Robots Go To War

March Of The Robots -- Economist

Robotics: From reconnaissance to bomb-defusal to launching attacks, military robots are on the march, raising knotty ethical quandaries.

IN THE early afternoon of August 18th 2008, a reconnaissance unit of about 100 French paratroopers, accompanied by a small number of Afghan and American soldiers, was ambushed by a similarly sized Taliban force in the Uzbin Valley, not far from Kabul. Ten French soldiers were killed in fighting that continued into the night—France’s biggest loss since it sent soldiers to Afghanistan in 2002. But it might have been avoided had the unit had a single aerial-robot scout, says Gérard de Boisboissel, a specialist on military robots at the French army’s Saint-Cyr military academy. That assessment, shared by many, led to a retooling of France’s armed forces. Today drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), routinely accompany even small French units.

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My Comment: Just an update on military robots.

Google To Warn Users Of State Sponsored Attacks

UPDATE: A senior Senate aide confirmed that this evening he received a warning on his Gmail account that Google suspected he had been the target of a state-sponsored cyber attack. Cable/Foreign Policy

Google Warns Users Who May Be Hack Targets -- Bloomberg Businessweek

Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) said it has started sending warnings to users of its e-mail service who may have been targeted by state-sponsored cyber-attacks.

Gmail users whose accounts are suspected of being the target of such a hacking effort will receive a message stating, “We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer,” Mountain View, California-based Google said on a company blog.

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More News On Google Warning Users Of State Sponsored Attacks

Google to warn users of 'state-sponsored attacks' -- The Hill
Google to warn users targeted by state-sponsored attacks -- The Cable/Foreign Policy
Google To Begin Notifying Gmail Users Of ‘State-Sponsored Attacks’ -- TPM
Google Now Warns You About State-Sponsored Attacks -- Gizmodo
Google begins alerting Gmail users to 'state-sponsored' attacks -- ZDNet

Watch Live: Last Transit of Venus

Broadcasting live with Ustream

Watch Live: Last Transit of Venus of Your Lifetime -- Wired

With millions of expected viewers around the world, the Transit of Venus is today’s event to watch. The rare celestial show — the last to occur for more than a hundred years — will be starting just after 3 p.m. PDT. You can join one of the many of the Venus-watching parties across the country or make a simple and safe viewer to see the event from your own backyard.

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My Comment: Cool.

Exxon Valdez Remains Controversial Near Its End

Exxon Valdez Remains Controversial Near Its End In India -- L.A. Times

Indian environmentalists have filed a petition to block the Exxon Valdez from entering Alang, India, a graveyard for once-mighty ships.

ALANG, India — For the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez, even sailing quietly into the sunset is proving difficult.

Now called the Oriental Nicety, it's floating off India in a kind of high-seas limbo as a court decides whether the vessel that dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's unspoiled Prince William Sound in 1989 can be hacked apart in this forlorn graveyard for once-mighty ships.

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My Comment: Good riddance I say.

The Battle For The Amazon

The Battle For The Amazon Heats Up Again -- Time

The Amazon rainforest is the most important patch of land on the planet. The trees have been called the lungs of the Earth and that's far more than just a metaphor: they absorb more than 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, return oxygen in exchange and help regulate the climate of the Western Hemisphere in the process. The forest itself is the hottest of biodiversity hotspots, home to countless species of plants and animals that we have yet to discover — and even tribes of indigenous human beings who have never been contacted by the outside world. There's a reason that "save the rainforest" became a default slogan for environmentalism in the 1980s; saving the Amazon really did mean helping to save the planet.

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My Comment: They have been talking about deforestation in the Amazon basin for decades. But it appears that after decades of development .... the impact that is now beginning to be felt everywhere.

NASA Gets Two Ex-Military Satellites For Astronomy

This artwork shows one of the concepts for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, also known as WFIRST. NASA officials say that the telescopes being made available by the National Reconnaissance Office could address some of the questions to be resolved by the WFIRST mission, including the nature of dark energy and characteristics of extrasolar planets. NASA

US Military Gives NASA Two Better-Than-Hubble Telescopes -- The Register

Double Hubble budget bubble trouble.

In a surprise reminder that NASA is not the only US space program – nor likely the best-funded one – the US military's National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is giving the perennially underfunded space administration two better-than-Hubble-class space telescopes, prosaically named Telescope One and Telescope Two.

One would think that the space boffins would be overjoyed at receiving such delectable crumbs dropped from the military's overstocked table – after all, One and Two are not only equipped with the same 7.9-foot mirrors as is the Hubble, they're also fitted with secondary mirrors that improve focusing.

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More News On NASA Receiving Two Ex-Military Satellites For Astronomy

Spy agency's gift could save NASA big bucks on super-Hubble mission -- MSNBC
NASA Adopts Two Spare Spy Telescopes, Each Maybe More Powerful Than Hubble -- Popular Science
Ex-Spy Telescope May Get New Identity as a Space Investigator -- New York Times
NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy -- Washington Post
Spy telescopes could help NASA pin down dark energy -- New Scientist

Will The 'God Particle' Be Found This Year?

