“If we are to deliver the homes and infrastructure we so desperately need over the coming decades — in a way that is sustainable and cost-effective — something drastically needs to change,” Rob Wolfs, professor in structural engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), tells TNW.
Wolfs is one of the foremost global experts on 3D concrete printing. “This technology can help tackle some of the greatest challenges facing the construction industry today,” he says, as we zip down the escalator into the basement of TU/e’s built environment department.
Located down a narrow concrete stairwell behind a set of wooden doors is the department’s R&D lab. It smells like sawdust, fresh concrete, and potential. This is where bright ideas go to get tested and validated. It’s also home to the university’s very own 3D concrete printer. For almost a decade, the printer (which sadly doesn’t have a cool nickname) has been used to refine and develop 3D printing technology and has laid the foundation of knowledge for many of the commercial-scale projects we see today.
Rob Wolfs stands in the shadow of TU/e’s 3D concrete printer during TNW’s visit to the university’s built environment lab.
3D printing offers the ability for mass customisation that was previously too challenging or costly to achieve using traditional methods. Want to create a bespoke house design or a unique building component or even an artificial coral reef with complex twists and shapes? 3D printing offers that freedom of design. “You can really make everything unique, everything optimised, tailored to a specific application,” says Wolfs.
But crucially, because 3D printing is an “additive” process, building a product layer by layer, it can build structures using only the exact amount of material required. Numerous studies have shown that 3D printing in construction can reduce waste by 30-60%.
The efficiency of the process also means less concrete is needed overall: Finnish startup Hyperion Robotics claims that its 3D printing micro-factories can reduce concrete use by 75%. If concrete were a country it would be the third largest emitter of CO₂ — so the less we use it the better.
“Robots do the hard work, so you don’t have to.
3D printing automates many of the tough tasks involved in construction, such as bricklaying, reducing the number of people needed on site. Given the chronic lack of workers entering the industry, many consider automation and robotics to be the only solution to delivering the infrastructure we need at the pace and scale required.
“Robots are not going to take people’s jobs,” says Wolfs. “They’re going to do the dirty, hard labour, freeing up people to do safer, more skilled work.”
Automation also increases speed and efficiency, with some 3D printing companies claiming they can print the entire structure of a house in 24 hours.
So 3D printing in construction has the potential to produce complex designs, boost efficiency, reduce waste, improve sustainability, and address workforce challenges. But can it deliver?
Taking shape
In 2021, Dutch couple Elize Lutz and Harrie Dekkers, retired shopkeepers from Amsterdam, became Europe’s first inhabitants of a 3D-printed house in Eindhoven. Their new home, which cost €1,400 per month to rent at the time, is the first of five houses under Project Milestone — a collaborative effort between TU/e, the government, and the construction industry to validate and scale 3D construction printing. Here’s some pics of their new abode:
Construction company Weber Beamix printed the boulder-shaped house, which consists of 24 separate concrete elements, at its facility in Eindhoven. The elements were transported by truck to the building site, bolted together and secured to the foundation, after which the roof and frames were added and the finishing touches applied — the whole process took around 120 hours. The partners aim to construct the next four houses completely onsite using one giant printer.
Weber Beamix has been working closely with TU/e for years, to bring its research to market. So far the company, a subsidiary of French construction giant Saint Gobain, has printed all manner of structures: a 30-metre-long bridge in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, a 9-metre-tall pigeon tower in Qatar, and a skate park in Eindhoven.
But that’s just a drop in the ocean. In the last couple of years, 3D-printed structures have been popping up all over the show, with some seriously ambitious projects in the works.
In 2021, Germany’s first ever 3D-printed house was unveiled in the town of Beckum. In 2022, a two-storey apartment building, also in Germany, was 3D-printed in just 72 hours by a two-person crew and is now occupied by five households. In the same year, French 3D printing startup XtreeE successfully constructed five social homes in the city of Reims.
Germany’s first 3D-printed house. Credit: PERI AG
Perhaps the world’s most ambitious 3D-printed affordable housing project is in the small town of Accrington, England. The £6m Charter Street scheme, developed by Irish architecture firm Harcourt Technologies and local social housing provider Building for Humanity, will house homeless veterans and low-income families in 46 eco-homes that can each be printed in weeks. Full planning permission has already been secured for the site, and construction is set to begin imminently.
At the time of writing, Danish manufacturer of 3D concreteprinters, COBOD, is working with humanitarian foundation Team4UA to 3D-print a school in Ukraine. Over 2,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, and it is hoped that 3D concrete printing can expedite reconstruction efforts.
