Science & Technology News – Page 173

communication, Computer Security, Military, quantum computing, Science & Technology News

New research advances U.S. Army’s quest for ultra-secure quantum networking

July 14, 2020

Two U.S. Army research projects at the University of Chicago advance quantum networking, which will play a key role in future battlefield operations.

Two U.S. Army research projects advance quantum networking, which will likely play a key role in future battlefield operations.

Quantum networks will potentially deliver multiple novel capabilities not achievable with classical networks, one of which is secure quantum communication. In quantum communication protocols, information is typically sent through entangled photon particles. It is nearly impossible to eavesdrop on quantum communication, and those who try leave evidence of their tampering; however, sending quantum information via photons over traditional channels, such as fiber-optic lines, is difficult – the photons carrying the information are often corrupted or lost, making the signals weak or incoherent.

In the first project, the University of Chicago research team, funded and managed by the U.S. Army’s Combat Capability Development’s Army Research Laboratory’s Center for Distributed Quantum Information, demonstrated a new quantum communication technique that bypasses those traditional channels. The research linked two communication nodes with a channel and sent information quantum-mechanically between the nodes—without ever occupying the linking channel.

“This result is particularly exciting not only because of the high transfer efficiency the team achieved, but also because the system they developed will enable further exploration of quantum protocols in the presence of variable signal loss,” said Dr. Sara Gamble, program manager at the lab’s Army Research Office and co-manager of the Center for Distributed Quantum Information. “Overcoming loss is a key obstacle in realizing robust quantum communication and quantum networks.”

Continue reading… “New research advances U.S. Army’s quest for ultra-secure quantum networking”

Human Behavior, Science & Technology News, Space, Space Flight

Send your ashes into orbit for a funeral in space

July 14, 2020

Services such as Celestis and Aura Flights send remains to the skies in an epic final journey.

Even in the freezing cold, Steven Schnider would often drag his wife Christine outside to look up at the night sky. He’d point out everything from planets to comets to satellites he’d tracked down using an app called Heavens Above.

“He’d say, ‘Do you see it?’ It’s right there. And it would be the faintest little piece of light going across the sky,” Christine recalls. “He was just so excited about it.”

When Steven was close to death in 2017, there was a consensus among family members that a space burial would be the best way to send him off. Their daughter took out her phone, did a quick search and pulled up a company called Celestis.

Last June, a portion of Steven’s ashes — along with cremated remains from over 150 other Celestis clients — were flown into Earth’s orbit aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Another portion of his ashes will fly aboard the Luna 02 mission, which is slated for takeoff in 2022.

“He’d be so excited that he was in space,” Christine says.

Continue reading… “Send your ashes into orbit for a funeral in space”

Augmented Reality, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News, Video Games, Virtual Reality

How virtual reality overcame its ‘puke problem’

July 14, 2020

For years, VR devices caused motion sickness – known as the “barfogenic zone”. Have engineers finally solved it, asks Colin Barras, or just replaced it with a different kind of queasiness?

Back in the early 1990s, virtual reality was poised to revolutionise gaming. Games giant Sega, makers of the hugely popular Genesis console, had just unveiled the Sega VR project. At the project’s core lay a headset that coupled state-of-the-art graphics with movement tracking software to immerse gamers in a rich and vibrant virtual world. At least, that was the plan.

The reality of Sega’s virtual reality fell some way short. The biggest problem was that the onscreen graphics didn’t keep pace with the gamer’s head movements, triggering a form of motion sickness. Thomas Piantanida, then principal scientist of SRI International’s Virtual Perception Program, test drove a prototype in 1993 and came up with a name for the vomit-inducing phenomenon. The headset’s graphical output, he said, lay in the “barfogenic zone”. By 1994, Sega had quietly shelved the project.

Virtual reality is back in the news this week, as Facebook has just forked out $2 billion for Oculus VR. The social media giant is betting that immersive virtual and augmented reality will become a part of people’s everyday life, which raises the question of whether the technology has managed to escape the barfogenic zone during the last 20 years.

Continue reading… “How virtual reality overcame its ‘puke problem’”

Automation, Coronavirus, Robots, Science & Technology News

MIT-designed robot can disinfect a warehouse floor in 30 minutes — and could one day be employed in grocery stores and schools

July 13, 2020

This coronavirus-killing MIT robot could end up in your local supermarket

(CNN)MIT has designed a robot that is capable of disinfecting the floor of a 4,000-square foot warehouse in only half an hour, and it could one day be used to clean your local grocery store or school.

The university’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) worked with Ava Robotics — a company that focuses on creating telepresence robots — and the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) to develop a robot that uses a custom UV-C light to disinfect surfaces and neutralize aerosolized forms of the coronavirus.

Development on this project began in early April, and one of the researchers said that it came in direct response to the pandemic. The results have been encouraging enough that the researchers say that autonomous UV disinfection could be done in other environments such as supermarkets, factories and restaurants.

