Tag: Food

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Why Walmart wants to patent robot bees

Robot bees
Robotic bees were the subject of a dystopian video four years ago. (Greenpeace via YouTube)

Robot bees have hit the big time.

In the 10 days since Walmart’s patent application for “systems and methods for pollinating crops via unmanned vehicles” came to light, the idea of building drones to do what bees do has gone viral.

The piece de resistance came on “Saturday Night Live” when Walmart’s concept got a mention on “Weekend Update” (around the 6:30 mark in this video clip).

“What is Walmart now?” comedian Colin Jost asked. “It’s a department store that became a grocery store, and a firearms dealer, and now they’re just building an army of robot bees?

“I miss the good old days, when Walmart was just a place where I saw my third-grade teacher punch a greeter on Black Friday,” he said.

CB Insights says the patent application is one of six that Walmart filed for farm automation applications, including crop monitoring, pest identification and pesticide spraying.

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This Pi Day, remember the reason for the season

Pi Day pie
The Pie shop in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood goes all-out for Pi Day. (Pie via Facebook)

Maybe it’s time to put the pi back in Pi Day.

I remember a time when 3/14 really stood for something: namely, the calendar date that came closest to the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Yes, I’m talking about pi, or π for the purists out there. 3.14159… Arguably the best-known irrational number in mathematics.

That was the reason why physicist Larry Shaw came up with the traditional Pi Day ceremonies precisely 30 years ago, in 1988. He and his disciples celebrated the first Pi Day at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by consuming slices of pizza and fruit pie, and marching in a circle at 1:59 p.m. (Get it? 3/14 1:59?)

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‘Modernist Bread’ finds new twists in ancient food

Nathan Myhrvold
Technologist Nathan Myhrvold is on a mission with “Modernist Bread.” (The Cooking Lab, LLC)

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Did you ever try inflating bread dough with a bicycle pump? Gourmet technologist Nathan Myhrvold did — and after thumbing through the 2,642 pages of his latest opus, “Modernist Bread,” you just might, too.

Like “Modernist Cuisine,” his earlier work, the new five-volume set of books is bigger than a bread box and costs hundreds of dollars. But although “Modernist Bread” offers hundreds of recipes, these are no common cookbooks: Myhrvold and his co-author, head chef Francisco Migoya, delve into the history of one of the world’s oldest foods, the science and technology of breadmaking, and why stunts like pumping up bread actually work.

“Some people ask me how I could possibly make a 2,600-page book on bread,” Myhrvold told GeekWire, “My answer is, ‘Because I had to hold the line somewhere.’ Seriously, we had lots of material that we had to cut.”

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Can faux meat produce meaty profits?

Josh Balk and cookies
Josh Balk, a co-founder of Hampton Creek Foods, grins over a spread of cookies made with Hampton Creek’s vegan cookie dough. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Is there money to be made by going meatless? Substitutes for meat, dairy and eggs have been around for decades, as demonstrated by the success of Seattle-based Field Roast Grain Meat Co., but new technologies may well give what’s now known as “clean meat” a boost.

“I don’t know of any companies that are true innovators in this space that are flailing,” said Chris Kerr, investment manager at New Crop Capital, a D.C.-based venture capital firm that specializes in the food frontier.

Kerr was among the experts speaking at a survey of the marketplace for clean meat – that is, meat products that are essentially grown from cells in a vat rather than animals in a feedlot – as well as for plant-based proteins like Field Roast. The May 22 presentation was organized by the University of Washington’s CoMotion Labs in collaboration with the Good Food Institute, a clean-meat advocacy group.

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Amazon and DHL reportedly team up

Amazon and DHL jets
Reports suggest Amazon and DHL are teaming up in Kentucky and Germany. (GeekWire / Fly Away)

Amazon is reportedly partnering with the German-based DHL delivery service for its Prime Air transport operation in Kentucky as well as for Amazon Fresh food deliveries in Germany.

The Lane Report says Amazon will begin processing shipments at DHL’s facility at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport in May. The arrangement would give Amazon a head start on its $1.5 billion plan to use the airport as a major shipping hub for its Prime Air fleet.

DHL would use the facility at night for its own operations, as usual, but let Amazon use it during the day, sources told The Lane Report.

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Pi Day mashes up math and munchies

Pi Day pie
Pi Day is a big pie day as well. (Pie via Twitter / @sweetnsavorypie)

Pi Day plays off the fact that March 14 – 3/14 – is a numerical pun on math’s best-known irrational number: pi, or 3.14. But there’s nothing irrational about punning pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, with pastry as well.

The day has come to be known as a celebration of pie as well as pi (and, coincidentally, Albert Einstein’s birthday). In Seattle, pie tends to trump pi.

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Flying saucer? No, it’s a drone pizza delivery

Image: Pizza drone
A Flirtey drone lowers a pizza box from the skies above Auckland, New Zealand. (Credit: Domino’s)

Domino’s Pizza Enterprises and Flirtey teamed up today to demonstrate a drone delivery system that could theoretically bring you a pizza in 30 minutes or less – from the air.

The first delivery was lowered by tether onto a picnic blanket spread out beneath drippy skies at a test site in Auckland, New Zealand. Within a minute, Transport Minister Simon Bridges and other dignitaries were sampling the wares and nodding in approval.

Flights are due to expand to customer homes in New Zealand later this year.

Why New Zealand?

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Experts weigh in on genetically engineered crops

Image: Genetically engineered crops
Corn is one of the best-known genetically engineered crops. (Credit: NIEHS)

A scientific analysis backed by the National Academies finds no evidence that genetically engineered crops pose heightened health risks or environmental problems, but points up subtler concerns about the technology.

Today’s 420-page report says the impact of genetic engineering for resistance to insects and herbicides has been mostly positive, due to a decrease of pests and crop losses. The outcomes vary widely, however. If proper pest management practices aren’t followed, insects and weeds can evolve to overcome the crops’ built-in resistance. That presents a “major agronomic problem,” the report says.

“Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects” was drawn up by a committee comprising more than a dozen experts, with the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine. The experts delved into nearly 900 publications about genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton, which account for almost all of today’s commercial genetically engineered crops.

The experts also heard from 80 speakers during a series of public meetings, and read through 700 comments from members of the public.

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Smartphone gizmo maps meals, counts calories

Image: NutriRay3D device in action
The NutriRay3D device uses a laser-mapping gizmo and a smartphone app to estimate the calories and other nutritional content on a plate of food. (Credit: University of Washington)

How many calories are on your plate? Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a gizmo that estimates the nutritional value of your meal with the mere snap of a smartphone.

NutriRay3D combines a smartphone app with a laser-mapping add-on: The app identifies what kind of food is in the picture, and the laser-mapper provides an estimate of each food’s volume. Then you get a real-time estimate of the calorie count and nutritional content.

The system gets around the toughest hurdles in nutrition tracking: Keeping an accurate record of what you eat, and figuring out how much of it you’re eating.

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