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The US Army used cyber weapons and electronic warfare (EW) technology to thwart a simulated tank assault at a training exercise conducted at the Army National Training Center at California.A The exercise reinforced the need for the EW and cyber protection technology that is under development by entities such as the Army Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) and U.S. Cyber Command. The cyber weapon used in the exercise specifically targeted the radio and wireless communication systems of the tankers. Cyber warfare can include both jamming of communication signals and hacker infiltration into networks, which they can then either disable or manipulate

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are making virtual and robotic assistants increasingly capable in performing complex tasks. For these “smart” machines to be considered safe and trustworthy collaborators with human partners, however, robots must be able to quickly assess a given situation and apply human social norms. Such norms are intuitively obvious to most people—for example, the result of growing up in a society where subtle or not-so-subtle cues are provided from childhood about how to appropriately behave in a group setting or respond to interpersonal situations. But teaching those rules to robots is a novel challenge. To address that

The Department of Physics of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country researchers have explored superelasticity properties on a nanometric scale based on shearing an alloy’s pillars down to nanometric size. The researchers have found that below one micron in diameter the material behaves differently and requires much higher stress for it to be deformed. This superelastic behavior is opening up new channels in the application of microsystems involving flexible electronics and microsystems that can be implanted into the human body. By using a piece of equipment known as a Focused Ion Beam, “an ion cannon that acts as a kind

Alphabet’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt cited a study by McKinsey released at the Viva Tech conference in Paris on Thursday, which suggested 90 percent of jobs are not fully automatable. The Alphabet chairman said that while some of the routine of a job could be replaced, much of what a human does cannot. The future of work is you with a computer, not you replaced by a computer. “People keep saying, what happens to jobs in the era of automation? I think there will be more jobs, not fewer.” At Viva Tech, Jeff Immelt, the outgoing chief executive of General

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere has developed a new approach to deep learning AI computing, using light instead of electricity, which they say could vastly improve the speed and efficiency of certain deep learning computations Soljačić says that many researchers over the years have made claims about optics-based computers, but that “people dramatically over-promised, and it backfired.” While many proposed uses of such photonic computers turned out not to be practical, a light-based neural-network system developed by this team “may be applicable for deep-learning for some applications,” he says. Traditional computer architectures are not very efficient when it comes to

six leading U.S. technology companies will receive funding from the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) as part of its new PathForward program, accelerating the research necessary to deploy the nation’s first exascale supercomputers. The awardees will receive funding for research and development to maximize the energy efficiency and overall performance of future large-scale supercomputers, which are critical for U.S. leadership in areas such as national security, manufacturing, industrial competitiveness, and energy and earth sciences. The $258 million in funding will be allocated over a three-year contract period, with companies providing additional funding amounting to at least 40 percent

Lyft announced new climate goals for the Lyft platform as we do our part to ensure the United States remains on track to meet the goals of the Paris accord. To guide them in these efforts, we are proud to welcome pioneering environmentalist and author Paul Hawken, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, as an advisor to Lyft. Paul will inform our climate action strategy and help us maximize the environmental benefits of our platform as we take this important step for sustainability. Lyft Climate Impact Goals * All electric autonomous vehicles operating on the Lyft platform will be powered by

IEEE Spectrum asked AI experts about when human level AI will be achieved and as usual there was a massive range of dates from a few years to hundreds of years. Gary Marcus talks about many decades before AI’s can process inputs and situations with the flexibility and adaptability of humans. As usual the questions are how can sufficient flexibility and extensibility be solved. Also can the AI’s be placed with usefully broad constrained environments. Can sensors and other solutions be used to solve the adaptability issues. We see this with the self driving cars in the wild problems and

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) today announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire Whole Foods Market for $42 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $13.7 billion, including Whole Foods Market’s net debt. “Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Whole Foods Market has been satisfying, delighting and nourishing customers for nearly four decades – they’re doing an amazing job and we want

Michael Clauss is the German ambassador to China in the SCMP suggest two ways to deal with China’s Silk Road ambitions. 1. partner with China to close development gaps, while reinforcing the open, transparent and non-hierarchical world order, as seems to be working with the AIIB. 2. Europe could offer its own concept to act as another friendly pole with the power to attract. Local content – that is, maximum participation by local labour, local companies and local products – could be the signature of connectivity, European-style. Open tenders where the best offer wins, hopefully through a bid from the

