Menu

Blog

Page 11023

May 3, 2016

Virtual Reality Is the Most Powerful Medium of Our Time — By Molly Gottschalk | Artsy

Posted by in categories: media & arts, virtual reality

d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net

“Virtual reality, too, has existed for a long time—at least in some form. In 1935, American science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum planted early seeds of virtual reality with his short story Pygmalion’s Spectacles, having imagined a pair of magic goggles that could transport the wearer into a faraway place—a holographic, multisensory motion picture complete with touch and smell.”

Read more

May 3, 2016

Do we need sex to reproduce?

Posted by in categories: genetics, habitats, sex

The article states that European royal houses are all closely related. Well in humanities history it’s thought that over 80% of all marriages were between second cousins or closer. While until the industrial revolution the nobility would have been the only demographic who could travel further than as far as you can walk from your home and back in a day. So until the industrial revolution the nobility were probably the most genetically diverse demographic.


‘Virgin births’ happen in nature more than we thought, says Frank Swain, so what’s stopping human beings from doing the same?

Read more

May 3, 2016

Comcast Can Now Sell You Fiber Speeds Over Coax, Thanks to a New Modem

Posted by in categories: energy, habitats, internet

Gearing up to offer one-gigabit-per-second Internet service in five U.S. cities this year. The first five cities to see the blazing speed are Nashville, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and Miami.


Comcast, the Internet provider everyone loves to hate, is gearing up to offer one-gigabit-per-second Internet service in five U.S. cities this year. The first five cities to see the blazing speed are Nashville, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and Miami. In line with Google Fiber, Verizon FiOs, and municipal offerings at one-gigabit speeds to the home, the new Comcast service will dramatically increase download speeds. Most subscribers currently receive download speeds of 25–100 megabits per second. For the customers with a 100Mbps connection, the increase boosts their speed 10 times over. For customers with 25 megabit connections, it’s 40 times faster. At that rate, one could download a full-length HD movie in around seven seconds. Not bad.

What sets Comcast’s gigabit service apart is the fact that the Internet provider is not using fiber optic lines to achieve the mega-fast speeds. Instead the company is using the existing coaxial cable lines that are already piped into people’s homes, giving Comcast a potentially huge advantage over a project like Google Fiber—which requires digging costly trenches through cities to lay fiber cables.

Continue reading “Comcast Can Now Sell You Fiber Speeds Over Coax, Thanks to a New Modem” »

May 3, 2016

School’s in session — Nvidia’s driverless system learns

Posted by in categories: computing, robotics/AI, transportation

After spending 72 hours watching human drivers, Nvidia’s GPU-based computers were able to construct a road-worthy driverless car system.

Read more

May 3, 2016

Lab-grown meat is in your future, and it may be healthier than the real stuff

Posted by in categories: food, health

Producers say ‘cultured meat’ tastes good and is better for you and the environment.

Read more

May 2, 2016

‘Green Goblin’ hoverboard flies into record books with incredible stunt (VIDEOS)

Posted by in category: transportation

The world record for the greatest distance traveled on a hoverboard has been smashed by a Frenchman doing his best impression of Spider-Man villain, the Green Goblin.

TrendsViral

Continue reading “‘Green Goblin’ hoverboard flies into record books with incredible stunt (VIDEOS)” »

May 2, 2016

Artificial Intelligence Now Decides Targets on US Aegis Ships

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said that Artificial Intelligence had already taken over defense targeting decisions on Aegis missile warships of the US Navy.

Artificial Intelligence

© Photo: Pixabay.

Read more

May 2, 2016

The World’s Tiniest Light-Powered Engines Could Revolutionize Medicine

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Nanomachines could revolutionize technology and modern medicine, if only we had viable power sources to make them move where we wanted them to go. Now scientists at the University of Cambridge have built the world’s tiniest engines, powered by light, as described in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dubbed “ANTs” (for actuating nano transducers), these itsy-bitsy devices could one day realize the vision of the 1966 classic film Fantastic Voyage, in which a miniaturized submarine crew travel through the body of an injured scientist to repair a blood clot in his brain—except there would be no need for shrunken human pilots. Like real ants, these nano engines can produce very large forces relative to their weight, according to lead researcher Jeremy Baumberg.

It works a bit like a spring mechanism. At the heart of the device are lots of charged gold nanoparticles, held together by a polymer gel that responds to changes in temperature. The gel is heated by zapping it with a laser. The polymer gel responds by expelling all its water in a fraction of a second and collapsing, much like coiling a spring. This stores elastic energy as the gold nanoparticles are smushed together into tight clusters.

Continue reading “The World’s Tiniest Light-Powered Engines Could Revolutionize Medicine” »

May 2, 2016

Watch the Smallest Nuclear Explosion With Bobby Kennedy

Posted by in category: military

Yeah, nuclear mortar. GREAT idea, that. lol wink


The Davy Crockett nuclear weapon was carried by a jeep and operated by a three-man crew.

Continue reading “Watch the Smallest Nuclear Explosion With Bobby Kennedy” »

May 2, 2016

Spider Bot 3D Printers

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, robotics/AI

These aren’t spiders—they’re 3D printers that can walk.

Read more