Science & Technology News – Page 154

Banking, Bitcoin, Coronavirus, Science & Technology News

Coronavirus is shaping up to be very bad for banks – But not for Bitcoin

September 29, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has turned the established status quo on its head with many businesses and industries still reeling.

The world’s biggest banks have seen their valuations plummet, with billionaire investor Warren Buffett bailing out of long-held bank stocks this year—and joining many other investors in betting on gold (though the Oracle of Omaha is still not keen on bitcoin).

As banks struggle in the post-Covid world, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are expected to see a “pandemic-led acceleration of adoption,” according to DBS chief economist Taimur Baig.

Continue reading… “Coronavirus is shaping up to be very bad for banks – But not for Bitcoin”

government, Military, Science & Technology News, Weapons

The US military’s heat weapon is real and painful. Here’s what it does.

September 29, 2020

It is in the same category as a sonic tool that’s known as “the voice of God.”

Earlier this week, an NPR report uncovered an exchange from June 1, in which a military police officer wanted to know if the D.C. National Guard owned a pain-inducing heat weapon for potentially using on protesters. He also asked about a powerful auditory communication system that’s been compared to the “voice of God.”

The weapon, the Active Denial System (ADS), is a real thing, as is the sound system, which is called a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD).

In documents published by NPR, a member of the National Guard recounted the email thread in which the question was asked, and stated: “I responded that the DC National Guard was not in possession of either an LRAD or an ADS.”

The fact that a controversial weapon was floated as a possible means of dealing with what the Washington Post described as “peaceful protesters” has sparked outrage, with the ACLU writing on Twitter: “REMINDER: Our government shouldn’t be conspiring to use heat rays against us for exercising our constitutional rights.”

Continue reading… “The US military’s heat weapon is real and painful. Here’s what it does.”

Analysis, Automation, Healthcare, Science & Technology News

Making healthcare more affordable through scalable automation

September 28, 2020

As more healthcare companies start to implement automation technologies, the ability to coordinate across the organization in achieving scale will be a major determinant of success.

Automation technologies, such as robotic-process-automation bots, machine-learning algorithms, and physical robots, have the potential to reshape work for everyone: from miners to commercial bankers, and from welders to fashion designers—and even CEOs.

Our colleagues’ research on the future of work estimates that, using currently demonstrated technologies, almost half of the activities that people are now paid to do in the global economy could feasibly be automated. Certain types of repetitive and routine activities, such as data collection and processing, thus show a high automation potential. By contrast, certain tasks that are customer-facing or that involve innately human skills—such as creativity, problem-solving, and effective people management and development—are more resistant to automation (Exhibit 1).

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Alternative Transportation, Automobiles, Breakthrough Thinking, Electric Vehicles, Science & Technology News

PriestmanGoode designs autonomous on-demand passenger and cargo vehicles for Dromos

September 28, 2020

PriestmanGoode has designed an electric and autonomous concept vehicle that would be part of a transport network providing private trips for passengers and urban freight delivery.

The modular concept car was chosen as winner of a competition by autonomous network transit (ANT) company Dromos to imagine a vehicle that would run on its own dedicated road-like system.

Aiming to reimagine mass transit for the 21st century, Dromos’ brief was to design a safe, reliable and affordable vehicle that focuses on modularity, sustainability and flexibility of use.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Space Flight

NASA funded scientist claims new thruster can approach the speed of light

September 28, 2020

The concept of interstellar travel has fascinated the human race for thousands of years.

(TMU) – The concept of interstellar travel has fascinated the human race for thousands of years. Discoveries made in the last century, however, have both bolstered and dampened that fascination. While the number of habitable star systems available for visitation has grown exponentially, the distance between these systems has grown more bleakly, mathematically daunting.

If we sent our fastest space probe to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, it would take tens of thousands of years to arrive. While galaxies look like homogenous swirls of star clusters, the reality is we are looking at it from a vast, intergalactic scale; the extraordinary distances between stars still make crewed interstellar travel a dubious proposition that many scientists believe won’t be possible for centuries if at all.

However, in recent years, a number of technological models of propulsion – such as light sails pushed by lasers, ion thrusters, fusion engines, wormholes, and even hydrogen bombs – have made the concept of an interstellar probe that can travel a certain percentage of the speed of light increasingly possible.

Continue reading… “NASA funded scientist claims new thruster can approach the speed of light”

Analysis, Future, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Robots, Science & Technology News

The future is cyborg: Kaspersky study finds support for human augmentation

September 27, 2020

LONDON (Reuters) – Nearly two thirds of people in leading Western European countries would consider augmenting the human body with technology to improve their lives, mostly to improve health, according to research commissioned by Kaspersky.

As humanity journeys further into a technological revolution that its leaders say will change every aspect of our lives, opportunities abound to transform the ways our bodies operate from guarding against cancer to turbo-charging the brain.

