Lifeboat Foundation

by Timothy J. Seppala — Endgadget

It might not be a Stradivarius, but the violin you see above is pretty impressive on its own merits. For starters, it’s 3D printed and only has two strings. And that’s to say nothing of its appearance; this thing looks like it’d be right at home on The Citadel in Mass Effect. The Piezoelectric Violin (as it’s officially called), was concepted by a pair of architects who tell BBC that the impetus for its creation was realizing that the challenges of their day jobs aren’t all that different from those faced by composers and musicians. It’s still playable by “anyone” too, despite its wild looks. One of its designers tells BBC that the difference between how it and a traditional violin sounds is akin to that of a classical guitar versus an electric Gibson Les Paul. That is, similar, but still pretty different. Read more

By Georgia Dienst — SingularityHub

Modern machines, powerful and clever, have enabled us to attempt seemingly impossible tasks, like traveling to the moon. Now, mere decades after Apollo’s computers guided us to the lunar surface, millions carry vastly more processing power in their pockets. What once seemed science fiction—it’s possible today.

The incredible acceleration and exponential development of machines is driven by our unsatisfiable curiosity and constant drive for progress. And there is little doubt the rate of change will continue as our curious minds push into the unknown. Read more

by Michelle Starr — C/net
There are some concepts from sci-fi that really should never, ever see the light of day. The T-1000 — the murderous robot made of shifting liquid metal — is arguably one of them, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exhibit some interesting ideas, even if they do seem impossible.

Seem, of course, being the operative word — because researchers in China have just created the world’s first liquid metal robot that can both change shape and power itself.

“The soft machine looks rather intelligent and [can] deform itself according to the space it voyages in, just like [the] Terminator does from the science-fiction film,” Jing Liu from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, told New Scientist. “These unusual behaviours perfectly resemble the living organisms in nature.” Read more

by Cathleen O’Grady — ARS Technica

If you’ve ever lived with roommates, chances are you shared a “transactive” memory system with them. One person might have remembered to pay the bills, while another knew the contact details of the plumber. It’s common to find social systems that share the information needed by a group across all the members of that group. Systems like these make life easier for individuals, who need only keep track of who knows which nugget.

Transactive memory systems are a common feature of human social groups, but they can be technological, too—and in the case of the Internet, the relationship can be a pretty powerful one. There are already indications that we treat the Internet like a transactive memory partner, remembering only where to find information, rather than the content itself. But could we also be blurring the boundary between our own internal knowledge and the easily accessed knowledge available via search engines? A group of researchers at Yale University think that we are. Read more

By Aunindita Bhatia — Clapway

Travel To Mars

The VASIMR Spaceship Engine or Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket is the first of its kind that can take people to Mars in just 39 days, compared to 270 days that it would take with a regular spaceship. It is made by Ad Astra Rocket Company and, if all goes well, should definitely shake up the space travel industry.

VASIMR Spaceship Engine Technology

The VASIMR Spaceship Engine as seen at Ad Astra Rocket uses unique technology in order to reach the high speeds that are necessary to take people to Mars in a very short period of time. It uses a plasma-based propulsion system along with an electric power source in order to fuel said plasma. By fueling the plasma in the right direction, it will propel the engine in that direction as it’s being ejected from the ship.

This mission is part of Ad Astra Rocket Company’s idea to help with the upgrading of current spaceship technology so that deep space missions in the future would not take nearly as long if there were to be humans sent out to different planets. Read more

Jason Koebler — Motherboard

It’s not easy convincing the world you’ve found aliens. But that’s what one British professor says he’s done, over and over again. His latest proof, he tells me, is his strongest yet. Should we take him seriously?

In fall of 2013, Milton Wainwright, a researcher at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, made international headlines when he claimed that microorganisms he found in the stratosphere were not of this world. The organisms are believed to come from a class of algae called diatoms, were collected roughly 16 miles above the Earth’s surface using a balloon, and, according to Wainwright, have been raining down on the Earth, carried by meteorites, for perhaps many millennia. Read More

Alex Davies — WiredAn autonomous car just drove across the country.

Nine days after leaving San Francisco, a blue car packed with tech from a company you’ve probably never heard of rolled into New York City after crossing 15 states and 3,400 miles to make history. The car did 99 percent of the driving on its own, yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets.

This amazing feat, by the automotive supplier Delphi, underscores the great leaps this technology has taken in recent years, and just how close it is to becoming a part of our lives. Yes, many regulatory and legislative questions must be answered, and it remains to be seen whether consumers are ready to cede control of their cars, but the hardware is, without doubt, up to the task. Read More

I happen to know a tiny bit more about one lower-case letter, little c.

Since Einstein, everyone knows how important little c, the speed of light in the vacuum, is.
No one ought to be surprised that c now turned out to have exactly the universal value that the young Einstein believed in during the most famous 2 ½ first years of the theory of relativity.

I could prove this fact 7 years ago and in many other ways since in the scientific literature, and no one contradicts me in print or in public.

Of course, such a revolution is tantalizing but it is not ridiculous. The scientific community proudly bets the future of the planet on their refusal to read and discuss my results.
This amounts to a giant honor to a scientist. But it is unbearable when one sees how the “children” are running into their own catastrophe out of an unscientific conceitedness.

Continue reading “Public Lecture to the Youth of the World” »

By Andrew “bunnie” Huang — IEEE Spectrum
Companies that produce open-source hardware are few and far between. At least, they are if you define them in the usual way: an enterprise that provides documentation and permission sufficient for others to re-create, modify, improve, and even make their own versions of the devices it sells. And although open hardware has made strides in recent years—including an increasing number of companies adhering to these practices along with the establishment of the Open Source Hardware Association—it remains a niche industry.

You might guess the reason to be simple—such companies must be set up and run by idealists who lack any hardheaded business sense. Not true! What’s held back the open-source hardware movement is not a lack of business acumen; it’s the rapid evolution of electronic technology. Read More