Lifeboat Foundation

If you drive along the main northern road through South Australia with a good set of binoculars, you may soon be able to catch a glimpse of a strange, windowless jet, one that is about to embark on its maiden flight. It’s a prototype of the next big thing in aerial combat: a self-piloted warplane designed to work together with human-piloted aircraft.

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Boeing Australia are building this fighterlike plane for possible operational use in the mid-2020s. Trials are set to start this year, and although the RAAF won’t confirm the exact location, the quiet electromagnetic environment, size, and remoteness of the Woomera Prohibited Area make it a likely candidate. Named for ancient Aboriginal spear throwers, Woomera spans an area bigger than North Korea, making it the largest weapons-testing range on the planet.

The autonomous plane, formally called the Airpower Teaming System but often known as “Loyal Wingman,” is 11 meters (38 feet) long and clean cut, with sharp angles offset by soft curves. The look is quietly aggressive.

Happy New Year! 2019 has seen a number of milestones for Agility, including the final deliveries of Cassie and the launch of Digit. To celebrate, we’ve compiled a supercut of (mostly) never-before-seen testing footage. Here’s hoping 2020 is as robotastic as its predecessor — a big thanks to all of our employees for their hard work.

We often hear this word used in Transhumanist (H+) discussions, but what is meant by it? After all, if H+ is about using scitech to enhance Human capabilities via internal modifications what does it mean to go beyond these? In the following I intend to delineate possible stages of enhancement from what exists today to what could exist as an endpoint of this process in centuries to come.

Although I have tried to put it in what I believe to be a plausible chronological order a great deal depends on major unknowns, most especially the rapidity with which Artificial Intelligence (AI) develops over the next few decades. Although AI and biotech are at present evolving separately and in parallel I would expect at some point fairly soon for there to be a massive crossover. Exactly how or when that might happen is again a moot question. There is also a somewhat artificial distinction between machines and biology, which exists because our current machines are so primitive. Once we have a fully functioning nanotechnology, just like Nature’s existing nanotech (life), that distinction will disappear completely.

Lidar can be the third eye and an essential component for safe driving in your automated car’s future. That is the word from Bosch. They want the world to know that two is not ideal company; three is better company. Cameras and radar alone don’t cut it.

CES is just around the corner and Bosch wants to make some noise at the event about its new lidar system which will make its debut there. The Bosch entry is described as a long-range lidar sensor suitable for car use.

The company is posing a question that makes it difficult to refuse: Do you want safety or do you want the highest level of safety? Two things Bosch wants you to know: it can work in both highway and city driving scenarios, as said in the company release, that “Bosch sensor will cover both long and close ranges—on highways and in the city” and it will work in concert with cameras and radar.

Interesting. And, for those who swear AI will never take the creative jobs.

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A Russian State-owned TV channel recently aired a segment which may give the first glimpse of a new Russian submarine design. In the corner of one scene (@ 2.48 minutes into the recording) it showed an official model of a new submarine together with previously known types. The Laika Class sub has until now been shrouded in secrecy. It is generally analogous to the Virginia Class attack submarine in service with the U.S. Navy.

Such a ‘leak’ was probably deliberate, something that Russia has been suspected of before. On November 9, 2015, Russian TV station NTV revealed the Poseidon Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo to the world. Then called ‘Status-6,’ it was seen over the shoulder of an officer in a partially televised meeting with President Putin.

The new sub will primarily be a hunter-killer, meaning that it is designed to counter western nuclear-powered submarines. But it will also carry a range of cruise missiles, including the hypersonic Zircon.

Summary: Researchers shed light on the neural networks that appear to govern human consciousness. Source: The Conversation. Humans have learned to travel through space, eradicate diseases and.

Google’s health research unit said it has developed an artificial-intelligence system that can match or outperform radiologists at detecting breast cancer, according to new research. But doctors still beat the machines in some cases.

The model, developed by an international team of researchers, caught cancers that were originally missed and reduced false-positive cancer flags for patients who didn’t actually have cancer, according to a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Data from thousands of mammograms from women in the U.K. and the U.S. was used to train the AI system.

But the algorithm isn’t yet ready for clinical use, the researchers said.

MDA created the Canadarm robotic manipulator. | Credit: MDA

In 2019, The Robot Report tracked 68 mergers and acquisitions for companies in the robotics industry, as of press time. This included 30 mergers and acquisitions through the first half of the year.

In many cases, the companies involved did not disclose the terms of their deal. For example, self-driving car maker Waymo recently acquired U.K.-based startup Latent Logic, but it did not reveal the purchase price. So the list consists only of mergers and acquisitions for which we know the terms.