Free Republic

But one entrant, Jason M. Allen of Pueblo West, Colo., didn’t make his entry with a brush or a lump of clay. He created it with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program that turns lines of text into hyper-realistic graphics. Mr. Allen’s work, “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” took home the blue ribbon in the fair’s contest for emerging digital artists — making it one of the first A.I.-generated pieces to win such a prize, and setting off a fierce backlash from artists who accused him of, essentially, cheating. Reached by phone on Wednesday, Mr. Allen defended his work. He said that he...

Here comes the X-59: Supersonic transport may hold a promise of super-fast travel, but it also promises to be extremely loud – and not just to those on the actual aircraft. That is why the Concorde, which was developed as part of an Anglo-French effort and while operated by British Airways and Air France, was typically only used for travel from Europe to North America. The American SST (supersonic transport) effort was grounded mainly due to noise and environmental concerns. Those concerns remain as multiple European nations and environmental groups seek to stop any comeback of supersonic commercial travel. Earlier...

Chinese tech giant Baidu is developing its own quantum computer to compete with the United States in the race toward next-generation information processing. The computer does not outperform rivals currently being developed in America but, according to one expert, signals dire competition over the future of data security.A 3D Illustration of a futuristic computer processor. (James Thew/Adobe Stock)Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Hudson Institute, said that Baidu’s recently announced quantum effort fell short of similar efforts being made by companies like Google and IBM.“This quantum computer that they’re touting has only 10 qubits, and that’s...

Computer programs can nowadays generate very convincing human faces. Here is an example and go to the link to see more.This person doesn't exist.

I saw this video on Twitter last week. It shows employees at one of China’s largest tech companies, Tencent, running out of their building after someone inside tested positive for COVID. The employees knew that unless they escape the building very quickly, they will be locked down inside for days.How not to #antivirusVideo took inside head quarter building of #騰訊. (#Tencent ,a world-wide #Chinese IT company)Employee was found receive positive result in virus test.The others was rushing out under the anxiety of lockdown by government.#China #COVID19 #ZeroCovid https://t.co/6CxYS836bD— 過勞死X文香P (@Shimizusoul) August 23, 2022This sort of thing continues happening in China...

The man who married a hologram in Japan can no longer communicate with his virtual wife. The software that allowed the interaction is no longer supported and the man can no longer interact with the hologram with which he had a relationship for years. Fictosexuality is the term used to describe those people who are sexually attracted to fictional characters and in Japan little by little it becomes a trend, to the extent that there are companies that develop technology to offer users holographic couples. Akihiko Kondo took his love for a fictional character one step further by holding a...

I’ve become increasingly intrigued by the fact that western military analysts – even among those not burdened with the epidemic strain of virulent antipathy towards Russia – have not spoken much (if at all) about what I consider to be quite arguably the most impressive revelation of the war in Ukraine. In addition to imposing a virtual “you fly, you die” rule against the Ukrainian Air Force and the various drones they employ, the Russians are, with a formidable array of air defense systems of varying capacities, routinely shooting down: ballistic missiles, MLRS rockets, HARMS anti-radiation missiles, and even artillery...

While in graduate school Matt Schwartz had an epiphany. At the time, he was learning about the food system as part of Stanford University’s Earth Program and also participating in an internship with food tech investor Dave Friedberg, and it was this combination of advanced education with a front-row seat to food tech innovation that helped him to see the future. “That’s when I came to believe that things were heading towards fresh,” Schwartz told me this week in a Zoom interview. “That we need to move towards a more nutrient-dense form of eating, a less calorie dense form of...

There are at least two big missing pieces in the CHIPS Act of 2022, the US$52 billion subsidy for US-based semiconductor manufacturers that has just been sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. The first missing piece is definitional. There is no statement in the Act of what constitutes an “advanced” semiconductor. Second, not only is there no priority on military capability, but there is also no requirement or guidance for protecting newly developed technology funded under the Act. To begin with the question of what constitutes an “advanced” semiconductor, Intel is investing $20 billion in a new manufacturing...

When US national laboratories develop a new technology, Uncle Sam is supposed to ensure it is commercialized in America. But that's not what happened with what's said to be a breakthrough battery design. A vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) design created at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has wound up in the hands of a Chinese company, which has since gone on to become the largest manufacturer of VRFBs in the world. The US, which owns the patent and invested $15 million of taxpayer dollars into its development, reportedly has no domestic production site for the novel VRFBs. That's not...