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that Japan is ready to cooperate with China’s “One Belt, One Road” cross-continental infrastructure development scheme, under certain conditions. Speaking at a forum in Tokyo on Asia’s future, Abe said those conditions would include “harmony with a free and fair Trans-Pacific economic zone,” alluding to the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact, to which Japan is a signatory but China is not. The One Belt, One Road initiative, put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, would involve massive investment to connect up both a land-based economic belt based off the

Veritas Genetics is offering full genome sequencing of newborns in China,, ordered by a doctor. They will report back on 950 serious early- and later-life disease risks, 200 genes connected to drug reactions, and more than 100 physical traits a child is likely to have. Called myBabyGenome, the service costs $1,500 and could help identify serious hidden problems in newborns, the company says. But some doctors say the plan is a huge overstep. “I think it’s vastly premature to peddle a completely unproven set of data, especially to a vulnerable population like neonates,” says Jim Evans, a professor of genetics

Tesla model 3 reservation holders will be able to test drive the Model 3 in late 2017. The Model 3 will be able to accelerate from 0-60 MPH time of 5.6 seconds and the entry-level model will have a range of 215 miles. The base Model 3 will have a price of $35,000. Tesla plans to open the Model 3 online design studio to early reservation holders in July and should begin deliveries. The first vehicles will be delivered to employees so Tesla can manage test drives internally for those orders.

China launched a quantum satellite called Micius from the Gobi desert last August. It is all part of a push towards a new kind of internet that would be far more secure than the one we use now. The experimental Micius, with its delicate optical equipment, continues to circle the Earth, transmitting to two mountain-top Earth bases separated by 1,200km. The optics onboard are paramount. They’re needed to distribute to the ground stations the particles, or photons, of light that can encode the “keys” to secret messages. “I think we have started a worldwide quantum space race,” says lead researcher

Air Force 2018 budget shows United Launch Alliance launch the “unit cost” of a single rocket launch in fiscal year 2020 is $422 million, and $424 million for a year later while Spacex cost $83 to 97 million each. SpaceX sells basic commercial launches of its Falcon 9 rocket for about $65 million. But, for military launches, there are additional range costs and service contracts that add tens of millions of dollars to the total price.

Researchers at Swinburne’s Centre for Micro-Photonics are one step closer to producing commercially viable, chemical-free, long-lasting, safe batteries. Professor Baohua Jia and Dr Han Lin lead a team developing the Bolt Electricity Storage Technology (BEST) battery – a graphene oxide-based supercapacitor offering high performance and low-cost energy storage. The technology could, according to one investor, make chemical batteries a thing of the past. “The battery is very thin, it’s carbon based and it’s environmentally friendly,” Professor Jia says. “We filed a patent on the technology last year.” The technology is on the brink of becoming a commercial prototype. Investment in

Oil has extended its slump below $50 a barrel as concerns grow that rising U.S. supplies will offset the production curbs by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia. Output at major American shale fields will reach a record in July, according to the EIA. West Texas Intermediate for July delivery slid $1.73 to settle at $44.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest close since Nov. 14. Total volume traded was about 71 percent above the 100-day average. The U.S., Brazil, Canada and other producers outside OPEC will increase output next year by

Solar power, once so costly it only made economic sense in spaceships, is becoming cheap enough that it will push coal and even natural-gas plants out of business faster than previously forecast. That’s the conclusion of a Bloomberg New Energy Finance outlook for how fuel and electricity markets will evolve by 2040. The research group estimated solar already rivals the cost of new coal power plants in Germany and the U.S. and by 2021 will do so in quick-growing markets such as China and India. The scenario suggests green energy is taking root more quickly than most experts anticipate. It

Production of the fossil fuel coal dropped by a record amount in 2016, according to BP Plc’s annual review of global energy trends. China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, burned the least coal in six years and use dropped in the U.S to a level last seen in the 1970s, the company’s data show. However, BP indicates that global coal consumption fell by 53 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe), or 1.7%, the second successive annual decline. Coal’s decline has been driven largely by competition from cheap shale gas, prompting skepticism that the country’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement

