The planet Uranus, known since Voyager’s 1986 flyby as a bland, featureless blue-green orb, is beginning to show its face. By using a new technique with the telescopes of the Keck Observatory, astronomers have created the most richly detailed, highest-resolution images ever taken of the giant ice planet in the near infrared, revealing an incredible …
Vernor Vinge talks about Who is afraid of first movers 5 kinds of superintelligences. He thinks they will all happen, resulting in different styles of mind. He discusses differences risks and precedents 1. Computer based path to AGI Classical Artificial intelligence 2. Intelligence Amplification Extreme UIs Get answers from wikipedia as fast as you can …
John Wilbanks spoke about Your health, your data He argues for getting health data out into the public domain so that it can be used for research and for everyones benefit to enable better health. 1. Doppler shifts There are apps where people can take pictures of food People annote it with whether they think …
I am planning to buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Here are some reviews of that smartphone. 1. Android Central – The original Galaxy Note wasn’t a mainstream device, and neither is its successor. Nevertheless, the Galaxy Note 2 is the best large-screen smartphone available by a considerably wide margin. The S Pen, though still …
An eight page paper on Harold White’s space warping ideas The canonical form of the Alcubierre warp drive metric is considered to gain insight into the mathematical mechanism triggering the effect. A parallel with the Chung-Freese spacetime metric is drawn to demonstrate that the spacetime expansion boost can be considered a 3 + 1 on-brane …
This is a phase 2 NASA NIAC study which could reduce the cost of space telescopes by 250 times. Beyond Hubble class space telescopes could cost a few million instead of a few billion dollars. The mirror costs would be reduced by over 500 times. Photons weigh nothing. Why must even small space telescopes have …
Federal Business Opportunity – NASA/JSC is currently looking at the development of aneutronic fusion power for spacecraft applications. Research focus is radiation protection, architecture utilizing high temperature superconducting magnets, and anuetronic fusion. NASA/JSC intends to purchase research and development services from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for a continuation of an aneutronic fusion research …
In June Venture Deal reported that D-Wave Systems, adiabatic quantum computing company, landed $22.8 million in new venture capital investment, according to an SEC filing. D-Wave was still seeking $12.2 million in additional financing, according to the filing back in June 2012. Nextbigfuture has had extensive coverage of Dwave systems. In December. 2011, I interviewed …
A123 Systems, a developer and manufacturer of advanced lithium-iron phosphate batteries and systems, signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Wanxiang Group Corporation establishing the framework for a strategic investment through which Wanxiang would invest up to $450 million in A123. A123 announced the Wanxiang deal along with its financial results for the second …
Robotic, Self-Sustaining Architecture to Utilize Resources and Enable Human Expansion Throughout the Solar System (36 pages) UPDATE – 24 page preprint copy of the paper. Nextbigfuture looked at the paper before when only the abstract was available. ABSTRACT- Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game‐changing for the prospects of space industry. It has …
Economist – Now new ways of printing electronics in three dimensions are being developed. This makes it possible to incorporate circuitry and components into the material the product is made from, such as the phone’s case. It could revolutionise the way electronic goods are made. Technologies are improving rapidly and now allow electronics to be …