Friday, December 14, 2018

Smart dust

This is the stuff that makes the privacy-free society envisioned in The Transparent Society (David Brin) possible, even likely:

https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1494837/

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Toyota taps Docomo 5G to remotely control its humanoid robot

"As for what such a robot might actual be good for (beyond knocking the snot out of pint-sized kaiju), Toyota sees potential in homes and healthcare, with an eye on “a prosperous society of mobility.”"

Oh, I can see many more uses than that! How about sending them into dangerous situations where human dexterity and agility are necessary? Like shutting down a radioactive power plant, fighting fires, dealing with active shooters, going into battle (like Predator and Reaper drones, only for foot soldiers), etc.:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/30/toyota-taps-docomo-5g-to-remotely-control-its-humanoid-robot/

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Humans Teamed up With a New Kind of AI to Crush a Notoriously Difficult Video Game

"So rest easy, streamers and speed runners — you’re safe from automation for now. It would seem, if this research is an indication of things to come, that the high scores (and solving of other complex problems) will probably be set by human-AI collaborations, not just machines working alone."

The key words there are "for now."

https://futurism.com/humanity-teamed-up-with-a-new-kind-of-ai-to-crush-a-notoriously-difficult-video-game

MIT Scientists Created A Plane That Flies With No Moving Parts

An electric airplane. It may not scale beyond drone size, but it's still impressive:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mit-scientists-creates-plane-that-flies-with-no-moving-parts_us_5bfc1a5be4b0771fb6bc4cfd

Monday, November 26, 2018

End of Space – Creating a Prison for Humanity

As in the movie Gravity...only this looks to be much worse by creating a permanent sphere of ultra-high-speed projectiles around the Earth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Thursday, September 27, 2018

How Zinc Batteries Could Change Energy Storage

"NantEnergy said that at $100 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of zinc air batteries compared favorably with that of lithium-ion batteries, which can be $250 per kilowatt-hour but are more typically $300 to $400"

However,

"At the present rate of production of zinc, zinc reserves will last about 25 years. So it is not clear from the reserves available if we will have enough zinc to support the enormous need that will result from the demand for grid-scale batteries."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/business/energy-environment/zinc-battery-explain.html

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

In Europe, Scientists Need to Share Their Research for Free if They Want Government Funding

This should be a boon to science (although what about weapons and other necessarily secret research?):

https://futurism.com/open-access-science-europe/

Tech Can Sustainably Feed Developing World Cities of the Future. Here’s How

A good summary of all the likely measures:

https://singularityhub.com/2018/09/05/tech-can-sustainably-feed-developing-world-cities-of-the-future-heres-how/

Jobs changing with AI but no mass unemployment expected

I would never bet on this long-term:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/jobs-changing-with-ai-but-no-mass-unemployment-expected-un-labour-experts/articleshow/65682669.cms

Researchers use nanotechnology to develop new super-dense drive

"Using nanotechnology and computer engineering, physicists at the University of Alberta have developed a solid-state drive with 1,000 times more storage capacity than before."

https://nano-magazine.com/news/2018/9/3/researchers-use-nanotechnology-to-develop-new-super-dense-drive

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Landmark FDA Approval Brings Powerful Gene Silencing Method to Market

"Earlier this month, the FDA approved an entirely new family of drugs, one so powerful that it could put CRISPR-based gene therapy to shame."

https://singularityhub.com/2018/08/21/landmark-fda-approval-brings-powerful-gene-silencing-method-to-market

Algorithms Outpace Moore’s Law for AI

"Professor Martin Groetschel observed that a linear programming problem that would take 82 years to solve in 1988 could be solved in one minute in 2003. Hardware accounted for 1,000 times speedup, while algorithmic advance accounted for 43,000 times. Similarly, MIT professor Dimitris Bertsimas showed that the algorithm speedup between 1991 and 2013 for mixed integer solvers was 580,000 times, while the hardware speedup of peak supercomputers increased only a meager 320,000 times."

https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1333617

Could this mean AI may arrive a lot sooner than anticipated?

