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May 31, 2005
Future soldiers ironmen?
The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has.
"They don't get hungry," said Gordon Johnson of the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command. "They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes."
The robot soldier is coming.
The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 30, 2005
Hydrogen Cars
Is the world at the tipping point of saying yea or nay to a hydrogen economy, at least, for transportation? What trend or world event will force the tipping point? The crystal ball remains fuzzy.
Ford and General Motors are in dire financial straits. Credit rating agencies saw the automakers' plights as so desperate they cut their credit ratings to junk status, which means it is far more expensive for them to borrow money.
At the same time, both companies are developing hydrogen-powered vehicles, and spending billions to do so. An insider at one company said there's a raging debate about whether the automaker should be spending those billions on technologies that appear to be far in the future. The debate centers around whether those billions should be cut to save money (and maybe the future of the company), or reallocate those billions to new products that will keep the company afloat in the short run.
Dennis Campbell, chief executive of a premier company in developing fuel cells, Ballard Power Systems Inc., based in Vancouver, British Columbia, thinks we're approaching the tipping point toward a hydrogen economy.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 29, 2005
The future is a chip inside your head
Imagine a world where you can never lose your mobile phone because the technology has been implanted in your jawbone; a future where elite football teams play to neurally downloaded tactics and where everything you buy comes with GPS software to help you keep track of it. It may sound like science fiction but, according to a leading academic based in Scotland, it could soon be fact.
Andy Clark, a shock-haired professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, believes his finger is on tomorrow’s pulse. He burst into the academic stratosphere with the 2003 publication of Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. That book explored the way human minds might interact with emerging technology, instantly becoming both a key scientific text and a crossover hit in the United States, casting Clark in the role of scientific seer.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 28, 2005
Human Changing
Dr. James Hughes, bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College and director of the World Transhumanist Association, published Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future in late 2004, examining the ways in which the technological enhancement of human capabilities and lives can strengthen liberal democratic cultures, not threaten them. (I interviewed Dr. Hughes last November, shortly after Citizen Cyborg was released: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.) In March of this year, Ramez Naam, software engineer and technology consultant, brought out More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, focusing on the ways in which biomedical treatments can and will improve human abilities and happiness. Both of these books -- which I highly recommend reading, even if you're a skeptic about the implications of human augmentation technologies -- received highly positive reviews and greatly advanced the conversation over whether and how to enhance human capabilities through technological intervention.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 27, 2005
The most dangerous idea on earth?
t is easy to see how you could be tempted. It might start with genetically screening your children for a lower risk of a hereditary cancer. Or perhaps with a pill that promised to keep your memory fresh and clear into old age.
But what if, while you were having your future children engineered to be cancer-free, you were offered the chance to make them musically gifted? Or, if instead of taking a memory-enhancing pill, you were offered a neural implant that would instantly make you fluent in all the world’s languages? Or cleverer by half? Wouldn’t it be difficult to say no? And what if you were offered a whole new body - one that would never decay or grow old?
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 24, 2005
Digital Immortality - Download the Mind by 2050
The wealthy will be able to download their consciousness into computers by 2050 - the not so well off by "2075 or 2080", claims futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, head of the Futurology unit at BT.
While it sounds like science fiction, Pearson is serious about his claim. He believes that humans will achieve a kind of virtual immortality by saving their consciousnesses into computers within the next 45 years.
"If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. “If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine. We are very serious about it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT."
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
Smart Scopes Make Sense of Cellular Structures
At the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Steven Finkbeiner, MD, PhD, was trying to find an answer to a longstanding question in Huntington's disease research: what do the inclusion bodies (IB) of mutated Huntington protein that form in neuronal cells of people with the disease signify? There was uncertainty whether IBs are part of the process of degeneration, or are actually part of the brain's "solution" to staving off that degeneration.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2005
The biology of cyberspace
Beyond blogging, e-mailing, webcasting, browsing, and gaming, something wonderful and deep is happening in the cyberworld of PCs, users and the Internet. Outwardly, cyberspace appears as pixels and tones on PC desktops and cell phone displays. But these are merely windows into an amazing world that has organically grown up over the past 50 years into an evolving web of diverse and complex interactions of functions, information, and users.
The “Big Bang” of this world was the development of stored-programmed machines, a.k.a. computers, a categorically different type of machine that is unlike any other machine type. A computer is cybernetic, having the capability to acquire, store, generate and act on information. It does not just compute like an abacus, but rather it processes according to internal and external stimuli. It is programmable where its function can be changed radically by simply loading a new program. Even further, it has the capability of modifying its own program to evolve new capability. This universal computing capability seems to endow the machine with a mind and intelligence.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 21, 2005
The fusion of man and machine
By 2020 exciting advances in bio-interfacing will make it possible for a wider range of diseases to be treated electronically.
