US report foretells of brave new world

By Nathan Cochrane
July 23 2002

A draft government report says we will alter human evolution within 20 years by combining what we know of nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT and cognitive sciences. The 405-page report sponsored by the US National Science Foundation and Commerce Department, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, calls for a broad-based research program to improve human performance leading to telepathy, machine-to-human communication, amplified personal sensory devices and enhanced intellectual capacity.

People may download their consciousnesses into computers or other bodies even on the other side of the solar system, or participate in a giant "hive mind", a network of intelligences connected through ultra-fast communications networks. "With knowledge no longer encapsulated in individuals, the distinction between individuals and the entirety of humanity would blur," the report says. "Think Vulcan mind-meld. We would perhaps become more of a hive mind - an enormous, single, intelligent entity."

Armies may one day be fielded by machines that think for themselves while devices will respond to soldiers' commands before their thoughts are fully formed, it says. The report says the abilities are within our grasp but will require an intense public-relations effort to "prepare key organisations and societal activities for the changes made possible by converging technologies", and to counter concern over "ethical, legal and moral" issues. Education should be overhauled down to the primary-school level to bridge curriculum gaps between disparate subject areas.

Professional societies should be open to practitioners from other fields, it says. "The success of this convergent-technologies priority area is crucial to the future of humanity," the report says. wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/Report/NBIC-pre-publication.pdf

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Smile please: nanotech wizard at work

April 11, 2006

An American scientist uses DNA to make smiley faces and maps that are one thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair - and his technique could have huge implications for computing and medicine, reports Roger Highfield

Here is a little way to bring a lot of happiness into the world. A scientist has made the world's smallest and most plentiful "smiley", one measuring a few billionths of a metre across that could pave the way to a new generation of nanotechnologies.
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Bird Flu And Social Darwinism

Paul Joseph Watson
April 7 2006

Britain again became a victim of bird flu paranoia today after a dead swan in Scotland tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Since Sky News and BBC are reveling in the seriousness of all this it's pertinent and timely to recap on the real agenda behind bird flu.
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MIT group develops 'mind-reading' device

Candace Lombardi
April 4, 2006

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Three researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed a device that "reads minds" and alerts wearers to the emotional state of the person they're conversing with.

The device, called the Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthetic, or ESP, was presented by Rana El Kaliouby on Tuesday at the 2006 Body Sensor Network Conference at the MIT Media Lab. The research team hopes the device will help people with autism learn to better read the social cues of others.

"Mind-reading" is a psychology term for the subconscious notice and analysis of nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and head movements, which humans regularly use to determine the emotional states of others.
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Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip

March 27, 2006

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive.
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Viruses 'trained' to build tiny batteries

April 7, 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers trying to make tiny machines have turned to the power of nature, engineering a virus to attract metals and then using it to build minute wires for microscopic batteries.

The resulting nanowires can be used in minuscule lithium ion battery electrodes, which in turn would be used to power very small machines, the researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The international team of researchers, led by a group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used the M13 virus, a simple and easily manipulated virus.
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Speedy robot legs it to break record

05 April 2006

A two-legged robot that walks at record-breaking speed has been developed by researchers from Germany and Scotland.

"RunBot" is the fastest robot on two legs – for its size. At 30 centimetres high, it can walk at a speedy 3.5 leg-lengths per second. This beats the previous record holder – MIT's "Spring Flamingo" – which is four times as tall but manages just 1.4 leg-lengths per second.

The robot is controlled by a simple program that mimics the way neurons control reflexes in humans and other animals. Unlike most other two-legged robots, RunBot has few sensors and can detect just two things – when a foot touches the ground, and when a leg swings forward.
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Disney Phone Service Features GPS Tracking Of Children

April 5, 2006



The Walt Disney Company unveiled a new wireless phone service Wednesday that allows parents to track their children on a map using Global Positioning System technology, according to Local 6 News.

The new "family friendly" service, called Disney Mobile, allows parents decide who their children can call and when, the report said.

