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Mar 16, 2016

AI is not as remarkable as it sounds

Posted by in categories: information science, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Let’s step back and consider the broader digital technology landscape for one moment. We have built our past, current, and new technology off of a digital foundation with machine language of standard not very complex algorithms that processes 0s & 1s which has been around since the 50’s. So, not too shock by this article; in fact we may not see a major leap in Humanoid Robots possibly until Quantum hits the mainstream. Quantum holds a lot of promise; however, it’s still too early to know for sure.


Artificial intelligence may be coming to your IT department sooner than you think, but not the way you might imagine.

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Mar 16, 2016

This new discovery could put quantum computers within closer reach

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Maybe someone saw the article on the team in Australia who solved this issue last month; glad folks are collaborating more in this space because we all win when we do.


One of the obstacles that have kept quantum computers on the distant horizon is the fact that quantum bits — the building blocks with which they’re made — are prone to magnetic disturbances. Such “noise” can interfere with the work qubits do, but on Wednesday, scientists announced a new discovery that could help solve the problem.

Specifically, by tapping the same principle that allows atomic clocks to stay accurate, researchers at Florida State University’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) have found a way to give qubits the equivalent of a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

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Mar 16, 2016

Soil Biodiversity Product Earns Organic Certification

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Cape Coral, FL-based Ecological Laboratories Inc. has received organic certification for Quantum Light, its flagship beneficial bacteria product specifically formulated to improve soil biodiversity and increase crop yields. With this certification, Ecological can now support the rapidly growing organic farming and lawn care markets with its all-natural product technologies.

“Our objective continues to be the development of products focused on improving crop yields which at the same time contribute to the protection of farms, and the land and water surrounding them,” said Alan Schatten, chief operating officer of Ecological. “This certification is the first of many steps we intend to take to further our mission.”

“Our technology platform, which has been used to solve environmental problems worldwide for over 40 years, continues to grow and improve,” said Delvia Lukito, assistant vice president of research, development and laboratory operations. “Our team will continue to focus its efforts on developing products to support the good work being carried out by the organic farming community.”

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Mar 16, 2016

The power to heal: tiny generator could repair damaged brains, and give soldiers an edge

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, materials, nanotechnology, neuroscience

Chinese scientists have developed a nano-sized electric generator that can disappear without a trace inside the human body over time, a breakthrough they claim will bring biodegradable implants on microchips closer to reality.

The technology, reported on the latest issue of Science Advances journal, will have a wide range of applications as it can generate electric pulses to repair damaged neurons and power “brain chip” implants for soldiers in the future, pundits said.

At present, most implants must be surgically removed at the end of their lifespan. To address this issue, a number of small electric devices made from biodegradable materials that can absorbed by the human body after use have been developed around the world.

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Mar 16, 2016

DOE’s ARPA-E TERRA projects seek to accelerate sustainable energy crop development

Posted by in categories: energy, engineering, food, genetics, information science, robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

ARPA-E creating sustainable energy crops for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass.


In Washington, the DOE’s ARPA-E TERRA projects seek to accelerate the development of sustainable energy crops for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass. To accomplish this, the projects uniquely integrate agriculture, information technology, and engineering communities to design and apply new tools for the development of improved varieties of energy sorghum. The TERRA project teams will create novel platforms to enhance methods for crop phenotyping (identifying and measuring the physical characteristics of plants) which are currently time-intensive and imprecise.

The new approaches will include automated methods for observing and recording characteristics of plants and advanced algorithms for analyzing data and predicting plant growth potential. The projects will also produce a large public database of sorghum genotypes, enabling the greater community of plant physiologists,

Bioinformaticians and geneticists to generate breakthroughs beyond TERRA. These innovations will accelerate the annual yield gains of traditional plant breeding and support the discovery of new crop traits that improve water productivity and nutrient use efficiency needed to improve the sustainability of bioenergy crops.

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Mar 16, 2016

Lockheed Is Planning to Build a Mach 6 Warplane

Posted by in category: military

I know many test pilots that would drool for the chance to fly this.


The CEO of the aerospace company told reporters that development of the Hypersonic Test Vehicle is underway.

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Mar 16, 2016

Danish intelligence agency to start ‘hacker academy’ to fight cyber warfare

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, military, neuroscience

This is interesting; especially for us who have been engaged in the Cyber Security Warfare for a while. In the 90’s, the top hackers at the time got much of their training out of a known network ring of hackers in Denmark. In fact, they had an underground monthly magazine I believe it was called “Hacker 77” or something like that. Anyway, now Demark is setting up an academy to teach others to combat hackers.


The Danish security and intelligence service PET has announced plans to recruit talented IT nerds interested in helping the Danish state with its cyber espionage against foreign powers like terrorist organisations.

The agency has today launched a marketing campaign for what the media is calling a “hackers’ academy” with the slogan: “Have you got what it takes to become a member of a secret elite unit?”

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Mar 16, 2016

SFCI Archive: Virtual Reality: An Emerging Medium (1993)

Posted by in categories: education, physics, virtual reality

studioforcreativeinquiry.org/projects/the-networked-virtual-art-museum
studioforcreativeinquiry.org/projects/iten-interdisciplinary-teaching-network

Directed by Carl Loeffler, The Networked Virtual Art Museum was a pioneering project that investigated telecommunications and virtual reality, and provided a basis for multiple users located in distant geographical locations to be conjoined in the same virtual, immersion environment. The project employed telecommunication hardware, as well as the hardware associated with virtual reality: data eyephones and multi-directional navigation devices. The immersion environment was an art museum with galleries offering various exhibitions.

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Mar 16, 2016

Astronomers discovered unexpected activity on a giant asteroid that could point to something huge

Posted by in category: space

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA) Ceres’ unusually bright spots.

Nestled 250 million miles from Earth, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is the largest object in the asteroid belt: Ceres.

It’s home to some of the most puzzling features ever observed in our solar system, including a giant pyramid that dwarfs many mountains on Earth and several dazzling bright spots inside a 50-mile-wide crater.

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Mar 16, 2016

The revolutionary chipmaker behind Google’s project Tango is now powering DJI’s autonomous drone

Posted by in categories: business, computing, drones, mobile phones, robotics/AI, virtual reality

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hX0UELNRR1I

A few weeks ago DJI unveiled its newest drone, the Phantom 4, the first craft to offer robust obstacle avoidance at a price the average consumer can afford. It relied on computer vision to power its autonomous flight, and since DJI had shown off this kind of tech before, we assumed that all the hardware on the Phantom 4 was homegrown, or backed by a giant like Intel. But today the chipmaker Movidius announced that its latest offer, the Myriad 2, was at the center of the onboard processor powering the Phantom 4’s incredible new abilities.

As it turns out this isn’t the first time Movidius has partnered with a big name to develop cutting edge technology. Back in 2014 its first chip, the Myriad 1, was revealed as the brains inside of Google’s first generation of Project Tango tablets. After a decade toiling in relative obscurity, the small 125 person company is suddenly poised to emerge as a leader at the intersection of several major markets — from drones to phones to virtual reality — which are looking for ways to enable cheap, power-efficient computer vision.

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