Initially Parkinson's disease and epilepsy will be successfully dealt with. But the effects of multiple sclerosis, paralysis and motor neurone disease will also be much reduced as the individual is enabled to control their environment and even drive their car, by their thoughts alone, using implanted technology.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2005
"Machine learning" is Beal’s focus
MIT calls it one of the hot 10 emerging technologies that will change your world: Bayesian Machine Learning. It also happens to be the focal point of research for Matthew J. Beal, who last fall joined the faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Bayesian Machine Learning is a head-spinning concept based on a mathematical basis for probability inference discovered by 18th-century mathematician and clergyman Thomas Bayes. Today it is used in applications such as tracking the time evolution of cells, gene expression and interaction, and drug development.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:46 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
How to breed robots
A group of scientists has made an advance in 'artificial life' by building a machine that can replicate itself, reports Roger Highfield
Half a century ago, a pioneer of the computer and the atomic bomb attempted to describe life as a logical process, an effort seen today as one of the first steps towards making a new kind of creature - an artificial lifeform that could range from a robot to a crackle of electrical activity in a microchip.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2005
Paralyzed Rats Walk; Humans Next?
Researchers studying embryonic stem cells have published long-awaited data in a peer-reviewed journal, revealing how they enabled rats with crushed spinal cords to walk again. Spinal cord injury patients are hopeful, but they're not all celebrating just yet.
The publication is certainly a step in a promising direction for the treatment of patients with damaged spinal cords. But the study found that the technique worked only on recently injured rats, not those with chronic injuries. The researchers say they hope to begin human clinical trials sometime soon, but the tests will likely study only newly injured patients.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2005
Genetic Algorithms & Real-World Applications
Since the emergence of modern computers in the 1940s and 1950s, the ideas of artificial life forms and artificial intelligence have captured the imagination of many computer scientists. Many fields of study have arisen in the pursuit of these ideas. One of these fields, as found in the areas of computer science and engineering, is termed "evolutionary computation," the use of self-evolving strategies in problem solving. And one tool used in evolutionary computation is the genetic algorithm (GA).
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2005
High-Tech Robot Skin
High-Tech Robot Skin: Goddard technologist Vladimir Lumelsky believes the future of robotics lies with the development of a high-tech, sensor-embedded covering that would be able to sense the environment, much like human skin.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 12, 2005
Dinosaur 'missing link' unearthed in Utah
Birdlike dinosaurs newly unearthed in Utah may be a missing link between primitive meat-eating creatures and more evolved vegetarians, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
The 125-million-year-old fossils show features of two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs called maniraptorans, from which birds are believed to have evolved, they said.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 12:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2005
ROBEA Project
The machine called RABBIT, which resembles a high-tech Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz," minus the arms, was developed by University of Michigan and French scientists over six years. It's the first known robot to walk and balance like a human, and late last year, researchers succeeded in making RABBIT run for six steps. It has been able to walk gracefully for the past 18 months.
Complete Article
Read More about ROBEA Project
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 09, 2005
AI's Next Brain Wave
Artificial intelligence, a field that has tantalized social scientists and high-tech researchers since the dawn of the computer industry, had lost its sex appeal by the start of the last decade. After a speculative boom in the '80s, attempts to encode humanlike intelligence into systems that could categorize concepts and relate them to each other didn't really pan out, and "expert systems" packed with rules derived from human authorities couldn't translate their expertise into areas beyond the subject matter for which they were programmed. Even when Deep Blue, an IBM chess-playing computer that could evaluate some 200 million board positions per second, defeated grand master Gary Kasparov in 1997, the triumph didn't lead to an artificial-intelligence renaissance.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 07, 2005
Animals that are part-human
On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.
The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can’t wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus’ brain about two months ago.
Read Also: The New Ethics Guidelines
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 05, 2005
Penelope: The Robo-Nurse
Meet “Penelope”, the robo-nurse of the future. With nurse shortages becoming a problem nationwide, Penelope’s creators hope that their creation can help reduce the burden put on nurses.
The robot will not be involved with the actual care of the patients – the most important role of its human counterpart. Instead, its main job will be to help surgeons in the operating room with simple tasks.
Her developers, Michael Treat and his team at Robotic Surgical Tech, Inc., endowed her artificial intelligence specific to surgical situations. Penelope uses voice recognition technology to “listen” for the surgeon’s commands. When the surgeon asks for a scalpel, she repeats the word, and using a visual processing capability, reaches for the tool and hands it to the surgeon.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2005
Aerogel
Aerogel is not like conventional foams, but is a special porous material with extreme microporosity on a micron scale. It is composed of individual features only a few nanometers in size. These are linked in a highly porous dendritic-like structure.
This exotic substance has many unusual properties, such as low thermal conductivity, refractive index and sound speed - in addition to its exceptional ability to capture fast moving dust. Aerogel is made by high temperature and pressure-critical-point drying of a gel composed of colloidal silica structural units filled with solvents. Aerogel was prepared and flight qualified at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL also produced aerogel for the Mars Pathfinder and Stardust missions, which possesses well-controlled properties and purity. This particular JPL-made silica aerogel approaches the density of air. It is strong and easily survives launch and space environments. JPL aerogel capture experiments have flown previously and been recovered on Shuttle flights, Spacelab II and Eureca.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 02, 2005
The Genographic Project
The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages.
The fossil record fixes human origins in Africa, but little is known about the great journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did we, each of us, end up where we are? Why do we appear in such a wide array of different colors and features?
Such questions are even more amazing in light of genetic evidence that we are all related—descended from a common African ancestor who lived only 60,000 years ago
Read more about The Genographic Project @ The National Geographic
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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