Covid-19 mainly spreads via airborne transmission, and it is capable of remaining on surfaces for several days. With states across the US reporting a surge in cases and no concrete timetable for a possible vaccine, there is currently no near-term end to the pandemic. That leaves schools and supermarkets looking for solutions to effectively disinfect areas.

Continue reading… “MIT-designed robot can disinfect a warehouse floor in 30 minutes — and could one day be employed in grocery stores and schools”

2020 Predictions, City Planning, Coronavirus, Entertainment, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Six experts on how we’ll live, work, and play in cities after COVID-19

July 13, 2020

Architects and urban planners from Gensler, Harvard, and Bloomberg Associates explain the changes coming to our shared spaces.

For Fast Company’s Shape of Tomorrow series, we’re asking business leaders to share their inside perspective on how the COVID-19 era is transforming their industries. Here’s what’s been lost—and what could be gained—in the new world order.

This pandemic is challenging us, but it also offers a once-in-a-century chance to change course and undo some of the damage from the traffic and congestion and pollution. I work with mayors around the world to improve the quality of life in their cities, and transportation is at the heart of what we’re doing in response to the COVID crisis. Just 10 years ago, when I was transportation commissioner of NYC, closing car traffic through Times Square for pedestrians was on the front page of newspapers for weeks. Now cities around the world are turning to car-free streets as part of the recovery. Not because it’s fun or because of any political agenda, but it’s because streets that are accessible are better for business and better to live in. And the same things that make biking and walking attractive in a pandemic—that they’re resilient and reliable and affordable and you can be socially distanced—were true before the pandemic. The pandemic can give cities a head start on a new road order.

Continue reading… “Six experts on how we’ll live, work, and play in cities after COVID-19”

Analysis, Big Problems, Coronavirus, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Coronavirus: our study suggests more people have had it than previously estimated

July 13, 2020

Many people suspect they’ve been infected with COVID-19 by now, despite the fact that only 0.5% of the UK’s population has actually been diagnosed with it. Similar numbers have been reported in other countries. Exactly how many people have actually had it, however, is unclear. There is also uncertainty around what proportion of people who get COVID-19 die as a result, though many models assume it is around 1%.

We believe there has been over-confidence in the reporting of infection prevalence and fatality rate statistics when it comes to COVID-19. Such statistics fail to take account of uncertainties in the data and explanations for these. In our new paper, published in the in the Journal of Risk Research, we developed a computer model that took these uncertainties into account when estimating COVID-19 fatality rates. And we see a very different picture.

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communication, Coronavirus, Health & Fitness, mobile apps, Science & Technology News

Japanese researchers have created a smart face mask that connects to your phone

July 12, 2020

Japanese researchers have created a smart face mask that has a built in speaker and can translate speech into 8 different languages

We live in a world full of technology but it was a world without smart masks, until now!

A Japanese technology company Donut Robotics has taken the initiative to create the first smart face masks which connects to your phone. Of course, we couldn’t have battled coronavirus with a simple mask that still does the job of protecting us perfectly well. We as a race need to bring technology into everything and more so if it does an array of extremely important, life-saving things like using a speaker to amplify a person’s voice, covert a person’s speech into text and then translate it into eight different languages through a smartphone app.

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Agriculture, Automation, Green Friendly, Robots, Science & Technology News

Tiny weed-killing robots could make pesticides obsolete

July 12, 2020

This swarm of robots may herald a chemical-free food revolution

The fleet of Greenfield Robotics weedbots ready and waiting for beta test trials. Photos courtesy of Greenfield Robotics.

Clint Brauer’s farm outside of Cheney, Kansas, could be described as Old MacDonald’s Farm plus robots. Along with 5,500 square feet of vegetable-growing greenhouses, classes teaching local families to grow their food, a herd of 105 sheep, and Warren G—a banana-eating llama named after the rapper—is a fleet of ten, 140-pound, battery-operated robots.

Brauer, the co-founder of Greenfield Robotics, grew up a farm kid. He left for the big city tech and digital world, but eventually made his way back to the family farm. Now, it’s the R&D headquarters for the Greenfield Robotics team, plus a working farm.

When Brauer returned to his agricultural roots, he did so with a purpose: to prove that food could be grown without harmful chemicals and by embracing soil- and planet-friendly practices. He did just that, becoming one of the premier farmers growing vegetables in Kansas without pesticides, selling to local markets, grocery store chains, and chefs.

But it wasn’t enough to make the difference Brauer was hoping for. Sure, he was growing a lot of environmentally friendly, pesticide-free vegetables. But a few acres in chemical-free vegetable production was nothing compared to miles and miles of broadacre, arable farmland that make up the majority of America’s agricultural lands.