Researchers have developed a solar paint that can absorb water vapor and split it to generate hydrogen – the cleanest source of energy. The paint contains a newly developed compound that acts like silica gel, which is used in sachets to absorb moisture and keep food, medicines and electronics fresh and dry. But unlike silica gel, the new material, synthetic molybdenum-sulphide, also acts as a semi-conductor and catalyses the splitting of water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen. RMIT lead researcher Dr Torben Daeneke said: “We found that mixing the compound with titanium oxide particles leads to a sunlight-absorbing paint that

Spacex is estimating they wil be able to achieve $140,000 per ton for the trips to Mars. If a person plus their luggage is less than that, taking into account food consumption and life support, the cost of moving to Mars could ultimately drop below $100,000. Cost will be brought down 5 million percent with * fully reusable rocket * orbital refueling * Propellent production on Mars * CH4 / O2 DEEP-CRYO Methalox fuel The Spacex ITS (Interplanetary Transport Systme) rocket booster is really a scaled-up version of the Falcon 9 booster. There are a lot of similarities, such as

Rolls-Royce’s director of technology and engineering, John Molyneux gave more details on Rolls-Royce’s new reactor design and the next steps in its development when speaking to the European Young Nuclear Generation Forum event in Manchester, organised by the European Nuclear Society and the UK Nuclear Institute. Still without a publicized name, Rolls-Royce’s design is a pressurized water reactor in a close-coupled four-loop configuration. A team of about 150 people have been working on it for around two years. The first months were taken with major design decisions including the use of a light-water as coolant and moderator and to select

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Made In Space is putting 3D printing into space and is working on other space based manufacturing. They are looking to make large light structures as well. They call these systems Archinaut. It is an alternative approach to the Tether unlimited spiderfab. In November 2015, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) announced its selection of the Made In Space project proposal for utilizing public-private partnerships to advance Tipping Point Technologies. The NASA funded project, designated Archinaut™, is designed to develop the necessary technologies and subsystems which will enable the first additive manufacturing, aggregation, and assembly of large and complex systems

Juergen Schmidhuber is the father of Deep learning Artificial Intelligence. Since age 15 or so, the main goal of professor Jürgen Schmidhuber has been to build a self-improving Artificial Intelligence (AI) smarter than himself, then retire. His lab’s Deep Learning Neural Networks (NNs) (since 1991) and Long Short-Term Memory have transformed machine learning and AI, Deep Learning since 1991 – Winning Contests in Pattern Recognition and Sequence Learning Through Fast and Deep / Recurrent Neural Networks and are now (2017) available to billions of users through the world’s most valuable public companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. In 2011,

Westinghouse Electric Company yesterday announced the formal launch of its “accident-tolerant fuel solution”, EnCore Fuel, during the company’s Fuel Users’ Group Meeting. EnCore Fuel is intended to offer “design-basis-altering safety, greater uranium efficiency and estimated economic benefits up to hundreds of millions of dollars” to Westinghouse’s nuclear fuel customers. Delivered in two phases, the initial EnCore Fuel product consists of coated cladding containing uranium silicide pellets, which Westinghouse says distinguishes the fuel from other accident-tolerant fuel solutions thanks to their higher density and higher thermal conductivity. “We are leveraging the breadth and depth of our resources, combined with US Department

US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) researchers recently demonstrated that nontoxic liquid metals can create multifunctional, reconfigurable electronics and flexible power connections for nontraditional electronics. The advance may help lead to self-healing electronics, shape-shifting antennas and clothing woven with conductive threads to electronically connect devices. Christopher Tabor, a research scientist in the nanoelectronics branch of AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, and his team demonstrated that liquid metal alloys could be flowed through channels embedded in structural aerospace components. The result: physically reconfigurable electronic material able to change antenna and electrical circuit characteristics, virtually on demand. The team is in the

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel , makes the case at Tom Dispatch that the USA is behaving much like the Soviet Union before its collapse. Nextbigfuture thinks the USA is not in any danger of collapsing but there is excessive military spending especially when including the spending on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The costs in the wars is increased by the million dollars per soldier that will be spent on increased veteran health costs. The USA would be far stronger now and in the future with less military spending for a decade or more. The USA has spent

