Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Dawn of the Age of the Robot
December 30th, 2010This article reminded me of reading OMNI magazine in the 1980s, when I should have been doing my homework. Hopefully, much of this stuff will remain as science fiction / grant swindles for another 20 years… but I doubt it. Via: Guardian: The robots are coming. The second decade of the 21st century will see […]
Brazil to Replace Oil Rigs with ‘Underwater Cities’
December 30th, 2010When I saw the headline, I had a terrifying Bioshock flashback, but there won’t be any people down there. Via: Telegraph: Traditional oil rigs will be replaced with “underwater cities” within a decade under ambitious plans being drawn up by Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned energy group. Petrobras plans to turn science fiction into reality to extract […]
U.S. Government Wants to Archive Information on All Bank to Bank Overseas Money Transfers for Ten Years
December 30th, 2010Via: EFF: What do an online donation to the International Red Cross, a bank transfer to family members living in Vietnam, and a payment sent through PayPal for an expensive rug in Turkey have in common? The government wants to know about them. And, if new rules proposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or […]
Living Earth Simulator
December 29th, 2010I seriously need a Magic 8 Ball category. Via: BBC: It could be one of the most ambitious computer projects ever conceived. An international group of scientists are aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth – from global weather patterns and the spread of diseases to international financial transactions or […]
SkyWatch Manned Mobile Surveillance System
December 28th, 2010Research Credit: JW
China Matches U.S. Space Launches for First Time
December 27th, 2010Via: Wired: Outwardly, it looked like just another big space launch — and those happen about once a week, from spaceports all around the world. But Friday’s blast-off of a rocket, carrying a Chinese GPS-style navigation satellite, from the Xi Chang Satellite Launch Center was different. It set a record for successful Chinese launches in […]
pHood Printer
December 26th, 2010Is there an unwritten rule that members of the grant swindling class have to be batshit insane? Via: BBC: Christmas dinner traditionally centres on the turkey or goose. But if US scientists have their way, everyone may be sitting around a printer. The team at Cornell University’s Computational Synthesis Lab (CCSL) are building a 3D […]
New Jersey: Mobile Police Guard Towers
December 23rd, 2010Update: SkyWatch Manned Mobile Surveillance System —End Update—
U.S. Postal Service Vehicles to Carry Sensor Packages
December 22nd, 2010Via: New York Times: The service’s thousands of delivery vehicles have only one purpose now: to transport mail. But what if they were fitted with sensors to collect and transmit information about weather or air pollutants? The trucks would go from being bulky tools of industrial-age communication to being on the cutting edge of 21st-century […]
U.S. Government Storing Information on Americans in Vast Surveillance Database
December 20th, 2010Via: Washington Post: Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators. The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores […]
