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Mar 10, 2017

This could be the future of human burial sites

Posted by in category: futurism

This is an interesting alternative to traditional burials.

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Mar 10, 2017

Thinking Machines: 7 of the Best Books on Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI, singularity, transhumanism

More news on the new #transhumanism book just out: To Be a Machine. http://www.signature-reads.com/2017/03/7-best-books-artificial-intelligence/ & https://undark.org/article/30154-2/ & http://bookforum.com/blog/17478


Decades ago, if you were writing about robots, it was probably in one of two forms: either a science fiction narrative, or something short about the handful of robots that could be purchased for home or recreational use. Now things have changed. Home devices can recognize and respond to speech, prosthetic technology has been dramatically advanced, and our very understanding of what constitutes a robot has significantly changed.

With these advances in technology have come other questions, some pertaining to the nature of intelligence, some relating to the lines between humanity and machines, and still more that use our research into robotics to explore what makes us human. So, with that in mind, here’s a look at a handful of the best books on artificial intelligence, dealing with questions of robots, body modification, the Singularity, and more. Crank up Flight of the Conchords’s song set after a robot uprising and dig in.

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Mar 10, 2017

Superhero Plan to Time Travel in Large Hadron Collider Just Might Work

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, time travel

A universe-opening theory suggested in issue 3 of the Justice League/Power Rangers comic book series has roots in real physics.

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Mar 10, 2017

The boom is here: U.S. solar experiences record-smashing year — By Joe Romm | ThinkProgress

Posted by in categories: engineering, environmental, governance, policy, science, solar power

“The industry reports that, for the first time ever, solar was the number one source of new generating capacity, beating out wind and gas.”

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Mar 10, 2017

This super-fast 3D printer is powered by holograms

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, computing, holograms

The advantage of Daqri’s chip, the company says, is that it can create holograms without the need for complex optics. On a silicon wafer, a tiny grid of tunable crystals is used to control the magnitude and time delay, or phase, of reflected light shined at the surface of the chip from a laser. Software adjusts the crystals to create patterns of interference in the light, resulting in a three-dimensional light field.

In experiments, the team has used the chip to create solid objects by projecting holograms into containers of various light-activated monomers. It can currently make small objects, such as a paper clip, in about five seconds—a process that could take a normal 3D printer several minutes.


A startup called Daqri has technology that can print solid objects faster and also powers a new kind of head-up display.

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Mar 10, 2017

Rift in Space: ‘Mission:ISS’ Launches Today

Posted by in category: space

Rift in Space: ‘Mission: ISS’ Launches Today! http://ocul.us/MissionISS

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Mar 10, 2017

En– The World’s First Contactless Payment Ring

Posted by in category: futurism

Now Live — The Kerv contactless payment ring!!

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Mar 9, 2017

The future of AI is neuromorphic. Meet the scientists building digital ‘brains’ for your phone

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI

AI services like Apple’s Siri and others operate by sending your queries to faraway data centers, which send back responses. The reason they rely on cloud-based computing is that today’s electronics don’t come with enough computing power to run the processing-heavy algorithms needed for machine learning. The typical CPUs most smartphones use could never handle a system like Siri on the device. But Dr. Chris Eliasmith, a theoretical neuroscientist and co-CEO of Canadian AI startup Applied Brain Research, is confident that a new type of chip is about to change that.

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Mar 9, 2017

Machines aren’t growing more intelligent—they’re just doing what we programmed them to do

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

For the most part, the AI achievements touted in the media aren’t evidence of great improvements in the field. The AI program from Google that won a Go contest last year was not a refined version of the one from IBM that beat the world’s chess champion in 1997; the car feature that beeps when you stray out of your lane works quite differently than the one that plans your route. Instead, the accomplishments so breathlessly reported are often cobbled together from a grab bag of disparate tools and techniques. It might be easy to mistake the drumbeat of stories about machines besting us at tasks as evidence that these tools are growing ever smarter—but that’s not happening.

Public discourse about AI has become untethered from reality in part because the field doesn’t have a coherent theory. Without such a theory, people can’t gauge progress in the field, and characterizing advances becomes anyone’s guess. As a result the people we hear from the most are those with the loudest voices rather than those with something substantive to say, and press reports about killer robots go largely unchallenged.

I’d suggest that one problem with AI is the name itself—coined more than 50 years ago to describe efforts to program computers to solve problems that required human intelligence or attention. Had artificial intelligence been named something less spooky, it might seem as prosaic as operations research or predictive analytics.

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Mar 9, 2017

This MIT robot reads your mind to know when it screws up

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Baxter can read your mind to learn if it’s getting a simple task right or wrong, possibly setting up a foundation for thought-controlled machines.

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