Last October, Matt Herich was listening to the news while he drove door to door delivering pizzas. A story came on the radio about a technology that sends an electric current through your brain to possibly make you better at some things — moving, remembering, learning. He was fascinated.
Continue reading… “Students are zapping their brains for a boost”
To the 78 organs that make up the human body, a group of scientists says we should add one more: the mesentery. Located in our abdominal cavity, the mesentery is a belt of tissue that holds our intestines in place. While anatomists knew it was there, it was always thought to be composed of several different segments, as opposed to being one single structure. This knocked it out of contention for organ status, as our bodily organs must be continuous, as well as provide some vital function to our anatomy.
Continue reading… “The human body’s 79th organ?”
BMW unveiled a concept for the interior of driverless cars on Wednesday at a press conference in Las Vegas at CES. The concept, dubbed the BMWi Inside Future, showcases how BMW envisions its autonomous vehicles may look when they start to hit the market. The interior concept is centered on connectivity and includes a panoramic display that can be operated just like a touchscreen — except physical contact isn’t necessary.
Continue reading… “BMW unveils futuristic concept for the interior of its driverless cars”
Remember the guy we featured a few months ago who 3D printed a functional scale model of a Subaru EJ20 flat-four? Well, he’s got another creation, and this one’s even better. It’s a replica of the LS3 V8 found in the last-gen Chevrolet Camaro, and aside from a few fasteners and bearings, it’s entirely 3D printed.
Continue reading… “3D-Printed V8 engine works just like the real thing”
A few months ago The Washington Post reported that Facebook collects 98 data points on each of its nearly 2 billion users. Among this 98 are ethnicity, income, net worth, home value, if you are a mother, if you are a soccer mom, if you are married, the number of lines of credit you have, if you are interested in Ramadan, when you bought your car, and on and on and on.
Continue reading… “The danger behind the algorithm economy”
Scientists at the Pharmaceutical Artificial Intelligence (pharma.AI) group of Insilico Medicine, Inc, today announced the publication of a seminal paper demonstrating the application of generative adversarial autoencoders (AAEs) to generating new molecular fingerprints on demand.
Continue reading… “AI will generate new cancer drugs”
Isaac Asimov famously created rules that would prevent robots from harming humans. But at the second International Congress on Love and Sex With Robots earlier this week, any anxiety that may have inspired those guidelines was turned on its head. Panelists discussed the ways in which giving robots personhood and consciousness may revolutionize our lives, but could also be catastrophic. Because, instead of worrying that we will be harmed by our creations, we’re now much more concerned about causing harm to them.
Continue reading… “We know almost nothing about the future of sex robots”
Had a child recently? Well, here’s something you might want to prepare yourself for. By the time wedding bells are ringing your new son- or daughter-in-law could very well be a robot.
Continue reading… “Humans will marry robots by 2050”
Smile Vector is a Twitter bot that can make any celebrity smile. It scrapes the web for pictures of faces, and then it morphs their expressions using a deep-learning-powered neural network. Its results aren’t perfect, but they’re created completely automatically, and it’s just a small hint of what’s to come as artificial intelligence opens a new world of image, audio, and video fakery. Imagine a version of Photoshop that can edit an image as easily as you can edit a Word document — will we ever trust our own eyes again?
Continue reading… “AI is going to make it easier to fake images and video”
During an emergency, having blood on hand for transfusions is critical. But blood needs proper refrigeration, making on the spot care a difficult task. But what if paramedics were equipped with bags of powdered blood cells that could be combined with water and immediately distributed?
Continue reading… “Powdered blood could revolutionize medicine”
Most robotic arm systems required a very complex and very invasive brain implant… until now. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have created a new system that requires only a sexy helmet and a bit of thinking, paving the way to truly mind-controlled robotic tools.
Continue reading… “Humans can now move robots just by thinking”
We have seen a few aerial drones capable of venturing underwater, but none that can enter and exit the marine environment quite like the so-called AquaMav. Built by engineers at Imperial College London, the drone uses collapsible wings to dive like a fish-hunting seabird and scoop up water samples from beneath the surface, and then launch like a flying fish when it’s time to return to the skies.
Continue reading… “Drone can dive like a seabird and sail like a flying fish”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.