David Cassel brings our attention to an h+ review of the long-awaited film The Singularity is Near, based on the book by Ray Kurzweil: In documentary style, we have Ray discussing his ideas about the Singularity, with commentators variously supporting or refuting or worrying about his ideas. With Bill McKibben in the role of the… Continue reading The Singularity is Near: the Movie
Videos for all talks and slides for some are now available for the Foresight Conference held in January. Here’s the list: https://legacy.foresight.org/conf2010/ Or if you prefer to watch them in chronological order: https://legacy.foresight.org/conf2010/schedule.html There are 17 videos, so in case you’d like some guidance in getting started, consider starting with the top three talks as… Continue reading Videos and slides for Foresight Conference now posted
Angela Belcher and team at MIT have tweaked a bacterial virus to serve as a scaffolding to: attract and bind with molecules of a catalyst (the team used iridium oxide) and a biological pigment (zinc porphyrins). The viruses became wire-like devices that could very efficiently split the oxygen from water molecules. Belcher says that within… Continue reading MIT's Belcher uses engineered virus to split water
From Singularity Hub, 5 Axis Robot Carves Metal Like Butter: Industrial robots are getting precise enough that they’re less like dumb machines and more like automated sculptors producing artwork. Case in point: Daishin’s Seki5-axis mill. The Japanese company celebrated its 50th anniversary last year by using this machine to carve out a full scale motorcycle helmet… Continue reading Industrial robot carves metal like butter (video)
The winner of the 2009 Foresight Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (Theory), Robert A. Freitas Jr., has now been granted the first diamond mechanosynthesis patent. This is not just the first DMS patent but also, I believe, the first mechanosynthesis patent that has ever been issued. Freitas is the sole inventor on this patent, which was… Continue reading Freitas awarded first mechanosynthesis patent
Longtime Foresight Senior Associate and senior research scientist at Genetic Programming, Inc. has done an interview on memristors over at blog FrogHeart for those of us trying to keep up on this challenging topic. He concludes: So why are memristors useful? Sticking with our water analogy, I can make the pipe bigger or small depending… Continue reading Forrest Bennett explains memristors
Finally, the first step has been made toward the longed-for goal of a robot which can do laundry: http://singularityhub.com/2010/03/31/berkeley-gets-willow-garage-robot-to-fold-towels-simply-stunning-video/ Of course, this also gives us some idea of other formerly human-only tasks that robots are likely to take over in the next decade or two. Thanks to SingularityHub.com for bringing this to our attention. —Chris… Continue reading Berkeley gets Willow Garage robot to fold towels: video
This conference track is being chaired by a real computer scientist with a specialty in AI, so it should be more meaty than some popular discussions of this challenging topic: We invite submissions describing systematic attempts at understanding the likelihood and nature of these projections. In particular, we welcome papers critically analyzing the following issues… Continue reading Technological singularity and acceleration studies: call for papers
Nanowerk reports: Taking the patent land grab to a new level, the government of Greece today, April 1, filed a patent and trademark application for the term nanotechnology with the European Patent Office. The country is thereby seeking the right to prevent third parties from commercially exploiting these and related terms without paying royalties. “Quite… Continue reading Greece to trademark term "nanotechnology"
From David Cassel: The military is funding a project to create neural computing using memristors, a sophisticated circuit component which HP Labs describes as a stepping stone to “computers that can make decisions” and “appliances that learn from experience.” http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/synapse-chip In a video, HP researcher R. Stanley Williams explains how his team created the first… Continue reading U.S. military to use memristors for neural computing