A prototype wind turbine base being printed by GE Renewable Energy using the world’s largest 3D concrete printer developed by Danish startup COBOD. Credit: COBOD/GE
But it’s not just 3D-printed buildings that are making the headlines. The design freedom afforded by 3D concrete printers means they can create just about anything, from staircases and protective sea walls, to septic tanks and even wind turbine foundations.
According to Henrik Lund-Nielsen, CEO at COBOD, the technology can deliver its “biggest bang for the buck” not in housing but in industrial projects where reinforced concrete makes up a much larger part of the project’s total cost.
These applications are not just bound to Earth either. In December 2022, NASA awarded US startup ICON a $57m contract to develop 3D-printing technology to build roads, launchpads, and homes on the moon’s surface, as part of NASA’s Artemis program, which plans for long-term human exploration of the moon. ICON is currently developing a large 3D printer that could be transported to the moon, using lunar materials instead of concrete to print the lunar base.
ICON has been collaborating with NASA on a number of projects. Here they are printing the structure for NASA’s Mars Dune Alpha, where volunteers will spend a year simulating life on the Red Planet. Credit: ICON/NASA
More and more big players are entering the 3D construction printing space, lured by its potential benefits. COBOD, which claims to be the largest provider of 3D printers to the construction industry, is backed by a number of global industrial giants, including General Electric, which recently built the world’s biggest additive construction facility to 3D print concrete bases for wind turbines.
Yet despite the impressive progress to date, according to a recent report, there are currently only 130 completed 3D-printed buildings globally. Clearly then, the 3D printing in construction is making its mark, although its true potential is not so concrete.
Beyond the hype
“When this technology arrived on the scene around 10 years ago, people thought we were going to 3D print everything in the future — but it hasn’t quite turned out that way,” Wolfs told TNW.
Wolfs’ insights on the development of 3D printing nod to Gartner’s Hype Cycle, which outlines the five distinct phases of a technology’s lifecycle.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle offers a view of how a technology or application will evolve over time.
As Wolfs pointed out, around 10 years ago, 3D printing as a whole was in the hype phase, or the ‘peak of inflated expectations’. Startups were popping up all over the place, VC capital was flowing, and 3D printers were expected to be busily cranking out all the tools, human organs, and automobiles anyone could ever want or need.
Then came the inevitable descent into the ‘trough of disillusionment’ somewhere around 2015 — flaws in the technology emerged, early adopters encountered performance issues, and there were low returns on investment.
Fast forward to the present day, and 3D printing as a whole appears to be on the up again, as kinks get ironed out, early adopters start to see returns, and the technology matures. However, there is a great disparity between different applications of 3D printing as to where they sit on the Gartner Hype Cycle.
“Almost all dental implants these days are 3D printed. The technology is now mainstream because it’s proven to be the best way to manufacture that product,” says Wolfs. “However, in construction, we’re not there yet, not even close.”
“3D printing won’t solve the housing crisis on its own.
Perhaps the biggest buzz around 3D construction printing lately has been its potential to solve the housing crisis. As countries worldwide face a shortage of homes, proponents believe houses that ‘can be printed in a day’ could be the solution. Wolfs is not so sure.
“3D printing won’t solve the housing crisis on its own — that issue is far too complex and is not just a technological problem,” he says. “It doesn’t make sense to replace all the traditional building methods with 3D printing either, but to find applications where 3D printing really makes sense.”
There are two key areas that could propel 3D construction printing up the ‘slope of enlightenment’, according to Wolfs: standardising the technology and making it more sustainable.
“We have to come up with ways to assess and guarantee the quality of our printed structures and move towards standardisation of this technology. It is moving so quickly it risks getting in its own way,” he said.
Will a 3D-printed home last as long as a traditionally built home? Will it be structurally sound and safe in the event of a fire or natural disaster? Since the development of the technology has outpaced updates to widely used codes and standards, it has left builders with few answers.
At TU/e, researchers are undertaking strength and material testing on a smaller scale in order to validate on a larger scale, with the idea that eventually the results will become enshrined in standards like the Euro code. For now, 3D concrete printing pioneers have to hope that their designs will pass building codes written up for structures built using traditional methods.