Machine learning: Japan to boost English teaching in schools with AI robots

$227,000 for a robot to teach English? Um...isn't there a free app for that (#Duolingo)?

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2160678/circuits-love-japan-boost-english-schools-ai-robots

Monday, July 23, 2018

DARPA To Fund New AI Concepts With Millions

Nice to see funding to speed A.I. research:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2018/07/23/darpa-to-fund-new-ai-concepts-with-millions/#2928d44b251f

New Study Sounds a Note of Caution in the Development of CRISPR Gene Therapies

Crispy cancer:

https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/23/new-study-sounds-a-note-of-caution-in-the-development-of-crispr-gene-therapies/

We live in a time when robots paint better than us

It was going to happen sooner or later:

https://www.cnn.com/ampstories/us/we-live-in-a-time-when-robots-paint-better-than-us

From Here to Human-Level Artificial General Intelligence in Four (Not All That) Simple Steps

"I do believe they are achievable within our lifetime, maybe even in the next 5-10 years."

https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/22/from-here-to-human-level-artificial-general-intelligence-in-four-not-all-that-simple-steps/

Evolutionary algorithm outperforms deep-learning machines at video games

Who needs programming when evolution can do the job for you?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611568/evolutionary-algorithm-outperforms-deep-learning-machines-at-video-games/

Why the chess community actually grew when computers learned to play

"Humans have a deep appreciation for other humans doing remarkable things. Because of this, there will always be a demand for outstanding chess players, artists, and anyone pushing the boundaries of what is humanly possible. Even if computers can win every chess game, or create incredible art in every form, the fact that a machine did it is actually diminishing. We like the constraint of being human, and seeing what’s possible from within those boundaries. When we see a performance, we don’t just see it for what it is. We see the entire history, the years of training that led up to them being able to perform with such excellence."

https://work.qz.com/1329974/jobs-and-ai-if-you-are-worried-about-human-obsolescence-consider-chess/

Monday, July 16, 2018

Friday, July 6, 2018

Three Huge Ways Tech Is Overhauling Healthcare

VERY nice:

"We are on the brink of a revolution in healthcare. AI is making the drug discovery process >100X faster and cheaper, and 90 percent more likely to succeed in clinical trials. Mobile health is predicted to become a $102 billion market by 2022, putting a virtual doctor, on-demand, in your back pocket. And the cost of sequencing your genome (3.2 billion base pairs) has decreased 100,000-fold over 13 years, a staggering speed that is 3 times faster than the rate of Moore’s Law."

https://singularityhub.com/2018/07/06/three-huge-ways-tech-is-overhauling-healthcare

Discovering new drugs and materials by ‘touching’ molecules in virtual reality

Very science fictiony way to design new materials:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/discovering-new-drugs-and-materials-by-touching-molecules-in-virtual-reality

The Infinadeck Omnidirectional Treadmill - Smarter Every Day 192 (VR Series)

You can see the future of VR gaming here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvu5FxKuqdQ

MIT’s Cheetah 3 blind robot can climb a staircase littered with debris, leap, and gallop across rough terrain

https://youtu.be/QZ1DaQgg3lE

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

The Smart Road Tech That’s Making Driving Faster, Safer, And Just Better

Very slick. Now if they can just integrate solar power:

https://singularityhub.com/2018/06/27/the-smart-road-tech-thats-making-driving-faster-safer-and-just-better/

Aliens May Be Rearranging Stars to Fight Dark Energy, Awesome Study Suggests

One way to possibly discover highly advanced alien life by simply looking at the stars:

https://www.livescience.com/62917-aliens-rearrange-stars-fight-dark-energy.html

DARPA Literally Reinvented The Wheel

Another very science-fictiony piece of tech:

https://taskandpurpose.com/darpa-wheel-combat-vehicles/

What it’s like to watch an IBM AI successfully debate humans

I watched a documentary on this. The amount of not just knowledge but ability to understand spoken debate and respond to it in kind is pretty amazing:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/18/17477686/ibm-project-debater-ai

Flying Dragon Robot Transforms Itself to Squeeze Through Gaps

Very science-fictiony cool (watch the video):

Lab-Grown Neanderthal Minibrains Reveal How They’re Different From Humans’

https://futurism.com/lab-grown-neanderthal-minibrains-communicate/

Monday, June 11, 2018

First contact: what if we find not organic life but ET’s AI?