Lithium is the hottest commodity on the planet right now, and investors trying to profit from it don’t understand how to invest in it. MOST ARE MAKING A CRITICAL MISTAKE and investing in the wrong companies. Sponsored post That’s because, in this game, lithium GRADE is the key to profitability. Why? First, lithium… Lithium is the most important component of electric vehicles, high-energy batteries, power storage, a vast menu of consumer electronics—and even Nirvana-reaching drugs. Even today’s hyper-growth EV industry is just the tip of the iceberg compared with where it is headed to. Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that

China’s developing a hypersonic weapon that has triple the range of existing Chinese air-to-air missiles. The premise: a ramjet engine that can turn already deadly missiles into weapons that have greater range, maneuverability, and speed. In a May 31 report, the Science and Technology Daily announced that the 4th Research Institute of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has twice successfully tested a ramjet engine aimed to power air-to-air missiles. Song said the ramjet engine could more than triple the range of Chinese BVRAAMs. The PL-12’s range, for example, could increase from 62 miles to over nearly 200

Globally, more people live in urban areas than in rural areas, with 54 per cent of the world’s population residing in urban areas in 2014. By 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban. The world will need to shift to a focus on the degree of urbanization. There will be the same rural definition. There is small towns and suburbs. There is no unified definition small towns where some countries say it is 2500 people or more and other 20,000 people or more. There there will be city dwellers, but there should be splits

A recent study, affiliated with UNIST has engineered a new type of carbon nanomaterials, capable of changing shapes and colors depending on the type of solvents used. Such materials have attracted much attention owing to their unique optical properties and structures. In the study, the joint research team, led by Professor Byung Soo kim and Professor Oh Hoon Kwon has presented a unique design and synthesis of hybrid carbon nanosheets (CNSs), which show a strong solvatochromic behavior with wide color tunability ranging from blue to orange and even to white in various solvents. Hybrid carbon nanosheets (CNSs) in different solvents

Dr Su Metcalfe is a woman who could be on the verge of curing multiple sclerosis. MS, an auto-immune condition which affects 2.3 million people around the world, attacks cells in the brain and the spinal cord, causing an array of physical and mental side effects including blindness and muscle weakness. At the moment there’s no cure, but Su and her company, LIFNano, hope to change that. “Some people get progressive MS, so go straight to the severe form of the disease, but the majority have a relapsing or remitting version,” she says. “It can start from the age of

HERO. LEGEND. KING. Watch Marvel Studio’s Black Panther teaser trailer now. Black panther movie will be out February, 2018.

The Pentagon has their annual report to Congress on the China’s military. The 2017 report is 106 pages long. The Federation of American Scientists have summarized the report. The most sensational nuclear news in the report is the conclusion that China is developing a new strategic nuclear bomber to replace the aging (but upgraded) H-6. If China creates a nuclear strategic bomber sometime in the mid-2020s then it would change China’s nuclear posture into a formal Triad of air-, land- and sea-based nuclear capabilities, similar to U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals. China has an aircraft carrier pier at Hainan Island.

Eight years ago, Ted Adelson’s research group at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) unveiled a new sensor technology, called GelSight, that uses physical contact with an object to provide a remarkably detailed 3-D map of its surface. Now, by mounting GelSight sensors on the grippers of robotic arms, two MIT teams have given robots greater sensitivity and dexterity. The researchers presented their work in two papers at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation last week. In one paper, Adelson’s group uses the data from the GelSight sensor to enable a robot to judge the hardness of

MIT engineers has come up with a much less expensive UAV design that can hover for longer durations to provide wide-ranging communications support. The researchers designed, built, and tested a UAV resembling a thin glider with a 24-foot wingspan. The vehicle can carry 10 to 20 pounds of communications equipment while flying at an altitude of 15,000 feet. Weighing in at just under 150 pounds, the vehicle is powered by a 5-horsepower gasoline engine and can keep itself aloft for more than five days — longer than any gasoline-powered autonomous aircraft has remained in flight, the researchers say. The team

In 2016, Purdue University and Microsoft have signed a five-year agreement to develop a useable quantum computer. Purdue is one of four international universities in the collaboration. Michael Manfra, Purdue University’s Bill and Dee O’Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of materials engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the effort at Purdue to build a robust and scalable quantum computer by producing what scientists call a “topological qubit.” The team assembled by Microsoft will work on a type of quantum computer that is expected to be especially robust against interference from its surroundings, a

