Cygnus-X1.Net: A Tribute to Star Trek.
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701
Posted in futurism
Social roboticist, Heather Knight, sees robots and entertainment a research-rich coupling. So she programmed a charming humanoid robot named DATA with jokes, and equipped it with sensors and algorithmic capabilities to help with timing and gauging a crowd. Then Knight and DATA hit the road on an international robot stand-up comedy tour. Their act landed stage time at a TED conference and Knight was profiled in Forbes 30 Under 30. Watching Data perform is much like watching an amateur stand-up comedian cutting her/his chops at an open mic night doing light comedy with a sweet but wooden delivery.
Knight’s goal is specific:
In satellite photos of the Earth, clouds of bright green bloom across the surface of lakes and oceans as algae populations explode in nutrient-rich water. From the air, the algae appear to be the primary players in the ecological drama unfolding below.
But those single-celled organisms we credit for influencing the aquatic environment at the base of the food chain may be under the influence of something else: viruses whose genes can reconfigure their hosts’ metabolism.
In a new study published in Nature Communications, a research team from Virginia Tech reported that they had found a substantial collection of genes for metabolic cycles—a defining characteristic of cellular life—in a wide range of “giant viruses.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, you know it’s been so long If I don’t get your calls, then everything goes wrong… Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation” — Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”
In 1978, Debbie Harry propelled her new wave band Blondie to the top of the charts with a plaintive tale of yearning to hear her boyfriend’s voice from afar and insisting he not leave her “hanging on the telephone.”
But the questions arises: What if it were 2020 and she was speaking over VOIP with intermittent packet losses, audio jitter, network delays and out-of-sequence packet transmissions?
Liz Parrish is the Founder and CEO of BioViva Sciences USA Inc.
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Researchers have designed a machine learning method that can predict battery health with 10x higher accuracy than current industry standard, which could aid in the development of safer and more reliable batteries for electric vehicles and consumer electronics.
The researchers, from Cambridge and Newcastle Universities, have designed a new way to monitor batteries by sending electrical pulses into them and measuring the response. The measurements are then processed by a machine learning algorithm to predict the battery’s health and useful lifespan. Their method is non-invasive and is a simple add-on to any existing battery system. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.
Predicting the state of health and the remaining useful lifespan of lithium-ion batteries is one of the big problems limiting widespread adoption of electric vehicles: it’s also a familiar annoyance to mobile phone users. Over time, battery performance degrades via a complex network of subtle chemical processes. Individually, each of these processes doesn’t have much of an effect on battery performance, but collectively they can severely shorten a battery’s performance and lifespan.
In order to better solve complex challenges at the dawn of the third decade of the 21st century, Alphabet Inc. has tapped into relics dating to the 1980s: video games.
The parent company of Google reported this week that its DeepMind Technologies Artificial Intelligence unit has successfully learned how to play 57 Atari video games. And the computer system plays better than any human.
Atari, creator of Pong, one of the first successful video games of the 1970s, went on to popularize many of the great early classic video games into the 1990s. Video games are commonly used with AI projects because they challenge algorithms to navigate increasingly complex paths and options, all while encountering changing scenarios, threats and rewards.
As of right now, Cortical’s mini-brains have less processing power than a dragonfly brain. The company is looking to get its mouse-neuron-powered chips to be capable of playing a game of “Pong,” as CEO Hon Weng Chong told Fortune, following the footsteps of AI company DeepMind, which used the game to test the power of its AI algorithms back in 2013.
“What we are trying to do is show we can shape the behavior of these neurons,” Chong told Fortune.
READ MORE: A startup is building computer chips using human neurons [Fortune].
Even in the countries where these journalists are censored, “You’re able to play Minecraft.”
Small Satellites are Expanding
Posted in satellites, space
Satellites come in all sizes and shapes. A small satellite or SmallSat is commonly considered to be a satellite that weighs less than 500 kg.
As a basic application of various satellite sizes by mass, the common distinction:
| Lower Limit | Upper Limit(kg) | Classification | Examples |
| 1000 | Large satellites | Hubble Space Telescope / Inmarsat-4A F4 | |
| 500 | 1000 | Medium satellites | O3b |
| 0 | 500 | Small satellites | SpaceX StarLink |
CubeSats are smaller yet.