An interesting exploration into the possibility of discovering machine life:

https://aeon.co/essays/first-contact-what-if-we-find-not-organic-life-but-ets-ai

The world’s most powerful supercomputer is tailor made for the AI era

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611077/the-worlds-most-powerful-supercomputer-is-tailor-made-for-the-ai-era/

Waymo announces 7 million miles of testing, putting it far ahead of rivals

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/waymo-announces-7-million-miles-of-testing-putting-it-far-ahead-of-rivals/

The incredible inventions of intuitive AI | Maurice Conti

Enjoyable TED Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR5N2Jl8k14

This box sucks pure water out of dry desert air

All of us out west may be using this sort of a device before too long:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/08/this-box-sucks-pure-water-out-of-dry-desert-air/

Engineers Develop New System to Provide Low-Cost Drinking Water

This could add a massive amount to our drinking water supply:

https://scitechdaily.com/engineers-develop-new-system-to-provide-low-cost-drinking-water/

Thursday, June 7, 2018

NASA Found Evidence of Organic Matter on Mars. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal.

Very cool news!

https://futurism.com/curiosity-nasa-new-studies/

5 Reasons Car Companies Are Betting Big on Energy Storage

Makes a lot of sense to me:

https://singularityhub.com/2018/06/07/5-reasons-car-companies-are-betting-big-on-energy-storage/

To put things into perspective, a typical house easily runs on a 13.5 kWh Tesla Powerwall 2 all evening and more, and a Tesla car has a minimum of a 70 kWh battery.

Thank A Rare Fungus For The Sustainable Solar Cell Of The Future

A biological approach to solar power:

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/06/thank-a-rare-fungus-for-the-sustainable-solar-cell-of-the-future/

We took an exclusive ride in a flying car

A flying car made with drone technology to make it extremely simple to learn:

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/06/technology/flying-car-las-vegas-kitty-hawk/index.html

AI can transfer human facial movements from one video to another

Further evolution in the creation of realistic fake videos. Pretty impressive...and bound to cause problems politically sooner or later:

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

How Cyanobacteria Could Help Save the Planet

Ultimately, I think we're going to need nanotech to pull carbon from the atmosphere and make it into useful products, but this may be helpful in the meantime:

https://singularityhub.com/2018/06/04/how-cyanobacteria-could-help-save-the-planet/

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

This is significant:

"China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-23/electric-buses-are-hurting-the-oil-industry

A Data Storage Revolution? DNA Can Store Near Limitless Data in Almost Zero Space

"If we were to send a single exabyte of data (one billion gigabytes) to Mars using silicon binary media, it would take five Falcon Heavy rockets and cost $486 million in freight alone.

With DNA, we would need five cubic centimeters."

https://singularityhub.com/2018/04/26/the-answer-to-the-digital-data-tsunami-is-literally-in-our-dna/

Saturday, April 21, 2018

The Impossible Burger Looks, Tastes, and Smells Traditional – But Is Vegan

I wanted to try this meat substitute for myself, so I found a local restaurant that serves it. I have to say, that was a perfectly good burger and I would never have guessed it was vegan. Smell, taste, mouthfeel...all seemed like genuine beef:

https://futurism.com/videos/impossible-burger-traditional-vegan/

Friday, April 20, 2018

Assassin drones

The future of warfare will likely look a lot like this (click on "read more" on the Advancing Technologies page to see the embedded video):


Monday, March 26, 2018

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Is there anything hackers can't hack? Now there is, thanks to a new way of coding.

