Alternative Energies Update

A biotech startup claims it has a process to produce 20,000 gallons of biofuel per acre per year, at a price competitive with fossil fuels:

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23073/

Artificial Intelligence Update

A panel of AI scientists, roboticists, and ethical and legal scholars discusses worst-case scenarios for the upcoming emergence of artificially intelligent machines:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17518-smart-machines-whats-the-worst-that-could-happen.html

Notably, some on the panel think human-level AI could take 1,000 years to develop, while others said 20. I've been reading a lot more of the latter than the former.

Another article, with additional perspectives:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/science/26robot.html?_r=2

Alternative Energies Update

A new design for a less expensive solar thermal power generator:

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23079/

Alternative Energies Update

A detailed description of the state of the Electrical Energy Storage Unit (EESU) capacitor, which may soon (or not) become a far more efficient replacement for batteries:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5557

Artificial Intelligence Update

As the social behavior of large groups of humans becomes more definable through progress in data gathering, new informatics tools and increases in computational power, we will be able to "predict with unprecedented foresight, specificity and scale such things as the economic and social effects of billions of new Internet users in China and India, or the exact location and number of airline flights to cancel around the world in order to halt the spread of a pandemic":

http://www.physorg.com/news167579576.html

Artificial Intelligence Update

We may be only ten years away from having a reverse-engineered model of the human brain:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8164060.stm

Alternative Energies Update

PetroAlgae promises to cheaply provide both food and fuel from just sun and algae:

http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/2855

Robotics Update

Limiting robot finger joints with the same limitations of the human hand speeds up the computation required to mimic human hand movement:

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23023/

Alternative Energies Update

Urine takes a quarter of the energy to electrolyze into hydrogen than does water:

http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/2845

Cybernetics Update

As we continue to develop the ability to control technology with the mind through direct neural implants, we run the risk of allowing someone to hack our brains:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/neurosecurity/

Cybernetics Update

DARPA's plan to create cybernetic insects to act as spies for the military:

http://www.livescience.com/technology/090714-cyborg-bugs.html

Nanotechnology Update

Recently discovered attractive and repulsive forces in light could allow nanotech computer switches to be pulled or pushed:

http://www.physorg.com/news166711942.html

Cybernetics Update

DARPA to create cyborg crickets to find and identify buried earthquake victims or react to the presence of dangerous chemicals by calling out:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327165.900-cyborg-crickets-could-chirp-at-the-smell-of-survivors.html

Robotics Update

A robot practices before a mirror to learn to how to make correct expressions:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23825/

Medicine Update

A new drug, rapamycin, has been shown to increase lifespan in mammals 9-13%, even when administered toward the end of their lifespans, although it does suppress the immune system:

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22974/

Artificial Intelligence Update

A computer program learns sign language based on signed gestures and subtitled text on a video image:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17431-computer-learns-sign-language-by-watching-tv.html

Artificial Intelligence Update

The fascinating history of the discovery and development of memristors, their discovery in biological intelligence, and how they may be applied to artificial intelligence:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327151.600-memristor-minds-the-future-of-artificial-intelligence.html?full=true

Computing Update

Researchers create an optical transistor from a single molecule, passing another milestone in the quest for developing quantum computers:

http://www.gizmag.com/optical-transistor-made-from-single-molecule/12157/

Robotics Update

Robo-Bat: Researchers are developing a new MAV (micro-aerial vehicle) based closely on the flight capabilities of a bat:

http://www.physorg.com/news166163661.html

Alternative Energies Update

New flexible nanopillar solar cells could cost one tenth the price of crystaline silicon solar panels:

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22958/

Medicine Update

This new "Medicine Update" category will not be for reporting advances in regular medical technology (e.g., treatments for cancer or diabetes or whatnot), which I consider an interim step until we develop true nanotechnology to replace most current and near-future techniques. Instead, it will be to report medical advances that specifically deal with life extension technologies to extend our chances of making it to the time when nanotechnological solutions become available.

This first report is by Ray Kurzweil defending why aging may soon be solved:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/23802/

"...information technology grows exponentially, in sharp contrast to the linear growth of hit or miss approaches that have characterized medicine up until recently. As such, these technologies will be a million times more powerful in 20 years (by doubling in power and price performance each year). The genome project, incidentally, followed exactly this trajectory."

Materials Update

Further progress on the development of a true invisibility cloak. Furthermore, the possibility exists to make an object appear completely different from what it actually is:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327156.300-modified-invisibility-cloak-could-make-the-ultimate-illusion.html