Lifeboat Foundation

Alexandra Ossola — MotherBoard

Ever since humans first envisioned robots, we’ve thought about how to make the machines more like us. Robots compete against us on game shows, and rendezvous with us in the bedroom (or at least, make virtual sex feel real). But part of being human is sensing the world around us in a particular way, and doing it all at the same time.

This is much more complicated than it seems, as scientists haven’t fully unraveled how we’re able to sense what we do; it’s both our hardware and software that contain codes that are difficult to crack. Still, scientists power through, discovering how their own senses work while crafting artificial versions of them. Here are some of the most valiant attempts to get robots to taste, smell, touch, hear, and see in the most human way possible.

Read more

FUTURISM UPDATE (October 28, 2014)

REUTERS: Wall St. flat after last week’s big gain; energy weighs http://lnkd.in/dZxTeKd

REUTERS: Amazon buys comedy service Rooftop Media to expand digital content http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/27/us-amazon-com-medi…XW20141027

KAI: How ferroelectrics could replace silicon in computers http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-ferroelectrics-could-replace-silicon-in-computers

Continue reading “FUTURISM UPDATE (October 28, 2014)” »

Kurweil AI

Researchers at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, and Pennsylvania State University have developed a 3D printing process that transitions from one metal or alloy to another in a single object.

For example, they created a prototype of an improved telescope mirror mount. The part at the top near the glass mirror is made of a metal with low thermal expansion, so that it won’t shrink in space as much as most metals do. That prevents stress in the epoxy adhesive between the mirror and the metal. The bottom part of this mount is stronger stainless steel and could be connected to a stainless steel component of a spacecraft.

Read more

Kurweil AI

A new Terminator T-1000 robot-style material made of wax and foam — and capable of switching between hard and soft states — could be used to build morphing surgical robots that move through the body to reach a desired location without damaging organs or vessels along the way.

Robots built from the material, described in a new paper in the journal Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, could also be used in search-and-rescue operations to squeeze through rubble looking for survivors, says Anette Hosoi, an MIT professor of mechanical engineering and applied mathematics who led the research team.

Read more

James Vincent — The Independent

In a quiet announcement that has sent shockwaves through the scientific world, Nasa has cautiously given its seal of approval to a new type of “impossible” engine that could revolutionize space travel.

In a paper published by the agency’s experimental Eagleworks Laboratories, Nasa engineers confirmed that they had produced tiny amounts of thrust from an engine without propellant – an apparent violation of the conservation of momentum; the law of physics that states that every action must have an equal and opposite reaction.

Read more

By Joe Miller Technology reporter — BBC News

Communications regulator Ofcom said UK adults spend an average of eight hours and 41 minutes a day on media devices, compared with the average night’s sleep of eight hours and 21 minutes.

Almost four hours a day are spent watching TV according to Ofcom’s survey of 2,800 UK adults and children.

Read more

FUTURISM UPDATE (October 24, 2014)

FORBES: Three Industries Going Through Dramatic Supply Chain Transformations http://lnkd.in/drBaPhW

GEEKWIRE: Google leads $542M Magic Leap deal, betting on augmented reality http://www.geekwire.com/2014/google-leads-542m-magic-leap-in…d-reality/

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Google Invests Heavily in Magic Leap’s Effort to Blend Illusion and Reality http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/google-invests-in-mag…lity-firm/

Continue reading “FUTURISM UPDATE (October 24, 2014)” »

This archive file was compiled from an interview conducted at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, 2013.

As late as the 1980s and the 1990s, the common person seeking stored knowledge would likely be faced with using an 18th century technology — the library index card catalogue — in order to find something on the topic he or she was looking for. Fifteen years later, most people would be able to search, at any time and any place, a collection of information that dwarfed that of any library. And unlike the experience with a library card catalogue, this new technology rarely left the user empty-handed.

Information retrieval had been a core technology of humanity since written language — but as an actual area of research it was so niche that before the 1950s, nobody had bothered to give the field a name. From a superficial perspective, the pioneering work in the area during the 1940s and 50s seemed to suggest it would be monumentally important to the future — but only behind the scenes. Information retrieval was to be the secret tool of the nation at war, or of the elite scientist compiling massive amounts of data. Increasingly however, a visionary group of thinkers dreamed of combining information retrieval and the ‘thinking machine’ to create something which would be far more revolutionary for society.

Continue reading “Who is Amit Singhal (at Google)?” »