NextBigFuture.com

The Army cancelled a future Ground Combat Vehicle but, some of the innovations, technologies and weapons systems may get into a new tank design. Design specs, engineering, weapons and other innovations envisioned for the GCV are now being analyzed for the new tank. In particular, the new tank may use an emerging 30mm cannon weapon planned for the GCV – the ATK-built XM813. XM813 is computer-controlled and electronically driven weapon can fire up to 200 rounds per minute, uses a dual-recoil firing system and a semi-closed bolt firing mode. The new tank will emerge after the Army first fields its M1A2 SEP v4 upgraded Abrams tank in the 2020s

Boeing’s plan to deploy a constellation of V-band satellites in non-geostationary orbit has prompted at least five companies, including SpaceX and OneWeb, to file me-too proposals with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

China will raise its defense budget by about 7 percent this year, a government spokeswoman said Saturday, continuing a trend of lowered growth amid a slowing economy.

I always liked the television Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. I missed this information from 2014.

Alec Peters discusses how they intend to tell the most story for the two 15 minute segments that are permitted in the lawsuit settlement.

Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin have been circulating a seven-page white paper to NASA leadership and President Trump's transition team about their interest in developing a lunar spacecraft with a lander that would touch down near a crater at the south pole where there is water and nearly continuous sunlight for solar energy. The memo urges the space agency to back an Amazon-like shipment service for the moon that would deliver gear for experiments, cargo and habitats by mid-2020, helping to enable “future human settlement” of the moon.

MIT physicists have created a new form of matter, a supersolid, which combines the properties of solids with those of superfluids.

The U-Battery consortium, led by Urenco, has registered its micro-modular reactor technology for pre-licensing vendor design review with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).

The recent evolution of the U.S. labor force participation rate—that is, the percentage of the population employed or looking for work—has been a controversial topic in macroeconomic discussions and policy debates. After peaking in early 2000, the rate has trended downward, with the bulk of the drop occurring after 2008. The controversy focuses on whether the trend is the result of weak economic conditions or long-run structural forces.

Researchers report that they’ve come up with a new way to encode digital data in DNA to create the highest-density large-scale data storage scheme ever invented. Capable of storing 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) in a single gram of DNA, the system could, in principle, store every bit of datum ever recorded by humans in a container about the size and weight of a couple of pickup trucks. But whether the technology takes off may depend on its cost.

Air Force Special Operations Command plans to install and test combat lasers on AC-130 gunships within a year. General Atomics and other companies have been spending their own research and development (IRAD) money on the capability.

A team of engineers led by 94-year-old John Goodenough, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, has developed the first all-solid-state battery cells that could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries for handheld mobile devices, electric cars and stationary energy storage.

Scientists at Rice University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chile offered a glimpse into a possible new path toward controlled nuclear fusion.

The first full-size model of Russia's future long-range bomber PAK DA, being developed for the Aerospace Force, has been created by the Tupolev company, a source in Russia's defense-industrial complex told TASS.

Russia has announced the start of commercial operation of its first VVER-1200 reactor, unit 1 of the Novovoronezh II nuclear power plant.

The Swedish government has decided to re-activate conscription from January 1 2018.

Dr. Peter Viggo Jakobsen is an Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Defence College and a Professor (part-time) at the Center for War Studies at University of Southern Denmark. Jakobsen makes the case that some unpredictability is good.

China will complete construction of five nuclear power reactors and start construction of eight more in 2017, according to plans released by the country's National Energy Administration (NEA). Planning for a further eight reactors will also be progressed this year.

A French teenager's sickle cell disease has been reversed using a pioneering gene therapy treatment. The world-first procedure at Necker Children's Hospital in Paris offers hope to millions of people with the blood disorder.

Russia has a drone that is launched via Russia's Smerch multiple launch rocket system. It would enable on demand target surveillance at an altitude of 500 meters during 20 minutes. It can scan an 25 square kilometers area.

Bank Underground is a blog for Bank of England staff to share views that challenge – or support – prevailing policy orthodoxies. Bank Underground argues that the potential for simultaneous and rapid disruption, coupled with the breadth of human functions that AI might replicate, may have profound implications for labor markets. They conclude that economists should seriously consider the possibility that millions of people may be at risk of unemployment, should these technologies be widely adopted.

A new study reveals that nanotechnology can be used to rapidly rewarm cryogenically treated samples without damaging delicate frozen tissues, which may someday help make organ cryopreservation a reality. More than 60% of the hearts and lungs donated for transplantation must be discarded annually, because these tissues cannot be kept on ice for longer than four hours. According to recent estimates, if only half of unused organs were successfully transplanted, transplant waiting lists could be eliminated within two years. Long-term preservation methods like vitrification - which involves super-cooling biological samples to a glassy state - could establish tissue storage banks and reduce transplant rejection rates, greatly facilitating the process to find matching donors when needed.

At the 2017 Mobile World Congress (MWC) being held in Barcelona, ​​Spain, LINE announced their Cloud AI platform " Clova (clover) will be released on March 2. In addition to offering Clova App with Clova in the future, they plan to launch the first smart speaker "Wave" in Japan and Korea this summer.

