A Nanomechanical Computer

In an article from The Institute of Psysics:

A nanomechanical computer—exploring new avenues of computing

Here is the abstract:
We propose a fully mechanical computer based on nano-electromechanical elements. Our aim is to combine this classical approach with modern nanotechnology to build a nanomechanical computer (NMC) based on nanomechanical transistors. The main motivation behind constructing such a computer [...]

Net Neutrality

save the internet

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Launched

The latest version of the Creative Commons licenses — Version 3.0 — are now available. Read more here. Via: /. & BoingBoing.

Professor Lawrence “RW” Lessig’s “The Withering of the Net”

Professor Lawrence “RW” Lessig’s “The Withering of the Net”

On June 16, 2006, Professor Lawrence Lessig gave a talk at the Center for American Progress entitled “The Withering of the Net: How DC Pathologies are Undermining the Growth and Wealth of the Net.” This talk was the second in a series of three. The first talk [...]

D-Wave delivers on quantum computer demo promise

D-Wave qubits in the era of Quantum Computing

D-Wave showed three examples of Orion in action, marking the first such demonstration of a quantum computer. The most impressive display came during a drug molecule matching exercise, while two less impressive efforts had Orion crunch through a party table seating arrangement that paired like-minded guests and then [...]

D-Wave Announces Quantum Computer Demo Success; Before the Demo Happens

D-Wave posted this press release:

February 13, 2007
World’s First Commercial Quantum Computer Demonstrated

New System Aims at Breakthroughs in Medicine, Business Applications and Expanded Use of Digital Computers

Venture-funded Canadian company shows new product applied to pattern-matching database search

VANCOUVER, B.C. or MT. VIEW, CA – February 13, 2007 – The world’s first commercially viable quantum computer was unveiled [...]

China Announces Massive Online ID Database

Via SlashDot:

China provides access to ID database to curb fraud

Anyone can now send a text message or visit the country’s population information center’s website, to check if the name and the ID number of a person’s identity card match. If they do match the ID cardholder’s picture also appears, said the Ministry, adding [...]

Quantum Computing Demo Announced

Quantum Computing Demo Announcement

We have fixed the dates for the demo of our Orion quantum computing system. We are going to hold two events, one at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on February 13th, and the second at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.
These events are open [...]

Web 2.0: Explained in just under 5 minutes

Web 2.0 Explained … in just under 5 minutes.

Hattip: BoingBoing by way of Wonderland

Birthday Message Takes the Cake

Happy ERROR to you
It seems that you can email an order to Wegman’s bakery for cakes. Including the message you want on written your cake. The cake below was supposed to be a mix of English and Italian.

FTA:
This just takes the cake!

The email likely feeds directly into their computer that runs the food-grade equivalent [...]

NASA Moon Base Plan Unveiled

NASA’s New Moon Plans: ‘Apollo on Steroids’

Despite a stalled space shuttle program, NASA is confident it can launch and sustain human exploration of the Moon by 2018, the space agency’s top official said Monday.

The $104-billion plan calls for an Apollo-like vehicle to carry crews of up to four astronauts to the Moon for seven-day stays [...]

In My Language

From Amanda Baggs, the author of the video posting on YouTube…
The first part is in my “native language,” and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, [...]

A Ballet of Molecular Machines

Via the Biosingularity Blog …

Video of RNAi in action

This superb video from Youtube explains the RNA interference mechanism that recently won the Nobel prize for its discovery. The original video is from the journal Nature.
RNA interference is a complex set of Cellular processes that converts a foreign piece of double-stranded RNA into a potent gene [...]

UNIQLO MIXPLAY

Click here to make your own UNIQLO MIXPLAY dance mix!

Our Techno-Utopian Future: Fallacies and Predictions

David Veksler waxes philosophic (as is his custom) on the subject of:

Our Techno-Utopian Future: Fallacies and Predictions

What’s the ultimate destiny of our civilization? Are we destined to become “living batteries” a la the Matrix, refugees in a post-apocalyptic radioactive desert landscape, or peons of a totalitarian surveillance state? Or, can be look forward to a [...]

Direct Brain Control of a Humanoid Robot

Researchers demonstrate direct brain control of humanoid robot

A classic science-fiction scene shows a person wearing a metal skullcap with electrodes sticking out to detect the person’s thoughts. Another sci-fi movie standard depicts robots doing humans’ bidding. Now the two are combined, and in real life: University of Washington researchers can control the movement of a [...]

