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Keyword: technology

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  • The Tech Cold War Is Here — And The US Isn't Winning

    08/23/2020 9:22:48 AM PDT · by Enlightened1 · 22 replies
    The Hill ^ | 08/21/20 | Chris Larsen
    Like it or not, the U.S. is already fighting an economic and technological cold war against China. While we should aim to eventually return to the optimism and promise of a broad China/U.S. partnership, the time for that is not now. This is a major challenge to our country, and we must do everything we can to avoid losing our economic leadership. By now, we all know the rivalry in 5G and AI, part of China’s $1.4 trillion technology commitment. Less attention has been given to an equally consequential struggle: who will control our future global financial systems. The power...
  • Robot Trucks Will Soon Screw Up The U.S.A. (And Nobody's Talking About It)

    08/16/2020 6:17:42 PM PDT · by tbw2 · 64 replies
    Cracked.com ^ | 08/11/2020 | William Kuechenberg
    While this column isn't about the threat posed by Transformers, it is about a robot apocalypse that's going to ravage the Midwest. I know, I know, the last thing you want to hear about right now is another imminent doomsday -- aren't global warming and COVID-19 and murder hornets and measles and the ever-present specter of thermonuclear war and the possibility of hyper-intelligent toilet lampreys enough? Well, it's likely you haven't heard too much about this particular apocalypse because it's not a sexy blood-and-guts kind. Instead of armies of Terminators hunting down handfuls of survivors for their sweet sweet spinal...
  • The Panopticon Is Already Here: Xi Jinping is using artificial intelligence to enhance his government’s totalitarian control—and he’s exporting this technology to regimes around the globe.

    08/04/2020 10:50:55 AM PDT · by C19fan · 3 replies
    The Atlantic ^ | August 4, 2020 | Ross Andersen
    Northwest of beijing’s Forbidden City, outside the Third Ring Road, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has spent seven decades building a campus of national laboratories. Near its center is the Institute of Automation, a sleek silvery-blue building surrounded by camera-studded poles. The institute is a basic research facility. Its computer scientists inquire into artificial intelligence’s fundamental mysteries. Their more practical innovations—iris recognition, cloud-based speech synthesis—are spun off to Chinese tech giants, AI start-ups, and, in some cases, the People’s Liberation Army.
  • Tesla's 2170 Battery Cells To Receive 20% Energy Density Improvement: Report

    07/31/2020 7:05:26 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 29 replies
    Benzinga ^ | July 30, 2020 | editors
    Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) already has some of the most energy-dense electric vehicle batteries available, with the company's Model S able to travel over 400 miles on a single charge. Now it looks like Tesla's vehicles will be able to travel even farther, as a report from Reuters details Panasonic's (OTC: PCRFY) lans for future improvements. Over the next five years, Panasonic is planning to increase energy density by 20%, while also having cobalt-free batteries available in the next two to three years, according to Reuters. The 2170 cells that will be receiving these improvements are currently found in Tesla's...
  • World's religions embracing AI 'God robots capable of performing miracles'

    07/27/2020 2:25:31 PM PDT · by Roman_War_Criminal · 37 replies
    dailystar.co.uk ^ | 7/26/2020 | Sophie Bateman
    A growing number of places of worship around the world are employing robotic priests, who can recite prayers and even comfort worshippers experiencing spiritual crises Religions around the world are evolving as technology progresses, and now some faiths are relying on "god robots " to spread the good word. Back in the Middle Ages, Christian "robots" of a kind were fashioned to perform the religious pageantry of the Easter and Christmas rituals. In the 16th century, a mechanical monk was created by a Spanish clockmaker that incredibly remains fully functional to this day. The automaton beats his chest and raises...
  • Cosmonaut builds engineered cartilage aboard the International Space Station

    07/25/2020 5:00:02 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 12 replies
    physicsworld.com ^ | 24 Jul 2020
    Tissue engineering has seen a surge of interest in recent years. Traditionally, it involves seeding cells onto biocompatible “scaffolds”, which biodegrade once tissues have assembled themselves into 3D organs. However, more flexible, scaffold-free approaches are also emerging, which enable cells to assemble themselves without the need for structural biomaterials. To do this, researchers use techniques including removable supports, and guiding forces from acoustic and electrostatic fields. One particularly promising approach involves magnetic levitation, through which strong field gradients can precisely guide tissue cells into place. To achieve strong enough gradients, however, cells must be suspended within a paramagnetic medium containing...
  • New lithium battery charges faster, reduces risk of device explosions