A Google developer was recently fired for revealing that the tech giant’s AI bot had a mind of its own. The trigger that made him realize that the technology was sentient was a joke it made about Israel not belonging to any religion. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, former Google developer Blake Lemoine explained how he arrived at the conclusion that Google’s AI system, LaMDA was sentient and how a witty response about Israel being run by a philosophy based on a science fiction movie. As part of the process, Lemoine would continually challenge artificial intelligence with nuanced questions...

One of the most enigmatic, sensational, and misguided thinkers of the last 10 years is Israeli historian and pop philosopher Yuval Noah Harari. His book Sapiens, published in English in 2015, sold over a million copies as it told the story of mankind’s evolution. His 2017 book Homo Deus predicts a transhumanist future, a world where technology fundamentally reshapes what kind of entity human beings are. “We humans should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls. We are now hackable animals,” he told attendees at the 2020 World Economic Forum annual meeting. “By hacking organisms,...

Prior to my career selling 'High Tech Printed Circuit Boards' (PCB's), I started in sales with a company in Long Island, NY, packaging Uninterrupted Power Supplies utilizing Nickel Cadmium Storage Batteries. Somehow, I still receive tech bulletins and publications from the industry. And recently received this and thought it may be interesting to others as well. Very Informative. Do Enjoy! The writer.. What is a battery?' I think Tesla said it best when they called it an Energy Storage System. That's important. They do not make electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants,...

A report published at the end of May by NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, notes that the official statistics bureau of Norway will soon track most grocery store purchases made in the Scandinavian country, a development that should serve as a warning to Americans about the growing trend in Western nations to expand surveillance and tracking of everyday citizens. In an article titled “Statistics Norway demands to know exactly what Norwegians buy in the grocery store,” reporter Martin Gundersen wrote that Statistics Norway has “ordered the grocery chains NorgesGruppen, Coop, Bunnpris and Rema 1000 to share all their receipt data...

At its annual re:Mars conference today in Las Vegas, Amazon’s Senior Vice President and Head Scientist for Alexa, Rohit Prasad, announced a spate of new and upcoming features for the company’s smart assistant. The most head turning of the bunch was a potential new feature that can synthesize short audio clips into longer speech. In the scenario presented at the event, the voice of a deceased loved one (a grandmother, in this case), is used to read a grandson a bedtime story. Prasad notes that, using the new technology, the company is able to accomplish some very impressive audio output...

Australian scientists have created the world's first-ever quantum computer circuit – one that contains all the essential components found on a classical computer chip but at the quantum scale.

Changing your idea of what robots can do – that’s the slogan of Boston Dynamics. Founded in 1992 by Marc Raibert as a spin-off company from MIT, its early days were spent making training videos for the navy. Only later did the company begin delving into the world of robots – amassing a level of expertise unsurpassed throughout the industry.In fact, Boston Dynamics’s achievements look like the opening montage from a science fiction movie. Starting with the cumbersome BigDog – a quadruped robot designed for the military – the company has seen each new generation of robots surpass the last...

In early 2020, the Global Elite launched its long-planned coup to capture control of the human population by killing off a substantial proportion and technologically imprisoning those left alive as transhuman slaves. A primary intended outcome of this agenda is to enable the Elite to own and completely control use of the Earth’s remaining resources. Using the World Economic Forum (WEF) as its primary agent, and with the complicity of key international organizations and all national governments (after some hiccoughs requiring the assassination of five national presidents), the Global Elite has gone about progressively implementing the many components of its...

From Talos, the giant bronze automaton who guarded the princess Europa in ancient Greek myths, to Cylons and Terminators, the idea of artificial humans has both fascinated and creeped us out for centuries. Now, we're closer than ever to making a robot look remarkably like a human, with the development of living robot skin. This icky-looking substance is water repellent, self healing, and has a texture just like our own skin. Because it's actually made of human skin cells. "I think living skin is the ultimate solution to give robots the look and touch of living creatures since it is...

He was draggin’ that wagon. An artist created a virtual traffic jam in Berlin by pulling a wagon with 99 cellphones in it. Simon Weckert posted a YouTube video with a split screen that showed him pulling a small red wagon through a mostly empty street. It also showed Google Maps had lit the street up red, falsely signifying that the barren thoroughfare was packed with traffic. <0p> “Through this activity, it is possible to turn a green street red which has an impact in the physical world by navigating cars on another route to avoid being stuck in traffic,”...