Beyond the family-oriented features, Disney Mobile will offer wireless voice service, text and picture messaging, and a broad range of entertainment and content, a news release said.
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'Spy in the sky' keeps watch on speeding drivers

Technology which could be the basis of a British pay-as-you-drive road-pricing scheme is about to be used to issue instant speeding tickets in parts of the Middle East.

Work on setting up the world's biggest "spy in the sky" network for tracking cars will begin within weeks, with around 10,000 black boxes to be fitted in vehicles in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

It is anticipated that 700,000 cars will be equipped with black boxes within three years.
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WowWee Unveils 2006 Robot Line

By Lance Ulanoff

LAS VEGAS -- Hong Kong-based consumer robotics company WowWee is in the enviable position of operating in a market that's almost completely devoid of competition. Normally that's bad news for consumers as a lack of competition usually results in a limited and mundane selection of products. WowWee, however, isn't resting on its laurels, it's rolling out new robot models (and not just one) every year.

During a recent meeting with WowWee, company executives admitted that they expected more competition after the outstanding success of their first consumer robot, the WowWee Robosapien, which sold over 2 million units in under two years. It's been followed this year by the Robopet, the expertly designed Roboraptor and the just shipped Robosapien V2. Now the company is taking consumer entertainment robotics to the next level.

Here at the Consumer Electronics Expo, WowWee unveiled three new robot companions, which comprise the majority of their 2006 line, that introduce multimedia and far more autonomy than any of the its previous robots.
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Australian Parliament Approves Email Snooping

April 3, 2006

Last week, Federal Parliament passed a law that allows the Government to read private emails, text messages and other stored communications without our knowledge. The power extends to innocent people, called B-parties, if they have been unlucky enough to communicate with someone suspected of a crime or of being a threat to national security.

The Government should sometimes be able to monitor the communications of innocent people. This may be necessary to protect the wider community where a suspect can only be tracked through another person. However, the law goes beyond what can be justified and undermines our privacy more than is needed.
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Warbots to Replace Human Soldiers?

March 30, 2006

Any good student of military history can tell you that technological change can make a huge difference on the battlefield. History is replete with examples: the English longbow at Crecy overmatched the Genovese crossbowmen. During WWI when Allied tanks helped break the stalemate on the Western Front and, the ultimate technological victory, the atom bomb that forced the Japanese into submission in WWII. But progress marches on, further changing the battlefield of the future and, unfortunately, doing little to reduce its ubiquitous nature. The death traps of Vietnam and Iraq have shown the power to utterly destroy does not always lead to victory.

To curtail needless casualties, the full robotization of war at the lowest level has already started. Not only are the ethical considerations frightening, the pace is astonishing. Everything from the dumbest land mine to the best smart missile has already improved ten fold over the last 20 years. Armies are ready to field the first remote controlled land warbots – soon to be fully automated after the unheralded success of US Air Force systems like Global Hawk, Predator and other intelligence gathering unmanned, remote controlled vehicles. A Predator even managed to kill an alleged group of terrorists traveling in a moving car using powerful Hellfire antitank missiles – albeit by remote control hence not truly autonomous.
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"FBI" crime-fighting unit launched

3 April, 2006

LONDON (Reuters) - A new national crime-fighting unit modelled on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will be launched by the government on Monday with the aim of taking on major criminal gangs.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which will have a staff of around 5,000, will tackle drug traffickers, people smugglers, global paedophile networks and sophisticated fraudsters.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will officially launch the unit later on Monday, said the time had come to make life "hell" for those who were behind organised crime.
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Scientist advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species

31 March 2006

Recently citizen scientist Forrest Mims told me about a speech he heard at the Texas Academy of Science during which the speaker, a world-renowned ecologist, advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner. Apparently at the speaker's direction, the speech was not video taped by the Academy and so Forrest's may be the only record of what was said. Forrest's account of what he witnessed chilled my soul. Astonishingly, Forrest reports that many of the Academy members present gave the speaker a standing ovation. To date, the Academy has not moved to sanction the speaker or distance itself from the speaker's remarks.
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