Sep 28, 2015
New hydrogel can keep stem cells alive for heart repair
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: biotech/medical, materials
A new hydrogel protects stem cells inside the body, making existing therapies a lot more effective.
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Sep 28, 2015
Forget blades, the Skarp razor wants you to shave with lasers
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: futurism
The Skarp Laser Razor is a new type of product that’s supposed to use lasers to give a close shave with less irritation. And, since its blade lasts a long time, fewer razors end up in landfills.
So, too, can we expect that the terrorists of tomorrow will likely mix the best of what works today with a new generation of off-the-shelf weaponry and tactics that will empower them like never before. The result is that both terrorist and insurgent groups, be they the groups of today that fight on or new ones that emerge driven by new causes, as well as individual “lone wolves”—whether they are homegrown extremists like Dylann Storm Roof or inspired by abroad like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev—will be able to carry out new forms of attacks and maybe even elude old police tactics for catching them.
The below is an imagining of some of the tools that a terrorist or insurgent of the future might use, all drawn from the real world.
Sep 28, 2015
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Immersive 360 Experience
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: futurism
The Force Awakens Immersive 360 Experience
Speed across the Jakku desert from Star Wars: The Force Awakens with this immersive 360 experience created exclusively for Facebook.
Sep 28, 2015
NASA Says There’s Evidence Of Flowing Water On Mars
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: space
Sep 28, 2015
NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars
Posted by Amnon H. Eden in category: space
New findings from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.
Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.
“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water — albeit briny — is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”
Sep 28, 2015
Black hole is 35,000,000 times larger than the sun — CNN Video
Posted by Sean Brazell in category: cosmology
Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at the center of a newly-discovered galaxy, and it’s 30 times bigger than they thought possible.
Sep 28, 2015
Intelligent machines: Making AI work in the real world — By Eric Schmidt | BBC News
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: big data, computing, innovation, machine learning, robotics/AI, software
“As part of the BBC’s Intelligent Machines season, Google’s Eric Schmidt has penned an exclusive article on how he sees artificial intelligence developing, why it is experiencing such a renaissance and where it will go next.”
Sep 28, 2015
Artificial Intelligence Must Answer to Its Creators
Posted by Dan Faggella in categories: big data, computing, driverless cars, existential risks
Although it was made in 1968, to many people, the renegade HAL 9000 computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey still represents the potential danger of real-life artificial intelligence. However, according to Mathematician, Computer Visionary and Author Dr. John MacCormick, the scenario of computers run amok depicted in the film – and in just about every other genre of science fiction – will never happen.
“Right from the start of computing, people realized these things were not just going to be crunching numbers, but could solve other types of problems,” MacCormick said during a recent interview with TechEmergence. “They quickly discovered computers couldn’t do things as easily as they thought.”
While MacCormick is quick to acknowledge modern advances in artificial intelligence, he’s also very conscious of its ongoing limitations, specifically replicating human vision. “The sub-field where we try to emulate the human visual system turned out to be one of the toughest nuts to crack in the whole field of AI,” he said. “Object recognition systems today are phenomenally good compared to what they were 20 years ago, but they’re still far, far inferior to the capabilities of a human.”
To compensate for its limitations, MacCormick notes that other technologies have been developed that, while they’re considered by many to be artificially intelligent, don’t rely on AI. As an example, he pointed to Google’s self-driving car. “If you look at the Google self-driving car, the AI vision systems are there, but they don’t rely on them,” MacCormick said. “In terms of recognizing lane markings on the road or obstructions, they’re going to rely on other sensors that are more reliable, such as GPS, to get an exact location.”
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