Nanomaterials Produce Flexible Three - Dimensional Electronics

Nanomaterials Produce Heterogeneous Three- Dimensional Electronics

Researchers at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois have developed a new, experimentally simple approach for combining broad classes of dissimilar electronic materials into heterogeneously integrated systems with two or three dimensional layouts on rigid or flexible substrates. The materials and techniques, published in the [...]

Paging Doctor Cylon, Paging Doctor Cylon

Shape Of Things To Come - Cylons Among Us?

Robots will soon pass scalpels to surgeons, retrieve blood from hospital blood banks and even answer the phones at busy unit desks - all so that nurses can spend more time with patients.

A researcher examining the future of nursing says breakthroughs in robotics could completely revamp the [...]

Scientists Research Brain Implant Chip

Scientists Research Brain Implant Chip

Researchers at the University of Washington are working on an implantable electronic chip that may help establish new nerve connections in the part of the brain that controls movement. Their most recent study showed such a device can induce brain changes in monkeys lasting more than a week.

…

When awake, the brain [...]

Turing Test Proves 2-Year-Olds Not Human

Turing Test Proves 2-Year-Olds Not Human

Mason said, “This began as a study in human communication, but one of our Computer Science friends mentioned the whole concept of the Turing Test to us, and we decided to give it a go. Little did we know that we’d reach such an astounding result.”
The “Parenting Test” proves that [...]

Are you ready for a cell phone implant?

Check out this fun bit of speculation form the St. Petersburg Times Floridian Website…

In-your-face interface
Wrap your head around this: As technology gets smaller, faster, more futuristic, imagine yourself connected to a device that doesn’t just lamely hang on your ear but invades your skull. Not yet. Soon.

“We’re going to wind up in essence with ‘intelligent [...]

Nanotech and immortality

John Carroll reviews Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near,”
we are all a bunch of nano-machines that have evolved over the course of billions of years. Weird stuff, and even weirder is to think that this kind of thing happened all on its own. That’s probably the reason some think there had to be some rational [...]

Solving the Embryonic Stem Cell Political and Ethical Debate

New stem cell technique may help solve political, ethical debate

A group of U.S. scientists has for the first time extracted stem cells from human embryos without destroying a budding life in the process.
The breakthrough technique, pioneered at a Massachusetts-based biotech firm, could yield a source of human embryonic stem cells for medical research — and [...]

The Future of Robots

The Future of Robots
Futurist Ray Kurzweil explains how the boundary between man and machine is quickly disappearing.
Human experience is marked by a refusal to obey our limitations. We’ve escaped the ground, we’ve escaped the planet, and now, after thousands of years of effort, our quest to build machines that emulate our own appearance, movement [...]

Nanotech Assembler Illustration Video

We hear a lot of talk about nanotech, and nano-assembly. Here is a fascinating video that provides a good illustration of nanotech and nano-manufacturing concepts.

Surfing The Web With Nothing But Brainwaves

Surfing the Web with nothing but brainwaves
Kiss your keyboard goodbye: Soon we’ll jack our brains directly into the Net. Controlling devices with the mind is just the beginning. Next is what is called “network-enabled telepathy” - instant thought transfer. In other words, your thoughts will flow from your brain over the network. The only issue [...]

Hints of the New Economy: ‘Gold farming’ in games means real income in China

Thanks to Tim Wang’s eLearning Blog for the image!
‘Gold farming’ in games means real income in China
A vast shadow industry has mushroomed in rural China. Savvy entrepreneurs harness teams to play popular online games, gathering magic spells, battle hammers, armor and other virtual assets. They then provide the assets to brokers, who sell them to [...]

Jack Black Is Computerman!

In this short by Dan Harmon, Computerman (Jack Black), a half-man, half-machine in white underwear, saves his master from anal rape at the hands of the FBI through the power of the Internet
Needless to say this video contains a trifle of strong language and adult humor, fair warning.

Raise Your Right Hand: Chip Implants for Everyone!

Some technology seems outlandishly intrusive when it first emerges. Cameras above street corners, along highways and in rail stations come to mind, but even this big-brother technique has become routine and hard to argue against as a common-sense safety measure.
No it’s time for everyone to get chip implants. Well, nearly time.
Read the rest here…
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Bacterial Nanowires

When Yuri Gorby discovered that a microbe which transforms toxic metals can sprout tiny electrically conductive wires from its cell membrane, he reasoned this anatomical oddity and its metal-changing physiology must be related. Bacteria will, under particular environmental conditions sprout nanowires that can shuttle electricity to other cells.
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