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In just a few years, technology will merge with our bodies in unimaginable ways and push the boundaries of what it is to be human. While medical technology still aims at remediating disabilities, cyborgs strive to something else: a merging of man and machine with the goal of enhancing human capabilities.

The first cyborgs are already crossing the boundaries of their human limits just for the sake of it – at home, in basement workshops and tattoo parlours, using low-tech equipment and a do-it-yourself attitude. They are a tiny minority, seen by many as weird or crazy experimenters, but in the near future we may call them pioneers.

In this film, we meet some of these explorers. We also look at research in medical technology to assess how close science is to creating cyborgs, and ponder the social and ethical dilemmas of a cyborg society.

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Forget about life-work-balance. A new generation of drugs promises unlimited increases in productivity without the need for rest or sleep.

“Brain doping” is the latest trend among high flyers. Pharmaceutical companies are developing pills that increase mental capability, stimulate desire, and heighten mood. A meaningful life full of happiness and success – without side effects.

The industry hopes for fantastic profits if the pretty pills become socially acceptable. Are we at the dawn of a new era, in which cosmetic neurology is an everyday phenomenon?

This documentary was first released in 2011.

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Actuator: What’s this ‘general purpose’ stuff I keep hearing about?

In a blog post published last week, Meta asks, “Where are the robots?” The answer is simple. They’re here. You just need to know where to look. It’s a frustrating answer. I recognize that. Let’s set aside conversations about cars and driver assistance and just focus on things we all tend to agree are robots. For starters, that Amazon delivery isn’t making it to you without robotic assistance.

A more pertinent question would be: Why aren’t there more robots? And more to the point, why aren’t there more robots in my house right now? It’s a complex question with a lot of nuance — much of it coming down to the current state of hardware limitations around the concept of a “general purpose” robot. Roomba is a robot. There are a lot of Roombas in the world, and that’s largely because Roombas do one thing well (an additional decade of R&D has helped advance things from a state of “pretty good”).

It’s not so much that the premise of the question is flawed — it’s more a question of reframing it slightly. “Why aren’t there more robots?” is a perfectly valid question for a nonroboticist to ask. As a longtime hardware person, I usually start my answer there. I’ve had enough conversations over the past decade that I feel fairly confident I could monopolize the entire conversation discussing the many potential points of failure with a robot gripper.

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Facebook Gaming, a division of Meta, has announced that you can now play games during video calls on Messenger. At launch, there are 14 free-to-play game available in Messenger video calls on iOS, Android and the web. The games include popular titles like Words With Friends, Card Wars, Exploding Kittens and Mini Gold FRVR.

To access the games, you need to start a video call on Messenger and tap the group mode button in the center, then tap on the “Play” icon. From there, you can browse through the games library. The company notes that there must be two or more people in your call to play games.

“Facebook Gaming is excited to announce that you can now play your favorite games during video calls on Messenger,” the company wrote in a blog post. “This new, shared experience in Messenger makes it easy to play games with friends and family while in a video call, allowing you to deepen connections with friends and family by engaging in conversations and gameplay at the same time.”

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A new career is emerging with the spread of generative AI applications like ChatGPT: prompt engineering, the art (not science) of crafting effective instructions for AI models.

“In ten years, half of the world’s jobs will be in prompt engineering,” declared Robin Li, cofounder and CEO of Chinese AI giant, Baidu. “And those who cannot write prompts will be obsolete.”

That may be a bit of big tech hyperbole, but there’s no doubt that prompt engineers will become the wizards of the AI world, coaxing and guiding AI models into generating content that is not only relevant but also coherent and consistent with the desired output.

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The announcement comes as the social media giant increasingly diverts its attention from creating a virtual reality-based Metaverse to embed AI features across its platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp.

Editing photos, analyzing surveillance footage and understanding the parts of a cell. These tasks have one thing in common: you need to be able to identify and separate different objects within an image. Traditionally, researchers have had to start from scratch each time they want to analyze a new part of an image.

Meta aims to change this laborious process by being the one-stop-shop for researchers and web developers working on such problems.

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Stirling converters could allow deep space missions to massively reduce their reliance on potentially scarce solar energy.

China’s Shenzhou-15 mission crew aboard the China Space Station (CSS) has reportedly completed testing on a free-piston Stirling thermoelectric converter, according to a report from state-owned media in China.

NASA and China have both experimented with Stirling converters.

Gremlin/iStock.

The successful test marks the first time China has verified this type of technology in orbit. The experimental technology, which NASA has also investigated, has the potential to provide crucial backup energy to deep space missions.

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Chinese researchers used stem cells from macaques to culture embryo-like structures in a lab.

Using stem cells from a monkey embryo, a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) successfully cultured embryo-like structures in lab conditions, but they didn’t just stop there.

It is important to understand that human embryonic research is a controversial subject because of the various ethical concerns.

Anusorn nakdee/iStock.

The researchers further tested their lab-grown embryos in the uteruses of living female monkeys to check if they could give rise to fetuses.

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Human memory has been shown to be highly fallible in recent years, but a new study on short term memory recall indicates that we can get details wrong within seconds of an event happening.

It has long been shown that human memory is highly fallible, with even ancient legal codes requiring more than one witness to corroborate accounts of a crime or events, but a new study reveals that people can create false memories within a second of the event being recalled.

The study, published this week in PLOS One, had hundreds of volunteers over the course of four experiments look at a sequence of letters and asked them to recall a single highlighted letter that they had been shown. In addition, some of the highlighted letters were reversed, meaning the respondent needed to recall that as well.

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Artificial intelligence has become the world’s latest buzzword. And experts have been busy demonstrating its capabilities in virtually every field, including music. And it appears that AI did not fare well in the generation of music.

They recruited 50 participants for this study who have a strong understanding of music, particularly musical notes and other essential components.

Puhimec/iStock.

According to the University of York study, AI-generated music is “inferior to human-composed music.”

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