Architects, builders, and sustainability advocates are all abuzz over a new building material they say could substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the building sector, slash the waste, pollution, and costs associated with construction, and create a more physically, psychologically, and aesthetically healthy built environment.

The material is known as, wood! Too woody for you, then just get the painters in.

In some parts of the world they are building wooden high rise out of laminated timber. Clever. :)

As soon as you insert 3G/4G & LTE mini PCIe modules, this Base HAT becomes a bridge between Raspberry Pi and the 3G or 4G wireless modem. $39!

This cellular HAT provides simplified data connection for remote IoT projects, on the field, across the globe, everywhere. Start using a high-speed LTE connection with low power consumption in a slim form factor with all necessary software for Raspberry Pi.

You will definitely need to get a miniPCIe module to make it work.

Arable Mark 2

What a great iOT application

The Mark 2 is a solar-powered crop and weather sensor from agriculture tech startup Arable that aims to help farms and food producers make better decisions around irrigation, spray applications and disease and pest management, among other things. Once deployed in a crop field, the $1,595 sensor collects data on a variety of crop-related things like precipitation, temperature, leaf wetness and crop water demand.

The data is then sent via an LTE-M, NB-IoT or 2G connection to the cloud, where the data is run through machine-learning models, which are supported by Arable‘s global network of 30 calibration-validation sites across 12 climatic zones to ensure insight is accurate and reliable.

How AI will save our bees By David Braue


Most of the world’s beekeepers have been stung by the damage caused by the deadly Varroa destructor mite, but Australian beekeepers have been offered new hope of fighting the parasite, thanks to an artificial intelligence (AI) based image recognition system that is helping spot the mites long before humans do. Because the brown mites are easy to spot on the bodies of infected bees, new Purple Hives incorporate a Raspberry Pi microcomputer linked to a 360-degree camera and AI-based image recognition.

The units – each a working sentinel hive – scan each and every bee for mites, or the tell-tale deformities they have caused, as they enter or leave the hive. The solar-powered system was created at the behest of Bega Cheese Limited venture B Honey, with the help of technology company Vimana Tech and computer-vision specialist Xailient.

The system was tested in New Zealand, which already has varroa mite infections, and in Australia using 3D-printed simulated mites. When a mite is detected, the system raises an alert on a smartphone app and sends an image of the bee to confirm what it spotted – allowing the hive to be quarantined from the rest of the stock. Xailient’s light-weight AI algorithm has been designed to run directly on the hive device, allowing the hives to run independently wherever they are situated.

Maybe we could have a Recording Studio for recording, editing and mixing sound. Members could use it for recording and mixing multitrack music recordings. This would be an adjunct to a podcast booth.

Hardware

• Mic lead • Mic Stand • Pop-Shield • Focusrite Octa Pre II Microphone Pre-amplifer • Avid HD I/O • Apple MacPro and Cinema Display • Pro Tools HD Native PCIe core card • Digidesign Control 8 • Adam A4 Studio Monitors. • Akai MIDI controller • Headphones • Maschine - hybrid hardware/software drum machine/sampler • Ableton Push

Microphones

• RODE Broadcaster • RODE Podcaster • RODE NT 5 (pair)

Software

• Ableton live 9 • Maschine 2 • Audacity • Logic Pro X • Pro Tools 11 • Native Instruments Komplete 10

Paradigm shift

Schools are often inflexible, didactic silos of disconnected learning, abstracted or even removed from real world issues. They are more focused on teaching children about the world that they already know, rather than teaching them how to think about solving problems in a world to come. But the world has changed. Over the last several decades, the industrial economy based on manufacturing has shifted to a service economy driven by information, knowledge, and innovation. We need a paradigm shift in the way we learn.