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Dec 5, 2013

Could Apple’s next products have Minority Report-like control?

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, business, futurism, human trajectories, media & arts

Dec 4, 2013

How 3D Printers Are Cranking Out Eyes, Bones, and Blood Vessels

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, bioprinting, biotech/medical, health

Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan on Gizmodo

How 3D Printers Are Cranking Out Eyes, Bones, and Blood Vessels

At the dawn of rapid prototyping, a common predication was that 3D printing would transform manufacturing, spurring a consumer revolution that would put a printer in every home. That hasn’t quite happened—-and like so many emerging technologies, rapid prototyping has found its foothold in a surprisingly different field: Medicine.

The following studies and projects represent some of the most fascinating examples of “bioprinting,” or using a computer-controlled machine to assemble biological matter using organic inks and super-tough thermoplastics. They range from reconstructing major sections of skull to printing scaffolding upon which stem cells can grow into new bones. More below—and look out for more 3D printing week content over the next few days.

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Dec 4, 2013

Google’s humanoid robots take on Amazon’s courier drones

Posted by in categories: business, engineering, robotics/AI
Android developer Andy Rubin leads new robotics division that aims to complete online shopping with home delivery by droids
, telecoms correspondent
The Guardian,

Online shopping is not the most glamorous aspect of the digital revolution, but it has just become the latest Silicon Valley battleground, with droids racing drones to become the courier of the future.

First Amazon promised to eliminate the drudgery of the post office queue with parcels delivered by drone. Now Google has revealed that it is developing humanoid robots that could one day carry groceries to your door.

Andy Rubin, the Google executive who brought smartphones to the masses by developing Google’s free Android software, has revealed he is working on a secret project for the search engine company to create a new generation of robots.

Rubin resigned unexpectedly from running Android in March, and over the past six months has quietly overseen Google’s acquisition of seven small companies whose combined technology could be used to create a robot with animal characteristics such as a form of vision and moving limbs.

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Dec 4, 2013

Congress members push privacy bills in response to Amazon delivery drones

Posted by in categories: drones, ethics, government, law, policy, privacy

Will drones give you better shopping recommendations by watching your house?

By Adi Robertson on

http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9510337/prime-air_high-resolution02_large_verge_medium_landscape.jpg

Since Jeff Bezos announced Amazon’s hypothetical delivery-by-octocopter service earlier this week, its drones have become a point of focus for existing debates over privacy, regulation, and “disruptive” technology. The plan has given a sense of urgency to questions about widespread governmental and commercial drone use, and a new hook for members of Congress trying to answer those questions through legislation. Yesterday, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) became the second member of Congress to raise the specter of Amazon Prime Air to support an anti-surveillance bill, giving a sometimes colorful account of how the drones could change our future.

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Dec 4, 2013

Virgin’s space passengers can pay with Bitcoin

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, fun, space, transportation

richard branson virgin galactic

Good news, future space travelers: Now you can enter the void without bringing your wallet.

U.K. business magnate Richard Branson announced Friday that his commercial space travel venture, Virgin Galactic, will allow customers to pay for their flights with the digital currency Bitcoin.

“Virgin Galactic is a company looking into the future, so is Bitcoin. So it makes sense we would offer Bitcoin as a way to pay for your journey to space.” Branson wrote in a blog post.

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Dec 2, 2013

Predictive Analytics is the Next Growing Sector in Big Data Market

Posted by in categories: big data, complex systems

By On November 30, 2013

The theme of Big Data has spawned a tremendous amount of attention and investor interest in recent years. While much of the big data hype has focused on the storage, structured and unstructured processing technologies, London based investment bank GP Bullhound predicted that some of the most exciting developments are in the fields of Predictive Analytics and Advanced Visualization.

