The National Science Foundation is experimenting with a system of citizens’ advisory panels to consider the ethical, social and practical implications of new technologies and recommend policies that might reduce misunderstanding and obstruction on issues such as genetically modified foods and nanotechnology.
Humanoid robots will be widely available by the year 2030 and able to replace jobs currently filled by people in areas such as fast-food service, housecleaning and retail, says Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks.
Unless ways are found to compensate for these lost jobs, Brain estimates that more than half of Americans could be unemployed by 2055.
Rodent general intelligence or
“g” might reveal genes for intellect.
A carbon-nanotube cross structure could theoretically produce quantum dots small enough to show single-electron effects at room temperature, according to researchers at Stanford University. This structure could form by self-assembly and could be a good candidate for devices such as single-electron transistors.
A new generation of devices that harness the spin of electrons has moved closer. In a recent experiment, University of California at Santa Barbara researchers have transferred electron spins across molecular “bridges” between quantum dots for the first time and at room temperature.
Researchers in Japan are developing a method of drawing power from blood glucose, mimicking the way the body generates energy from food. Theoretically, it could allow a person to pump out 100 watts, ignoring body needs. The “bio-nano” generator could be used to run devices embedded in the body or sugar-fed robots.
A rationale for humans as power sources in The Matrix?
The first commercial holographic memory should be on the market next year. Theoretically, it’s possible to store a terabyte of data on a CD-sized disk, with transfer rate of a billion bits a second (at least 60 times faster than current DVDs).
HoloTouch has developed technology that allows users to operate equipment simply by passing a finger through a holographic image.
The system uses lasers and infrared sensors to create images that can be manipulated in the air.
Scientists in government, industry and academia involved in the race to build the world’s fastest computing machines are now turning their attention once again to Seymour Cray’s elegant approach to building ultra-fast computers. The designs use special hardware that to handle the long strings of numbers in complex scientific computing problems.
Cray’s revival was helped by funding from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop prototypes of… read more
Researchers have advanced the representatiom of real objects in virtual environments by allowing real and virtual objects to coexist in a shared virtual space.
The system uses four cameras and object recognition software to determine the shapes and positions of real objects in the environment. The camera data is used to generate virtual three-dimensional shells in the shapes of the real objects, and the shells are forbidden zones for… read more
A ubiquitous signaling molecule, nitric oxide (NO), turns off the production of new neurons in the adult brain, researchers have discovered. By shutting down this off switch, doctors may one day be able to generate new neurons in the brains of patients suffering from neurological diseases or traumatic injury.
A digital simulation of natural selection, using distributed computing in home PCs, is evolving superior electronic circuit designs.
The Department of Homeland Security has issued an updated advisory about possible hacker attacks on computers running Microsoft operating systems.