    07/16/2020 11:07:34 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 8 replies
    techxplore.com ^ | July 15, 2020 | by Texas A&M University
    A schematic showing lithium battery with the new carbon nanotube architecture for the anode Credit: Juran Noh/Texas A&M University College of Engineering Cell phone batteries often heat up and, at times, can burst into flames. In most cases, the culprit behind such incidents can be traced back to lithium batteries. Despite providing long-lasting electric currents that can keep devices powered up, lithium batteries can internally short circuit, heating up the device. Researchers at Texas A&M University have invented a technology that can prevent lithium batteries from heating and failing. Their carbon nanotube design for the battery's conductive plate, called the...
  • Misunderestimating China: For the first time in its long history, China has succeeded in recruiting Western innovators on a large scale.

    06/24/2020 8:28:41 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 4 replies
    Law and Liberty ^ | David Goldman
    Toward the end of his new book, The Return of Great Power Rivalry, Matthew Kroenig offers sensible if tentative advice for responding to China’s ambitions for technological leadership: U.S. government investments in basic science and R&D have been critical in past technological breakthroughs, including nuclear power and the Internet. . . and the United States could do more to invest in the technologies of the future. Democracies are often slow to build consensus for a problem, and that helps them to avoid mistakes. But when a national consensus is achieved, they can mass resources toward a problem just as...
  • 3-D Metal Printing Gaining Traction

    06/18/2020 12:25:11 PM PDT · by marktwain · 7 replies
    Small metal injection molded (MIM) parts are common in firearms, but the decades-old process for lower-pressure components may be short-lived if the latest figures from 3DEO are any indication. The Los Angeles-based company, which specializes in high-volume metal 3D printing technology, experienced 600-percent growth in revenue from 2019 to 2020, with orders increasing 394 percent during the same period and staff increasing by 172 percent to meet that demand. It now has 25 engineers working on research and development. 3DEO is barely four years old, and although its products are usually taken for granted by most enthusiasts, firearm manufactures have...
  • Was My Smartphone Made By A Slave?

    06/18/2020 10:19:51 AM PDT · by Beowulf9 · 18 replies
    https://www.dressember.org ^ | Feb 20 2020 | Dressember
    With an estimated 224.3 million smartphone users in the U.S. and an estimated 2.1 billion smartphone users worldwide, it’s likely that you own a smartphone. But as you’ve spent thousands of minutes scrolling through social media or browsing the internet, did you ever wonder where your smartphone came from? Did you ever think that the device which demands so much of your attention could have been made by a slave?
  • Google pulls popular app that helped remove Chinese apps from phones

    06/03/2020 6:34:58 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 12 replies
    The Verge ^ | Jun 3, 2020 | Jon Porter
    Google has removed a popular Indian-developed app from its Play Store that promised to find and remove Chinese apps from smartphones. The search giant confirmed to Gadgets 360 that the app, which was called “Remove Chinese Apps,” was removed for violating its Deceptive Behavior Policy, which prohibits software from encouraging or misleading users into “removing or disabling third-party apps.” Remove Chinese Apps had grown popular in India. Reuters reports that it had amassed over five million downloads since late May, and was the top trending free app in the country. The app worked by scanning phones for Chinese apps like...
  • The Antikythera mechanism is a 2,000-year-old computer

    05/24/2020 6:22:58 PM PDT · by bitt · 69 replies
    vox.com ^ | 5/17/2017 | brian resnick
    115 years ago, divers found a hunk of bronze off a Greek island. It changed our understanding of human history. One hundred fifteen years ago, an archeologist was sifting through objects found in the wreck of a 2,000-year-old vessel off the Greek island Antikythera. Among the wreck’s treasures — beautiful vases and pots, jewelry, a bronze statue of an ancient philosopher — was the most peculiar thing: a series of brass gears and dials mounted in a case the size of a mantel clock. Archeologists dubbed the instrument the Antikythera mechanism. The genius — and mystery — of this piece...
  • DEFCON27 Wireless Village - Kent Britain - Antennas for Surveillance