Dr Rolf-Dieter Heuer said: 'If the Large Hadron Collider continues to work I know we have enough collisions to produce enough signals to identify the Higgs Boson' Photo: Rex

CERN Director Says LHC Will Find God Particle By End Of The Year -- The Telegraph

The Large Hadron Collider is to be switched off at the end of the year to undergo a major upgrade, but scientists hope to have achieved one of the machine's major goals by the time it does – proving the existence of the so called God Particle.

Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director of CERN where the LHC is based, said he was confident that by the end of the year it will be possible to say whether the Higgs Boson, the particle which is responsible for giving mass to the universe, exists.

The theoretical particle, nicknamed the God Particle due to its central role it has in explaining modern physics, has never been detected and scientists have been working for decades to prove its existence.

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My Comment: The CERN director seems to be very sure of himself.

The Most Incredible Model Ferrari That Took 15 Years To Build

The Most Incredible Model Ferrari In The World Took 15 Years To Build -- Business Insider

Most people are not willing to spend more than a few hours building a model car. But this French man, Pierre Scerri, spent tens of thousands of hours working on a one third scale model of the Ferrari 312 PB.

By his estimation, he spent at least 20,000 hours building the model. That's 833 total days.

The first three years of the project were spent taking pictures and making drawings. The subsequent 12 were spent fabricating every single component of the car from scratch.

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My Comment: 20,000 hours of your life building this model .... talk about patience and dedication.

100 Hottest Cars Of All Time

100. Jaguar XJS (1975–1996)
The successor to the iconic E-Type, the XJS was a great-looking car in its own right. In production for more than two decades, it became one of the most recognizable models from Jaguar.

The 100 Hottest Cars Of All Time -- Popular Mechanics

From open-wheeled, pre-war racers to modern techno-marvels, here's our list of the 100 most attractive cars of all time. The only hard requirement for making the cut: At least one fully drivable example had to have actually been created. The rest is our subjective opinion, but one thing is certain: Each car carries a unique allure that simply can't be denied. Disagree with our rankings? Don't see your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

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My Comment: The comments section for this article in Popular Mechanics is a must read.

Video: Dutch Artist Turns His Dead Cat Into A Flying Quadcopter

My Comment: Not cool.

Did An Ancient Plague Wipe Out Early Man?

Neanderthal man: The key factor which separated man from our evolutionary rivals 100,000 years ago may not have been language - but instead a mysterious plague

Was A Mysterious Ancient Plague Which Killed All But 5,000 'Pre Humans' The Key To Man's Triumph Over The Neanderthals? -- Daily Mail

* Mysterious plague reduced human numbers to just 5,000-10,000
* Plague related to modern infections
* Man 'bounced back' - and then spread from Africa all over the world

The key factor which separated man from our evolutionary rivals 100,000 years ago may not have been language - but instead a mysterious plague.

The plague ravaged populations of early humans in Africa, until just 5-10,000 were left.

But from that small population, humans emerged - and triumphed over other evolutionary cousins such as Neanderthals.

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The Last Transit of Venus in Our Lifetime Will Help Us Find Other Planets Feature

2004 Venus Transit Composite This filtered composite image was captured from Donja Stubica, Croatia, during the 2004 transit of Venus. This time, the planet will cross the sun's northern hemisphere. Andjelko Gilvar/ESO

How The Last Transit of Venus in Our Lifetime Will Help Us Find Other Planets Feature -- Popular Science

Tomorrow's historical astronomical event is not just a beautiful novelty.

Tomorrow, skywatchers the world over will look up to behold a strange sight witnessed just seven times in the past five centuries. The last transit of Venus until 2117 is an occasion for astronomical celebration and historic import — we’ll be watching something the greatest astronomers of any age have traveled the world to see.

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My Comment: Mercury has provided the same data .... but Venus .... because of it's size .... will probably provide more accurate info.

Studying Mosquitoes To Make Better Soldiers

How Military Might Benefit From Study Of Hard-To-Kill Mosquitoes -- Christian Science Monitor

Mosquitoes, it turns out, are surprisingly adept at surviving collisions with heavy raindrops, an ability, say researchers, that could help engineer a new generation of tiny flying drones.

Did you ever wonder what happens to mosquitoes caught in a rainstorm? If a big, fat raindrop smashes into a delicate flying mosquito, the bug is toast, right?

Not if recent experiments by a team of engineers and biologists are any indication. The researchers found that mosquitoes are adept at surviving such collisions, and their work sheds light on why.

That’s good news for mosquitoes, and, say the researchers, it could be useful for humans.

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My Comment: You got to be kidding.

Skydiver Aims To Smash World Record

Skydiver Aims To Smash Record, Sound Barrier In 23-Mile Jump -- Playbook/Wired

Later this summer, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner will ascend to 120,000 feet in a pressurized capsule and, wearing only a spacesuit, jump.

