The Machines That Will Fight the Social Media Wars of Tomorrow
The internet has entered into a new era, forcing us to second-guess virtually everything we see, hear, and read. In their new book, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking explore the disturbing ways in which the internet is transforming news, politics, and the nature of war…
Scathing Report Accuses the Pentagon of Developing an Agricultural Bioweapon
A new technology in which insects are used to genetically modify crops could be converted into a dangerous, and possibly illegal, bioweapon, alleges a Science Policy Forum report released today. Naturally, the organization leading the research says it’s doing nothing of the sort.
Emerging Tech Will Create More Jobs Than It Kills by 2022, World Economic Forum Predicts
The advancement of robotics and artificial intelligence will make 75 million jobs obsolete by the year 2022, according to a new report. Sounds dreadful, but the same report goes on to predict the creation of 133 million new jobs over the same period.
New MIT Robot Can Delicately Handle Objects It’s Never Seen Before
Robots in factories are really good at picking up objects they’ve been pre-programmed to handle, but it’s a different story when new objects are thrown into the mix. To overcome this frustrating inflexibility, a team of researchers from MIT devised a system that essentially teaches robots how to assess unfamiliar…
Discovery of Thousands of Unsecured 3D Printers Is a Big Problem
Security experts have identified thousands of instances in which owners of 3D printers have made their devices available online and without the need for authentication. That certainly makes remote access to 3D printers convenient, but wow, what an awful idea given the tremendous potential for abuse.
New Research Takes Us One Step Closer to a Bionic Eye
For the first time ever, scientists have 3D-printed an array of light sensors onto an eyeball-shaped surface. Eventually, a scaled-up version of the device could restore vision to the blind, or even improve the vision of sighted people.
99 Things That Robots Were Supposed to Be Doing by Now
Humanoid robots are still relatively primitive here in the 21st century. Sure, we have Roombas that can vacuum our floors and Boston Dynamics robots that are doing backflips. But when it comes to the dream of our own personal robot servant, we’re still in the Dark Ages. You can’t go down to Costco and pick up a fully…
Robot Peer Pressure Is the Newest Tech Threat to Children
New research shows that children are more likely than adults to give in to peer pressure from robots, a disturbing finding given the rapidly increasing rate at which kids are interacting with socially intelligent machines.
Alvin Toffler Investigated by FBI for Communist Activities According to Newly Released Files
Alvin Toffler, who died in 2016, will be remembered for his many contributions to the work of futurism. Toffler was a prolific writer, most notably the author of the 1970 best-selling book Future Shock, and a man who became friends with important figures across the political spectrum in Washington DC, including Newt…
How a U.S. Military Contractor Wanted to Use Jetpacks in the Vietnam War
When you think of jetpacks, your first thought is probably an image of some fun, care-free piece of pop culture like The Jetsons or James Bond. Or maybe even the Super Bowl. But jetpacks were serious business for the U.S. military in the 1960s. And, believe it or not, there were plenty of futuristic ideas that…
Boston Dynamics Says It Can Build 1,000 Robot Dogs a Year By Mid-2019
Boston Dynamics is preparing to build its terrifying army of robot dogs, according to a Saturday report in Inverse that the company has set a target date of July 2019 as the time it will be ready to manufacture 1,000 of its compact SpotMini models annually.
My 15 Favorite Science and Tech Books for Smart Beach Reading
Summer is finally upon us, which means it’s time to put together a reading list, whether it’s for the beach, your cottage, or the hammock in your backyard. Here are 15 science and technology books that will keep your nerdy brains engaged and titillated.
‘Electronic Skin’ Allows User of Prosthetic Hand to Feel Pain
Current prosthetic limbs aren’t yet capable of transmitting complex sensations like texture or pain to the user, but a recent breakthrough by scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in which a synthetic layer of skin on an artificial hand transmitted feelings of pain directly to the user, takes us one step…
Boston Dynamics Wants to Sell You a Piece of the Impending Robot Apocalypse
Boston Dynamics, the makers of the very GIFable robots that will inevitably turn on us all, is preparing to unleash the first horseman of the robot apocalypse on the public. Starting in 2019, the company will make its SpotMini robot commercially available, the company revealed Friday.
Artificial Genome Scientists Want to Build Human Cells That Are Impervious to Viruses
Two years ago, a consortium of scientists, lawyers, and entrepreneurs announced a plan to synthesize an artificial human genome from scratch—an extremely ambitious endeavor that’s struggled to secure funding. Project organizers have now disclosed details of a scaled-down version of the venture, but with a goal that’s…
Scientists Kept Disembodied Pig Brains ‘Alive’ for 36 Hours—and It's Testing Our Conceptions of Death
A neuroscientist from Yale University is claiming to have developed a technique that preserves the brain tissue of pigs for an extended period following decapitation. The brains are apparently not conscious, but the new technique is raising a number of important ethical issues.
China's Ambitious New Rain-Making System Would Be as Big as Alaska
China’s state-owned aerospace corporation is embarking on a plan that would see tens of thousands of fuel-burning, cloud-seeding chambers dispersed across the Tibetan Plateau in an attempt to increase rainfall in the region. It sounds impressive, but it’s an open question as to whether this extensive rain-making…
AI Could Dramatically Increase Risk of Nuclear War by 2040, Says New Report
The common conception of a technologically enabled apocalypse foresees a powerful artificial intelligence that, either deliberately or by accident, destroys human civilization. But as a new report from the RAND Corporation points out, the reality may be far subtler: As AI slowly erodes the foundations that made the…
Advertisement
