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Pentagon says nuclear missile is in reach for North Korea

April 12, 2013

North Korean test site where a nuclear test took place February 12, 2013 (credit: Google Earth)

A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” that North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile, according to The New York Times Thursday.

But late Thursday, the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., released a statement saying that the assessment did not represent a consensus of… read more

Topics: Survival/Defense

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Tactile sensor for better human prostheses, personal assistive robots

June 20, 2012

usc_robot_touch

Researchers at the University of Southern California‘s Viterbi School of Engineering  have developed a BioTac, a robot appendage that can outperform humans in identifying a wide range of natural materials according to their textures, paving the way for advancements in prostheses, personal assistive robots, and consumer product testing.

BioTac sensor is new type of tactile sensor built to mimic the human fingertip, using a newly designed algorithm… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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Mathematicians aim to take publishers out of publishing

Episciences Project to launch series of community-run, open-access journals
January 18, 2013

arxiv

Mathematicians plan to launch a series of free open-access journals that will host their peer-reviewed articles on the preprint server arXiv, Nature News reports. The project was publicly revealed yesterday in a blog post by Tim Gowers, a Fields Medal winner and mathematician at the University of Cambridge, UK.

The initiative, called the Episciences Project, hopes to show that researchers can organize the… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Social Networking/Web/Education | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Mutant H5N1 ‘bird flu’ research set to resume

January 25, 2013

A(H5N1) virus

One year after public uproar forced them to pause, researchers who study H5N1 avian influenza by designing new, extra-virulent strains are set to resume their work, Wired Science reports.

In a letter published Jan. 23 in the journals Nature and Science, 40 virologists, including leaders of the most high-profile experiments, declared that their voluntary moratorium is now over.

Other experts say concerns about the… read more

Topics: Biotech | Survival/Defense

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Google’s new privacy policy: what has changed and what you can do about it

March 3, 2012

Google logo

Google’s broad new privacy policy went into effect March 1.

“The main change is for users with Google Accounts,” Google said at the time of its January announcement. “Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services.” European regulators are claiming it violates data protection laws,

The… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Social/Ethical/Legal

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ASTRON and IBM to explore origins of the universe

April 2, 2012

ska_dishes

IBM and ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, have announced an initial 32.9 million EURO, five-year collaboration to research extremely fast, but low-power exascale computer systems for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

The SKA is an international consortium to build the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. Scientists estimate that the processing power required to operate the telescope will be equal to several… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Physics/Cosmology

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Happy or sad? You might not see that ad, if Microsoft Kinect can figure out your mood

June 15, 2012

EmotionalAds21

Microsoft has applied for a patent for  targeting ads to users based on their emotional state, using a Kinect type device, GeekWire reports.

Do you look happy? You’ll see ads for vacation packages and consumer electronics, but not weight-loss programs or self-help products. Do you look sad? You won’t see that over-the-top animated ad for children’s birthday parties at the local bowling alley. Feeling frustrated? It’s PC support ads for… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Social/Ethical/Legal | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Iris (Siri for Android) released

October 24, 2011

irisandroid

Iris for Android, a Siri lookalike, is now available on the Android Market, Gizmodo reports.

Iris (Siri backwards), emulates what Siri on the iPhone 4S does: you tap a mic, you talk, and Siri responds to you. Siri could lead to a real AI, Wired blogger Jon Stokes says.

The same SRI International defense project that gave birth to Siri —  CALO… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Computers/Infotech/UI

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Expanding our intelligence without limit

March 8, 2012

SXSW logo

Ray Kurzweil will join TIME Magazine writer Lev Grossman for a “mind-expanding keynote conversation about our future” at SXSW in Austin on Monday, March 12.  2 PM — 3 PM (Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 5).

Grossman wrote the Time cover story “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal,” on the Singularity and Ray Kurzweil’s “radical vision for humanity’s immortal future.”

Kurzweil and Grossman will discuss… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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Building DIY research equipment

September 14, 2012

filter wheel

The open-source paradigm is now enabling creation of open-source scientific hardware by combining three-dimensional (3D) printing with open-source microcontrollers running on free and open-source software (FOSS), says Michigan Technological University scientist Joshua M. Pearce in the current issue of Science.

A key enabling open-source hardware project is the Arduino electronic prototyping platform. The $20 to $30 Arduino is a versatile yet easy-to-learn microcontroller that can run a number of associated scientific instruments, including Arduino Geiger (radiation detector), pHduino (pH meter), Xoscillo (oscilloscope), and OpenPCR… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Social Networking/Web/Education

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Smartphone technology acceptable for remote stroke diagnosis

October 3, 2012

stroke image

A new Mayo Clinic study confirms the use of smartphones medical images to evaluate stroke patients in remote locations through telemedicine.

“Essentially what this means is that telemedicine can fit in our pockets,” says Bart Demaerschalk, M.D., professor of Neurology, and medical director of Mayo Clinic Telestroke.

“For patients this means access to expertise in a timely fashion when they need it… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Computers/Infotech/UI | Internet/Telecom

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Next year’s 3D printers

December 5, 2012

Objet1000_Cart_RacingCar-h-res-1

The 3-D printing industry is on track to be a $3.1 billion business by 2016 and the innovations on display this week at Euromold, a manufacturing trade show, show its foundation is growing — both in revenue and in physical print size, Wired News reports.

Objet 1000

The big news out of Euromold is the new Objet 1000 3-D printer,… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Nanotech/Materials Science

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LSD found successful in treating alcoholics

March 9, 2012

LSD-2D

Teri Krebs and Pål-Ørjan Johansen, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), have taken a closer look at experiments in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, treating alcoholics with LSD.

The researchers found six different studies of LSD and alcoholism that were scientifically sound, involving a total of 536 people. They showed that a single dose of LSD, provided for treatment purposes, helped… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Clothes will sew themselves in DARPA’s sweat-free sweatshops

June 11, 2012

sweatshop

DARPA has awarded $1.25 million to fully automate the sewing process, Wired Danger Room reports.

One 2010 estimate put the military’s annual clothing budget at $4 billion dollars.

SoftWear Automation Inc., has so far developed “a conceptual” version of the automated system. According to its website, it is a robotic system that relies on an extremely precise monitoring of a given fabric’s “thread count”… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Social/Ethical/Legal

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A ‘Google’ for chemistry invents best path to new compounds in seconds

Giant network links all known compounds and reactions
August 24, 2012

rewiring_chemistry

Northwestern University scientists have connected 250 years of organic chemical knowledge into one giant computer network called Chematica — a chemical “Google” on steroids.

A decade in the making, the software optimizes syntheses of drug molecules and other important compounds, combines long (and expensive) syntheses of compounds into shorter and more economical routes, and identifies suspicious chemical recipes that could lead to chemical weapons.

The… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Nanotech/Materials Science

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