The Opinium Research survey of 14,500 people in 16 countries including Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain showed that 63% of people would consider augmenting their bodies to improve them, though the results varied across Europe.

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Corporate Manipulation, facebook, government, Science & Technology News

Showdown between Facebook and Australia

September 27, 2020

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Facebook Inc FB.O will be “weakened” if it stops Australians from sharing news so the company can avoid paying for content under proposed laws, Australia’s top antitrust regulator said on Thursday.

Australia has proposed forcing Facebook and internet search giant Google GOOGL.O to pay local media outlets for content, drawing strong opposition from the U.S. companies in a dispute that is being watched by regulators and news organisations around the world.

Facebook said this month it would stop Australians from sharing local and international news on its website if the proposal becomes law. The company and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are still negotiating before the regulator makes a formal recommendation to the government.

“It would be a shame for Australian democracy (and) it would be a shame for Facebook users if they took that course of action,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said in a speech delivered via Zoom.

Continue reading… “Showdown between Facebook and Australia”

Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Space, Space Flight

“Impossible” EmDrive engine could make interstellar travel a reality

September 27, 2020

Latest research aims to resolve whether the exciting and controversial thruster could actually work.

The EmDrive could usher in an era of interstellar voyages for human beings. Or it could be a failed experiment that unsuccessfully tried to break the laws of physics. A pair of upcoming papers may just settle that decades-long argument.

The EmDrive was first proposed in 2001 by scientist Roger Shawyer. In theory, the drive—also called a radiofrequency resonant cavity thruster—converts electricity into microwaves and forces them through a sealed cone. The microwaves would bounce around the reflective surface of the cone, and since the microwaves carry momentum, they would impart that momentum to that surface. The waves would exert more force on the larger end of the cone than the smaller one, creating enough thrust—without the need for propellant—to push a spacecraft through the vacuum of space. And, the drive could theoretically increase momentum once it starts moving.

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Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Military, Robots, Science & Technology News

Future autonomous machines may build trust through emotion

September 26, 2020

Future autonomous machines may build trust through emotion

Army researchers found that the effect of emotion expressions is moderated by strategy. People will only process and be influenced by emotion expressions if the counterpart’s actions are insufficient to reveal the counterpart’s intentions.

Army research has extended the state-of-the-art in autonomy by providing a more complete picture of how actions and nonverbal signals contribute to promoting cooperation. Researchers suggested guidelines for designing autonomous machines such as robots, self-driving cars, drones and personal assistants that will effectively collaborate with soldiers.

Dr. Celso de Melo, computer scientist with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory at CCDC ARL West in Playa Vista, California, in collaboration with Dr. Kazunori Teradafrom Gifu University in Japan, recently published a paper in Scientific Reports where they show that emotion expressions can shape cooperation.

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Alternative Transportation, Elon Musk, Famous Inventor, Science & Technology News, Tesla

First operational boring tunnel under vegas almost done, Elon Musk announces

September 27, 2020

The company is as quick as a flash given the excavation was completed last February.

Elon Musk announced via Twitter that the first operational tunnel under Las Vegas was almost done on Tuesday. “Tunnels under cities with self-driving electric cars will feel like warp drive,” wrote the founder of The Boring Company.

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Automation, Automobiles, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

Scientists claim to have created an algorithm that makes self-driving cars ‘accident-proof’ – as long as human drivers drive legally

September 26, 2020

New research presents algorithm that ensures a fail-safe trajectory for vehicles
It works on the principle that other human drivers act responsibly on the roads
Getting self-driving cars to react to unique situations is an obstacle in a roll out

An algorithm makes self-driving cars ‘accident-proof’ as long as other human drivers on the road act responsibly, scientists claim.

German researchers developed the algorithm with data collected from vehicles in the real-world and tested it in computer simulations.

Continue reading… “Scientists claim to have created an algorithm that makes self-driving cars ‘accident-proof’ – as long as human drivers drive legally”

3D Printer, Biotech, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Researchers create bioink that delivers oxygen to 3D printed tissue cells

September 25, 2020

Tissue engineering or regeneration is the process of improving upon or replacing biological tissues by combining cells and other materials with the optimal chemical and physiological conditions in order to build scaffolds upon which new viable tissue can form. We’ve seen many examples of 3D printing being used to accomplish this task. The potential to engineer new tissues this way provides an answer to organ transplant shortages and applications in drug discovery.

However, to become viable tissues, these cells need oxygen delivered to them via blood vessels, which, in transplanted tissue, can take several days to grow. But a collaborative group of researchers is working on a solution: an oxygen-releasing bioink that can deliver this all-important element to the cells in 3D bioprinted tissues. This allows the cells to survive while they’re waiting for blood vessels to finish growing.

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