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Dec 10, 2015

Skyscraper-style chip design boosts performance 1,000-fold

Posted by in category: computing

For decades, engineers have designed computer systems with processors and memory chips laid out like single-story structures in a suburb. Wires connect these chips like streets, carrying digital traffic between the processors that compute data and the memory chips that store it.

But suburban-style layouts create long commutes and regular traffic jams in electronic circuits, wasting time and energy.

That is why researchers from three other universities are working with Stanford engineers, including Associate Professor Subhasish Mitra and Professor H.-S. Philip Wong, to create a revolutionary new high-rise architecture for computing.

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Dec 10, 2015

The End of Work?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

When robots start doing all the work, what will be left for humans?

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Dec 10, 2015

The insanely fast Hyperloop will soon begin testing in Nevada

Posted by in category: transportation

Plans to build a test track for a Hyperloop are moving ahead. Hyperloop Technologies will build a major test center near Las Vegas to explore linear electric motor designs and evaluate its implementation.

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Dec 10, 2015

The first plasma: the Wendelstein 7-X fusion device is now in operation

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

Start of operation and first plasma in the Wendelstein 7-X fusion research device at IPP Greifswald.

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Dec 10, 2015

Can You Own Part of an Asteroid? How Asteroid Mining Is Changing Space Law

Posted by in categories: energy, finance, space

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pIY_fmvFDhM

Coal miners mine coal; diamond miners mine diamonds; gold miners mine gold; space miners (will) mine space—and anything in it that has precious metals or compounds that can be whisked into rocket fuel. But, just like the first three kinds of “resource extraction,” the celestial kind will face more than a few philosophical, financial, and regulatory complications.

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Dec 10, 2015

The Art of Flying in the Movies — By A. O. Scott | The New York Times Magazine

Posted by in category: media & arts

13essay-slide-IUDN-superJumbo-v3

“What if we could counterfeit reality so completely that the representation would partake of the essence of the original, closing the gap between the world and our imagination of it? What if we could fly?”

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Dec 10, 2015

Watch A Computer Make Obama Talk Like Bush

Posted by in categories: computing, robotics/AI

Machine learning now allows us to project a particular voice onto someone else’s face, which makes for some pretty hilarious pairings. http://voc.tv/1P6L9zh

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Dec 10, 2015

The CraveCast visits the future with U.S. Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan

Posted by in categories: geopolitics, life extension, transhumanism

An Immortality Bus campaign report today on CNET from South Carolina and transhumanism discussed. http://www.cnet.com/videos/the-cravecast-visits-the-future-w…an-istvan/ And here’s the original story: http://www.cnet.com/news/the-cravecast-welcomes-the-presiden…he-robots/


The Transhumanist Party candidate called in from the campaign trail and his “Immortality Bus” to help us look forward to 2016… and to 2050.

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Dec 9, 2015

AI will replace smartphones within 5 years, Ericsson survey suggests

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mobile phones, robotics/AI

(credit: Ericsson ConsumerLab)

Artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces will take over, replacing smartphones in five years, according to a survey of more than 5000 smartphone customers in nine countries by Ericsson ConsumerLab in the fifth edition of its annual trend report, 10 Hot Consumer Trends 2016 (and beyond).

Smartphone users believe AI will take over many common activities, such as searching the net, getting travel guidance, and as personal assistants. The survey found that 44 percent think an AI system would be as good as a teacher and one third would like an AI interface to keep them company. A third would rather trust the fidelity of an AI interface than a human for sensitive matters; and 29 percent agree they would feel more comfortable discussing their medical condition with an AI system.

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Dec 9, 2015

The Lovely Chinese Watchtowers Built with Proceeds from the California Gold Rush — By Veronique Greenwood | Atlas Obscura

Posted by in category: architecture

image

“Three hours out of the Chinese mega-city of Guangzhou, through the sugarcane and banana plantations and deep into the rice paddies, strange things start to rise from the fields. Called diaolou, or watchtowers, they have an oddly Western look, frosted with arches and spires and little domes that contrast with the straight lines of many traditional Chinese houses. There are more than 1,800 of these towers standing today, reaching five, six, seven stories tall.”

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