Mad Scientist Builds a 200-Watt Laser Bazooka That Can Shoot Through a Computer Case

I want one of these hooked up to a motion sensor to blast mosquitoes, flies and ants!

http://laughingsquid.com/mad-scientist-builds-a-200-watt-laser-bazooka-that-can-shoot-through-a-computer-case/

Uber, Ford, and Google Teaming Up to Radically Change Driving Laws

It's gotta be done....

http://bigthink.com/stefani-cox/uber-ford-and-google-and-teaming-up-to-radically-change-driving-laws

SunPower's 24.1% Efficiency Record: Are We Near The Ceiling?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkanellos/2016/06/27/sunpowers-24-1-efficiency-mark-are-we-near-the-ceiling/#7112a51f2be1

Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york

Replacing the lawyers! Yay! That's the best way to have both sides have equal representation, so that one side doesn't have an advantage for being able to hire a better lawyer. Everyone gets the same software.

A.I. Downs Expert Human Fighter Pilot In Dogfight Simulation

Witness the birth of the Hunter-Killer unit from Terminator:

http://www.popsci.com/ai-pilot-beats-air-combat-expert-in-dogfight

Artificial synapse said to rival biological synapses in energy consumption and function

http://www.kurzweilai.net/artificial-synapse-said-to-rival-biological-synapses-in-energy-consumption-and-function

Powerful nanoengine built from coated nanoparticles

http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=7083

"The forces exerted by these tiny devices are several orders of magnitude larger than those for any other previously produced device, with a force per unit weight nearly a hundred times better than any motor or muscle. According to the researchers, the devices are also bio-compatible, cost-effective to manufacture, fast to respond, and energy efficient."

Nice!

Introducing Boston Dynamics' SpotMini Robot

I want one as a pet! Although it still has the creep factor in spades, especially with the "hand":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng

Watch to the very end. Amusing.

Solar Is Going to Get Ridiculously Cheap

I suspect they're being far too conservative:

http://fortune.com/2016/06/13/solar-to-get-crazy-cheap/?xid=yahoo_fortune&yptr=yahoo

How to convert graphene into a semiconductor for scalable production

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-convert-graphene-into-a-semiconductor-for-scalable-production

Real-time robot-motion planning

http://www.kurzweilai.net/real-time-robot-motion-planning

How the Science of CRISPR Can Change Your Genes

http://time.com/4377130/crispr-genome-editing/?xid=newsletter-brief

Pre and post testing show reversal of memory loss from Alzheimer's disease in 10 patients

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616071933.htm

New 'Artificial Synapses' Could Let Supercomputers Mimic the Human Brain

http://www.livescience.com/55114-artificial-synapses-could-improve-supercomputers.html?cmpid=NL_LS_weekly_2016-6-20

Samsung’s new solid-state drive hits 1TB mark, ships out next week

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/samsung-solid-state-drive-hits-180931958.html

Elon Musk Is Wrong. We Aren't Living in a Simulation

A long and annoying article against the possibility that we live in a simulation:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-dont-live-in-a-simulation?utm_source=mbtwitter

His argument is mostly semantics. Sure, even a simulation is made of matter/energy, but when we talk about a simulation we're talking about a software-driven representation of the "real" world. And we're not talking about a virtual reality-type simulation (which would be on the path but not the end goal), where a virtual apple can't nourish a real person, but a software simulation of a human mind on a computer in a software world where virtual apples can have actual taste and nourishment to virtual beings. And there only needs to be ONE person simulated (YOU!) and only a small part of the world simulated (the places you actually visit); all the rest can be nothing more than AI beings that SEEM human (everyone you interact with) and distant places (like the moon and stars) with limited rendering (a star only needs to be a dot in the sky, not an actual sun). Even places you've visited in the past wouldn't necessarily have to have ever been simulated...just applied to your mind as a memory.

Ultra-flexible solar cells thin enough to wrap around a glass stirring rod

1/17 the thickness of a human hair!

http://www.kurzweilai.net/ultra-flexible-solar-cells-thin-enough-to-wrap-around-a-glass-stirring-rod

China’s Sunway TaihuLight tops world supercomputer ratings

I'm not a fan of China, but...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/chinas-sunway-taihulight-tops-world-supercomputer-ratings

Could deep-learning systems radically transform drug discovery?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/could-deep-learning-systems-radically-transform-drug-discovery

Bionic leaf 2.0

http://www.kurzweilai.net/bionic-leaf-2-0

"Harvard scientists have created a system a system that uses solar energy plus hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels with 10 percent efficiency, compared to the 1 percent seen in the fastest-growing plants."

