Emergent Technology

Deflector shields on!

Shields up: New ideas might make active shielding viable​

Active shielding was first proposed in the '60s. We’re finally close to making it work.​

Shields up: New ideas might make active shielding viable


On October 19, 1989, at 12:29 UT, a monstrous X13 class solar flare triggered a geomagnetic storm so strong that auroras lit up the skies in Japan, America, Australia, and even Germany the following day. Had you been flying around the Moon at that time, you would have absorbed well over 6 Sieverts of radiation—a dose that would most likely kill you within a month or so.
This is why the Orion spacecraft that is supposed to take humans on a Moon fly-by mission this year has a heavily shielded storm shelter for the crew. But shelters like that aren’t sufficient for a flight to Mars—Orion’s shield is designed for a 30-day mission.
To obtain protection comparable to what we enjoy on Earth would require hundreds of tons of material, and that's simply not possible in orbit. The primary alternative—using active shields that deflect charged particles just like the Earth’s magnetic field does—was first proposed in the 1960s. Today, we’re finally close to making it work.
 

You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000​

Thermonator, the first "flamethrower-wielding robot dog," is completely legal in 48 US states.​

The Thermonator robot flamethrower dog.


If you've been wondering when you'll be able to order the flame-throwing robot that Ohio-based Throwflame first announced last summer, that day has finally arrived. The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as "the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog" is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420.
Thermonator is a quadruped robot with an ARC flamethrower mounted to its back, fueled by gasoline or napalm. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone.
It also includes a LIDAR sensor for mapping and obstacle avoidance, laser sighting, and first-person view (FPV) navigation through an onboard camera. The product appears to integrate a version of the Unitree Go2 robot quadruped that retails alone for $1,600 in its base configuration.

The company lists possible applications of the new robot as "wildfire control and prevention," "agricultural management," "ecological conservation," "snow and ice removal," and "entertainment and SFX." But most of all, it sets things on fire in a variety of real-world scenarios.
 
Robert said:

You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000​

Thermonator, the first "flamethrower-wielding robot dog," is completely legal in 48 US states.​

The Thermonator robot flamethrower dog.


If you've been wondering when you'll be able to order the flame-throwing robot that Ohio-based Throwflame first announced last summer, that day has finally arrived. The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as "the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog" is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420.
Thermonator is a quadruped robot with an ARC flamethrower mounted to its back, fueled by gasoline or napalm. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone.
It also includes a LIDAR sensor for mapping and obstacle avoidance, laser sighting, and first-person view (FPV) navigation through an onboard camera. The product appears to integrate a version of the Unitree Go2 robot quadruped that retails alone for $1,600 in its base configuration.

The company lists possible applications of the new robot as "wildfire control and prevention," "agricultural management," "ecological conservation," "snow and ice removal," and "entertainment and SFX." But most of all, it sets things on fire in a variety of real-world scenarios.
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Robert said:
Details are a little thin but it seems this guy was only caught because he was stupid enough to use the school network to search for & create the audio. Either way, we can expect to see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future.

School athletic director arrested for framing principal using AI voice synthesis​

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I was actually going to resurrect the old "hate crime hoax" thread for that. The problem is that while with expert forensics it can be determined now, in a few short years AI will probably be able to fake it to fool everyone. Don't be surprised if the Dems drop one against Trump as an October Surprise this year and the liberal media run with it like the lapdogs they are.
 
Robert said:

Elon Musk announces first Neuralink wireless brain chip implant​

Neuralink logo displayed on mobil with founder Elon Musk seen on screen in the background, in Brussels on 4 December 2022.

Elon Musk says his Neuralink company has successfully implanted one of its wireless brain chips in a human for the first time.
Initial results detected promising neuron spikes or nerve impulses and the patient is recovering well, he said.
The company's goal is to connect human brains to computers and it says it wants to help tackle complex neurological conditions.
A number of rival companies have already implanted similar devices.
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Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chip​

In the weeks following the surgery, a number of threads retracted from the brain, resulting in a net decrease in the number of effective electrodes. This led to a reduction in BPS (Fig 04). In response to this change, we modified the recording algorithm to be more sensitive to neural population signals, improved the techniques to translate these signals into cursor movements, and enhanced the user interface.
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Hydrogels can learn to play​

Work could lead to new "smart" materials that can learn and adapt to their environment.​


This electroactive polymer hydrogel "learned" to play Pong. Credit: Cell Reports Physical Science/Strong et al.
Pong will always hold a special place in the history of gaming as one of the earliest arcade video games. Introduced in 1972, it was a table tennis game featuring very simple graphics and gameplay. In fact, it's simple enough that even non-living materials known as hydrogels can "learn" to play the game by "remembering" previous patterns of electrical stimulation, according to a new paper published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.

"Our research shows that even very simple materials can exhibit complex, adaptive behaviors typically associated with living systems or sophisticated AI," said co-author Yoshikatsu Hayashi, a biomedical engineer at the University of Reading in the UK. "This opens up exciting possibilities for developing new types of 'smart' materials that can learn and adapt to their environment."
 
"cGAS has been implicated not only in autoimmune conditions, but in numerous inflammatory illnesses, including age-related macular degeneration and neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," the Lasker Award grantees wrote in a statement. "Calming the cGAS-cGAMP-STING pathway might therefore provide benefit across a broad span of ailments."



www.livescience.com

Scientist who discovered body's 'fire alarm' against invading bacteria wins $250,000 Lasker prize

One of this year's coveted Lasker Awards has gone to Zhijian "James" Chen, a scientist behind a key immune-system discovery.
www.livescience.com www.livescience.com
 
Robert said:
I think we're past the point where it's easy to spot AI videos. Some of these are incredible.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1861446152924864908
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Plenty of weird hallucinogenic glitches still. No real understanding of how reality works.
They need to stop training these thing on videos and just release a swarm of robots into the world and train from data captured by robot eyes in physical context.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Plenty of weird hallucinogenic glitches still. No real understanding of how reality works.
They need to stop training these thing on videos and just release a swarm of robots into the world and train from data captured by robot eyes in physical context.
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You have better eyes than me. The clips of the goose and the dog look pretty realistic to me even after several views.
 
Robert said:
You have better eyes than me. The clips of the goose and the dog look pretty realistic to me even after several views.
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The clips are all really short,which helps. The dog doesn't knock any snow from the branch and the branches behind don't move right.
The goose doesn't have much going on buy where the ripples start - what's going on with the foot?
Like I say, it's pretty realistically detailed but ... just a bit off.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
The clips are all really short,which helps. The dog doesn't knock any snow from the branch and the branches behind don't move right.
The goose doesn't have much going on buy where the ripples start - what's going on with the foot?
Like I say, it's pretty realistically detailed but ... just a bit off.
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I noticed the glitch with the goose foot but only saw the snow thing once you'd pointed it out. I agree the brevity of the clips helps but they're still as good as most I've seen and if you'd told me you shot those clips yourself I would have probably taken them at face value. Certainly an improvement on the six-fingered, double eye-browed weirdness of clips from a year or so ago.
 
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