Ever want to fly a remote-controlled plane over houses, recording cell-phone conversations and text messages at random and hacking into Wi-Fi networks and computers?
Well, first, click here and report yourself. Then check out the Defcon session (August 4–7, Las Vegas) by Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins on the latest version of their WASP (Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform).
“This session has everything… read more
Source: The Onion — January 17, 2008
The Onion | Nothing can stop Carl Wainwright from doing what he loves best — performing surgery on the human brain.
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The Onion News Network
Nice Peter | Hi, my name is Nice Peter, and this is an Epic Rap Battle of History. Special thanks to all the cast and crew. (See full film credits here.)
Source: Nice Peter
Related:
Nice Peter official website
Nice Peter YouTube channel
Wikipedia | M-theory and its p-branes
Wikipedia | Texas Instruments’ TI-82 graphing calculator… read more
Source: Avram Grumer's Journal — March 20, 2006
Someone at The Economist with a bit of extra time on his hands was looking at the recent proliferation of many-bladed razors, and noticed that the time gap between blade increments seems to be shrinking: 70 years before someone added the second blade, a couple of decades to the third, only two or three years between the four-bladed Schick Quattro and the five-bladed Gillette Fusion. Might there be a Moore’s… read more
Noted physicists Schrödinger and Heisenberg are driving around in a car, and Heisenberg says,”I think we just ran over a cat.”
“Is it dead?” asks Schrödinger.
“I can’t be certain,” says Heisenberg.
Heisenberg and Schrödinger are driving in a car and they get pulled over. The police officer asks, “Do you know how fast you were going?” and Heisenberg says, “Well, not really, but I… read more
WAIT! Before you read further (and I totally contaminate your mind), I suggest you take these two simple short tests:
2. Test yourself — What do you believe about memory?
OK, what did you (not) see in the video (more info here)? How did you compare to survey respondents?
This surprising (and disturbing) research at the… read more
The 1961 classic science-fiction movie Fantastic Voyage movie is about a team of scientists who are shrunk down and sent in a miniature submarine inside the body to repair a blood clot in an ailing colleague’s brain. How far have today’s scientists come in exploring inside the body?
Pretty far. We’ve reported on 17 research projects since 2003 to develop innovative endoscopes and other devices… read more
In the Green Lantern movie, a ring takes orders from Jordan’s mind, enabling him to fly, take down multiple bad guys, and create wormholes through which he can travel thousands of light-years in minutes.
University of Michigan Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems professor Euisik Yoon and colleagues are developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) that would handle the mind-to-ring communication part. DARPA is working on the other stuff,… read more
Wikipedia | Real Steel is an upcoming feature film inspired by Richard Matheson’s short story Steel. The story was first adapted for television by Matheson as an episode of The Twilight Zone. The film stars Hugh Jackman and is directed by Shawn Levy. Film is a gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future, where the sport of boxing has gone hi-tech. Hugh Jackman stars as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up… read more
Radiation levels at Japan nuclear plant reach new highs: Leaked water sampled from one unit Sunday had 100,000 times the radioactivity of normal background levels…. airborne radioactivity in the unit 2 turbine building still remained so high — 1,000 millisieverts per hour — that a worker there would reach his yearly occupational exposure limit in 15 minutes. A dose of 4,000 to 5,000 millisieverts absorbed fairly rapidly will… read more
About a year ago, on Wednesday April 14th, I was on the way to London from JFK, when the pilot announced a slight delay into Heathrow in order to avoid the ash cloud coming out of the Icelandic volcano eruption. This was the first time I paid any attention to the subject. But once in London that is the only subject anybody talked about for a week.… read more
Robots have just taken another (slightly weird) step toward becoming our overlords.
Technische Universität München (TUM) scientists are developing an artificial skin for robots that will provide tactile information to the robot to supplement information from cameras, infrared scanners, and gripping hands.
The idea is to let the robot know when it touches an object so it can then visually search for whatever it… read more
ScienceInsider (published by Science magazine) reported Tuesday May 17 that “over the last week, a combination of robotic and human inspections has led to the conclusion that the fuel assemblies in units 1, 2, and 3 were completely exposed to the air for from over 6 hours to over 14 hours and that melting was extensive if not complete. Much of the fuel is now likely at the… read more
Source: Giulio Prisco's Blog — March 13, 2010 | Giulio Prisco
Geraci defines Apocalyptic AI as a modern cultural and religious trend originating in the popular science press: “Popular science authors in robotics and artificial intelligence have become the most influential spokespeople for apocalyptic theology in the Western world. Apocalyptic AI advocates promise that in the very near future technological progress will allow us to build supremely intelligent machines and to copy our own minds into machines so that we can… read more
