Only a universal law on rules of conduct applicable to robots and the use of artificial intelligence can protect humankind against their brutal abuse, so said director Carlo van de Weijer of the Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI) during last week’s High Tech Next information day. But it...
In the future, we will no longer go to the hospital or to the doctor for care as often as we do now, predicts Christopher Busch, Head of the Innovation Management Department at Philips during High Tech Next in Eindhoven last week. If you have a headache, you’ll call the doctor using a direct...
If you walk around the High Tech Campus of Eindhoven, you can sense the energy. So says Mayor John Jorritsma of Eindhoven. As a mere ‘alpha’, he felt like one of the few laypersons in the technology field present in the hall of High Tech Next, a free information day in Eindhoven. Or so...
Those who grew up in the 1980s will remember who Knight Rider was. A fearless detective who wanted to make the world a better and safer place with KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand), his robotic car. Well, back in those days it was all still science fiction. But now, almost four decades later,...
The European Union is entering a new phase with the inauguration of the new European Commission, which was approved by the European Parliament yesterday after a long series of personal interviews. The new President, Ursula von der Leyen, has set a clear course for her commissioners. This is...
Over the coming year, Rotterdam’s Energy Floors wants to sell smart surfaces for public outdoor spaces that generate data, measuring how many cars, pedestrians and cyclists are passing by. These can be used to regulate traffic flows and lighting, for instance. These Smart Energy Floors also...
Over the next three months, European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager will draft a new European law for AI. As of December, she will be responsible for the digitization of the European market. She plans to present her new AI law in March. After that, the European Parliament and the governments and...
Dutch European Commissioner Frans Timmermans (who will be responsible for climate issues) wants to introduce a CO2 tax at the outer border of the European Union. This is in order to avoid products that have not been manufactured in a climate-neutral way. He announced this measure during his...
The EP Tender looks like a camper’s tiny pod caravan that’s towed behind an ordinary car – but it isn’t! It is actually a mobile battery that will someday make it possible to travel hundreds of kilometers with an electric car. At present, most EVs usually don’t go...
During his mechanical engineering studies at the TU in Eindhoven, Henk Ouwerkerk came up with a system that allows combined gas and steam turbines to generate supplemental electricity ‘on demand’. And now, fifteen years later, his idea has evolved into a product that he plans to sell...
The Supersola plug-in solar panel may be a nightmare for the installation industry. But this new gadget on the market is not that at all for the consumer who prefers to do as many chores around the home as possible by themselves. It will be up for sale next year. “Then anyone who can connect...
If in a few decades’ time fully self-driving cars are allowed on public roads on a grand scale, they will almost exclusively be shared cars. This is what Gijs Dubbelman expects will happen. He is head of the research group on mobile perception systems at TU Eindhoven. “The equipment...
Anyone who thinks that the self-driving car is the future is wrong. At least when it comes to the chaotic mess in city centers like Amsterdam. These are so cluttered and unpredictable that it would be impossible for autonomous vehicles to anticipate traffic conditions. Which is what Carlo van de...
Optimism is putting a smile on the faces of Hardt’s founders in Delft. This week they announced that they had once again managed to attract major investors. Including the renowned Tukker, technician and investor from the very outset in Booking.com. As well as Kees Koolen, one of the original...
Rense van Dijk worked in the energy sector for many years yet always felt uneasy about the amount of CO2 that is emitted. That’s one of the reasons why he eventually he went on to do something else. Last year he launched a company which is dedicated to making homes more sustainable. In the...
Philips in Best, the Netherlands, has completed a test of its new ‘Fiber Optic Real Shape’ (FORS) technology at the academic UMC hospital in Utrecht. So, there is no longer any reason to push a catheter through a vein or blood vessel needlessly (because otherwise it wasn’t...
An international business consortium led by the Dutch green energy conglomerate Koolen Industries has made a multi-million dollar investment in Hardt Hyperloop, which is to set up Europe’s first fully operational and emission-free Hyperloop test facility. This investment round is supported...
The former President of Ireland and High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, believes that the European Commission should speed up the transition process of making energy generation more sustainable within the Member States. As a matter of urgency, we should get rid of fossil fuels....
Diego Pavía, the CEO of InnoEnergy, (which is a European investor in innovative start-ups), is firmly convinced that we will no longer emit CO2 in 2050 and will all be using green energy. Innovation Origins asked him why and how he views the Green Deal that European Commissioner Frans Timmermans...
The French Government, like the other EU Member States, is faced with the complex task of involving the entire population in the process of making the French economy climate neutral by 2050. As it turns out, there are concerns about this. “It’s not just about devising the very best new...
The best way to reduce CO2 emissions is to make the polluting industries pay at least four times as much for the quantity of these emissions as they do now. So says Steven Chu, the former Secretary of State for Energy of the United States, Nobel Prize winner and physicist. The price for CO2...
Towards the end of the European Innovation Days, acclaimed scientists advised the European Commission and politicians on what to look out for when funding research with money from the EU’s Horizon Fund (amount: about €100 billion). These grants for scientific research are distributed by the...
In the next five years, Europe has to invest in developing systems that measure and explain as to why some agricultural crops are growing well or others aren’t. That is the opinion of advisors from the European Commission. They want to know how European forests are being used by consumers....
Early next year the Delft-based company Hardt Hyperloop will start a tour around European cities with their mobile experience center. There, consumers will be able to become acquainted with this new way of traveling, whereby passengers are seated in a capsule that is shot through a vacuum tube at...
Butterflies, bees, flies – some of whose species we no longer see around anymore because they have become extinct as a result of extensive, densely asphalted areas in between green areas. Plant species that are disappearing, an ocean full of plastic which causes fish to die because they eat...