SureFly is a personal helicopter/VTOL aircraft designed for safe and easy flight. With eight independent motors each driving a single carbon fiber propeller, a backup battery power system, and a ballistic parachute to safely land in the event of emergency, the SureFly provides unparalleled safety for a personal aircraft. SureFly is changing the helicopter industry. Now is the time to discover the affordable, easy-to-pilot, safe answer to personal flight. * Electric Driven Props: 2 props per arm, contra rotating. Eight motors, each driving a single propeller * Piloted Vehicle designed to carry pilot and passenger or pilot and cargo *

Lockheed Martin reports they plan to fly a flight research vehicle (FRV) of the mach 6 hypersonic SR-72 in the early 2020s. They have plans to build an FRV the size of an F-22 that can be flown either manually or remotely. Lockheed Martin reports they plan to fly a flight research vehicle (FRV) of the model in the early 2020s. They have plans to build an FRV the size of an F-22 that can be flown either manually or remotely. If the demo successful then it seems likely a full-sized SR-72 (as big as the SR-71) could be operational

A technology developed by Purdue researchers could provide an “instantly rechargeable” method that is safe, affordable and environmentally friendly for recharging electric and hybrid vehicle batteries through a quick and easy process similar to refueling a car at a gas station. The innovation could expedite the adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles by eliminating the time needed to stop and re-charge a conventional electric car’s battery and dramatically reducing the need for new infrastructure to support re-charging stations. John Cushman, Purdue University distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary science and a professor of mathematics, presented the research findings “Redox

Zhe Fei pointed to the bright and dark vertical lines running across his computer screen. This nano-image, he explained, shows the waves associated with a half-light, half-matter quasiparticle moving inside a semiconductor. “These are waves just like water waves,” said Fei, an Iowa State University assistant professor of physics and astronomy and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. “It’s like dropping a rock on the surface of water and seeing waves. But these waves are exciton-polaritons.” Exciton-polaritons are a combination of light and matter. Like all quasiparticles, they’re created within a solid and have physical properties

Stansberry Churchouse makes a bullish case for China’s future economy. They basically make the case for China to sustain GDP growth of 5% per year from now to 2030 and then 4% per year from 2030-2055. China would then have per capita income equal to what the USA has today. The USA would have about double its per capita income today in 2050. At half the US per capita income then China would be at the level of Italy today. By 2022, McKinsey and other research suggests, more than 75 percent of China’s urban consumers will earn 60,000 to 229,000

The World population is about 7.5 billion today and should reach 10 billion in 2050-2055. Africa’s population is 1.25 billion today and will reach 2.5 billion by 2050. The number of people in the Americas will rise by only 223 million to 1.2 billion. Asia will gain about 900 million to 5.3 billion, while Europe registers a decline from 740 million to 728 million. Oceania (which includes Australia and New Zealand) would rise from 40 million to 66 million. India should have the highest population by 2022. The countries ranked by the highest total births and net annual population increase

The use of graphene as an additive can give mechanical and electrical benefits to composite materials, making them multifunctional. In a novel fermentation method, Graphene Flagship researchers have developed graphene-containing rubber foams with unusual mechanical and electrical behaviors: when stretched, the composite foams expand and become more conductive. These unexpected properties could be promising for use in smart filters and medical devices. Published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, the research was performed by researchers at the University of Perugia, Italy and the University of Trento, Italy, in collaboration with Graphene Flagship partner Queen Mary University of London, UK. The

Adam West, the iconic star of the campy 1960s “Batman” TV series, died Friday at the age of 88 in Los Angeles after a short battle with leukemia. Although he was already immortalized as the Caped Crusader, a younger generation had embraced West for his role voicing the corrupt, crackpot Mayor Adam West in the animated comedy TV series “Family Guy.” The “Batman” series spawned a 1966 movie version and an array of merchandise, including lunchboxes, dolls and toy Batmobiles. Both nights of “Batman” were rated in the top-10 list of shows for the 1965-66 season. But as with any

EU Graphene Flagship researchers from ICFO (The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona) have shown that it is possible to integrate graphene into a CMOS integrated circuit. In their paper published in the journal Nature Photonics they combine this graphene-CMOS device with quantum dots to create an array of photodetectors, producing a high resolution image sensor. When used as a digital camera this device is able to sense UV, visible and infrared light at the same time. This is just one example of how this device might be used, others include in microelectronics, sensor arrays and low-power photonics. “The development