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‘The Terminator Conundrum’: Pentagon Weighs Ethics of Pairing Deadly Force, AI

DoD spending $12 to $15 billion of its FY17 budget on small bets that includes NextGen tech improvements — WOW. Given the DARPA new Neural Engineering System Design (NESD); guessing we may finally have a Brain Mind Interface (BMI) soldier in the future.


The Defense Department will invest the $12 billion to $15 billion from its Fiscal Year 2017 budget slotted for developing a Third Offset Strategy on several relatively small bets, hoping to produce game-changing technology, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

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Ray Kurzweil keynote and panel at Nobel Week Dialog from the Nobel Prize

Dear readers,

I had the honor of speaking on the future of technology at the Nobel Prize gatherings in Gothenburg, Sweden. Every year, the Nobel Prize picks a theme of interest to the world on the state of sciences in different arenas. This year’s theme was the future of intelligence, with a focus on different technologies that are changing our ability to see and understand large sets of information and create computer systems that might reach human level thinking — I believe that progress is accelerating.

I enjoyed giving the keynote and participating in panel discussions with interesting colleagues during the day long event called Nobel Week Dialog, which takes place the week of the Nobel Prize awards. The day is open to the public and hosts top scientific thinkers presenting on the future of innovation and knowledge. I also attended the gala and awards ceremony — a spectacular display of the power of ideas and research helping the world to progress and solve serious challenges.

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Why Morphological Freedom Is a Fantasy: Your Body Isn’t Just Your Own

I must admit some of the information in this article is making me scratch my head a lttle. However, I do believe that many of us who wish to remain relevant in the future (especially in industry and government) will find ourselves requiring a Brain Mind Interface (BMI) of some sort whether it’s an implant or nanobot; folks will find that they have to have one in order to work or function in society.


Transhumanists claim complete freedom to modify their bodies, but that absolutist stance could endanger future generations.

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Brain tumor removed without surgery at Apollo hospital

Can you say “amazing” — brain tumor removed without surgery.


The Neurosurgery wing of the Local Apollo hospital here successfully conducted a rare, modern at the same time sensitive method of removal of a brain tumor tissue for diagnosis sending a small needle deep in to the brain without opening the skull and anesthesia. This sophisticated and critical process known as ‘Stereotactic Biopsy was conducted on a 50 year old woman Thalari Chinnammayi, without any complications and with hardly two days of hospitalization. Claiming such Biopsy application as the first of its kind in Coastal Andhra region, Dr M V Kiran Kumar senior consultant Neuro surgeon of Apollo hospital, said it would involve less expenditure and almost risk free and not warrant a repeated biopsy. Presenting the patient before the press persons here today, he said, she was suffering from chronic headache for the past one month and during clinical examination it was found she was having small tumor in the brain that too in a very deep lesion.‘ The tumor in size of 1.5x 2cms was located in the left side of the brain at a place called as Caudate Nucleus. A small piece of brain tissue was removed by performing stereotactic biopsy and during examination it was diagnosed as grade-3 Anaplastic Astrocytoma (cancerous growth). She was referred to Oncologist for treatment either by chemo therapy or Radiation he added. Dr C Suryaprakasarao Medical director of the hospital said that the Neurology department was strengthened by acquiring modern sophisticated equipment besides appointing Dr Kamaraju as a Neuro physician. I. V.V Ramana hospital chief administrator said that they were going to introduce the ‘Deep brain stimulation therapy utilising the expertise of Dr Kiran Kumar. UNI XR/DP KVV AK1935.

– (UNI) — C-1–1-DL0415-554045.Xml.

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Robots ‘will be able to read your thoughts within a generation’ — and hackers could steal your innermost secrets

This all sounds extremely familiar to me for some reason. And, really ties in well with my recent articles on “AI holding your data hostage” and “Quantum Computing — things that need to be considered” — glad more folks are speaking up.


Speaking at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps, Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy, said the device reading brain activity could be accessed by ‘not good Samaritans’.

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Brain implant will connect a million neurons with superfast bandwidth

A neural interface being created by the United States military aims to greatly improve the resolution and connection speed between biological and non-biological matter.

brain technology implant future timeline 2016

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — a branch of the U.S. military — has announced a new research and development program known as Neural Engineering System Design (NESD). This aims to create a fully implantable neural interface able to provide unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world.

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For VR to be truly immersive, it needs convincing sound to match

The VR sound barrier; how do we address?


I’m staring at a large iron door in a dimly lit room. “Hey,” a voice says, somewhere on my right. “Hey buddy, you there?” It’s a heavily masked humanoid. He proceeds to tell me that my sensory equipment is down and will need to be fixed. Seconds later, the heavy door groans. A second humanoid leads the way into the spaceship where my suit will be repaired.

Inside a wide room with bright spotlights I notice an orange drilling machine. “OK, before we start, I need to remove the panel from the back of your head,” says the humanoid. I hear the whirring of a drill behind me. I squirm and reflexively raise my shoulders. The buzzing gets louder, making the hair on the nape of my neck stand up.

Then I snapped out of it. I removed the Oculus Rift DK2 strapped on my face and the headphones pressed on my ears and was back on the crowded floors of the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. But for a few terrifying seconds, the realistic audio in Fixing Incus, a virtual reality demo built on RealSpace 3D audio engine, had tricked my brain into thinking a machine had pulled nails out from the back of my head.

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New Algorithm May Someday Enable Scientists to Regrow Limbs and Replace Damaged Organs

A new algorithm has been developed that will drastically reduce the time and effort needed to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). As a result of this breakthrough, we can expect a dramatic revolution in regenerative medicine in the near future.

What if you could directly reprogram cells to develop into whatever you wished? What if you could take an undifferentiated, incipient cell, full of the unrealized potential to become any one of the many specialized cells in the human body, and nudge it into becoming ocular tissue, or neural cells, even a new heart to replace an old or damaged one?

This is the promise afforded by Mogrify, the result of the application of computational and mathematical science to the problems of medicine and biology. It was developed by an international collaboration of researchers from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, Monash University in Australia, and RIKEN in Japan. The new research was published online in the journal Nature Genetics.

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