StarWars fighting is here! Wow; all we need is Yoda, and a Jedi Academy; then we can say life is indeed imitating art.
Experts believe that US aircraft could be fitted with the so-called death rays early in the next decade once scientists have managed to reduce the size of the devices while increasing their power.
I love contract season with the US Government because you get to see all of the cool projects being awarded.
CAMBRIDGE, MA — The U.S. military’s unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) depend on stealth as they conduct surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions in the deep oceans. With Global Positioning System (GPS) signals unable to penetrate the ocean’s surface, these UUVs can rely on inertial sensors to provide acceptable positioning information during short missions. On longer missions, however, inertial sensors accumulate error, forcing the vehicles to risk exposing themselves to enemies as they periodically surface to obtain a GPS fix.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is addressing this issue by funding the development of a small number of acoustic transmitters that can be anchored to fixed locations around ocean basins to serve as an undersea navigation constellation, according to a May 10 release by the Cambridge-based nonprofit company Draper.
By measuring its range to multiple signals emanating from known coordinates, an undersea vehicle can operate continuously with accurate navigation information without needing to surface for GPS fixes or to use high cost inertial systems that are typical of current UUVs. DARPA awarded a contract on March 15 to a Draper-led team to begin development of a solution for the Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation (POSYDON).
Not saying that the whole Apple situation cause this; it just odd timing.
The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain how they release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said on Monday.
The agencies have written to Apple, AT&T and Alphabet, among others, in order “to better understand, and ultimately to improve, the security of mobile devices,” the FCC said.
The FCC sent letters to six mobile phone carriers on security issues, while the FTC ordered eight mobile device manufacturers including BlackBerry, Microsoft, LG Electronics USA and Samsung Electronics America to disclose “the factors that they consider in deciding whether to patch a vulnerability on a particular mobile device.”
Posted in mobile phones, robotics/AI
DARPA was tied to this; and when you click on the article the page states content was removed. I will keep trying to track down because it is a great report; so not sure if someone has intervene.
Forget telltale finger grease prints: researchers have come up with a robot that mimics the swipe touch gestures we use to get into our phones.
One can hope.
Although it’s likely to be a hope in vain, I’m afraid.
That said, you never know.
NASA is poised to reveal Tuesday new details about the hunt for life – intelligent or otherwise — in the cosmos.
NASA just made a new announcement regarding the findings made by the Kepler Space Telescope.
NASA just announced that they have found 1,284 new planets. This is the most exoplanets that have ever been announced at one time, and it doubles the number of known Kepler exoplanets (informally known as ‘alien planets’).
“This announcement more than doubles the number of known exoplanets,” says Timothy Morton, associate research scholar at Princeton University, and a member of the study.
Posted in futurism
My new article on how some technologies will inevitably make the government smaller:
However, there’s reason to believe that in the near future, government might dramatically shrink—not because of demands by fiscally astute Americans, but because of radical technology.
Indubitably, millions of government jobs will soon be replaced by robots. Even the US President could one day be replaced, which—strangely enough—might bring sanity to our election process.
But it’s not just robots, it’s software programs and weird new tech that will do the replacing. Consider the over 1 million firefighters, a staple part of American government that also represents the ideal of service and career to one’s country. Companies around the world are now building fireproof everything, including couches, furniture, and building materials that simply don’t burn well. And intelligent robots—which I think will be in 50 percent of American households within five years time—will all have fire and carbon monoxide detectors.
