Robots And Kids

Robots Could Be Future Playmates For Kids -- Live Science

As technology continues to improve, humanlike robots will likely play an ever-increasing role in our lives: They may become tutors for children, caretakers for the elderly, office receptionists or even housemaids. Children will come of age with these androids, which naturally raises the question: What kind of relationships will kids build with personified robots?

Children will view humanoid robots as intelligent social and moral beings, allowing them to develop substantial and meaningful relationships with the machines, new research suggests.

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My Comment: My best friend is my robot .... oh oh.

How "Seeing Around Corners" May Become The Next 'Superpower'

Why Seeing Around Corners May Become Next 'Superpower' -- Live Science

Superman had X-ray vision, but a pair of scientists has gone one better: seeing around corners.

Ordinarily, the only way to see something outside your line of sight is to stand in front of a mirror or similarly highly reflective surface. Anything behind you or to the side of you reflects light that then bounces off the mirror to your eyes.

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My Comment: There are multiple applications for this technology.

Porsche 918 Spyder On Display

Porsche 918 Spyder Concept

An Exclusive Ride In The World’s First Plug-In Hybrid Supercar -- Autopia

NARDO, Italy – There’s a digital clock mounted above the door of Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser’s office counting down the days until the launch of Porsche 918 Spyder. It’s a constant reminder of what Walliser and his team have been tasked with. They’re reinventing the supercar for the 21st century and we’ve traveled all the way to the high-security Nardo Test Track for an exclusive ride in the world’s first plug-in hybrid supercar.

This is most definitely not a Prius.

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More News On The Porsche 918 Spyder

Porsche Unleashes 918 Spyder Hybrid Prototype on the Racetrack -- Daily Tech
Early Porsche 918 Spyder prototype hits the track -- Slash Gear
Porsche 918 Spyder: The first ride in the future game changer -- Autoweek
Porsche 918 Spyder Prototype Looks Like a Skunkworks Supercar -- AutoGuide
Porsche 918 Spyder Development Progressing -- GTSpirit
Porsche 918 hybrid supercar rolls out of our dreams, onto the tarmac -- Endgadget
Development of Porsche 918 plug-in hybrid supercar progressing nicely -- AutoBlog Green
Report: Porsche Rolling Out Plug-In Hybrid Panamera Next Year -- Automobile
Porsche Panamera Plug-In Hybrid in 2013 -- Autoevolution

Robotic Subs May One Day Span The Oceans

A mine-hunting robot is lowered from the U.S.S. Avenger into the Strait of Malacca, May 2011. Photo: U.S. Navy

Navy Chief: Robotic Subs Might Span Oceans. (Someday.) -- Danger Room

It’s been the Navy’s dream for years: undersea drones that can swim entire oceans. But it’s been thwarted by science’s inability to build propulsion and fuel systems for a journey of that length. Still, the Navy’s top officer and its mad scientists think that some recent research could help turn the dream into an ocean-crossing reality.

“I’m very much desirous of that end-state, cross-ocean, as feasible,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, told reporters on Friday. “There are a few propulsion systems that can give you that range — 30-day, 45-day. The fuel needed, regrettably, is extensive, and that drives the size, so we’re not there yet.”

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My Comment: This is one of the Navy’s many dream .... undersea drones that can swim entire oceans.

Are Terror Groups Using Computer Games To Plot Attacks?

A scene from the popular video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3." (Activision)

The Real Call of Duty: Terror Gangs 'Using Computer Games To Plot Atrocities Securely Online' -- Daily Mail

* Claims come a month after government announced plans to monitor all online communications
* Players reportedly choose realistic war games to mask their plotting as harmless gamers' chatter
* Jihadis may even be using the ultra-realistic violent simulations as training for planned atrocities

Islamic extremists are using realistic war-based action games such as Call Of Duty to plot terrorist attacks in secret, it was claimed today.

With security services monitoring phone calls, emails and online messages, fanatics are reportedly using the online chat functions of video games to make plans in private.

Users can log into the games in groups to compete against each and, it is claimed, chat securely without arousing the attention of police and MI5.

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More News On Terror Groups Using Video Games To Plot Attacks

Game fanatics -- The SUN
Terrorists use online games like 'Call of Duty' to plot attacks -- FOX News/The SUN
Terrorists Using Call of Duty To Plot Attacks -- Game Revolution
Extremists practice terrorism in console games -- The Inquirer
Apparently Terrorists Are Using Xbox Live To Plan Attacks -- ITProPortal
Sun reports terrorists using Call of Duty as training tool, global threat levels reduced -- PCGamer
Call of Duty 'used by terrorists to plan attacks' -- Digital Spy

Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming

Neil deGrasse Tyson Makes The Case For Doubling The NASA Budget -- The Next Big Future

The 2008 bank bailout of $750 billion was greater than all the money NASA had received in its half-century history; two years’ U.S. military spending exceeds it as well. Right now, NASA’s annual budget is half a penny on your tax dollar. For twice that–a penny on a dollar–we can transform the country from a sullen, dispirited nation, weary of economic struggle, to one where it has reclaimed its 20th century birthright to dream of tomorrow.

