The rise of the robots hasn’t resulted in a murderous rampage quite yet, but it has reaped an enormous toll on low-level jobs. Assembly lines, farms, factories - the machines have taken over millions of man-hours, but now the scientists have surpassed those systems and begun to make themselves obsolete. Because Adam is online - and he’s a scientist. more>>>

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Are supercomputers on the verge of creating Matrix-style simulated realities? Michael McGuigan at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, thinks so. He says that virtual worlds realistic enough to be mistaken for the real thing are just a few years away. more>>>

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Click HERE to read an awesome article on some technologies on the slicing edge of Augmented Reality!!

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By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: 7:20PM BST 01 Jul 2009

Researchers looking into how salamanders are able to to regrow their damaged bodies have discovered that the “almost magical ability” is closer to human healing then first thought.

They believe that one day they will be able to completely unlock the secret and apply it to humans, reprogramming the body so it can repair itself perfectly as if nothing had happened. more>>>

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An illustration of a dust storm on Mars. (Credit: Brian Grimm and Nilton Renno)

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2009) — For the first time, direct evidence of lightning has been detected on Mars, say University of Michigan researchers who found signs of electrical discharges during dust storms on the Red Planet. more>>>

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Scientists have been plagued by Einstein’s theories which state nothing can travel faster than light. But over the past decade or so, we have seen a new branch of physics theorized, one which might give Einstein cause for pause. It’s called Superluminal Electromagnetic Field / Wave Propagation, which is basically a form of faster than light relativity. Experiments have been conducted by several scientists which involve light and radio sources traveling at speeds well in excess of the speed of light. Seem possible? more>>>

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Today is my fasting day.

I have always been a tall, thin guy (well.. I was shorter as a baby) and I do some kind of mild CR (calorie restriction), but I have the same problem as everyone else - it is not very challenging mentally or physically, but socially it is a problem not being able to get lunch at the occasional fast-food joint or pasta place, etc.

A couple of months ago, I read about some promising results regarding intermittent fasting as an alternative to CR. After some brief research, I decided that it was safe (religious people have done it for a long time, after all) and most likely beneficial. I have been a practicing IF:er ever since. more>>>

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It talks about accelerating change without putting a name on it! The idea of the article is great and sheds light on an important change in the economy - that if your work involves ideas then technology is devaluing your work.

In my line of work - filmmaking - it represents an important challenge as the distribution costs are cut down then it become important that I make films that appeal to niche markets and do a good job balancing production value with the cost of providing that value.

Here is a snippet of article:

Since the falling costs of digital technology let you make as much stuff as you want, Anderson argues, and the magic of the word “free” creates instant demand among consumers, then Free (Anderson honors it with a capital) represents an enormous business opportunity. Companies ought to be able to make huge amounts of money “around” the thing being given away—as Google gives away its search and e-mail and makes its money on advertising. more>>>

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The most complete terrain map of the Earth’s surface has been published.

The data, comprising 1.3 million images, come from a collaboration between the US space agency Nasa and the Japanese trade ministry.

The images were taken by Japan’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) aboard the Terra satellite.

The resulting Global Digital Elevation Map covers 99% of the Earth’s surface, and will be free to download and use. more>>>

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HAVE you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer? more>>>

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It’s late April and workers are assembling the last parts of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a sprawling building covering the area of three football fields at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA. Dressed in hard hats, hair nets, lab coats, and latex gloves, they have gathered at the target chamber, a sphere 10 meters in diameter and bristling with 48 burnished-aluminum ducts that together house 192 separate laser beams. Each beam on its own is one of the world’s most powerful, says Bruno Van Wonterghem, operations manager at NIF. Together they deliver 50 to 60 times the energy of any other laser. more>>>

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TOKYO (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp. says it has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by just detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command.

Toyota’s system, developed in a collaboration with researchers in Japan, is among the fastest in the world in analyzing brain waves, it said in a release Monday.

Past systems required several seconds to read brain waves, but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds — or 125 thousandths of a second.

The person in the wheelchair wears a cap that can read brain signals, which are relayed to a brain scan electroencephalograph, or EEG, on the electrically powered wheelchair, and then analyzed in a computer program. more>>>

hat tip to du Vigneaud

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ISU = International Space University

SU = Singularity University

Click below for Part I. It begins after close to 9 minutes of music and is an hour in length including the music.

Click below for Part II. It is 30 minutes in length.

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This inspiring article shows how far we came in 30 years…just think what’ll happen in the next 30!!!!

When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. more>>>

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An unusual new academic institution called Singularity University, run by a well-known entrepreneur and a futurist known for his claims that computers will soon outsmart human beings, welcomed its first class of students last night. But first the new students posed for a class picture and had a “spit party,” where they submitted saliva samples to have their DNA sequenced.

Click here for the entire article titled “An Unusual Attempt to Shape a High-Tech Future, Singularity U. Gets Underway” found in “The Wired Campus”.

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