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The HiDRON stratospheric glider, a joint project between UAVOS and STRATODYNAMICS, has successfully carried out its regular test flight. UAVOS’ operators launched the stratospheric aircraft from a high-altitude balloon carrying a technology supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program successfully deploying an experimental payload to 24 km altitude and back.

Extensive testing was performed to test operation in high altitude flight regimes utilizing UAVOS’ autopilot system and payload test services. A launch routine was tested allowing a safe transition from free-fall to stable horizontal flight in thin air after being dropped from the balloon. UAVOS’ autopilot system has once again proven its superior long-range performance Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) capabilities.

The payload was a combination of forward-sensing turbulence detection technologies developed by the University of Kentucky (UK) in Lexington and NASA’s Langley Research Centre in Hampton, Virginia. The flight test aimed to help researchers assess the performance of a wind probe from the UK along with an infrasonic microphone sensor. Together, the instruments are designed to aid forward-sensing turbulence detection for unmanned aerial vehicles, commercial aircraft, the urban air mobility market, and the on-demand drone delivery sector.

As the Tufts scientists were creating the physical xenobot organisms, researchers working in parallel at the University of Vermont used a supercomputer to run simulations to try and find ways of assembling these living robots in order to perform useful tasks.


Scientists at Tufts University have created a strange new hybrid biological/mechanical organism that’s made of living cells, but operates like a robot.

3 Key Cybersecurity Trends To Know For 2021 (and on…)


Other mitigation efforts can be done by employing new technologies that monitor, alert, and analyze activities in the network. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning tools can help provide visibility and predictive analytics. It is also good to have diversification and multiple sourcing for suppliers in the event of a breach. Preparation and redundancy are advantageous in crisis scenarios. But like most issues in cybersecurity, it comes down to people, vigilant processes, and technologies coupled with risk factors constantly being reviewed.

Of course, there are many other compelling trends and threats to the cybersecurity ecosystem. More to cover in future articles. I have highlighted the more immediate trends of the expanding cyber-attack surface remote work, IoT supply chain, ransomware as a cyber weapon of choice and threats to critical infrastructure via ICS, OT/IT cyber-threat convergence. The most important tasks based on analyzing trends is to be have a mitigation strategy, be vigilant, try to fill gaps, and learn from lessons of the recent cyber-breaches.

Two aerospace firms accomplished an industry first on Monday, as a small Northrop Grumman spacecraft docked successfully with an active Intelsat satellite to provide service and extend its life.

Intelsat’s IS-10–02 satellite is nearly 18 years old, and operating well past its expected lifespan, but the Northrop Grumman-built spacecraft called MEV-2 will add another five years of life to IS-10–02, essentially re-fueling the satellite and giving it a new engine for control.

The companies hit a milestone in the growing business of servicing satellites while in space.

The film features Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence; Japanese roboticist, Hiroshi Ishiguro; Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human; Ben Goertzel, founder of Singularity.net; and Deepak Chopra, who is creating his own A.I. mind twin.


EXCLUSIVE: Here’s the first trailer for Hot Docs opener Artificial Immortality by filmmaker Ann Shin.

The documentary explores the latest advancements in AI, robotics and biotech with visionaries who argue for a new age of post-biological life. It poses the questions: if you were able to create an immortal version of yourself, would you?; and will AI be the best, or the last thing we ever do as a species?

Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to buy artificial intelligence and speech technology company Nuance Communications Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

An agreement could be announced as soon as this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The price being discussed could value Nuance at about $56 a share, though the terms could still change, one of the people said.

Moore’s Law is dead, right? Think again.

Although the historical annual improvement of about 40% in central processing unit performance is slowing, the combination of CPUs packaged with alternative processors is improving at a rate of more than 100% per annum. These unprecedented and massive improvements in processing power combined with data and artificial intelligence will completely change the way we think about designing hardware, writing software and applying technology to businesses.

Every industry will be disrupted. You hear that all the time. Well, it’s absolutely true and we’re going to explain why and what it all means.

Computer scientists from Rice University have displayed an artificial intelligence (AI) software that can run on commodity processors and train deep neural networks 15 times faster than platforms based on graphics processors.

According to Anshumali Shrivastava, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice’s Brown School of Engineering, the resources spent on training are the actual bottleneck in AI. Companies are spending millions of dollars a week to train and fine-tune their AI workloads.

Deep neural networks (DNN) are a very powerful type of artificial intelligence that can outperform humans at some tasks. DNN training is a series of matrix multiplication operations and an ideal workload for graphics processing units (GPUs), which costs nearly three times more than general-purpose central processing units (CPUs).