Lifeboat Foundation

In a technology first, a team of NASA engineers has demonstrated fully autonomous X-ray navigation in space—a capability that could revolutionize NASA’s ability in the future to pilot robotic spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond.

The demonstration, which the team carried out with an experiment called Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT, showed that millisecond pulsars could be used to accurately determine the location of an object moving at thousands of miles per hour in space—similar to how the Global Positioning System, widely known as GPS, provides positioning, navigation, and timing services to users on Earth with its constellation of 24 operating satellites.

“This demonstration is a breakthrough for future deep space exploration,” said SEXTANT Project Manager Jason Mitchell, an aerospace technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “As the first to demonstrate X-ray navigation fully autonomously and in real-time in space, we are now leading the way.”

Today’s vision of a smart home has more to do with what’s technologically possible than what people really need.

Thus the endless parade of internet-connected wine openers, water bottles, meat thermometers and refrigerators, and a dearth of automation that would clean and fold our laundry, pick up things around the house or assist aging people as their physical strength wanes.

Not that some tinkerers aren’t trying to come up with life-changing tools. The annual Consumer Electronics Show, which opened in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is a showcase of the latest innovations from big corporations and tiny startups. Some of these inventions could soon be useful to consumers. Others look outlandishly impractical — or maybe it’s too soon to tell.

U.S.-trained Chinese-born talent is becoming a key force in driving Chinese companies’ global expansion and the country’s efforts to dominate next-generation technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. Where college graduates once coveted a prestigious overseas job and foreign citizenship, many today gravitate toward career opportunities at home, where venture capital is now plentiful and the government dangles financial incentives for cutting-edge research.

“More and more talent is moving over because China is really getting momentum in the innovation area,” said Ken Qi, a headhunter for Spencer Stuart and leader of its technology practice. “This is only the beginning.”

Ever since technological advancements made drones possible, people have warned of the potential dangers of weaponised UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), which could effectively become murderous slaughterbots we need to defend ourselves against.

Now, it looks like those fears have become a reality. The Russian Ministry of Defence claims its forces in Syria were attacked a week ago by a swarm of home-made drones – the first time such a coordinated assault has been reported in a military action.

According to the Ministry of Defence, Russian forces at the Khmeimim air base and Tartus naval facility “successfully warded off a terrorist attack with massive application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)” last Friday night.

Continue reading “First-Ever Drone Swarm Attack Has Struck Russian Military Bases, Sources Claim” »

Microsoft has built an AI tool that predicts the accuracy of CRISPR so that researchers can avoid making incorrect edits of DNA.

Missing the target: CRISPR uses two components: a cutting protein and a guide RNA that directs it to the part of a genome you want to cut. The guide RNA is about 20 letters long. Problem is, multiple sites in a genome can have the same series of letters, so CRISPR could snip the wrong section—known as an “off target” effect.

Why that matters: Off-target effects are one of the biggest safety concerns with CRISPR. Making incorrect cuts in a genome could, say, switch on a cancer-causing gene.

Continue reading “AI can warn researchers where CRISPR might make a mistake” »

Yara Birkeland will be the world’s first autonomous electric cargo ship. Its costs will be $25 million and is being commissioned by two Norwegian companies.

Today at CES, Samsung unveiled DRVLINE, a hardware and software platform that will allow car makers to create customized, technologically advanced autonomous vehicles. Many platforms are an all-or-nothing solution, which forces users to adopt the entire package en masse, without any sort of customization. DRVLINE, however, allows vendors to swap and customize individual components, building the vehicle to their specifications, as well as allowing for rapidly evolving technology.

“Building an autonomous platform requires close collaboration across industry, as one company cannot deliver on this enormous opportunity alone,” said Young Sohn, the president and chief strategy officer of Samsung. “The challenge is simply too big and too complex. Through the DRVLINE platform, we’re inviting the best and brightest from the automotive industry to join us, and help shape the future of the car of tomorrow, today.”

The first DRVLINE initiative will be a camera that features lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise control, collision warning and algorithms that can deliver warnings about pedestrians. The system will start shipping this year.

Continue reading “Samsung introduces autonomous driving platform called DRVLINE” »

The scientist behind an advanced sex robot has plans for 3D printed offspring. Samantha, developed by Spanish robotics firm Synthea Amatus, went on sale in the United Kingdom last month for around $5,000 — but while the A.I. present in the initial version offers a range of functions like telling jokes, discussing philosophy and synchronizing climaxes, a future version could offer more ambitious features.

“I can make them have a baby. It’s not so difficult. I would love to have a child with a robot,” Sergei Santos, creator of Samatha, told The Sun in a Friday story.

Sex robots are a growing, but controversial, area of artificial intelligence. While some argue that such machines could spark a wider discussion about sexuality, others object to the aim to replicate human interaction. Futurologist Ian Pearson claims that by 2050, more than half of people will have sex with a robot.

Continue reading “Sex Robots That Can Make Babies May Soon Be Available” »

His ultimate quest, though, was the automobile. The integration of the internet and self-driving, emission-free vehicles, he once said, would not only clean up the country’s polluted cities, it would free up millions of people to consume more of LeEco’s services on their commutes.

Visionary or reckless risk-taker? Self-made internet entrepreneur Jia Yueting once ranked among China’s richest men, but overexpansion and a funding crunch have him scrambling to save his sprawling tech empire.