In 2021, Italian startup WASP 3D-printed these two homes using local earth instead of concrete. Credit: WASP
Then there’s the sustainability aspect. While 3D construction printing cuts waste, it still relies heavily on cement. The scaling of low-emission cement alternatives — like those infused with graphene or made from local clay — will be key to ensuring 3D printing can meet its environmental credentials.
Key to all of this is trial and error. As research advances, more projects break ground, and big players enter the industry, it seems only a matter of time before 3D construction printing can cement its place in the market.
Printing the future
Despite an apparent decade-long inertia, the digital transformation of construction is now in full swing, with technologies like Building Information Modelling (BIM), digital twins, drones, robotics, and blockchain helping contractors deliver structures more efficiently and sustainably.
Going forward, Wolfs predicts that 3D printing will become part of this ‘toolbox’ of technologies, as construction moves toward increasing levels of automation and digitisation.
As the technology continually develops, opportunities will emerge to print bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. One day, 3D printers might even be able to print multiple materials from the same nozzle, allowing the construction of not just concrete walls but steel frames, windows, and insulation, in one sweeping motion.
There is also the possibility that future structures will be printed by ‘teams’ of 3D printing robots of different sizes — one large printer for the structure, multiple smaller ones for elements like doors and windows, and swarms of flying 3D printing drones for the finishing touches.
3D printing in construction, then, is not so much of a revolution as an evolution. Either way, it seems likely that the buildings of the future will, in some part, be 3D printed.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
Before my life as a technology journalist, I worked in a university’s biomedical engineering research lab. Every now and then, in my current career, I encounter something that I wish had been around 10 years ago. Nanome, an app for spatially visualizing molecules in MR and VR, is exactly such an experience.
Meet Nanome
Nanome is a visualization and collaboration platform available on all major VR headsets. It’s partially funded by Meta, but founders got in with Oculus co-founder Michael Antonov long before Facebook bought the company (and subsequently changed the name of both companies to “Meta”).
“Because we were part of Oculus for Business as an ISV [Independent Software Vendor], our relationship has deepened and we have co-authored multiple case studies together, including for Nimbus and Novartis,” Nanome co-founder and CEO Steve McCloskey told ARPost.
Nanome was a launch title on the Quest Pro, but it is also available on Viveport and Steam. The platform runs in VR on most headsets, but also makes full use of the full-color passthrough on the Quest Pro. The company is looking at the emerging AR glasses hardware market, but still needs controllers for the time being.
“Current hand tracking technology does not meet the needs that 6DoF controllers can provide, which consumer AR glasses don’t,” said McCloskey. “Additionally, the limited FOV makes it challenging to get a closer view of molecules in the context of a protein binding pocket which is essential for many of our users.”
If you don’t know what a “protein binding pocket” is, don’t feel like Nanome is too advanced for you. Just like chemistry in general, you can start wherever you are and go from there. You can also watch educational videos on chemistry’s big ideas directly within Nanome.
“Every user has unique needs and workflows, and we aim to provide a tool that can adapt to those needs, rather than forcing users to adapt their workflows to our tool,” said McCloskey. “This is why we continually work to improve and expand our features, to provide an ever-more intuitive, collaborative, and integrative experience for our users.”
Subscription Options
Nanome comes in a free version for personal use, as well as academic, research, and enterprise subscription tiers. Virtually all of the platform’s major functionalities work in the free version, though the academic subscription allows meeting in private rooms and saving workspaces. The benefits of the remaining tiers come largely from hosting and server options.
Insights From the In-App Demo
I met with McCloskey and fellow co-founder Sam Hessenauer within a free trial of the platform’s academic version. Creating an account is fast and easy, and automatically uses your Meta avatar, though you can join with a number of default avatars if you’re using a borrowed or communal headset.
Start Building Molecules – Even Impossible Ones
The virtual space is initially empty, inviting users to start building their own molecules from scratch, using common building blocks already in the app, or bringing in completed structures. The app supports a number of commonly used visualization tools, so work started on conventional software can be brought directly into VR.
Molecules have specific shapes – something about the constituent atoms attracting and repelling each other – I’m pretty sure that my university chemistry textbook has a whole section on figuring out bond angles based on valence electrons. The point is, the app does that for you. And, when you create a molecule that couldn’t possibly exist, the app lets you know.
So, if you want to play comic book super genius and create fantastic chemical structures, you can! And the app will let you know which parts of the molecule break the laws of physics, and which laws they break. You can also view the models in several color-coded visualization methods.
