Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Crime Prediction Software Is Here and It’s a Very Bad Idea
April 18th, 2010Via: Gizmodo: There are no naked pre-cogs inside glowing jacuzzis yet, but the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice will use analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents, putting potential offenders under specific prevention and education programs. Goodbye, human rights! They will use this software on juvenile delinquents, using a series of variables to […]
NASA to Launch R2 Humanoid Robot to Join Space Station Crew
April 15th, 2010Via: NASA / YouTube: NASA will launch the first human-like robot to space later this year to become a permanent resident of the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, was developed jointly by NASA and General Motors under a cooperative agreement to develop a robotic assistant that can work alongside humans, whether they be […]
Robot Scores Drugs for Uncle Sugar
April 15th, 2010Via: Aviation Week: A U.S. Navy Fire Scout made its first drug bust April 3 off the deck of the USS McInerney. The MQ-8B Vertical Take-off and Landing UAV (VTUAV) launched for a regular test flight when the ship acquired a suspected narcotics “go-fast” boat on its radar. The Mission Payload Operator completed testing and […]
Intel Brain Scan Analysis Software
April 9th, 2010Via: AP / USA Today: Mind reading may no longer be the domain of psychics and fortune tellers — now some computers can do it, too. Software that uses brain scans to determine what items people are thinking about was among the technological innovations showcased Wednesday by Intel Corp., which drew back the curtain on […]
Unknown Budget, Unknown Purpose: U.S. Air Force Plans to Launch X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle
April 4th, 2010Blank Spots on the Map: And then there was Dan Vanderhorst, who “has been the lead pilot on seven classified aircraft to date.” In fact, according to his biography, “Vanderhorst has made his career in the cockpit of so many classified aircraft, there is not much that we can say about him, on the record,” […]
Meet the Sims… and Shoot Them: The Rise of Militainment
April 4th, 2010Via: Foreign Policy: The country of Ghanzia is embroiled in a civil war. As a soldier in America’s Army, your job is to do everything from protect U.S. military convoys against AK-47-wielding attackers to sneak up on a mountain observatory where arms dealers are hiding out. It is a tough and dangerous tour of duty […]
Neuroscientists Don’t Believe in Souls—But That Doesn’t Mean They Can’t Sell Theirs (to the Pentagon)
March 28th, 2010Via: Scientific American: It is because I have such high hopes for neuroscience that I’m so upset by two trends in financing of the field. One involves neuroscience’s growing dependence on the Pentagon, which is seeking new ways to help our soldiers and harm our enemies. For a still-timely overview of neuroweapons research, check out […]
IBM Researchers Develop Energy Efficient Method to Analyze the Quality of Data at Record Speeds
February 26th, 2010Via: IBM Press Release: Research today unveiled a breakthrough method based on a mathematical algorithm that reduces the computational complexity, costs, and energy usage for analyzing the quality of massive amounts of data by two orders of magnitude. This new method will greatly help enterprises extract and use the data more quickly and efficiently to […]
The Future Where Soda Cans Have Screens
February 24th, 2010My ability to grasp what many people consider to be “normal” is slipping away, a little bit each day. I wonder if this is how my dad felt when, over a decade ago, I explained to him that I didn’t always need to go to the office in order to do my work. My dad […]
America’s Deadly Robots Rewrite the Rules
February 15th, 2010Via: Sydney Morning Herald: The kohl-eyed Hakimullah Mehsud probably is dead. He was the target for a missile fired last month from an unmanned aircraft hovering over the Afghan-Pakistani border – but launched by an operator in the US. Mehsud was the ruthless mastermind of multiple suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan. He was part of […]