Brauer was especially intrigued by no-till solutions for soil health. No-till is exactly what it sounds like: farming without using techniques like plowing and cultivation, which “disturb” the soil to kill weeds. Many U.S. farmers, especially those in America’s heartland of corn, soy, and wheat production, have already switched to or are looking to embrace no-till practices. Over 104 million acres were farmed no-till in 2017, an increase of 8% since 2012. Just over 900 million acres, including no-till land, were farmed in the United States in 2017, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

But parking machinery to improve soil health often comes with a trade that didn’t sit well with Brauer: dependence on chemical weed control. No-till works to improve soil health, but the trade-off in chemical use is not much better for the environment than conventional farming. Regardless of the type of farming, the problem is the same.

“You got to start with weeds. It’s the number one thing that farmers are fighting,” Brauer says.

That’s where the robots come in.

Continue reading… “Tiny weed-killing robots could make pesticides obsolete”

Future, Futurist, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Incredible tech to expect in the near future

July 12, 2020

It only sounds like science fiction

Artist depiction of what electronic contact lenses of the future could look like.

Moore’s law famously says that computer power doubles every eighteen months or so. This is evidenced clearly when graphing computer chip prices and their relative processing speed, power, and memory. In fact, Moore’s law is true even if one includes technology from as far back as 100 years. This means that every year, video games are twice as powerful as those from the year before. The chip in your birthday cards would have been remarkable to Hitler or Churchill in the 1940’s and yet it’s so common to us that we simply throw it away when we’re done with it. A military supercomputer of 1997, worth millions of dollars, has the same power as your Playstation 3 that runs for $130. NASA placed mankind on the moon in 1969 with less computing power than you have in your cellphone.

These chips are transformative. They greatly empower anything that they touch, like some divine force. When they touched phones we got cellphones in return. Cameras became digital cameras, phonograms became iPods, paper money became credit cards, arcade machines became video games, and airplanes became war drones. Yet their potential still hasn’t been reached. These chips can be integrated into everything from clothes to your toilet and even your brain.

Here I’m going to be taking a look at technology you can expect to see in the next 10 to 50 years.

Continue reading… “Incredible tech to expect in the near future”

Analysis, Coronavirus, Housing, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

How many people are actually fleeing to the suburbs permanently?

July 10, 2020

You’ve seen the headlines: “Coronavirus Escape: To the Suburbs” in the New York Times, “Coronavirus: Americans flee cities for the suburbs” in USA Today, “Will the Coronavirus Make the Suburbs Popular Again?” in Architectural Digest.

The coronavirus pandemic’s stay-at-home orders have residents of dense urban areas like New York City pondering a permanent move to somewhere more spread-out for obvious reasons: more space, more land, lower prices.

Mulling the decision to leave New York has almost reached cliche status (there’s even a Leaving New York” essay genre, as the Times notes points out).

As more New Yorkers leave, it invites near-constant speculation about a “mass exodus” out of cities. But are the folks skipping town getting outsized attention? Are there really that many people moving away—for good?

Continue reading… “How many people are actually fleeing to the suburbs permanently?”

Coronavirus, Employment, Science & Technology News, Trending

57% of employees second-guessing careers during COVID-19 pandemic

July 10, 2020

Many workers said they are more motivated to be employed at a company that values its staff during unpredictable times, Robert Half found.

More than half (57%) of workers said they have experienced a change in their sentiments toward work during the coronavirus pandemic, data from Robert Half found. During such unpredictable times, some 60% of that number said they want to be employed at an organization that values its staff.

COVID-19 has thrown a major wrench in both the enterprise and economy, resulting in millions of furloughs and layoffs. More than 44.2 million US employees have filed for unemployment claims since the start of coronavirus shutdowns, according to Fortune. Those lucky enough to still have jobs have still been impacted, reevaluating their current employment during such trying times.

“This has been a time of reflection and reprioritization for businesses and people,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half, in a press release.
Continue reading… “57% of employees second-guessing careers during COVID-19 pandemic”

Automobiles, communication, Driverless cars, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News, Space

Chinese automaker plans satellite network to support autonomous vehicles

July 10, 2020

Geely’s constellation will provide connectivity to its next-gen autos.

One of the most important components in an autonomous vehicle is its communications technology—which allows it to access the data needed to navigate its route. Chinese automobile company Geely has developed a solution to maintain a reliable data feed for its products: making its own satellite constellation.

The giant automaker—which sold 2.18 million vehicles in 2019 and also owns Volvo and a stake in Daimler-Benz—is investing $326 million in a new satellite manufacturing plant in Taizhou, close to its existing assembly lines. The plant will manufacture 500 satellites a year by 2025—with its first launches scheduled for later this year—and will have the capability of producing different satellite models. It will feature modular satellite manufacturing lines, research and testing centers and a cloud computing facility. The facility will be the first private satellite factory in China.

Continue reading… “Chinese automaker plans satellite network to support autonomous vehicles”