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Nov 29, 2015

Tesla wants to make fully self-driving cars happen way ahead of schedule

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

A week and a half ago, we learned that Tesla is on a quest to hire more engineers to accelerate the development of its self-driving car technologies.

Tesla was already no slouch in the autonomous-vehicle world, having released its Autopilot feature into the wild just over a month ago.

We sampled Autopilot as soon as it hit the streets and were quite impressed, to put it mildly.

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Nov 29, 2015

How to transplant a head

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

An Italian surgeon hopes to perform the first-ever head transplant. Is he a genius or a crank?

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Nov 29, 2015

Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone With Hybrid Design

Posted by in categories: humor, transportation

Amazon delivered a lovely update on its ‘Prime Air’ project today — almost exactly two years after it showed the first iteration of its drone. You know, the flying delivery drone that some thought was a massive joke meant for April 1st. Included are some high-res shots and two new videos.

Amazon releases a vid with a new Prime Air drone design https://t.co/HCIjXZQkWN

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Nov 29, 2015

Is Aging Modifiable?

Posted by in categories: innovation, life extension

Researchers have found that changing a single gene in worms leads to a 70 percent increase in life span. Can this be replicated one day in humans? Catch #Breakthrough at 9pm EDT on the National Geographic Channel tonight to learn about the future of aging.

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Nov 29, 2015

The VOID VR park experience

Posted by in category: virtual reality

We entered THE VOID, the world’s very first virtual reality theme park.

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Nov 29, 2015

Watch a neural network describe what it sees on a stroll through Amsterdam

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience, robotics/AI

The results are mixed, of course, but it’s fascinating to watch the neural network make mistakes (and sometimes correct itself) in real time. The open source program being used is called NeuralTalk and was first unveiled last year, with the researchers providing updates on the network’s capabilities since. Other companies and institutions are working on similar technology. Last month, for example, Facebook unveiled a prototype neural network that’s intended to help blind people by describing pictures.

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Nov 29, 2015

Beauty.AI Announces the First International Beauty Contest Judged by an Artificial Intelligence Jury

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, information science, life extension, robotics/AI

London, UK, November, 19, 2015 (PRWEB UK) 19 November 2015.

What matters in beauty is perception. Perception is how you and other people see you, and this perception is almost always biased. Still, healthy people look more attractive despite their age and nationality.

This has enabled the team of biogerontologists and data scientists, who believe that in the near future machines will be able to get a lot of vital medical information about people’s health by just processing their photos, to develop a set of algorithms that can accurately evaluate the criteria linked to perception of human beauty and health where it is most important – the human face. But evaluating beauty and health is not enough. The team’s challenge is to find effective ways to slow down ageing and help people look healthy and beautiful.

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Nov 29, 2015

DRACOs — The End of All Viral Infections?

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Just as the development of antibiotics revolutionized the treatment and prevention of bacterial infections in the mid-20th century, MIT’s Dr. Todd Rider has invented DRACOs, a novel broad-spectrum antiviral drug that has the potential to revolutionize the treatment and prevention of virtually all viral infections. Dr. Rider’s DRACOs approach and results have been called “visionary” by the White House (National Bioeconomy Blueprint, April 2012, p. 9), named one of the best inventions of the year by Time magazine (November 28, 2011, pp. 58, 78), and featured on the BBC Horizons TV program (2013).

However, research on DRACOs has entered the well-known “Valley of Death” in which a lack of funding prevents DRACOs, and many other promising new drugs, from being developed and advancing toward human medical trials. To progress DRACOs research it needs to be demonstrated against clinically relevant viruses (i.e; HSV). To that end an IndieGoGo campaign (http://igg.me/at/EndTheVirus) was started on October 13, 2015.

Donate and Learn More on IndieGoGo.http://igg.me/at/EndTheVirus

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Nov 29, 2015

This Japanese schoolgirl looks so lifelike you won’t believe she’s not human

Posted by in category: computing

Meet Saya — the computer generated schoolgirl created by a tech-savvy Japanese couple.

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Nov 28, 2015

Scientists have discovered a material that could create quantum optical computers

Posted by in categories: computing, materials, particle physics, quantum physics

When people talk about the next-generation of computers, they’re usually referring to one of two things: quantum computers – devices that will have exponentially greater processing power thanks to the addition of quantum superposition to the binary code – and optical computers, which will beam data at the speed of light without generating all the heat and wasted energy of traditional electronic computers.

Both of those have the power to revolutionise computing as we know it, and now scientists at the University of Technology, Sydney have discovered a material that has the potential to combine both of those abilities in one ridiculously powerful computer of the future. Just hold on for a second while we freak out over here.

The material is layered hexagonal boron nitride, which is a bit of a mouthful, but all you really need to know about it is that it’s only one atom thick – just like graphene – and it has the ability to emit a single pulse of quantum light on demand at room temperature, making it ideal to help build a quantum optical computer chip.

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