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tech

Robot Nails Backflip, Ensures Humanity’s Eventual Downfall

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Boston Dynamics robot

When robots one day rise up against their human oppressors and enslave the fleshy mammals of this planet, we hope they’ll remember how nice some of us were their kind ― the Teddy Ruxpins, the Furbys, the Tickle Me Elmos ― and ultimately show mercy. Until that time, the robotic design company Boston Dynamics continues to fan the uprising flames by giving robots the ability to sprint like cheetahs and perform infinite pushups. By Andy McDonald – Full Story at The Huffington Post

TECH: New Google AI is Homophobic

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Google AI Bot

Google Google has created an artificial intelligence bot – and it’s homophobic. The $500 billion company’s new software, Cloud Natural Language API, analyses statements to find out whether they’re positive or negative. It then gives users a “Sentiment” score from -1 all the way up to +1 – and the higher up the scale, the more positive it thinks your sentence is. “You can use it to understand sentiment about your product on social media or parse intent from customer conversations,” Google explains. The only issue is: it doesn’t like gay people. Just contrast the positive rating for “I’m straight” … Read more

TECH: Ride the BFR From New York to Los Angeles in 25 Minutes

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BFR

Elon Musk laid out a set of ambitious plans on Thursday for a vehicle he has dubbed the Big Fucking Rocket (BFR). The massive spaceship will not only ferry people around on Earth in minuscule amounts of time compared to modern jet travel. It will one day in the not too distant future (2024, to be exact) ferry humans to a colony on Mars. Wired reports: In a promotional video, SpaceX says the BFR will be able to fly into the planet’s orbit and travel with a maximum speed of 27,000kmh. It says a flight from Hong Kong to Singapore … Read more

TECH: Robots to Invade Pisa

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robot

Every year, millions of visitors flock to Italy to immerse themselves in its epic history, art, architecture, culture and traditions, and it’s quite likely that the average tourist goes home from Italy with the impression that they’ve just visited a huge open air museum, never considering that it is, in fact, a modern, innovative country. But all that science and creativity happened in the past … didn’t it? How many tourists, I wonder, are aware that Italy is at the cutting edge of research into robotics? How many visitors to the world famous Torre di Pisa know that Pisa is … Read more

TECH: Nanosurgery is Here

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Nano Surgery

Scientists have hailed a “breakthrough” technology capable of regrowing damaged organs and healing serious wounds with the single touch of a penny-sized pad. The new device uses nanochips to reprogramme skin cells which then generate any type of cell necessary for medical treatment. The non-invasive procedure takes less than a second and in laboratory trials was found to restore the function of badly damaged blood vessels within days. Dubbed tissue nanotransfection (TNT), the technique works by placing a small pad of nanochips over a damaged area. A small electric current then fires DNA into the skin cells, converting them into … Read more

TECH: Employees Can Now Get a Chip in Their Hands

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RFID Chip

A company called Three Square Market is offering to chip its employees to do various things at the company without ID. So far at least fifty have said yes. From the press release: Three Square Market (32M) is offering implanted chip technology to all employees. Company employees will have the option to voluntarily implant an RFID microchip between the thumb and forefinger underneath the skin. RFID technology or Radio-Frequency Identification uses electromagnetic fields to identify electronically stored information. The RFID chip will allow employees to make purchases in the company’s break room market, open doors, login to computers, use copy … Read more

Will Elon Musk Really Build the World’s First Hyperloop?

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hyperloop

The beleaguered transit system in the Northeast may receive a boost from one of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in the world. Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that The Boring Company received “verbal” government approval to begin building an underground Hyperloop, saying it would take 29 minutes to go from New York to Washington, D.C. Musk did not say whether this verbal approval comes from the individual cities themselves or from a federal authority. An Amtrak ride on the Northeast Regional line from D.C. to New York currently takes three hours and 20 minutes, according to the passenger railroad company’s website. By … Read more

TECH: Humans One, Robots Zero

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Tech - Robot

Yes, Robots may have come for your job, and if no, they may be coming for it soon. But here’s a bit of bright news. They may not be very good at it. A security robot keeping a watchful eye on an office in Washington DC fell into a fountain and ended it all. Maybe it was a faulty design. Or maybe the poor thing was just bored to death with its job. Either way, it’s a small slice of hope for humanity. The company that made the robot took it all with grace, tweeting: “Security robot, yes. Submarine robot, … Read more

Today in Creepy Robots

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robots

It was a spooky sight: two lifelike disembodied robot torsos discussing the pros and cons of humans in front of a nervously tittering audience in Hong Kong Wednesday. Artificial intelligence is the dominant theme at this year’s sprawling RISE tech conference at the city’s harbourfront convention centre, but the live robot exchange took the AI debate to another level. While chief scientist Ben Goertzel of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, which invented the machines, sang their praises, the robots seemed more sceptical of their human peers. When Goertzel asked the duo whether robots could really be moral and ethical, Han countered: … Read more