The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[LoweGear]

CNN: Water discovered in Martian soil

Neo-Venezia confirmed. When can we have our Undines please?

[ganbaru]

Americans are less worried about climate change than almost anyone else
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...t-anyone-else/

[AnimeFan188]

BitTorrent trialling P2P secure messaging:

"BitTorrent wants to (a) take another step towards either respectability, or (b) take
itself further outside the mainstream by defying Uncle Sam (take your pick),
announcing that it's trialling a secure, serverless messaging application."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10...ure_messaging/

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

CNN: Water discovered in Martian soil

Neo-Venezia confirmed. When can we have our Undines please?

Dibs on Akari-chan!

[Ithekro]

More than 100,000 want to go to Mars and not return, project says

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/09/te...-applications/

...
How will Mars be colonized?

Each lander that Mars One sends will be able to carry about 5,511 pounds of "useful load" to Mars, he said. After eight missions, more than 44,000 pounds of supplies and people are expected to have arrived. The capsules themselves, whose weight is not included in that number, will become part of the habitat.

Food and solar panels will go in the capsules. Earth won't be sending much water or oxygen though -- those will be manufactured on Mars, Lansdorp said.

Astronauts will filter Martian water from the Martian soil. "We will evaporate it and condense it back into its liquid state," he said.

"From the water we can make hydrogen and oxygen, and we will use the oxygen for a breathing atmosphere inside the habitat. This will be prepared by the rovers autonomously before the humans arrive."

It sounds like terraforming, a process in which the conditions of a planet are modified to make it habitable, but Lansdorp said it isn't.

"We will create an atmosphere that looks like the atmosphere on Earth, so you could say that we are terraforming the habitat. But to terraform the entire planet, that's a project that will take hundreds and hundreds of years," he added....

[ganbaru]

3 win Nobel chemistry prize for cyber experiments
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-09-06-47-50

2 win physics Nobel for Higgs theory
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-08-20-23-43

[AnimeFan188]

Why America Wants Drones That Can Kill Without Humans:

"Scientists, engineers and policymakers are all figuring out ways drones can be used
better and more smartly, more precise and less damaging to civilians, with longer
range and better staying power. One method under development is by increasing
autonomy on the drone itself.

Eventually, drones may have the technical ability to make even lethal decisions
autonomously: to respond to a programmed set of inputs, select a target and fire their
weapons without a human reviewing or checking the result. Yet the idea of the U.S.
military deploying a lethal autonomous robot, or LAR, is sparking controversy. Though
autonomy might address some of the current downsides of how drones are used, they
introduce new downsides policymakers are only just learning to grapple with.

The basic conceit behind a LAR is that it can outperform and outthink a human
operator. "If a drone’s system is sophisticated enough, it could be less emotional,
more selective and able to provide force in a way that achieves a tactical objective
with the least harm," said Purdue University Professor Samuel Liles. "A lethal
autonomous robot can aim better, target better, select better, and in general be a
better asset with the linked ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance]
packages it can run.""

See:

http://www.defenseone.com/technology...-drones/71492/

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

Why America Wants Drones That Can Kill Without Humans:

"Scientists, engineers and policymakers are all figuring out ways drones can be used
better and more smartly, more precise and less damaging to civilians, with longer
range and better staying power. One method under development is by increasing
autonomy on the drone itself.

Eventually, drones may have the technical ability to make even lethal decisions
autonomously: to respond to a programmed set of inputs, select a target and fire their
weapons without a human reviewing or checking the result. Yet the idea of the U.S.
military deploying a lethal autonomous robot, or LAR, is sparking controversy. Though
autonomy might address some of the current downsides of how drones are used, they
introduce new downsides policymakers are only just learning to grapple with.

The basic conceit behind a LAR is that it can outperform and outthink a human
operator. "If a drone’s system is sophisticated enough, it could be less emotional,
more selective and able to provide force in a way that achieves a tactical objective
with the least harm," said Purdue University Professor Samuel Liles. "A lethal
autonomous robot can aim better, target better, select better, and in general be a
better asset with the linked ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance]
packages it can run.""

See:

http://www.defenseone.com/technology...-drones/71492/

Its interesting, they do not allow fully autonomous computer driven cars on the streets because they do not trust such systems to always make the right decissions, but killing people fully autonomous might be okay according to some people. Hm, lets see what comes first.

[Ithekro]

Because the cars might kill people, and that's not their job.....

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Because the cars might kill people, and that's not their job.....

I really hope you're merely being sarcastic with that comment

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

Why America Wants Drones That Can Kill Without Humans:

Why not going for the between road of reduced human control ?

[JokerD]

Originally Posted by Jinto

Its interesting, they do not allow fully autonomous computer driven cars on the streets because they do not trust such systems to always make the right decissions, but killing people fully autonomous might be okay according to some people. Hm, lets see what comes first.

Cause you can't send a drone to a war crimes court or before congress to testify?

[AnimeFan188]

Adding a Little Heat Could Give Us a 40 TB Hard Drive in a Few Years:

"When it comes to cramming as much data as possible on a platter, hard drive
manufacturers will use every trick in the book to maximize capacity. Including turning
up the heat as TDK plans to do with a new technique that could deliver 40 terabyte
hard drives by 2020."

See:

http://gizmodo.com/adding-a-little-h...e-i-1443432705

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by JokerD

Cause you can't send a drone to a war crimes court or before congress to testify?

You could always get the programmer (if the settings were harcoded) or the technician who set it to "kill" or if it attains self sentience we could run and hide under our beds
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Two-laser boron fusionfission lights the way to radiation-free energy

[ganbaru]

Scott Carpenter, 2nd US astronaut in orbit, dies
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-10-21-45-49

[AnimeFan188]

Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) Demonstration:

"The TALOS suit is drawing some fanciful and tongue-in-cheek comparisons to Iron
Man and HALO, but more practically is envisioned as an assault suit with enhanced
mobility and protection technologies, something that the U.S. military has sought for
some time. USSSOCOM’s TALOS program first became public at the 2013 Special
Operation Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) and was accompanied by a Requests
for Information (RFI). Since then, TALOS has undergone further development and
received interest from a wide array of organizations, from the U.S. Army Research,
Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT)."

See:

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/v...demonstration/

[ganbaru]

'Bionic man' walks, breathes with artificial parts
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-11-15-03-33

[Asuras]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Because the cars might kill people, and that's not their job.....

I think what he's saying is the drones could be just as capable as the cars in terms of committing accidents. They say it targets on its own, but it could very well target the wrong person.

[JokerD]

Originally Posted by Asuras

I think what he's saying is the drones could be just as capable as the cars in terms of committing accidents. They say it targets on its own, but it could very well target the wrong person.

I can just see it now: "Our drones can engage enemies automatically without human interference, just that it needs a human to confirm if that enemy is indeed an enemy" (Ref Vietnam war air battles where fighters with BVR missiles had to visually identify aircraft before engaging them)

[AnimeFan188]

How We'll Command the Future With Our Thoughts:

"Every minute of the day, whether awake or asleep, your brain fires off millions of
minuscule electrical charges between neurons as it processes your thoughts and
feelings. Each one of these thoughts activates the differing regions within the brain
in specific and unique patterns, patterns that can be detected through your skull
and scalp via the network of neural sensors that make up an electroencephalogram
(EEG). This technology has the potential to radically alter our interactions with
machines, giving us a sort of digital telepathy over everything from children's toys to
military hardware to Maj. Kusanagi-level prosthetics. Consider this the first step
towards the singularity."

See:

http://gizmodo.com/how-well-command-...hts-1443547320