Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Google’s Heads-Up Display Glasses
February 22nd, 2012Via: New York Times: People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time. According to several Google employees familiar with the project who asked not […]
DARPA Wants to Give Soldiers Robot Surrogates, Avatar Style
February 19th, 2012Via: IEEE: In the movie Avatar, humans hooked themselves up to brain-machine-interface pods with which they could control giant genetically engineered human-alien hybrids. It’s just a movie, but DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, doesn’t care: It wants this kind of system to be real, just replace “giant genetically engineered human-alien hybrids” with […]
‘What will the millions of middle-age, unskilled workers do when they are displaced by technology?’
February 19th, 2012My guess is that something like this will be part of the answer: Engineered H5N1: A Rare Time for Restraint in Science: Two scientific teams have recently engineered the H5N1 virus to make it readily transmissible between ferrets. Given that ferrets are considered the most reliable animal surrogate for human influenza infection, the newly engineered […]
Nevada Approves Regulations for Self-Driving Cars
February 18th, 2012Via: CBS: Nevada is envisioning a day when taxicabs might shuttle fares without a driver, or people with medical conditions that make them ineligible for a license could get around with a virtual chauffeur. The concept took a big step when Nevada became the first state to approve regulations that spell out requirements for companies […]
Animal Rights Group Says Drone Shot Down
February 18th, 2012Via: The Times and Democrat: A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday. Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when […]
Britain: TomTom Tech to Set Driver Insurance Premiums
February 9th, 2012Definitely watch, “15 Million Merits,” the second episode of Black Mirror, to see where this economic model is headed. The potential for nightmarish implementations of this is pretty much unlimited. Via: PC Pro: TomTom has signed a deal with an insurance company to use its satnav technology to measure driving ability to set premiums. The […]
Britain: Royal Society Report Discusses Development Neural Interface for Weapons Systems
February 7th, 2012…and much, much more. Via: Royal Society: Neural interfaces can be broadly separated into devices that input into neural systems and interfaces that record activity from brains to predict motor intentions. The most common method of establishing an interface is through the external recording of EEG signals although more invasive methods, such as implanting microelectrodes […]
Congress Passes Bill That Opens U.S. Skies To Unmanned Drones
February 7th, 2012Via: AP: A bill to speed the nation’s switch from radar to an air traffic control system based on GPS technology, and to open U.S. skies to unmanned drone flights within four years, received final congressional approval Monday. … The FAA is also required under the bill to provide military, commercial and privately-owned drones with […]
Britain: Talking CCTV Cameras In Camden To Be Turned Off
February 7th, 2012They need to load the ED209 voice on that thing. Via: Telegraph: Pressure group Big Brother Watch had said that the cameras, which automatically warn everyone they see to leave, were only acceptable in a ‘in a police state’. In a statement issued this afternoon, Camden Council claimed that the camera’s pre-recorded American message should […]
A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors
February 2nd, 2012Via: YouTube: Experiments performed with a team of nano quadrotors at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. Vehicles developed by KMel Robotics. Research Credit: jakdmsy