As he plummets 23 miles in the highest skydive ever, Baumgartner will become the first person to break the sound barrier in free fall. That’s the plan, anyway. To even attempt this will expose him to many challenges, including the risk that water in his body could vaporize. But one challenge in particular is foremost in everyone’s mind: What happens when Baumgartner encounters the shock waves that invariably occur when something exceeds the speed of sound?

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My Comment: I wish him luck.

3D Mapping Will Allow Us To Look Inside The Human Brain

The 3D maps will allow us to see 'inside' the workings of the brain for the first time, claim the scientists

Land Of Dreams: Harvard Scientists Map Most Complicated Terrain In The Universe - The Inside Of The Human Brain -- Daily Mail

* Magnetic resonance scanner builds first 3D interior maps of brain
* Could allow treatment of brain disorders
* Scans up until now 'have not shown the real brain,' say researchers

Harvard scientists have developed hi-tech new methods to explore inside the human brain using magnetic resonance scanning.

Professor Jan Wedeen claims that the rainbow-coloured scans offer the first real insight into the pathways of the human brain's 100 billion cells - and how it works.

‘The brain we’ve been looking at with conventional scans all these years is not the real brain,' says Wedeeen. 'We’re just seeing a shadow of its surfaces.’

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My Comment: This is cool stuff.

Venus To Cross The Face Of The Sun Tomorrow

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Venus To Put On Sun Spectacular -- BBC

Planet Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth.

The more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22:00 GMT (23:00 BST) on Tuesday is a very rare astronomical phenomenon that will not be witnessed again until 2117.

Observers will position themselves in northwest America, the Pacific, and East Asia to catch the whole event.

But some part of the spectacle will be visible across a much broader swathe of Earth's surface, weather permitting.

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Update: You'll have to get up early on Wednesday to catch Venus transit across the face of the sun - for the last time in 105 years -- Daily Mail

My Comment: So I will have to wait until 2117 for the next event. Hmmmm .... I have doubts that I will still be around .... better pray for good weather tomorrow.

Meet ROBOT-Rx

Meet ROBOT-Rx, The Robot Pharmacist Doling Out 350 Million Doses Per Year -- Singularity Hub

Come to think of it, why do we still have pharmacists? I mean, how hard is it to count by “twos”? I’m just kidding of course. You probably want that extra pair of human eyes to check on your prescription. But after the pharmacist has double-checked the prescription and answered your questions, why not let robots count the pills out for them?

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My Comment: It's only a matter of time before 'robot pharmacists' become standard issue.

The Future Of Drone Warfare

A Drone-Eat-Drone World -- Nick Turse, Asia Times

United States military documents tell the story vividly. In the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa, an unmanned mini-submarine deployed from the USS Freedom detects an "anomaly": another small remotely-operated sub with welding capabilities tampering with a major undersea oil pipeline.

The American submarine's "smart software" classifies the action as a possible threat and transmits the information to an unmanned drone flying overhead. The robot plane begins collecting intelligence data and is soon circling over a nearby

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My Comment: Expect budget cuts to put a damper on this future military/drone environment.

Are Apps The Future of Book Publishing?

(Photo credit: John Blyberg)

Are Apps The Future of Book Publishing? -- Forbes

We’re at the dawn of the tablet era now. Earlier this month, Apple sold 3 million of its new iPad during the opening weekend, with some analysts expecting over 60 million of the tablets to be sold worldwide. What’s more, e-book readers are selling even more briskly than tablets. People are using those e-readers, too. On Amazon.com, books for its Kindle outsell its paper books.

What’s more, the explosion of e-books is putting pressure on publishers between demands for price cuts on one hand, and competition from independent authors like Amanda Hocking, who earned over $2 million selling e-books on her own before signing with a major publisher.

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My Comment: Are apps the future of book publishing .... well .... readers are using them so I would have to assume that the answer is yes.

Touchscreen Troops

The Daily Exclusive: Touchscreen Troops -- The Daily

Soldiers to increasingly tap military apps on Pentagon-issued iPads, smartphones.

Modern warfare? There’s an app for that.

Well, not from Apple, but there are a handful from the Pentagon — and more to come. They’re being downloaded on tablets and smartphones to help combat troops complete their missions.

Right now, in transports and fighters, pilots and navigators are on Air Force-issued iPads, checking their orders and reviewing their flight plans.

And this summer, the Army is putting Droids in the hands of grunts headed to Afghanistan so they can receive streaming surveillance video from drones, scan their surroundings for threats, call for fire support and request medical evacuations. Sailors and Marines are connected, too.

Though not a nuclear warhead or an M-16 rifle, the smartphone and the tablet are indeed weapons — helping the warfighter defeat the enemy.

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My Comment: My only concern with these new developments is on the possibility of information overload. But for the moment .... the U.S. military is gong-ho to push this program.