China’s economy is not falling into a black hole. Wheels are in motion for economic reforms. China’s mainland equities — known as the A-shares — will be included in the massive MSCI Emerging Markets Index starting in June 2018. Some 222 Shanghai and Shenzhen listed companies made the cut. For now, the weighting is under …
New program aims to develop advanced battle management/command and control tools and a comprehensive interactive virtual environment to test novel concepts for future expeditionary combat operations. As nation-state and non-state adversaries adapt and apply commercially available state-of-the-art technology in urban conflict, expeditionary U.S. forces face a shrinking operational advantage. To address this challenge, a new …
Russian will start operational evaluation of the most advanced Armata tank starting in 2019 and they will have laser guided missiles with 3 times the range of the newest American tank. The T-14 Armata is equipped with an unmanned turret and all the crew is located at the front of the hull. The new unmanned …
Another week and another F35 grounding. This time it was a bad software upgrade to the ALIS ground support system has grounded the Marine Corps F-35B squadron based in Yuma, Arizona, the F-35 Joint Program Office announced. The Air Force’s F-35As did not have the faulty upgrade, but the F35s have problems with the pilot’s …
IBM and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) announced they are collaborating on a first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing system powered by a 64-chip array of the IBM TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System. The scalable platform IBM is building for AFRL will feature an end-to-end software ecosystem designed to enable deep neural-network learning and information discovery. The system’s …
Researchers at the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a novel design approach for exoskeletons and prosthetic limbs that incorporates direct feedback from the human body. The findings were published this week in Science. This technique, called human-in-the-loop optimization, customizes walking assistance for individuals and significantly improves energy economy during walking. The …
In May, 2016, Elon Musk’s net worth according to Forbes had climbed to $15 billion, but Tesla stock has risen about 20% and is at $18.6 billion. Elon has 33.6 million shares of Tesla (about 19% of the company) worth $12.86 billion at todays $383 per share. Spacex had filings with a valuation of $10 …
Thyssenkrupp has built the first rope (cable) free elevator. This will enable system like the Star Trek Turbolift which can move up down and side to side. This is elevator industry’s holy grail. It ends the 160-year reign of the rope-dependent elevator. MULTI harnesses the power of linear motor technology to move multiple cars in …
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully made its second trip to space June 23. It launched to Bularia’s first communications satellite. The BulgariaSat-1 launch marks the Falcon 9’s second flight this year, and may kick off a double-header with a Sunday SpaceX launch as well. SpaceX has successfully landed one of these rocket stages 12 …
China’s aircraft carrier technology is still far behind the USA. China only has one refurbished Soviet aircraft carrier and a domestic submarine based on the Soviet carrier will be operational in 2020. China’s next aircraft carriers could start getting up to the level of 1980 era US carriers in size and some technology in the …
John Martinis, one of Google’s quantum computing gurus, laid out Google’s “stretch goal”: to build and test a 49-qubit (“quantum bit”) quantum computer by the end of 2017. This computer will use qubits made of superconducting circuits. Each qubit is prepared in a precise quantum state based on a two-state system. The test will be …