This is becoming increasingly vital:

http://bigthink.com/videos/kathleen-fisher-how-coders-are-creating-software-thats-impossible-to-hack

New MIT Device Can Harvest Water From Desert Air

This invention may be coming just in time to allow the survival of hundreds of millions of people living in the increasing desertification caused by climate change:

https://scitechdaily.com/new-mit-device-can-harvest-water-from-desert-air/

Scientists Identify The Key Region of ‘Immortality and Aging’ Enzyme

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-identify-key-region-of-immortality-and-aging-enzyme/

How the Wild New Materials of the Future Will Be Discovered With AI

https://singularityhub.com/2018/03/22/how-the-wild-new-materials-of-the-future-will-be-discovered-with-ai/#sm.0001p9abvhotbf0jwc02kzluw8213

The Meat Industry Has Some Serious Beef With Those 'Bleeding' Plant-Based Burgers

Of course "big meat" is upset:

http://time.com/5181524/impossible-burger-plant-based/

But the technology will only get better.

This is the moment when we decide that human lives matter more than cars

From here: https://www.curbed.com/transportation/2018/3/20/17142090/uber-fatal-crash-driverless-pedestrian-safety

"If an autonomous vehicle is not several magnitudes better than a human driver at detecting a pedestrian and preventing the loss of human life, it cannot be on the road."

I think this is exactly the wrong way to look at the problem. As soon as autonomous vehicles are simply BETTER than human drivers, they SHOULD be on the road.

Monday, March 19, 2018

$10 million XPRIZE Aims for Robot Avatars That Let You See, Hear, and Feel by 2021

Creating the ultimate waldo (remote manipulator):

https://singularityhub.com/2018/03/19/robot-avatars-that-let-you-see-hear-and-feel-could-be-here-by-2021/

This Robot is Better at Basketball Than You

https://nerdist.com/this-robot-is-better-at-basketball-than-you/

Decline in World Fertility Rates Lowers Risks of Mass Starvation

Some good news for those who have been dreading overpopulation:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation

How Exercising Into Old Age Can Keep Your Immune System Young

How to keep your immune system at the peak it was in your 20s:

http://time.com/5193032/cycling-old-age-immune-system/

Self-Driving Uber Involved In Arizona Pedestrian Death

Damn. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. But the few exceptions should prove the rule:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/self-driving-uber-involved-in-pedestrian-death-in-arizona_us_5aafeabbe4b0697dfe193348

Monday, March 5, 2018

Hyperloop and Flying Cars Are Battling It Out for the Future of Transportation

Without nanotech to drive the price of tunneling WAY down, I don't see the hyperloop as happening, but I can see flying cars for certain short hops as being worthwhile very soon. At least I would buy one as a quick way of getting down to the lake and back. :-)

https://singularityhub.com/2018/03/05/hyperloop-and-flying-cars-are-battling-it-out-for-the-future-of-transportation/

Thursday, February 15, 2018

The “Father of Artificial Intelligence” Says Singularity Is 30 Years Away

Several futurists predicting the technological singularity within a few decades:

https://futurism.com/father-artificial-intelligence-singularity-decades-away/

SunPower solar panels and Tesla Powerwall battery system information

For anyone thinking of getting a home solar system, here's an update you may find interesting and hopefully useful:

I live in Northern CA, and in 2017 I decided to go solar. I bought a 4.1kW system (twelve 345W panels) for $16.5K (actual cost about $11K after tax breaks). Any power I don't use is fed to the grid, and at the end of the year the amount of grid power I've used vs. the amount I've sent to the grid is calculated to determine whether I have to pay or whether I get paid something (it's best to put into the grid exactly as much power as you use, since the amount PG&E pays for any overproduction is paltry). Regardless, there is a $10 per month service charge just to remain connected to the grid.

Although the system works fine, there is no way to know how much power you're producing vs. using until the end of the year. Also, if the grid power ever suffers an outage during the day, the solar system ceases to function (apparently it needs SOME grid power to access the solar production...which is strange and annoying).

