Photonics integrates quantum mechanics with light, fostering innovations in quantum computing, secure data transfer, and high-resolution imaging techniques.
Space isn’t just for lonely colonies—it’s for communities. Join us as we imagine constellations of space habitats bound by tethers, trade, and trust, building not just homes in the stars but entire civilizations.
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Credits:
Space Habitat Clusters & Conglomerations.
Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur.
Graphics: Jarred Eagley, Jeremy Jozwik, Udo Schroeter.
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Music Courtesy of Stellardrone and Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator.
Chapters.
0:00 Intro.
1:13 Why Clustered Habitats?
6:00 Habitat Types and Roles Within Clusters.
9:41 Mobility and Modularity – The Politics of Moveable Worlds.
14:02 Tethers, Transit, and Shared Infrastructure.
17:35 Shapes of Clusters and Dynamic Conglomerations.
23:43 Nebula.
25:21 Digital Ecosystems and Cultural Identity.
25:19 Economics and Trade in Habitat Constellations.
26:52 Education and Intergenerational Planning.
28:17 Security and Conflict Management.
29:10 A Tale of Unity.
32:29 Religion, Ritual, and Meaning.
33:19 The Long View: Legacy and Civilization.
34:07 Closing Reflections
A number of chip companies — importantly Intel and IBM, but also the Arm collective and AMD — have come out recently with new CPU designs that feature native Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its related machine learning (ML). The need for math engines specifically designed to support machine learning algorithms, particularly for inference workloads but also for certain kinds of training, has been covered extensively here at The Next Platform.
Just to rattle off a few of them, consider the impending “Cirrus” Power10 processor from IBM, which is due in a matter of days from Big Blue in its high-end NUMA machines and which has a new matrix math engine aimed at accelerating machine learning. Or IBM’s “Telum” z16 mainframe processor coming next year, which was unveiled at the recent Hot Chips conference and which has a dedicated mixed precision matrix math core for the CPU cores to share. Intel is adding its Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) to its future “Sapphire Rapids” Xeon SP processors, which should have been here by now but which have been pushed out to early next year. Arm Holdings has created future Arm core designs, the “Zeus” V1 core and the “Perseus” N2 core, that will have substantially wider vector engines that support the mixed precision math commonly used for machine learning inference, too. Ditto for the vector engines in the “Milan” Epyc 7,003 processors from AMD.
All of these chips are designed to keep inference on the CPUs, where in a lot of cases it belongs because of data security, data compliance, and application latency reasons.
Attacks that target users in their web browsers have seen an unprecedented rise in recent years. In this article, we’ll explore what a “browser-based attack” is, and why they’re proving to be so effective.
What is a browser-based attack?
First, it’s important to establish what a browser-based attack is.
A new study has successfully demonstrated the confinement of terahertz (THz) light to nanoscale dimensions using a new type of layered material. This could lead to improvements in optoelectronic devices such as infrared emitters used in remote controls and night vision and terahertz optics desired for physical security and environmental sensing.
The paper, “Ultraconfined terahertz phonon polaritons in hafnium dichalcogenides,” is published in Nature Materials. The research was led by Josh Caldwell, professor of mechanical engineering and Director of the Interdisciplinary Materials Science graduate program at Vanderbilt University, and Alex Paarmann of the Fritz Haber Institute in collaboration with Prof. Lukas M. Eng from the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), Germany.
While THz technology promises high-speed data processing, integrating it into compact devices has been challenging due to its long wavelength. Traditional materials have struggled to confine THz light effectively, limiting the potential for miniaturization.
Fire kills nearly 3,700 Americans annually and destroys $23 billion in property, with many deaths occurring because traditional smoke detectors fail to alert occupants in time.
Now, the NYU Fire Research Group at NYU Tandon School of Engineering has developed an artificial intelligence system that could significantly improve fire safety by detecting fires and smoke in real-time using ordinary security cameras already installed in many buildings.
Published in the IEEE Internet of Things, the research demonstrates a system that can analyze video footage and identify fires within 0.016 seconds per frame—faster than the blink of an eye—potentially providing crucial extra minutes for evacuation and emergency response. Unlike conventional smoke detectors that require significant smoke buildup and proximity to activate, this AI system can spot fires in their earliest stages from video alone.
Cameras are everywhere. For over two centuries, these devices have grown increasingly popular and proven to be so useful, they have become an indispensable part of modern life.
Today, they are included in a vast range of applications—everything from smartphones and laptops to security and surveillance systems to cars, aircraft, and satellites imaging Earth from high above. And as an overarching trend toward miniaturizing mechanical, optical, and electronic products continues, scientists and engineers are looking for ways to create smaller, lighter, and more energy-efficient cameras for these technologies.
Ultra-flat optics have been proposed as a solution for this engineering challenge, as they are an alternative to the relatively bulky lenses found in cameras today. Instead of using a curved lens made out of glass or plastic, many ultra-flat optics, such as metalenses, use a thin, flat plane of microscopic nanostructures to manipulate light, which makes them hundreds or even thousands of times smaller and lighter than conventional camera lenses.
Samsung has patched a remote code execution vulnerability that was exploited in zero-day attacks targeting its Android devices.
Tracked as CVE-2025–21043, this critical security flaw affects Samsung devices running Android 13 or later and was reported by the security teams of Meta and WhatsApp on August 13.
As Samsung explains in a recently updated advisory, this vulnerability was discovered in libimagecodec.quram.so (a closed-source image parsing library developed by Quramsoft that implements support for various image formats) and is caused by an out-of-bounds write weakness that allows attackers to execute malicious code on vulnerable devices remotely.
An interesting & apposite article on a vital aspect of the Space-Race not normally covered.
Nearly 15,000 satellites in 432 constellations are driving today’s $570 billion dollar space economy. Dr. Namrata Goswami explains recent predictions for over 60,000 satellites and $2 trillion in space by 2040.
Dr. Namrata Goswami is a Professor of Space Security at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”. She joins us today to discuss the current state of the emerging space economy and the Great Powers Competition for control of Earth orbit and beyond.
Dr. Namrata Goswami, Professor of Space Security at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”. She joins us today to discuss the current state of the emerging space economy and the Great Powers Competition for control of Earth orbit and beyond.
Disclaimer: “The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or the United States Space Force.”
Professionals in agriculture, defense and security, environmental monitoring, food quality analysis, industrial quality control, and medical diagnostics could benefit from a patent-pending innovation that opens new possibilities of conventional photography for optical spectroscopy and hyperspectral imaging.
Young Kim, Purdue University professor, University Faculty Scholar and Showalter Faculty Scholar, and postdoctoral research associate Semin Kwon of the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering created an algorithm that recovers detailed spectral information from photographs taken by conventional cameras. The research combines computer vision, color science and optical spectroscopy.
“A photograph is more than just an image; it contains abundant hyperspectral information,” Kim said. “We are one of the pioneering research groups to integrate computational spectrometry and spectroscopic analyses for biomedical and other applications.”