A new application turns hard-to-manage physical documentation into a searchable cloud and mobile-enabled database to save time spent searching for operational and achieved facility management documents.
The United States is hungry for concrete. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in 2014 the U.S. produced 80.5 million tons of Portland cement and 2.2 million tons of masonry cement. Portland cement is a primary ingredient in concrete, and most of the cement produced domestically went to the production of concrete. Though concrete is a sustainable material the amount produced every year results in significant environmental impact, making the development of recycled aggregate sources of dire import.
Autodesk’s cloud service, called Forge, is free for developers for the next 90 days, the company announced at its inaugural conference for application programming interface developers. It also announced new investment in three start-ups.
As pressure mounts on coal-and natural-gas-fired power plants—as well as cement kilns—to reduce CO2 emissions, researchers are looking to not only capture and store those emissions but also to convert CO2 into marketable products.
Technology for true augmented reality—with 3D models and metadata floating before a user’s eyes and mapping to the environment in real time—is still in development. But technology firm Scope AR is trying to get augmented reality into the hands of industry professionals today, providing the tools to build their own AR visualizations.
A three-day conference providing demonstrations, presentations and networking by firms inventing, piloting and implementing technologies to address construction’s future left attendees bullish on tech prospects for the construction industry and heading home with ideas to deploy.
The first public demonstration of “the hyperloop,” a new propulsion system for high-speed transit, occurred on May 11 in the desert north of Las Vegas. Days later, a team of researchers unveiled a hyperloop test pod.