Lifeboat Foundation

Microsoft’s augmented reality headset the HoloLens has been in the works for years now, but it’s been a while since we’ve heard any news. We were seeing demos of it way back in 2015 (opens in new tab), but Microsoft has been pretty quiet on the tech in recent years when it comes to a consumer release.

What we’ve heard tons about is Microsoft’s deal to supply the United States Army with HoloLens tech. We first got wind of the deal back in 2018 (opens in new tab) with talks of a $480 million contract to help “increase lethality” of combat missions. It wasn’t until 2021 that Microsoft officially signed a much pricier $22 billion dollar contract (opens in new tab) with the army for military grade HoloLens supply.

THE artificial intelligence revolution has only just begun, but there have already been numerous unsettling developments.

AI programs can be used to act on humans’ worst instincts or achieve humans’ more wicked goals, like creating weapons or terrifying its creators with a lack of morality.

Artificial intelligence is a catch-all phrase for a computer program designed to simulate, mimic or copy human thinking processes.

Minimizing personnel costs and vulnerability

“The goal is to build a plane that can launch from ship flight decks and small austere land locations in adverse weather without launch and recovery equipment typically needed for these systems,” stated DARPA’s press release published on Friday.

Boron as rocket fuel has been a tough nut to crack.

Rocket scientists in China are working to develop a boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly like a commercial airliner and then swim in the water to act as a torpedo, South China Morning Post.

IStock/AlexLMX

Continue reading “Boron-powered Chinese missile will work in the air and underwater” »

Iran’s recent seizure of unmanned US Navy boats shined a light on a pioneering Pentagon program to develop networks of air, surface and underwater drones for patrolling large regions, meshing their surveillance with artificial intelligence.

The year-old program operates numerous unmanned surface vessels, or USVs, in the waters around the Arabian peninsula, gathering data and images to be beamed back to collection centers in the Gulf.

The program operated without incident until Iranian forces tried to grab three seven-meter Saildrone Explorer USVs in two incidents, on August 29–30 and September 1.

The testing tube is roughly twice as large as comparable facilities in the West, with a diameter of 80cm (2.6 ft).

The most giant free-piston-powered shock tunnel in the world is already operational in southwest China. It enables low-cost, excellent wind tunnel tests for hypersonic research.

The facility can simulate severe flight conditions at speeds ranging from 2.5 to 11.5 kilometers per second (1.55−7.14 miles per second), or more than 33 times the speed of sound, according to a report published by South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Thursday.

https://youtu.be/pDSEjaDCtOU?t=2526

Ian Hutchinson’s concerns for existential risk after minute 42.

Ian Hutchinson is a nuclear engineer and plasma physicist at MIT. He has made a number of important contributions in plasma physics including the magnetic confinement of plasmas seeking to enable fusion reactions, which is the energy source of the stars, to be used for practical energy production. Current nuclear reactors are based on fission as we discuss. Ian has also written on the philosophy of science and the relationship between science and religion.

Continue reading “Ian Hutchinson: Nuclear Fusion, Plasma Physics, and Religion” »

“So a quantum key distribution consists of two things: No. 1, got to have a quantum random number generator, and that’s one of the things that QNu Labs makes,” he said. “The second thing that you need is the receivers in which those two devices connect and be used to convey encrypted messages in this fashion.”

In military use, quantum key distribution would work best in point to point communication — that is, communicating from one person to another. Creating a “true network” that’s able to send the same encrypted message to multiple receivers at once is challenging because the encrypted bit that’s carrying the message eventually begins to lose its coherence and “drops away,” Herman said.

“In the military, where you’re sending extremely sensitive classified data from one office to the next, you want to make sure that no one’s going to be able to break into and decrypt that,” he said. “Well, [quantum key distribution] is definitely a way in which to carry that out.”

“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both,” he posted to Twitter. “Tolkien is turning in his grave.”

Amazon aired the first two episodes of Rings of Power on Friday, which centered on Galadriel, commander of the Northern Armies, bent on exacting vengeance for the death of her brother centuries earlier. By comparison, fellow elf Elrond prefers his life of quiet counsel to King Gil-galad, who attempts to send Galadriel away to avoid any military skirmish with Sauron’s scattered forces.

The debate over Amazon’s Rings of Power began in earnest after showrunners and studio executives argued in Vanity Fair they needed to take liberties when adapting Tolkien characters such as Galadriel and Elrond, since his Middle-earth was badly in need of an update to reflect today’s more modern societies.