Technology
Industrial robots could have a huge impact on the manufacturing industry and some of its workers, according to a new study by two economics professors, Georg Graetz from Uppsala University and Guy Michaels from the London School of Economics. The study measured the use of industrial robots and how it has changed from 1993-2007 to find that industrial robots increase labor productivity, total factor productivity, and wages. Could this reduce the employment of low and middle skilled workers?
A new patent granted to aircraft, defense and security company Boeing is taking its cues from science fiction. Just like the glowing energy shields seen protecting troops, machines and even spacecraft in Star Wars and Star Trek, the design — named “Method and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arc” — uses energy to deflect potential damage.
In the age of computers, things evolve exponentially. In just a few generations robots have gone from a scientific fantasy, to a playful curiosity, to entering the battlefield to replace and/or augment their human counterparts. We are already at the point where we have to consider what the next step of robotic evolution looks like. According to robotics engineers, it appears that at some point in the near future the next step could very well be whatever the next generation robot chooses for itself. Just late last year it was posited that the humanoid robot was poised to take a leap from a mere facsimile of human behavior to one that futurists suggest will not only walk like a human, but will possess self awareness, as well as a full range of high-tech computational spectrum analysis and capabilities . . . and emotions. That day has apparently now arrived. The chronicle below charts the advancement from the rudimentary, through the downright creepy, and toward today where, according to the final video from New Scientist, we see that the new generation of iCub humanoid robot can in fact determine its own goals and exhibit emotional behavior and language skills that so far have been exclusively human.
The possibility that other universes exist beyond our own universe is tantalizing, but seems nearly impossible to test. Now a group of physicists has suggested that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle collider in the world, may be able to uncover the existence of parallel universes, should they exist.
Scientists have known for more than a century that ultraviolet (UV) light can kill microbes, making it useful for purifying water, food and even air. But thanks to the advancement of LEDs and lasers in the past two decades, we can now make light do things that would have seemed impossible a century ago.
Researchers from General Atomics and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have made a major breakthrough in understanding how potentially damaging heat bursts inside a fusion reactor can be controlled.
Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a cradle and app that uses a phone’s built in camera as a biosensor to detect toxins, bacteria, viruses, GMO’s, etc. They say it might be available by next year.
Whether you love the idea or hate it, the self-driving car is likely coming soon, and it’s going to have a huge impact. I wrote about why the Google car could change everything, and noted that since cars were parked 90 percent of the time, it was likely that we might need 90 percent fewer of them and they would always be on the move doing something.
Russell Brand goes off on Apple and the spying tactics of America’s NSA and Brittain. Admittedly, he’s a tad harsh on the company (that undoubtedly does have some employees that do care about the users of the iwatch) but he does make a lot of good points (and cites some good sources) about our right to privacy and the uncomfortably cozy relationships between big information and tech Corporations (like Apple, Google, and Facebook) and various world governments.
New video shows how Solar Flare Energy from the sun is being used to control the earth’s weather and accelerate the Fraudulent Climate Change Agenda to get all nations to submit to the New World Order.
MIT researchers have developed a new method of detecting clouds present in the atmosphere of distant exoplanets.
In what they are calling a major milestone, the researchers in the Martinis Lab have developed quantum circuitry that self-checks for errors and suppresses them, preserving the qubits’ state(s) and imbuing the system with the highly sought-after reliability that will prove foundational for the building of large-scale superconducting quantum computers.
This is an invention that might change civilization as we know it: A compact fusion reactor developed by Skunk Works, the stealth experimental technology division of Lockheed Martin.
Would you believe that teeny, tiny microscopic drones could be used inside your body to prevent heart attacks? Researchers have completed the first successful test of nanoparticles that are targeted to go where they are needed in mice, and hope to soon conduct the first patient trials. These nanoparticles are designed to latch onto hard plaques in the arteries made from fat, cholesterol and calcium, which cause heart disease. Once they reach their target the little drones release a drug derived from a natural protein that repairs inflammation damage in the body. Each of the tiny particles made from a plastic-like material is 1,000 times smaller the tip of the human hair.
DARPA researchers believe the gene modifying optical technology will be able to restore vision to the blind and impaired, and replaced current conceptions of virtual reality, with an internal display that will provide vital stats and more about the object in view.