This autonomous, 3D-printed bus starts giving rides in Washington, DC today

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/16/11952072/local-motors-3d-printed-self-driving-bus-washington-dc-launch

These Experiments Are Building the Case to Terraform Mars

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/06/14/terraform-mars-experiments/#.V2L1irsrL-g

Man builds 100 mpg engine using 200-year-old technology

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/stirling-hybrid-engine/

THE HYPERLOOP COMPETITION: Here are the transportation pods of the future being built right now

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-hyperloop-pods-could-one-day-look-like-2016-6

MIT graphene breakthrough could make chips one million times faster

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mit-graphene-breakthrough-could-make-chips-one-million-times-faster/

and

http://scitechdaily.com/graphene-provides-a-new-way-to-turn-electricity-into-light/

Future Weapons are Here

A nice summary:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/06/14/1526936/-Future-Weapons-are-Here

How creating defective nanodiamonds could revolutionize nanotechnology and quantum computing

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-creating-defective-nanodiamonds-could-revolutionize-nanotechnology-and-quantum-computing

18 artificial intelligence researchers reveal the profound changes coming to our lives

http://www.techinsider.io/researchers-predictions-future-artificial-intelligence-2015-10

Everything You Know About Artificial Intelligence is Wrong

http://gizmodo.com/everything-you-know-about-artificial-intelligence-is-wr-1764020220

Should We Fear Supersmart Robots?

http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/papers/sciam16-supersmart.pdf

Solar Energy Is Now as Cheap as Fossil Fuels

http://singularityhub.com/2016/06/09/solar-energy-is-now-as-cheap-as-fossil-fuels/

Here's how much of the world would need to be covered in solar panels to power Earth

http://www.businessinsider.com/if-the-earth-was-covered-in-solar-panels-2016-6

Apple is making so much clean energy, it formed a new company to sell it

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/9/11896502/apple-clean-solar-energy-subsidiary-wholesale?yptr=yahoo

Movie written by algorithm turns out to be hilarious and intense

AI has a ways to go before it makes a decent screenplay, but at least this is amusing and weird as hell!

http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/06/an-ai-wrote-this-movie-and-its-strangely-moving/

Researchers Turn CO2 Into Stone in Climate Change Breakthrough

http://time.com/4364038/co2-stone-climate-change/

Scientists Turn Bacteria Into Living Hard Drives

Only 100 bytes, but still way cool:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a21268/scientists-turn-bacteria-into-living-hard-drives/

The voice-first user interface has gone mainstream

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/7/11868200/the-voice-first-user-interface-has-gone-mainstream

Former NASA chief unveils $100 million neural chip maker KnuEdge

http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/06/former-nasa-chief-unveils-100-million-neural-computing-chip-company-knuedge/

Google and Amazon are slowly killing the gadget as we know it

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-amazon-slowly-killing-gadget-192343379.html

Why Corporate America's Love of Renewable Energy Should Terrify Traditional Utilities

http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/05/why-corporate-americas-love-of-renewable-energy-sh.aspx

3 Reasons To Believe The Singularity Is Near

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2016/06/03/3-reasons-to-believe-the-singularity-is-near/#6d8dbd441cbe

Are Soldiers Getting Too Emotionally Attached to War Robots?

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/are-soldiers-getting-too-emotionally-attached-to-war-robots

I guarantee it'll happen to anthropomorphic robots:

Norway to 'completely ban petrol powered cars by 2025'

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/norway-to-ban-the-sale-of-all-fossil-fuel-based-cars-by-2025-and-replace-with-electric-vehicles-a7065616.html

What I Learned Installing Solar Panels

http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/06/what-its-like-to-install-solar-panels/485156/?utm_source=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

Can one company account for more than half of a country’s CO2 reduction?

This is one dong that isn't screwing the environment as much...

http://www.triplepundit.com/podium/dong-energy-denmark-co2-reduction/

Renewable Energy Is Now Inevitable, Energy Secretary Says, Citing Price

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2016/06/03/renewable-energy-inevitable-energy-secretary-says-because-of-plunging-prices/#1421c3001ec9

Tesla Executive Implies Battery and Autonomous Driving Breakthroughs

http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-executive-implies-battery-and-autonomous-driving-breakthroughs/

Storage sunrise: Solar battery makers eye take-off as prices fall

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-storage-sunrise-solar-battery-makers-eye-take-off-as-prices-fall-2016-6

"Australian energy retailer AGL expects costs to fall by 60 per cent over the next five years as materials performance and chemical technology improve."

New Process Efficiently Uses Solar to Produce Hydrogen

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/06/new-process-efficiently-uses-solar-produce-hydrogen/#

Stanford researchers ‘stunned’ by stem cell experiment that helped stroke patient walk

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/06/02/stanford-researchers-stunned-by-stem-cell-experiment-that-helped-stroke-patient-walk/

A guy trained a machine to "watch" Blade Runner. Then things got seriously sci-fi.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11787262/blade-runner-neural-network-encoding

This One Chart Says It All for the Future of Solar Energy

http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/01/future-solar-energy/

Dead or Alive, Schrödinger's Cat Can Be in 2 Boxes at Once

Just too cool:

http://www.livescience.com/54890-schrodinger-cat-can-be-in-two-places.html?cmpid=NL_LS_weekly_2016-5-30