The “Exabyte Research Report” of the international tech investment bank GP Bullhound shows why the investment activities currently skyrocket. Based on over 30 interviews with technology providers, investors and customers, the study shed light on developments in the Big Data market. As per report, big data has already furnished $1.4 billion worth of investment over the last 12 months and has been able to achieve revenue of more than 200 per cent last year.

A large chunk of progress is coming from processing information and using analytics. The report said over 17 percent of information processing individuals eventually use big data analytics and the number is expected to progress to over one third of information workers by 2016.

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Dec 2, 2013

The first person in the world to become a government-recognized cyborg

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, posthumanism, transhumanism

The first person in the world to become a government-recognized cyborg

Annalee Newitz on io9

Neil Harbisson is the first person on the planet to have a passport photo that shows his cyborg nature — in his UK passport, he’s wearing a head-mounted device called an eyeborg. The color-blind artist says the eyeborg allows him to see color, and he wants to help other cyborgs like himself gain more rights.

Anyone who has ever gotten a passport photo knows Harbisson has accomplished something that once seemed bureaucratically impossible. Other people with cyborg headgear, like Steve Mann, have had their gear forcibly removed and been refused entrance into buildings for wearing devices on their heads. But with a passport photo that shows the eyeborg as part of Harbisson’s face, somebody trying to rip his augmentation off would be committing a violent crime equivalent to injuring his face.

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Dec 2, 2013

Boardroom lies, bedroom truths may come from augmented reality-artificial intelligence partnership

Posted by in category: augmented reality
Michael del Castillo
Upstart Business Journal Technology & Innovation Editor

The UpTake: Enon Landenberg is taking augmented reality into uncharted territory by integrating it with artificial intelligence.

Augmented reality took another step towards being something more than just a gimmick with today’s announcement that Infinity AR has partnered with Beyond Verbal, an Israeli startup that decodes and measures human emotions in voice.

“Augmented reality is the front end. It’s just presentation,” said Infinity AR founder Enon Landenberg in an interview with Upstart Business Journal. But this new partnership, according to Landenberg, will enable users to determine if a potential investor is lying during a business meeting, or if a romantic interest means it when she tells you she’ll call later.

“We don’t need to develop tone recognition,” he said. “We take it from Beyond Verbal.”

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Dec 2, 2013

The secret Hong Kong facility that uses boiling goo to mine Bitcoins

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, economics, engineering

By Rich McCormick on

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9508155/bitcoin9_large_verge_medium_landscape.jpg

A single bitcoin is now worth over $1,000, but the process of mining for the digital currency — in which people devote computing power to facilitate global Bitcoin transactions and secure the currency’s network — is growing increasingly expensive. Serious miners have started to build dedicated facilities for the sole purpose of Bitcoin mining. Journalist Xiaogang Cao visited one such center in Hong Kong, the “secret mining facility” of ASICMINER, reportedly located in a Kwai Chung industrial building.

The mine is the size of a shipping container, and filled with 1-meter-high glass tanks in which banks of blades are immersed in roiling liquid. Each tank can hold 92 blades; the blades themselves are kept at a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius or below by “open bath immersion” technology. Open bath immersion cools computer components by submersing them in liquid with a particularly low boiling point. The heat the components generate mining for coins boils the liquid, causing it to turn gaseous, rise up to a condenser at the top of the tank, and fall once again, removing heat from the components in the process. The ASICMINER open bath immersion system was reportedly built by Hong Kong-based company Allied Control, and operates at a Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.02, which “would make it one of the most efficient designs in the world.”

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Dec 2, 2013

Law Banning 3D-Printed Guns Up for Crucial Vote

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, defense, engineering, government, law enforcement, open access, policy

3d-printed-gun

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking at a government function in July when a man sitting a few rows behind him pulled a Liberator, the infamous 3D-printed gun that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recently defined as a “lethal weapon.”

The gun posed no real danger. The man bearing it was just a TV reporter trying to prove how easy it is to sneak a 3D-printed plastic gun past security checks that include metal detectors.

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