“Because we’re on the VR app store and the basic version of the software can replace Intro-to-Chem ball and stick models, we’re very popular among universities and libraries as the go-to chemistry app in XR,” said McCloskey. “You never run out of chemistry kit parts in XR!”
Building new chemical structures in the app is huge. While you certainly can use Nanome to practice and learn chemistry within its established boundaries, there are people using the platform to design new chemicals, like groundbreaking prescription medications. In fact, early feedback from Novartis went into the first widely available iteration of the platform.
“For other major biopharma companies, we meet scientists and IT folks at various industry conferences,” said McCloskey. “We have landed some deals from scientists who bought a Quest for the holidays and wanted to use Nanome at their workplace.”
Everyone Gather Around the Giant Protein
Visualizing chemicals isn’t only important when designing new ones. One giant model that McCloskey, Hessenauer, and I viewed within the space was a large protein. At that massive scale, something that was just an idea before suddenly seemed tangible and understandable – a solid thing with its own charitable topography waiting to be explored.
Prion proteins in the brain can fold incorrectly, leading to neurological disorders like dementia. I remember my middle school science teacher trying to communicate that by scribbling on the chalkboard, but how exactly a protein could be foldable never really made sense to me. Seeing that giant protein in VR, that fifteen-year-old lesson came back and clicked instantly.
McCloskey and Hessenauer were able to point out caves in the giant protein where part of another chemical – like a medication designed by one of the companies using the app – could fit into the protein and bind to it. I usually do demos like this to learn about XR, but this time I felt like I got a lesson in chemistry with XR in the margins – which is how it’s supposed to feel.
“As a design tool, we aim for Nanome to be as intuitive as possible. This is where XR and the user interface come into play,” said McCloskey. “We want our users to focus more on their scientific explorations and less on learning how to use the tool.”
Suppose I want to go back and watch our demo again. I can. But, not just a flat recording. Nanome allows spatial recordings that viewers can walk through later. If someone pointed at a point on the model and I missed it live, I can go back and watch it in VR standing right in their shoes as I relive the moment from their viewing angle.
At Least Take a Look
If you ever even think about chemistry, there’s literally no reason not to check out the free version of the app. If you’re a student, learning institution, or researcher, the platform can grow with you. The sheer number of things that Nanome can do are honestly overwhelming at first, but helpful explainer videos and easy-to-pick-up controls make it second nature in minutes.
Apple has sent invitations to its upcoming WWDC keynote to select media outlets, including Road to VR.
Apple has historically not invited XR media to its events, let alone commented in any way on its XR R&D that has been reportedly happening behind the scenes at the company for years.
Road to VR is among the XR media outlets who have received an invitation to Apple’s WWDC keynote for the first time. Our friends at UploadVR confirmed the same.
It’s difficult not to interpret the invitations amidst the growingnumberofreports that Apple plans to reveal its first XR device at the keynote which takes place on June 5th at 10AM PT.
Apple’s official entrance into the XR space has been rumored for years, with many expecting it to be a boon for the industry thanks to Apple’s penchant for solving usability challenges, one of the core issues that has held XR back from more mainstream usage. Much speculation has happened about whether the company will lean most into AR, VR, or MR.
Alas, we’ll have to wait until we’re there to find out for ourselves just what Apple has up its sleeve.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed an ‘artificial leaf’ that uses sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into ethanol and propanol.
These so-called ‘drop-in’ fuels can directly power an internal combustion engine without any modifications, potentially offering a low-emissions alternative to gasoline.
Unlike fossil fuels, these solar fuels produce net-zero carbon emissions, said the researchers, and are entirely renewable. What’s more, unlike most bioethanol, they do not divert any agricultural land away from food production.
Researchers made the artificial leaf from multiple layers including copper, glass, silver, and graphite. The leaf contains light absorbers – similar to the molecules in plants that harvest sunlight – which are combined with a catalyst.
This catalyst, which is similar to chlorophyll, the catalyst for photosynthesis in a real leaf, is made from two elements — copper and palladium. In the presence of sunlight, the catalyst converts CO2 to ethanol and propanol, and the water into oxygen.
This artificial leaf doesn’t look much like the real thing, but it gets the job done, apparently (Credit: Motiar Rahaman/University of Cambridge)
For years, the research team has been investigating ways to harness photosynthesis to produce sustainable fuels, but these artificial leaves have only been able to produce simple chemicals like syngas — a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide that is used to produce fuels, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and fertilisers.
But this latest breakthrough has enabled scientists to produce clean ethanol and propanol without producing syngas at all. Eliminating this step makes the technology “more practical and scalable,” said the researchers.
