Page 50 - GCN, August/September 2017

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WishLis
Government-savvy
virtual assistants
Alexa, Siri and their peers are increasingly putting capable digital assistants just a voice query away. The General Services Administration’s Emerging Citizen Technology program has launched a pilot effort to help the government take full advantage of those tools. More
than two dozen agencies are participating.
Tech we hope to see in the public sector
Massive mobile
As ever more work is done on mobile devices, there’s something to be said for maximizing that tool. Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 8 boasts a 6.3-inch, 2960 x 1440 screen, dual 12 megapixel cameras, a suite of biometric sensors and a wirelessly charging battery that the company says has undergone an eight-point safety check process.
Yarn power!
A new material spun from carbon nanotubes can be stretched and twisted to produce electricity and could one day be used for everything from self-powered internet-of-things sensors to generators that harvest energy from ocean waves. Dubbed twistron by its creators
at the University of Texas at Dallas and Hanyang University in South Korea, the yarn-like supercapacitor produces 100 times the electrical power of previous attempts at weavable fibers.
Image credits (clockwise): Samsung, University of Texas at Dallas, Shutterstock, Apple
What new technologies do you think GCN readers should learn more about? Tell us on Twitter: @GCNtech #GCNwishlist.