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The Science of Rail Guns

The Science Of Rail Guns -- io9 News

Ubiquitous in science fiction, rail guns are a hot area of military research in real life too. But will we ever really get to use them the way people in science fiction do? And could rail guns be used for a non-violent reason — inexpensively launching payload into space?

Halo Reach ends with your Spartan taking up a mounted rail gun to destroy an incoming Covenant ship. Rail guns are the basis for a funny aside in Mass Effect 2. They're used in Babylon 5 and Stargate Atlantis and The Last Starfighter. And they're a devastating hand-held weapon in the Metal Gear Solid and Quake series. Now, let's discover the real science behind rail guns.

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My Comment: An adequate review.

Meet The Man Who Broke The Bank At Three Casinos

Wilk

The Man Who Broke Atlantic City -- The Atlantic

Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Here’s how he did it.

Don Johnson finds it hard to remember the exact cards. Who could? At the height of his 12-hour blitz of the Tropicana casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, last April, he was playing a hand of blackjack nearly every minute.

Dozens of spectators pressed against the glass of the high-roller pit. Inside, playing at a green-felt table opposite a black-vested dealer, a burly middle-aged man in a red cap and black Oregon State hoodie was wagering $100,000 a hand. Word spreads when the betting is that big. Johnson was on an amazing streak. The towers of chips stacked in front of him formed a colorful miniature skyline. His winning run had been picked up by the casino’s watchful overhead cameras and drawn the close scrutiny of the pit bosses. In just one hand, he remembers, he won $800,000. In a three-hand sequence, he took $1.2 million.

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My Comment: My pockets are empty and my luck is not that great. Sighhh .... best stick to buying my weekly $5 loto ticket.

Nodding Disease

Mysterious Nodding Disease Debilitates Children -- CNN

Pader, Uganda (CNN) -- Pauline Oto still wears her faded yellow and green school dress, but she hasn't been to school for years and she can't comprehend what to do with the pen the community nurse has just given her.

"Write on my hand," says the nurse. Pauline just sits on the reed mat, her legs pulled to one side, and stares. She has just had an attack and can't speak. She struggles to comprehend her surroundings.

Pauline, 13, has been struck by the dreaded nodding disease. Her mother, Grace Lagat, says it will take her at least four hours to recover from the seizures, and after each attack she seems less like the daughter she remembers.

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My Comment: This has potential global implications.

The Quest: Energy, Security And The Re-Making Of The Modern World (Video)

Spring Arrives With Equinox Tuesday

This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. Image: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Spring Arrives With Equinox Tuesday, Earliest In More Than A Century -- Scientific American

Spring is arriving early in a meteorological sense in the Eastern U.S., and in an astronomical sense, making its earliest arrival since 1896.

Across much of the United States, this has been an unusually mild winter, especially for those living east of the Mississippi. Not a few people have noted that spring seems to have come early this year. Of course, in a meteorological sense that could be true, but in 2012 it will also be true in an astronomical sense as well, because this year spring will make its earliest arrival since the late 19th century: 1896, to be exact.

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My Comment: I live in Montreal, and we broke the temperature record for today.

Hebrew University To Post Albert Einstein's Complete Archives Online

Albert Einstein's Complete Archives To Be Posted Online -- The Guardian

Hebrew University releases initial 2,000 documents including unseen letters, postcards and research notes.

Albert Einstein's complete archives – from personal correspondence with half a dozen lovers to notebooks scribbled with his groundbreaking research – are going online for the first time.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns the German Jewish physicist's papers, is pulling never-before seen items from its climate-controlled safe, photographing them in high resolution and posting them online – offering the public a nuanced and fuller portrait of the man behind the scientific genius.

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More News On Hebrew University To Post Albert Einstein's Complete Archives Online

Archive puts original Einstein manuscripts online -- MSNBC
Never-before seen items from Albert Einstein’s archives to be revealed online -- Washington Post/AP
Original Einstein manuscripts posted online -- USA Today
And Here You Have It, Ladies and Gentlemen, E=MC2 and Other Einstein Archive Treasures -- The Atlantic
Everything Really is Relative: Einstein’s Personal Papers Now a Click Away -- Time
Albert Einstein Was Sort of an Average Guy for a Genius, Archives Reveal -- Atlantic Wire
Einstein the scientist, dreamer, lover: online -- Reuters
Albert Einstein papers show physicist as lover, dreamer -- Christian Science Monitor

New Apple iPad (Verizon) Comparison With iPad 2, Android Tablets

Global Sea Level Likely To Rise As Much As 70 Feet

Sea levels won't get as high as depicted in this fanciful image for a long time. But a substantial rise is inevitable, Rutgers scientists say. (Credit: © Alaska-Tom / Fotolia)

Global Sea Level Likely to Rise as Much as 70 Feet for Future Generations -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2012) — Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends, future generations will have to deal with sea levels 12 to 22 meters (40 to 70 feet) higher than at present, according to research published in the journal Geology.