While other scientists have been able to produce similar chemicals using electrical power, this is slated to be the first time that such complex chemicals have been produced with an artificial leaf using only sunlight.
While the technology is still at laboratory scale, the researchers say their artificial leaves are an important step in the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy.
“Even though there’s still work to be done, we’ve shown what these artificial leaves are capable of doing,” said Professor Erwin Reisner, who led the research. “It’s important to show that we can go beyond the simplest molecules and make things that are directly useful as we transition away from fossil fuels.”
The team is now working to optimise the light absorbers so that they can better absorb sunlight. They are also working on optimising the catalyst so it can convert more sunlight into fuel.
Further work will also be required to make the device scalable so that it can produce large volumes of fuel. In the future, though, cars could use the technology to produce clean fuel on the go.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
A report from the Financial Timesmaintains Meta is currently in talks with AR headset creator Magic Leap to strike a multiyear deal, which could include intellectual property licensing and contract manufacturing of AR headsets in North America.
The AR unicorn is said to possess valuable IP regarding custom components, including its optics, waveguides, and software.
It’s said a potential deal may also allow Meta to lessen its reliance on China for component manufacturing. In 2019, Magic Leap partnered with manufacturing solutions company Jabil to create a Guadalajara, Mexico plant which the report maintains can assemble headsets in “the tens of thousands a year.”
Magic Leap 2 | Photo by Road to VR
Citing people with knowledge of the talks, the report maintains however a specific joint Meta-Magic Leap headset isn’t expected.
While both companies didn’t comment on a potential partnership, Magic Leap said this to the Financial Times:
“Given the complexities of developing true augmented reality technologies and the intricacies involved with manufacturing these optics, as well as the issues many companies experience with overseas supply chain dependencies, we have entered into several non-exclusive IP licensing and manufacturing partnerships with companies looking to enter the AR market or expand their current position.”
Since it exited stealth in 2014, Magic Leap has released two AR headsets, Magic Leap 1 and Magic Leap 2, which have been compared in functionality to Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headsets.
The company has raised over $4 billion, with minority investors including Google, Alibaba, Qualcomm, AT&T, and Axel Springer. Its majority stakeholder is Saudi Arabia’s state-owned sovereign wealth fund.
In addition to Quest Pro mixed reality headset, Meta has confirmed it’s currently working on its next iteration of Quest, likely Quest 3, as well as its own AR glasses. Meta started real-world testing of Project Aria in 2020, a platform for training its AR perception systems and asses public perception of the technology.
People don’t just fly kites for fun. At a test site near Munich, engineers recently launched an electricity-generating, box-style kite fitted with small, wind-catching rotors. The contraption, tethered to the ground by a hefty cable, flew repeatedly in a predetermined figure of eight — its rotors spinning in the wind.
“The wind speed is a couple of times higher than that a conventional wind turbine would see,” says Maximilian Isensee, chief executive of Kitekraft, explaining how the very movement of the kite itself boosts power generation. “That’s why we can get away with much smaller rotors.”
The figure of eight means the kite reverses direction as it flies, so the tether does not get twisted, which it would if the kite simply flew in a circle.
Novel technologies that could make wind energy more accessible, or enable the construction of huge three-bladed turbines, are emerging from a raft of new European startups. Their innovations hint at a future where electricity generation from wind is much more eclectic than it has been up till now.
Kitekraft, for one, has raised €2.5 million in funding to date, 25% of which has been in the form of grants. The firm has eight employees. Their prototype is a quarter scale version of the first commercial product Isensee and colleagues hope to release – a kite with a capacity of 100 kilowatts. This would require a lengthy tether, extending to 150m.
But Kitekraft wants to go bigger still and build huge kites in the megawatt range – with tethers longer than 300m. Such machines might fly at altitudes comparable to the height of the Empire State Building in New York.
Isensee says the kites will have an operating window comparable to traditional turbines and could fly in outdoor wind speeds between roughly 5 m/s and 25 m/s. Sensors onboard detect excessive winds and can trigger the automatic reeling in of the kite, so that it returns to the ground. The team is testing some cameras and sensors that could detect birds and avoid potential bird strikes, Isensee adds.
Using a kite to catch the wind is an interesting idea, says Richard Cochrane at the University of Exeter, who sometimes consults for the wind energy industry. “It could enable deployment of wind [energy technology] on perhaps an island that you couldn’t get a normal turbine onto,” he adds. Isensee confirms that the system uses roughly 90% less material than conventional wind turbines and so shipping the kites to hard-to-reach or remote locations would in principle be much easier.
