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Dec 9, 2013
NASA Working on Faster-Than-Light Space Travel
Posted by Seb in categories: physics, space travel
By Barry Eitel
Well, maybe Star Trek isn’t really that far away. An announcement a few months ago from physicist Harold White surprised many in the space community. White claimed that he and a NASA team were working on developing faster than light warp drive.
White spoke to website io9 last month to explain the project, which combines Einstein’s theory of relativity, the latest in science and a touch of science fiction.
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Dec 9, 2013
New artificial, bionic hands start to get real feelings
Posted by Seb in categories: bionic, biotech/medical
By John Hewitt
Simple tasks, like plucking the stem off a cherry, are still monumental challenges for artificial hands. With a bill of materials perhaps a few hundred components long, it is not surprising that their functionality is low compared with one assembled from trillions of components. A new prosthetic bionic hand, designed and built by researchers at Case Western University is now capable of using measurements from 20 sensor points to control the grip force of its digits. Incredibly, the sensor data is linked directly to the sensory nerves in the patient’s forearm. The control for the grip closure is then extracted myoelectrically from the normal biological return loop to the muscles in the forearm.
Dec 9, 2013
Cellphone surveillance: A new tool in police arsenal to combat crime
Posted by Seb in categories: law enforcement, mobile phones, privacy, surveillance
Written by John Kelly USA Today
The National Security Agency isn’t the only government entity secretly collecting data from people’s cellphones. Local police are increasingly scooping it up, too.
Armed with new technologies, including mobile devices that tap into cellphone data in real time, dozens of local and state police agencies are capturing information — about thousands of cellphone users at a time, whether they are targets of an investigation or not, according to public records obtained by USA Today, The Des Moines Register and other Gannett newspapers and TV stations.
The records, from more than 125 police agencies in 33 states, reveal:
Dec 9, 2013
Tech Giants Band Together to Fight Government Surveillance
Posted by Seb in categories: business, ethics, government, privacy, surveillance
If NSA employees were bummed that President Obama hasn’t paid them a visit, they’re going to be devastated to learn that all their favorite tech companies are publicly calling them out. Eight companies – Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn and AOL – have put aside their rivalries and issued a call for the reform of government surveillance. “We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide,” says an open letter featured in full-page ads in several newspaper on Monday. “The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish.”
Dec 8, 2013
Google Glass Makes Its Way Into Operating Rooms
Posted by Seb in categories: biotech/medical, health
Written By: Cameron Scott
Hands-free devices like Google Glass can be really transformative when the hands they free are those of a surgeon. And leading hospitals, including Stanford and the University of California at San Francisco, are beginning to use Glass in the operating room.
In October, UCSF’s Pierre Theodore, a cardiothoracic surgeon, became the first doctor in the United States to obtain Institutional Review Board approval to use the device to assist him during surgery. Theodore pre-loads onto Glass the scans of images of the patient taken just before surgery and consults them during the operation.
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Dec 8, 2013
‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Ender’s Game’ are making 3D printing Hollywood’s smartest new marketing tool
Posted by Seb in categories: 3D printing, entertainment, media & arts
Dec 8, 2013
Rise Of The Robot Security Guards: R2D2 Lookalike K5
Posted by Seb in categories: robotics/AI, security
Written By: Cameron Scott
In the wake of the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, last December, many called for stricter gun control. Others called for better mental health care. Some called for more guns in the hands of teachers and school security officers.
Knightscope, a Silicon Valley startup, called for more robots.
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Dec 8, 2013
Vast Freshwater Reserves Discovered Under Ocean Floor, Scientists Say
Posted by Seb in categories: climatology, environmental, water
William Pentland, Contributor
I write about energy and environmental issues.
Massive reserves of “freshwater” are buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves around the world, including off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.
This is the conclusion of a new study by a team of Australian scientists that appears in this week’s issue of the journal, Nature.
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Dec 7, 2013
Our Final Invention: How the Human Race Goes and Gets Itself Killed
Posted by Seb in categories: complex systems, defense, ethics, evolution, existential risks, futurism, homo sapiens, human trajectories, posthumanism, robotics/AI, singularity, supercomputing
By Greg Scoblete — Real Clear Technology
We worry about robots.
Hardly a day goes by where we’re not reminded about how robots are taking our jobs and hollowing out the middle class. The worry is so acute that economists are busy devising new social contracts to cope with a potentially enormous class of obsolete humans.
Continue reading “Our Final Invention: How the Human Race Goes and Gets Itself Killed” »