    05/24/2020 8:14:25 AM PDT · by tbw2 · 6 replies
    Defcon 2019 ^ | Nov 19, 2019 | Kent Britain
    Care and feeding of Software Defined Radios We will cover the various kinds of antennas available to optimized your SDR radio for different types of spectrum monitoring. We will also explain why RF filters are necessary on most SDR's and when Low Noise Amplifiers help, and when Low Noise Amplifiers hurt reception.
  • Days before landmark launch, NASA’s head of human spaceflight quits due to ‘mistake’

    05/19/2020 8:37:19 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 19 replies
    Yahoo ^ | May 19, 2020 | Alan Boyle
    NASA’s top executive concentrating on human spaceflight, Doug Loverro, has resigned just a week before the scheduled start of a milestone space mission. Loverro became NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations last December, and was playing a leading role in NASA’s Artemis moon program as well as preparations for next week’s launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station. That mission, set for liftoff on May 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is due to send NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station for a stay that could last...
  • Navy inks deal for synthetic aperture radar

    05/14/2020 4:58:25 PM PDT · by gandalftb · 44 replies
    Sightline Media Group ^ | 5/13/20 | Nathan Strout
    Capella Space announced May 13 that it signed a deal to provide synthetic aperture radar to the U.S. Navy, even though the company has yet to put a satellite on orbit. SAR creates images with radar, meaning it can produce images regardless of the weather or lighting conditions. SAR satellite constellation will be able to collect sub-0.5 meter imagery, capable of identifying various types of aircraft or vehicles at ground level.
  • Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to Build Advanced Chip Factory in Arizona…

    05/14/2020 6:02:29 PM PDT · by Candor7 · 70 replies
    Conservative Treehouse ^ | 14 May 2020 | Sundance
    Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has been in discussions for several years with both TSMC and Intel to build advanced chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. and extract U.S. supply chain needs from China and southeast Asia. It appears his efforts, and the emphasis on global supply-chain shifts from President Trump, are getting results. According to numerous media reports Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is likely to announce this week they will build an advanced chip manufacturing facility in Arizona. A manufacturing facility for advanced 5 nanometer chip manufacturing is a steep investment decision costing around $10 billion. This shift in...
  • West Virginia school system offering school choice, but not what you think

    05/12/2020 2:44:17 PM PDT · by Old Man From WV · 11 replies
    WV MetroNews ^ | May 12, 2020 | Mike McCullough
    CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — Regardless of where the Eastern Panhandle stands with COVID-19 this fall, Jefferson County students will have a choice of how they attend school. During Monday night’s regular meeting, Superintendent Dr. Bondy Shay Gibson said the school system is continuously updating its technological infrastructure. Students will have the option of full virtual learning.
  • Unlikely TSMC (Computer Chip Giant)will soon build in US

    05/11/2020 10:56:02 AM PDT · by Candor7 · 22 replies
    Taipei Times ^ | Tue, May 12, 2020 | unattributed
    It is a risky bet for US President Donald Trump’s administration to push for building advanced semiconductor factories in the US due to growing fears about the US’ heavy reliance on Asia for chip supply and potential disruptions from uncontrollable factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The US government is in discussions with chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), to build new fabs in the US to create a self-sufficiency in chips, the latest in a slew of Trump’s renewed “Make in the US” efforts, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Even before the pandemic, the US had...
  • The Demand for Social Distancing is for Facial Recognition.

    05/04/2020 7:48:39 PM PDT · by Jonty30 · 11 replies
    That is interesting, but does not surprise me.
  • Time To Reboot Big Tech

    05/02/2020 4:11:46 AM PDT · by Kaslin · 9 replies
    Townhall.com ^ | May 2, 2020 | Mike Davis
    With the current coronavirus crisis creating a boom for video meetings, competition for secure platforms has become fierce. The recent controversies surrounding early frontrunner Zoom allowed Google to pounce at the opportunity, making rival Google Meet free to the general public. Google has begun positioning itself as the pro-privacy option because of supposed protections it has in place, even as many in the public remain skeptical. No protections in the world, however, will change that Google is a corporation whose whole business model revolves around tracking, mining, and selling personal user data, along with the history of privacy violations that...