This year, Kitekraft aims to continue its test flights and is targeting its first commercial installations around 2028.
No diesel required
Separately, an Iceland-based firm has come up with a small, vertical axis wind turbine that could power telecommunications towers and other relatively remote infrastructure. Icewind’s device is a sort of open, curved cylinder spinning within a metal frame. “It’s roughly the size of a refrigerator,” says Stephen Drake, chief executive.
The firm, which has three full-time employees and has raised $4 million to date, has used high-torque generators in these turbines, which means they rotate rather slowly. One device can output around 600 watts in winds of 10 metres per second, which is not a huge amount of power, but several sited and chained together could power a phone mast, says Drake.
Around a million telecoms towers around the world are located in areas with poor or no electricity grid connections. Thus, they currently rely on diesel generators for power. Now the telecoms industry is searching for cleaner alternatives that could include turbines such as Icewind’s. “We knew it was an instant fit,” says Drake. Each turbine costs around $8,000 at present and the firm plans to deliver its first commercial devices to customers this year.
Back to the roots
New technologies could even change how conventional, supersized three-bladed turbines are constructed. These machines, especially those positioned offshore, are reaching gargantuan proportions, with the tallest standing nearly 300m tall at the nacelle – the point where the three blades meet. The impressive height is advantageous given that winds tend to be stronger at greater altitudes, which increases electricity production.
The proportions of these behemoths create a problem, however, because the turbine towers are increasingly difficult to construct and transport. They are also very heavy. Traditional tower materials require special reinforcement for the largest turbines.
“The weight of the structure itself becomes an issue,” says Otto Lundman, co-founder and chief executive of Modvion. His firm has developed a way of making turbine towers out of a completely different material: wood. Specifically, laminated veneer lumber.
“It’s kind of like large-scale plywood,” says Lundman. These layers of wood glued together are robust despite also being relatively light in weight, allowing for the construction of towers that are about 30% lighter than traditional versions. Modvion’s approach is to build modular towers in the form of circular sections, which can be shipped easily and then stacked on top of one another on site.
The company has 34 employees and has netted funding of SEK210 million (€18.8 million) to date.
There is huge demand in the wind energy market for materials that could enable the construction of even bigger turbines, notes Cochrane: “Generally, that is the way the industry has gone.” Wood-based modular approaches are primed to further the industry’s ambitions, he suggests.
While wood is in principle a carbon sink, the sustainability of this ancient building material and the biodiversity of forested areas relies on responsible forestry practices, which Lundman says Modvion is committed to. The company’s largest suppliers are based in Finland but its manufacturing base is in Modvion’s native Sweden.
This year, the firm aims to erect one two-megawatt turbine, 105 metres tall at the nacelle. Production of larger turbines with wooden towers is pencilled to commence late next year or early 2025.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
Mindfulness can exist in the virtual world. Mindway is a VR app that promotes mindfulness – both in virtual worlds of unearthly peace and through lessons that you can carry with you when you put the headset down. I gave the app a test run by incorporating it into my own stressful work week.
A Modular Subscription-Based App
A good first place to start an app review is talking about the specs, like the size of the app and how much it costs. That’s not really how Mindway works.
First, the app is free to download from the Quest App Lab, though a number of elements of the app require a monthly or annual subscription – or you can buy the whole package once and for all for $50.
Further, the initial app download is small but individual modules within the app come as independent downloads. That might make things complicated if you’re trying to decide whether you have space for the experience, but it also means that you can really effectively pick and choose which modules you want to keep on your device.
The app doesn’t currently have a comfort rating. That might be because the individual experiences are so different. Each module explains the position in which it works best. Some encourage you to be seated, while others that deal more with mindful movement require you to be standing. Still, none of the modules that I tried made me too uncomfortable.
The app is compatible with the whole Quest product line from the original Quest to the Quest Pro, but I used my Quest 2. Controllers are required to navigate menus and carry out simple interactions in some of the practices, but there aren’t any complex controls. The thumbsticks can be used for snap turns, but there’s no movement and head-tracking is sufficient.
Mindway’s Major Components
When you first enter Mindway, you find yourself in a calm virtual environment reminiscent of a Quest Home. In front of you are three main menu items: ASMR, Mindfulness, and Sleep.
