The US Air Force just demoed its first flying car. It wants to have 30 different eVTOL craft in its arsenal by 2030, there are many more to come.
Scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a novel method of using fruit peel waste to extract and reuse precious metals from spent lithium-ion batteries in order to create new batteries.
The team demonstrated their concept using orange peel, which recovered precious metals from battery waste efficiently. They then made functional batteries from these recovered metals, creating minimal waste in the process.
The scientists say that their waste-to-resource approach tackles both food waste and electronics waste, supporting the development of a circular economy with zero waste, in which resources are kept in use for as long as possible. An estimated 1.3 billion tons of food waste and 50 million tons of e-waste are generated globally each year.
The Hubble Space Telescope spotted Comet NEOWISE after the object survived its closest approach to the sun.
He claims that humans risk being overtaken by AI within the next five years, and that AI could eventually view us in the same way we currently view house pets.
“I don’t love the idea of being a house cat, but what’s the solution?” he said in 2016, just months before he founded Neuralink. “I think one of the solutions that seems maybe the best is to add an AI layer.”
Amazon’s latest drone patent points at a new way of using a drone that doesn’t involve delivering packages. Amazon wants to replace ski lifts. The drone uses a rope to pull people up the side of a mountain, just like Casey Neistat did in this video in December 2016.
WIREDNew research from the Japanese Tanpopo mission adds to scientists’ understanding of how living organisms can endure the hostile environment.
While Photoshop can do a pretty good job at removing shadows from faces, there’s a fair amount of legwork involved. One scientist has shown that neural networks and artificial intelligence can produce some very impressive results, suggesting that it will soon be a part of how we edit our photos.
Károly Zsolnai-Fehér of Two Minute Papers and the Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms, Vienna University of Technology, Austria, just released a video demonstrating how he has taught a neural network using large data sets to recognize and eliminate shadows from a face in a photograph. As detailed in the video, the neural network was taught by giving it photographs of faces to which shadows had been added artificially.
Given its effectiveness and the quality of the results, it seems only a matter of time before smartphones give you the option to remove shadows. In theory, you might even be able to switch on shadow removal while taking the photograph.
It’s extremely difficult to make a fair comparison of US and Chinese spend on technology like AI as funding and research in this area is diffuse. Although China announced ambitious plans to become the world leader in AI by 2030, America still outspends the country in military funding (which increasingly includes AI research), while US tech companies like Google and Microsoft remain world leaders in artificial intelligence.
The Trump administration will likely present today’s news as a counterbalance to its dismal reputation for supporting scientific research. For four years in a row, government budgets have proposed broad cuts for federal research, including work in pressing subjects like climate change. Only the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, with their overt links to military prowess and global geopolitics, have seen increased investment.
“It is absolutely imperative the United States continues to lead the world in AI and quantum,” said US Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios ahead of today’s announcement, according to The Wall Street Journal. “The future of American economic prosperity and national security will be shaped by how we invest, research, develop and deploy these cutting edge technologies today.”
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NEURALINK, ELON MUSK’S HUMAN-BRAIN LINKUP FIRM, WILL HOLD AN EVENT THIS WEEK – and it’s expected to feature a demonstration of the brain’s neurons firing in real-time.
The secretive firm has been relatively quiet since its first public event in July 2019, when Musk and his team explained how the firm plans to use chips to link human brains up to computers. In July 2020, Musk revealed that the company was planning a second event for Friday, August 28. He also reiterated the company’s mission statement: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Neuralink is set to hold its next event this week. Here’s what you need to know about the human-brain linkup firm’s plans.