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Apr 7, 2016

Samsung is developing a contact lens camera, triggered by blinking, that can also project images into the eye

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, electronics, internet, mobile phones

Samsung is exploring the development of a contact lens that can project images directly into the users’ eye, take photographs and connect wirelessly to a smartphone, a patent application has revealed.

The South Korean copyright authority has published a 29-page application made by the consumer electronics firm two years ago, reported the technology blog Sammobile, offering a rare insight into a science fiction vision of a future technology that could be closer than we think.

The lens could overlay internet-connected services directly into the user’s line of sight, in an example of what is known as augmented reality. It could also discreetly – even covertly – take photographs. The device would be controlled by eye movements or blinking, according to the patent, and it would connect with a smartphone.

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Apr 7, 2016

Newly discovered planet could destroy Earth any day now

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

Look up the definition of irresponsible journalism and you’ll probably find a link to THIS article.


A mysterious planet that wiped out life on Earth millions of years ago could do it again, according to a top space scientist.

And some believe the apocalyptic event could happen as early as this month.

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Apr 7, 2016

US Navy increasing combat lasers power to 500 kilowatt level by 2020 to counter ballistic missiles

Posted by in categories: energy, military

In 2012, the US Navy initiated the SSL Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) program, in which industry teams led by BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, among others, competed to develop a shipboard laser with a beam power of 100 kW to 150 kW by 2016.

Boosting beam power further—to something like 200 kW or 300 kW—could permit a laser to counter at least some ASCMs. Even stronger beam powers—on the order of at least several hundred kW, if not one megawatt (MW) or more—could improve a laser’s effectiveness against ASCMs (Anti-Ship Cruise Missile) and enable it to counter ASBMs (Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile.

By 2020, it should be possible to demonstrate a 250–500 kW laser weapon system, one appropriate for deployment on current surface combatants and capable of being a game changer in the Navy’s struggle to address the growing A2/AD challenge.

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Apr 7, 2016

A Fleet of Self-Driving Trucks Just Completed a 1,000-Mile Trip Across Europe

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

These connected convoys could soon be a common site.

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Apr 7, 2016

Apple patents laptop with a new keyboard

Posted by in category: computing

Apple might be considering a laptop with a flat touch surface instead of a keyboard.

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Apr 7, 2016

BMW opts to incorporate HTC Vive VR headsets and mixed reality into the development of new vehicle models. Computer images instead of laboriously constructed draft models: greater flexibility, faster results and lower costs

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, computing, transportation, virtual reality

Munich. BMW has become the first car manufacturer to introduce a mixed reality system into vehicle development that has been devised entirely using components from the computer games industry. This offers some significant advantages over the VR systems that have existed to date, and is the first step towards making virtual reality a very real part of many developer workstations in the not-too-distant future.

The adoption of this computer system makes it possible to save a great deal of time and effort, especially during the early stages of development. VR investigations could previously only be conducted at costly specialised facilities. By incorporating consumer electronics, the developers gain an unprecedented degree of flexibility, because any modifications can be implemented and tested very quickly. In addition to this, developers around the globe will be able to take part in the decision-making process from their own office without having to travel too far. Only once the draft designs have been approved with the help of the 3D headsets will they actually be built for further testing.

BMW has been employing VR systems in the development process since the 1990s. It is now reaffirming its pioneering status by systematically implementing technology from a sector which has not previously been the focal point of industrial applications. Since this spring, components from the computer games industry have been allowing engineers and designers to immerse themselves more and more often in virtual worlds that are increasingly realistic. The shorter innovation cycles of consumer electronics result in a far wider scope of functions together with lower costs. This thereby enables more vehicle functions to be translated to a VR model in ever more realistic fashion. It is furthermore possible to scale the system to many different developer workstations with little effort.

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Apr 7, 2016

The world’s largest vertical farm will produce 2 million pounds of lettuce every year

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

That’s a lot of leafy greens.

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Apr 7, 2016

Marine Corps Activates Cyberspace Warfare Group

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, military

Nice


The U.S. Marine Corps has launched a cyberspace warfare group to help man, equip and train the military branch’s cyber mission teams to conduct defensive and offensive operations.

The service branch said March 25 the Marine Corps Cyberspace Warfare Group was officially activated during a ceremony held March 25 at Fort Meade in Maryland.

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Apr 7, 2016

HIV can develop resistance to CRISPR/Cas9

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

The CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing platform may need a little bit more tweaking before it can be used as an effective antiviral, reports a study published April 7 in Cell Reports. Researchers who used CRISPR/Cas9 to mutate HIV-1 within cellular DNA found that while single mutations can inhibit viral replication, some also led to unexpected resistance. The researchers believe targeting multiple viral DNA regions may be necessary for the potential antiviral aspect of CRISPR/Cas9 to be effective.

Upon entry into a cell, HIV’s RNA genome is converted into DNA and becomes entwined with the cellular DNA. From here, CRISPR/Cas9 can be programmed to target a DNA sequence and cleave viral DNA. The problem is that HIV is notoriously good at surviving and thriving with new mutations, so while many viruses are killed by the targeted approach, those that escape the CRISPR/Cas9 treatment become more difficult to target.

“When we sequence the viral RNA of escaped HIV, the surprise is that the majority of the mutations that the virus has are nicely aligned at the site where Cas9 cleaves the DNA, which immediately indicates that these mutations, instead of resulting from the errors of viral reverse transcriptase, are rather introduced by the cellular non-homologous end joining machinery when repairing the broken DNA,” says senior study author Chen Liang, Senior Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and the Associate Professor of Medicine at the McGill University AIDS Centre.

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Apr 7, 2016

Quantum effects affect the best superconductor

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, supercomputing, transportation

The theoretical results of a piece of international research published in Nature, whose first author is Ion Errea, a researcher at the UPV/EHU and DIPC, suggest that the quantum nature of hydrogen (in other words, the possibility of it behaving like a particle or a wave) considerably affects the structural properties of hydrogen-rich compounds (potential room-temperature superconducting substances). This is in fact the case of the superconductor hydrogen sulphide: a stinking compound that smells of rotten eggs, which when subjected to pressures a million times higher than atmospheric pressure, behaves like a superconductor at the highest temperature ever identified. This new advance in understanding the physics of high-temperature superconductivity could help to drive forward progress in the search for room-temperature superconductors, which could be used in levitating trains or next-generation supercomputers, for example.

Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current with zero electrical resistance. Conventional or low-temperature ones behave that way only when the substance is cooled down to temperatures close to absolute zero (−273 °C o 0 degrees Kelvin). Last year, however, German researchers identified the high-temperature superconducting properties of hydrogen sulphide which makes it the superconductor at the highest temperature ever discovered: −70 °C or 203 K.

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