If you turn to your right, there’s also a room where you can join public or private sessions. This is used for scheduled group events, but you can also go in alone to sit by a calming VR campfire or use an invite code to share the space with friends.
If you aren’t familiar with mindfulness, it’s an approach to mind-body wellness that promotes active awareness of your physical state and thought-life in the present moment instead of dwelling on the past or being anxious about the future. A text explanation will never really do justice, so consider checking out the introductory journey in the app.
ASMR
I’ve become something of an ASMR aficionado over the years, and let me just say that I’m hoping for more from this selection in the future. The selection currently consists of soft-spoken stories and a marble-maze mini-game that plays with some audio effects. (Take out your Conquest VR if you’ve got one.)
While Sleep and Mindfulness sessions usually last between eight and 15 minutes, some of the ASMR sections go on until you exit the session, making them ideal if you want to use them as the base of longer meditations.
The marble game is fun and the soft-spoken stories are great, but I didn’t get big ASMR vibes. There’s a whole category of ASMR that uses visual cues but I haven’t really experimented with it because I usually listen to ASMR when I’m trying to sleep, so seeing more visually-based ASMR in this mindfulness VR app has a lot of potential.
Sleep
Speaking of sleep, you might have gotten curious at the idea of sleep modules in a VR app. I know I did. If you’re imagining drifting off with your headset on, that’s not what’s happening here.
These experiences might help make you a little drowsy, but what they’re really doing is stocking a mental toolbox with mindfulness tools that you can take with you to bed. This is actually one of my favorite recurring elements of Mindway as an app overall, so we’ll return to a larger discussion of this later.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the heart and soul of Mindway. As such, this is the most populated section with (in my opinion) the best content. This content is split into “Journeys”, “Practice”, and “Build Your Own”.
Practices are shorter sessions that you can do independently of one another, while each journey is a series of sessions on a related topic that build on one another. The Build Your Own section allows you to create a practice session by selecting a topic, a world, and a soundtrack. Whether part of a journey or an individual practice, sessions are between eight and 15 minutes.
On the other hand, if you are familiar with mindfulness as a practice, I hope that you won’t be too skeptical of a VR-based mindfulness application. Mindway uses VR very cleverly to facilitate common mindfulness exercises. You can even select the “Science” button in the home environment to learn about how Mindway develops their sessions.
During body scans, a sparkling mist gradually rises up around you. When focusing your attention on a fire, the fire begins to die down if you get distracted by the environment for too long. During breathing exercises, particles seem to flow into you when it’s time to inhale and flow out when it’s time to exhale. Reach high up to grab an apple from a tree during a stretch.
A Week of Mindfulness
I used Mindway for about a week during the course of writing this article. There were stretches where I used it every day, there were days that I didn’t use it at all, and there were days that I kept going back in for multiple sessions.
I discovered mindfulness in college and it was a big part of my life for a good couple of years but at some point, I really got away from it. The first thing that I noticed in Mindway was how deeply I’m still able to breathe. I can breathe pretty heavily in my headset when I’m boxing in VR, but that’s different from long, slow, deliberate breath – something I didn’t realize I missed.
I liked some sessions more than others, but there was nothing that I encountered in Mindway that I didn’t enjoy. My favorite content is the “Boost Your Energy” Journey. The three-part journey has practices for starting the day with focus without being overwhelmed, for regaining your energy as you go through your day, and for winding down when it’s time to relax.
While I like knowing that I can pop on the headset for a reasonably short session whenever I want throughout my day, the narrations do often remind you that you can take things like breathing exercises and meditation models with you wherever you go. While the visualizations are nice and might be helpful for people newer to mindfulness, Mindway is very educational.
An Unanticipated Promotion
The child in my life doesn’t really understand what I do for a living, but she knows that sometimes we get to play with neat tech, like an AR narrative puzzle. Sometimes, I set up my headset for her to enjoy some supervised offline play. (I lock apps, so I know that she’s playing Bait!, not Peaky Blinders.)
The other day, she saw the new Mindway thumbnail in my apps library and asked about it. I told her that she could check it out if she wanted to, but I warned her that it wasn’t exactly a “game.”
It turns out that she loved it. She was able to navigate the simple menus by herself and tried out a number of experiences. Hearing the audio of the guided meditations through the Quest 2’s native off-ear speakers, I was able to watch – admittedly a little stunned – as the energetic eight-year-old sat through around a half-hour of various mindfulness exercises.
