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Category: futurism – Page 1,211

IBM Watson CTO: Quantum computing could advance artificial intelligence by orders of magnitude.

Quantum computers have already been used to test artificial intelligence by researchers in China, albeit in a very limited capacity. Earlier in 2015, a team from the country’s University of Science and Technology developed a quantum system capable of recognising handwritten characters in a demonstration they dubbed quantum artificial intelligence.

This demonstration was on a quantum computer using only four qubits, leading to speculation of what a system using hundreds – or even thousands – of qubits would be capable of. Such machines do not yet exist, at least not commercially, but Canada-based quantum computing firm D-Wave systems recently claimed it has built a 1,000 qubit quantum computer.

According to Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a machine of just 300 qubits could be used to “map the whole universe”, processing all the information that has existed since the Big Bang.

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‪#‎Handy‬ New Wireless Charger Can Simultaneously Power 30 Mobile Phones at Distance.

Scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed an omnidirectional wireless charging technology that can charge multiple devices at once, at a distance and, crucially, at peak efficiency regardless of which way the devices are facing.

An effective wireless transmitting power of 30 watts means the device can, according to the researchers, power either 30 smartphones or five laptops simultaneously.

The results were published in last month’s issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, and a spinoff company is now conducting pilot studies to apply this technology in cafes and offices.

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Experimental apparatus scheme for a Brainet computing device. A Brainet of four interconnected brains is shown. The arrows represent the flow of information through the Brainet. Inputs were delivered (red) as simultaneous intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) patterns (via implanted electrodes) to the somatosensory cortex of each rat. Neural activity (black) was then recorded and analyzed in real time. Rats were required to synchronize their neural activity with the other Brainet participants to receive water. (credit: Miguel Pais-Vieira et al./Scientific Reports)

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Invisibility cloaks, cyborg insects, laser beam weapons…you name it, it’s probably secretly being development as you read this right now. Advances in modern weaponry have leapt straight out of science fiction films and into military reality. The US Military budget for 2016 is $786.6 billion. With that kind of spending, it’s not surprising that there have been some insane recent advancements. Here is a list of the 10 most futuristic weapons that will change modern warfare for ever.

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It’s official: Star Trek-style replicators are on the way. Well, sort of. Assembly lines for specific molecules could be a thing of the future, thanks to a recent breakthrough in atomic bonding published in the journal Physical Review Letters. A team of scientists has found a way of using laser beams to control the path of chemical processes, possibly ushering in a new age of photochemistry.

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Lonewolfcover

Washington, DC (PRWEB) July 07, 2015

Lone Wolf (LW) terrorism is on the rise around the world but it can get a lot worse when self-motivated bad guys make weapons of mass destruction in their kitchens or bio-labs. Could 100,000 People be Killed in a Single Lone Wolf Attack? When? Where? And How Could this be Prevented?

In a recent study, half of an international group of security and other experts forecasted that a single individual could kill 100,000 people or more in a single attack by 2050. Or not: the other half of the panel said such an event might happen after the turn of the next century or never.

While there was sharp disagreement among the experts, we already know that lone wolf terrorists have tried to build these massively destructive weapons and the FBI is already using the term WMD in many of their indictments.

As a new book titled Lone Wolf Terrorism Prospects just released by a Millennium Project team points out, systems of pre-detection are also being developed that can identify suspicious individuals by using tools that monitor communications and behavior, or new techniques from psychology, brain anatomy, and genetics. Or synthesize information from all of these imperfect sources.

The book sketches the increasing race between the growing destructive capacity of lone wolves and the improving tools of detection and interdiction. “The outcome of this race will set the world security stage for decades”, comments Ted Gordon, lead author of the book.

Around this fascinating and dangerous interplay between multiple single aggressors with increasingly destructive power, and the development of means for identifying destructive intent in individuals before they act, lie a host of legal and moral issues that will test our will as a free society.

Will the methods of detection be adequate and timely enough to avoid catastrophe? If they are implemented will we be able to maintain our freedoms?

The book is available as a 200-page paperback through Amazon and downloadable as a pdf file on http://www.lonewolfthreat.com. For single review copies please email [email protected].

The authors of the book are:
Theodore Jay Gordon, co-founder of The Millennium Project, author of the Macmillan encyclopedia article on the future of science and technology and currently on the editorial board of Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
Dr. Yair Sharan, a retired colonel in the Israeli Defense force, currently the director of TAM-C/FIRST group, active in the security and technology fields. He has been a senior associate researcher in Begin-Sadat Center for strategic studies (BESA) and has coordinated several EU projects, including FESTOS in the Security program and PRACTIS in the Science in Society program.
Elizabeth Florescu, Director of Research at The Millennium Project, co-author of the annual “State of the Future,” the report “Environmental Crimes, Military Actions, and the International Criminal Court” and involved in committees and forums addressing issues related to S&T, environment, security, international regulations, ontology, and knowledge management.

The Millennium Project is a global participatory think tank connecting 56 Nodes around the world that identify important long-range challenges and strategies, and initiate and conduct foresight studies, workshops, symposiums, and advanced training. Its mission is to improve thinking about the future and make it available through a variety of media for feedback to accumulate wisdom about the future for better decisions today. It produces the annual “State of the Future” reports, the “Futures Research Methodology” series, the Global Futures Intelligence System (GFIS), and special studies. Over 4,500 futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities have participated in The Millennium Project’s research since its inception, in 1992. The Millennium Project was selected among the top ten think tanks in the world for new ideas and paradigms by the 2013 and 2014 University of Pennsylvania’s GoTo Think Tank Index, and 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate for its contributions to collective intelligence systems.

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