Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 386

In a comment made on an essay written by 'virtual godfather' Jaron Lanier, titled "The Myth of A.I." on Edge.org last week, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk the threats of AI might become real, and that he is worried that "the risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year time frame. 10 years at most" according to CNET.

Musk posted his comments on the Edge.org, but they were quickly removed; not quick enough for some media outlets to pick it up, though. Musk talked about his involvement as an early investor in the British artificial intelligence company, DeepMind, which is now a cog in Google's ever-growing machine. He wrote: "The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I'm not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like DeepMind, you have no idea how fast-it is growing at a pace close to exponential".

The founder of SpaceX continued, saying that AI companies "recognize the danger" and are working toward controlling the "bad" superintelligences "from escaping the Internet". Well, that sounds safe enough.

Amazon is rolling out a fleet of robots that will help the company boost productivity and ensure timely deliveries ahead of what should be an extremely busy 2014 Christmas holiday shopping season. The robots can help locate and pick items, which are verified by a human picker before being boxed up and sent from the facility - the company will be able to save upwards of $900 million each year, with robotic assistance able to help save 20 percent to 40 percent per shipped order.

To help ensure it would have a robotics inventory it could call upon, Amazon purchased Robots maker Kiva Systems for $775 million in 2012 - and there have been more than 1,400 Kiva robots already working in Amazon's logistics chain.

Amazon tends to have successful shopping seasons, but as the US economy has recovered - and consumers have extra money to spend this Christmas - Amazon wants to ensure everything runs smoothly and customers will be happy.

YardArm is working with several police agencies in California and Texas, testing a mobile network-connected technology that sends signals when an officer unholsters and fires their weapon. The company originally developed a consumer technology that could monitor a weapon's location - but didn't find many interested customers. Instead, the company revamped and wanted to develop new solutions that could be used for potential police and military use.

"You have a social demand for smart gun technology, but not necessarily a market demand," said Jim Schaff, VP of marketing at YardArm. "As a consumer product, it's going to be a long road."

YardArm also is developing new methods to send wireless data of which direction a weapon is pointing, offering data that can be viewed via smartphone and fed to dispatch. If implemented, YardArm's technology could help prevent public outrage - and clear officers of wrongdoing - when officers use their weapons accordingly.

Silicon Valley startup Knightscope has developed the five-foot-tall, 300-pound K5 robot designed to serve as security robots for businesses wanting a new twist on traditional security patrols. The robots are currently being tested by Knightscope and will launch at a Silicon Valley company that can detect movement and behavior - and report back to a security center.

The K5 uses cameras, sensors and navigation equipment, giving the autonomous robot the ability to patrol while also avoiding obstacles. In addition to four high-definition cameras, the K5 has a license-plate recognition scanner, weather sensor, GPS, internal laser ranging instruments, four microphones, and Wi-Fi to communicate with operators.

"This takes away the monotonous and sometimes dangerous work, and leaves the strategic work to law enforcement or private security, depending on the application," said Stacy Stephens, Knightscope co-founder and VP of sales and marketing.

The Texas Armoring Corporation (TAC) believes in its product so much that company CEO R. Trent Kimball sat in the driver's seat of a Mercedes-Benz while sales manager Lawrence Kosub shot the windshield with an AK-47. The 240fps slow-motion video shows Kimball getting into the vehicle as Kosub shoots one dozen rounds directly into the windshield.

"When it comes to assuring our clients' safety, we take product testing very seriously," Kimball says in the YouTube video.

The company says it produces the world's lightest weight armored vehicle passenger vehicles, and sets the standard for luxury, and our vehicles provide the absolute finest finishing available on the market."

The Mars One project is an ambitious program, where Mars One wants to see human beings on the red planet by 2025. Not only that, but Mars One CEO and co-founder Bas Lansdorp has said that he wants to leave the astronauts on Mars, and establish a self-sufficient settlement.