Appearing in Nature Nanotechnology, IBM scientists in collaboration with chemists at the University of Warwick have synthesized and characterized a tricky molecule called triangulene, also known as Clar’s hydrocarbon, which was first hypothesized in 1953.

Outside the USA, Panasonic will offer a 180 watt solar roof for the Tesla Model 3 and other electric and hybrid vehicles. The electric roof would add about 2.2 miles of range. It will not be available in the USA until it can pass roll over tests.

China has conducted seven tests of a hypersonic glide missile in recent years, six of which have been successful. While Beijing has acknowledged such testing, it was previously unknown that it is also working on a short-range hypersonic weapons development program for East Asian targets.

Supersonic passenger airplanes are another step closer to reality as NASA and Lockheed Martin begin the first high-speed wind tunnel tests for the Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) X-plane preliminary design at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

CJDBY website has an image showing a next-generation Chinese infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) featuring a new front-engined hull and a possible unmanned turret.

An international team from Milan Polytechnic, Italy and Micron, Boise Idaho provided an update on the their work using RRAMs for unsupervised learning. Unsupervised learning is the ability to learn and recognize random patterns. Supervised learning would be learning the images of say traffic lights and hand writing.

China has entered a “new normal” stage, where the returns to capital are continuing to decrease and low-skilled labor intensive industries are growing at a much slower speed. Whether the country can enjoy sustainable growth critically depends on the growth of the new economy sector. However, there is little information about the structure and growth trend of this sector. This article constructs for the first time the New Economy Index to provide a framework for measuring the new economy sector in China. The article defines the scope of the sector and uses a big data approach to identify the new economy sector and enterprises belonging to it. The New Economy Index is used to describe the growth pattern of the new economy sector. The findings show that the sector accounts for about 30 percent of the whole economy, and the New Economy Index is negatively correlated to several traditional economic indices, such as the Purchasing Manager Index of the manufacturing industry.

In September 2016, there were claims from China that they had developed quantum radar. There has been recent articles discussing China's quantum radar

In World War 2, French armored doctrine used tanks to support slow moving infantry armies. While generally armed with heavier guns and having thicker armor than most German tanks, they were also slower, rarely had radios to enable them to fight effectively in groups or to exploit rapidly changing battlefield conditions, and often had ineffectual one man turrets. In contrast, the Germans viewed their tanks as primary fighting vehicles that would spearhead deep attacks into the enemy’s rear as part of a combined arms team. The Germans consequently put a premium on balancing armor, firepower, maneuverability, and reliability. They also equipped most combat vehicles with radios to facilitate both effective maneuvering of large formations and rapid coordination with air assets

Boston Dynamics has a new robot called Handle. It is a research robot that stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4​ ​feet vertically. ​It uses electric power to operate both electric and hydraulic actuators, with a range of about 15 miles on one battery charge. ​​​Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation principles​ found in the quadruped and biped robots we build, but with only about 10 actuated joints, it is significantly less complex. Wheels are efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere: by combining wheels and legs Handle can have the best of both worlds.

Space Adventures has sent seven people to the international space station

The US Army was twice burned (at least) since 2009 by cancellations of ambitious and innovative, but ultimately impracticable programs.

China is considering introducing birth rewards and subsidies to encourage people to have a second child, after surveys showed that economic constraints were making many reluctant to expand families, the state-owned China Daily newspaper reported.

SoftBank is closing the first round of investment in its $100 billion Technology Vision Fund by the end of this month, people familiar with the matter have said. The initial investments will likely include $45 billion from Saudi Arabia and $25 billion from SoftBank, as well as $1 billion each from Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison, they said. The initial round is likely to exceed $80 billion and the timing of the closing may still change, said one of the people. One of the leading marketing and investment spins on the fund is that it will lead to the vision of the Technological Singularity. Saudi Arabia wants to diversify from oil for a long term sustainable economy. However, investments now will have little to do with whether there is the possibility of far greater than human level artificial intelligence around 2047.

Arxiv - Semihierarchical quantum repeaters based on moderate lifetime quantum memories

BYU mechanical engineers have created an origami-inspired, lightweight bulletproof shield that can protect law enforcement from gunfire. The new ballistic barrier can be folded compactly when not in use, making it easier to transport and deploy. When expanded — which takes only five seconds — it can provide cover for officers and stop bullets from several types of handguns.

SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. Spacex expects to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and Spacex expects more to follow. Additional information will be released about the flight teams, contingent upon their approval and confirmation of the health and fitness test results.

SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son his belief that computers will exceed humans in intelligence in three decades, and that within this period he expects one computer chip to have the equivalent of a 10,000 IQ. “I really believe this,” he said at a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. The growth in computer ability was “why I acquired ARM,” he said.

Howard Bloom makes the obvious case that if NASA wants to return to the moon they need to ditch the Space Launch System and go with Spacex and the Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launchers.