The researchers, led by Kenneth G. Miller, professor of earth and planetary sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University, reached their conclusion by studying rock and soil cores in Virginia, Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific and New Zealand. They looked at the late Pliocene epoch, 2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago, the last time the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was at its current level, and atmospheric temperatures were 2 degrees C higher than they are now.

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My Comment: Are we repeating history .... I guess time will tell.

Pentagon Accelerates It's Cyber Weapons Program

Pentagon creating new-generation cyberweapon. (Reuters / Rick Wilking)

U.S. Accelerating Cyberweapon Research -- Washington Post

The Pentagon is accelerating efforts to develop a new generation of cyberweapons capable of disrupting enemy military networks even when those networks are not connected to the Internet, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The possibility of a confrontation with Iran or Syria has highlighted for American military planners the value of cyberweapons that can be used against an enemy whose most important targets, such as air defense systems, do not rely on Internet-based networks. But adapting such cyberweapons can take months or even years of arduous technical work.

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More News On the Pentagon Accelerating It's Cyber Weapons Program

US to fast-track cyber weapons -- New Age
Pentagon creating new-generation cyberweapon -- RT
US to fast-track cyber weapons -- Sydney Morning Herald
Pentagon goes on offense with new cyber weapons -- The Hill
Pentagon ramping up cyberweapon development -- Nextgov

Is Warm Weather Key To Evolution?

An illustration of Neanderthals at the cave site of Trou Al'wesse in Belgium, clinging on as the climate deteriorated. Credit: Digital Painting by James Ives

Warm Sanctuaries Key To Human Evolution -- Cosmos

DUBLIN: Modern and ancient humans withdrew to milder sanctuaries during the Ice Ages in Europe and Asia, and these refuges became critical for human evolution, according to a new study.

New models published in a paper in Science today suggest that refugia - locations that harbour relict populations of a once-widespread species - were important in determining the pace and pattern of the massive human migration from Africa, which began approximately 100,000 years ago.

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My Comment: I live in Canada .... and trust me .... when it comes to winter I am always asking myself on why am I here. So did early man think the same way? Hmmmm .... that appears to be the case.

New Zealand Police Made 'Errors' During Raid On Megaupload Boss

Web domains belonging to Megaupload have been seized and shut down

Police Made 'Errors' During Raid On Megaupload Boss -- BBC

A police blunder could mean luxury cars, giant TVs and jewellery seized during a police raid will be returned to Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom.

The property was confiscated during a dawn raid on the New Zealand home of the file-sharing site's owner.

A New Zealand judge has now ruled that the court order used to justify the seizure should never have been granted.

The raid led to the closure of Megaupload and seizure of the web domains it used.

Judge Judith Potter said the court order should now be considered "null and void".

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My Comment: At least Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can now pay his lawyers.

How Snails Are Generating Electrical Power Via Through A Tiny Biofuel Cell Implant

Cyborg Snails Generate Electrical Power From Their Blood-Like Fluid -- National Geographic

Just a few weeks ago we wrote about scientists who’d manage to draw power from the body fluids of cockroaches. Now, another team has reported achieving a similar feat with snails: a tiny biofuel cell implanted in the creatures draws glucose and oxygen from their hemolymph (the snail equivalent of blood) to generate power. And a yet-to-be-released study, Nature News reports, will feature beetles as the carriers of these minute power cells. All of this tiny cyborg excitement can be traced back to a 2003 paper, in which scientists generated power from a grape. Importantly, all of these biological generators—except, presumably, the grape—survived and thrived after their operations.

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My Comment: A prediction .... if the science is sound, it can eventually help power prosthetics and medical implants.

Another Version Of The Supersonic Jet Of The Future

Supersonic Biplane This biplane concept is based on a design by engineers at Tohoku University. MIT/Christine Daniloff

The Supersonic Jet Of The Future Will Be A Biplane -- Popular Science

When supersonic travel inevitably returns to the skies, the airplanes are going to look a lot different. At least one design harks back to the early days of aviation with a biplane design, rather than a sleek delta-winged jet like the Concorde. This shape can apparently produce much less drag and therefore much less noise at supersonic speeds, MIT engineers say.

The decreased drag would make a supersonic biplane more fuel-efficient and it would produce a quieter sonic boom, because the shock waves propagating toward the ground would be canceled out. The trick is getting it to fly.

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My Comment: Cool.

The End Of Windpower?

Broken promises: The rusting wind turbines of Hawaii

Broken Down And Rusting, Is This The Future Of Britain's 'Wind Rush'? -- Daily Mail

A breathtaking sight awaits those who travel to the southernmost tip of Hawaii’s stunningly beautiful Big Island, though it’s not in any guidebook. On a 100-acre site, where cattle wander past broken ‘Keep Out’ signs, stand the rusting skeletons of scores of wind turbines.

Just a short walk from where endangered monk seals and Hawksbill turtles can be found on an unspoilt sandy beach, a technology that is supposed to be about saving the environment is instead ruining it.

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My Comment: It does not look promising.