I’m not a doctor, and I’m never going to advocate that any VR headset become “an electronic babysitter”, but it seems to me a curious kid could do a lot worse things in VR than mindful breathing.
Peaceful Periods in VR
Hitting the mat in the third round, assassinating communist informants in the back of a bar, betraying your crewmates in space – VR experiences can be pretty intense. While those experiences can be a lot of fun, it’s nice to know that Mindway provides a corner of the immersive world where you can have a little peace and quiet before getting back to your day.
Initially announced in 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared an update on the company’s research partnership with BMW, which focuses on integrating AR and VR into vehicles to make people more productive, social, and entertained while traveling.
The ultimate aim in the BMW/Meta partnership is to accurately anchor virtual objects relative to the car’s motion by hooking into the tracking system of both the car and a Meta headset, which researchers say includes the Meta Quest Pro standalone mixed reality headset and the company’s in-development AR headset, Project Aria.
Without such a system in place, the headset’s rotational tracking would noticeably drift as the car makes turns and other adjustments, making it essentially unusable for anything but perfectly straight sections of road.
Check out the video detailing the research below:
Still considered a proof-of-concept prototype, Meta says the partnership has already overcome some key technical challenges, such as fusing the headset and car’s sensors to understand their relative position. That said, the companies don’t think it’s ready for the public just yet.
“It is too early to tell exactly how or when this technology will make it into customers’ hands, but we envision a number of potential use cases for XR devices in vehicles—from assisting the driver in locating their car in a crowded parking lot to alerting them to hazards on the road and surfacing important information about the vehicle’s condition,” said Claus Dorrer, Head of BMW Group Technology Office in the US. “The implications of future AR glasses and VR devices—for passengers as well as drivers—are promising. The research partnership with Meta will allow us to discover what immersive, in-vehicle XR experiences could look like in the future and spearhead the seamless integration of such devices into cars.”
AR and VR integration in cars isn’t an entirely new area of research. It’s been the sole focus of Audi-backed startup Holoride, which recently partnered with HTC to deliver in-car VR entertainment via HTC Vive Flow. Still, Holoride has been mostly grabbed headlines as a tradeshow mainstay; it hasn’t seen mass adoption yet despite only requiring a $200 retrofit pack, which enables Vive Flow owners to play VR in cars.
In the end, it seems car companies are now seeing the writing on the wall that riders will maybe very soon—but not right now—want to bring their own XR devices and actually use them in the car, just like you might a smartphone, albeit with more utility than any infotainment screen on offer.
At the beginning of May, a student team from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands unveiled what could be the world’s most efficient hydrogen car.
Dubbed ERXII, the vehicle is slated to cover over 2,000km on just 1kg of hydrogen fuel — equivalent to the distance between Amsterdam and Kyiv.
This claim will be tested in June at Shell’s Eco-Marathon event in France. Eco-Runner will go head-to-head with student teams from across Europe to break the world record for the longest distance driven on hydrogen without refuelling.
This year the number to beat is 2,056km, set by a methanol fuel-cell-powered Renault Zoe in 2022.
The 24-strong Eco-Runner team. Credit: Eco-Runner.
The 80kg carbon fibre vehicle has been designed to be as aerodynamic as possible. With a constant speed of 45kph, the ERXII should be able to cover 2,056km within three days.
This is one of several hydrogen cars developed by Eco-Runner in recent years.
“Efficiency and reliability are the main focus of this year’s project,” said team leader Julian de Klerk. “While the previous concept proved efficient, this year, we aimed for improved reliability for the record we’re trying to set. And well, it’s quite futuristic looking.”
Eco-Runner sees its tiny hydrogen car as a vision of a future where “all cars are smaller, lighter, and aerodynamic,” with the focus being on “shared mobility” as “people deal with transport more sustainability and efficiently.”
The previous generation ERXII at the Eco-Marathon last year. Credit: Eco-Runner.
This comes at a time when Europe is transitioning from fossil-fueled vehicles to more sustainable alternatives. While most of the emphasis in the passenger car segment has been on EVs, the team at Eco-Runner believes that hydrogen-powered city cars also have a place on the tarmac.
“Electric cars are also part of the solution for sustainable mobility, but the electricity grid is already filling up,” said operations manager Eliane van Boxtel. “Electrifying the whole world is not an option. Hydrogen and electric cars go hand in hand. There is no one big winner.”
For now, the students have their sights set on June, as they look to take home first prize and set another record for hydrogen-powered travel.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