During the Engadget Expand show, there was a Life on Mars event where Lansdorp took the stage to talk about all-things Mars. He said that human settlement on the planet isn't just challenging, but it's almost close to achievable. He explained that the technology required for the Mars One project to succeed already exists, so that side of the problem isn't that bad. Then we have the issue of blasting a rocket in the right direction for the trip to succeed, with the first Mars One probe to touch down in 2018, and another to hit the red planet in 2020.

In 2022, life support systems and other essential equipment will be sent to Mars ahead of the first manned missions to the red planet, something that will launch in 2024 if all things go to plan. Why bother going to Mars? Lansdorp has said that it's simple, it's just "progress". He said that's why the human race is such a successful species, is that we're always pushing the boundaries. He said that the Mars One project is an excuse to expand on our exploration of the cosmos, where he hopes that the adventure to Mars will bring together the world in "one common goal". He added that by televising the journey of the first off-world settlers, we can live with them. He teased that "it's literally the next giant leap for mankind".

The North Korean military is still likely years away from successfully launching a ballistic missile with nuclear capabilities, but the country now has a Soviet-era submarine that can fire ballistic missiles. South Korean and US military experts are concerned North Korea continues to develop a nuclear weapons program, and utilizing ballistic missiles is an important step in that process.

"While the potential threat from a future North Korean capability to launch ballistic missiles from submarines should not be ignored, it should also not be exaggerated," said Joseph Bermudez, a military analyst. "While the development of submarines carrying ballistic missiles could provide North Korea with a survivable second-strike nuclear capability... it also assumes that Pyongyang would entrust an operational nuclear-armed missile to the captain of a submarine who would, in time of war, most likely be out of communication with the leadership."

It appears North Korea is a step closer to the miniaturization of nuclear warheads that could be fitted to ballistic missiles - but whether or not the country could accurately aim these missiles towards South Korea or Japan - remains a frightening unknown. However, fitting a nuclear weapon aboard a submarine opens up new challenges to South Korea, Japan, and the United States, with launch tubes and installation of a fire system possible within the next two years.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson still plans to be a passenger on the first tourist flight into space, even though SpaceShipTwo suffered a "serious anomaly" and exploded during a test flight. The company plans to move ahead with construction on another aircraft which could be done before the end of 2014.

Even with the recent SpaceShipTwo test incident, the 800 passengers that have signed up for the $250,000 ride have reportedly voiced their support. In fact, two more people signed up and paid for a trip on a future Virgin Galactic flight, Branson said.

Here is what Branson recently told CNN: "There is no way I would ask others to go on a Virgin Galactic flight if I didn't feel it was safe enough myself. They want to see this happen, and they want to show their commitment."

Space tourism is still a growing industry that was recently rocked when the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo exploded after suffering a "serious anomaly" during a test flight last week. Despite the incident, which left one pilot dead, Virgin Galactic confirmed it will move forward to finish a second SpaceShipTwo aircraft before the end of the year.

The high risk, high reward nature of the commercial space industry - where flight accidents sometimes seen unavoidable - with Virgin Galactic competing with XCOR Aerospace and others in the commercial space race. Meanwhile, SpaceX, Boeing, Orbital Sciences and other companies hope to win NASA and US federal government contracts worth billions of dollars.

"We've always known that the road to space is extremely difficult - and that every new transportation system as to deal with bad days early in their industry," said Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson.

Gaming company Nintendo announced a new health and fatigue technology from its health care division, manufactured with the assistance of the ResMed medical equipment company, to help better treat sleep disorders. The QOL Sensor will roughly be the size of an average human hand, and should be available on the consumer market before April 2016.

Here is what Nintendo head Satoru Iwata said regarding the new technology: "All you have to do is place the QOL Sensor on your bedside. Inside the QOL Sensor is a non-contact radio frequency sensor, which measures such things as the movements of your body, breathing and heartbeat, all without physically touching your body. This automatically gathered data will be transmitted to the QOL cloud servers, which will then analyze the data measured by the sensor and visually represent sleep and fatigue results."

Iwata hopes the new Nintendo division will be profitable within the next two years, but didn't say what else Nintendo has in the pipeline. It isn't a secret that Nintendo wants to ensure its customers are as healthy as possible, hoping to visualize sleep and fatigue things.