So I looked into getting a battery system. The Tesla Powerwall 2 had recently come onto the market, and although it's expensive (around $12K fully installed), here in CA it came with a huge tax break and a rebate, reducing the cost to less than $5K. I was one of the first few hundred people in CA to order a Powerwall.

The battery holds a 13.5 kWh charge. To put that into perspective, that's enough energy to power my home for around 30 hours of normal use.

So the way this works is you set the Tesla phone app to the percentage you always want to remain in reserve for power outages. I've set mine to 25%, since outages are extremely rare and never for more than a few hours (FYI, in case of an outage, the switch to battery power is almost instantaneous and without any interruption). The remaining 75% is more flexible, and is used to power my home whenever there is insufficient or no solar power generation.

During the shortest day of the year, the battery uses a maximum of about 60% of its charge to get me through the darkest hours. It only gets better than that every other day of the year, weather permitting. As long as the sky isn't covered with dark clouds during the day (thin cloud cover is okay), there's enough solar power generated to refill the battery. That keeps me 99% free of grid power, although I'm still connected to the grid (for $10/month) for the times when it's too cloudy for too long or if I need to put more of a drain on the system than the battery can handle (that includes, unfortunately, most air conditioning systems if they need to run when there's insufficient solar power generation). I also need a grid connection to feed excess power to the grid (which should pay for that monthly fee, although we'll see once air conditioning season hits).

So for about $16K, I have a solar and battery system that should pay for itself within a decade or so (although it's hard to say for sure yet, since I don't have a full year on the system to properly calculate the costs). Your costs may vary, but it may be worth looking into such a system.

Attached are some pictures of the Tesla app (which is unexpectedly addicting, since you can see which appliances are using the most electricity by watching the usage in almost real time). The first pic shows the percentage of power available in the Powerwall, as well as whether it's charging, discharging or standing by. The second pic shows the power flowing from the solar to the house and the battery. The third pic shows the power flowing from the solar to the house, with excess power feeding to the grid (because the battery is full). The fourth pic shows the battery discharging to power the house at night. And the fifth pic shows how you can monitor the daily power dynamics for solar, house, battery and grid.

FYI, a TV, receiver, DVR, fridge and a few lights use about 0.3 kW (it varies somewhat). A microwave or a treadmill can add around 1 kW. Oddly enough, a computer with a couple monitors, a space heater or a hair dryer add almost nothing. I don't think I've ever used more than about 2.5 kW at a time, and I average about 10 kWh per day (that'll go up during A/C season).

I hope you find this info useful.










Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Why the Rise of Self-Driving Vehicles Will Actually Increase Car Ownership

Yeah, I never really bought the idea that car ownership will drop off with autonomous cars. I would add to this list the fact that some people (myself included) don't enjoy sitting in a seat that thousands of others have sat in:

https://singularityhub.com/2018/02/14/why-the-rise-of-self-driving-vehicles-will-actually-increase-car-ownership/

We Read This 800-Page Report on the State of Longevity Research So You Don’t Have To

https://singularityhub.com/2018/02/14/we-read-this-800-page-report-on-longevity-research-so-you-dont-have-to/

The cancer-fighting nanorobots that seek and destroy tumors

Not exactly the kind of droids we're looking for, but they evidently do the trick:

https://nano-magazine.com/news/2018/2/14/the-cancer-fighting-nanorobots-that-seek-and-destroy-tumors/

New Process Allows 3-D Printing of Nanoscale Metal Structures

It can't be that much farther before they're assembling individual molecules...and that's where the promise of nanotech begins:

https://nano-magazine.com/news/2018/2/12/new-process-allows-3-d-printing-of-nanoscale-metal-structures/

MIT scientists have just figured out how to make the most popular AI image generators 30 times faster

Better and better… https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/mit-has-just-worked-out-how-to-make-the-most-popular-ai-im...