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Changing your idea of what robots can do – that’s the slogan of Boston Dynamics. Founded in 1992 by Marc Raibert as a spin-off company from MIT, its early days were spent making training videos for the navy. Only later did the company begin delving into the world of robots – amassing a level of expertise unsurpassed throughout the industry.In fact, Boston Dynamics’s achievements look like the opening montage from a science fiction movie. Starting with the cumbersome BigDog – a quadruped robot designed for the military – the company has seen each new generation of robots surpass the last...

A newly found security flaw could be affecting every Android device on AT&T or Verizon’s wireless network, according to an advisory posted by the Carnegie Mellon University CERT database. The vulnerability in question targets LTE wireless networks and takes advantage of the way some US carriers have implemented the technology on their respective networks. Users on T-Mobile network are reportedly not affected. A group of South Korean researchers, on Friday, reported about a vulnerability that puts a large pool of Android devices -- every version of Android including Marshmallow -- in the United States at risk. If exploited, attackers...

As previously noted, the US smartphone market has followed an almost perfectly logistic growth. The measured data (via comScore, in green below) follows a predictive logistic function (thin blue whose formula is discussed here). The other notable market observation is how closely the iPhone follows the same pattern as the market. The red line representing the iPhone above is almost perfectly parallel to the green and blue lines which represent the overall market. The reason for this seems to be that consumers are absorbing the product in similar way to how they are absorbing the technology.[1] The “learning model” which...

BERLIN (AP) — The U.S. National Security Agency is able to crack protective measures on iPhones, BlackBerry and Android devices, giving it access to users' data on all major smartphones, according to a report Sunday in German news weekly Der Spiegel. The magazine cited internal documents from the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ in which the agencies describe setting up dedicated teams for each type of phone as part of their effort to gather intelligence on potential threats such as terrorists. The data obtained this way includes contacts, call lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information, Der Spiegel reported....

How's this for a weekend conference: Some of the smartest people in the world are gathering in New York to try to figure out how to build lifelike copies of humans ... to be eventually uploaded with the contents of a real human brain. It's the brainchild of a Russian multimillionaire, Dmitry Itskov. ... And he says he's perfectly serious, and that it could be accomplished by 2035. Crazy? The New York Times gave Itskov a front-page profile on its Sunday Business page a week and a half ago. Imagine this ... a digital copy of your brain in a...

Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro yesterday unveiled a female android that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's expressions. Using a motion-capture system, the robot, called Geminoid TMF, can move its rubber face to imitate a smile, a toothy grin, and a grim look with furrowed brows. Prof Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University, developed the android with a team of researchers together with Japan's robot maker Kokoro. Geminoid TMF was modelled on a young Japanese woman, who was present at the unveiling today. 'I felt like I had a twin sister,' the woman said afterwards. The developers said...

While the debate continues over whether Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African track sensation who blew away the field and took the gold in the women's 800-meter in Berlin in August, is a man or a woman, we soon must confront an even more complex issue: Are elite athlete humans or androids? International Association of Athletics Federations will decide Semenya's fate later this week as it announces the result of her gender test. Semenya will no longer be able to compete as a female if the association rules that a hormonal imbalance resulting from alleged intersexuality offers her an unfair...

Twenty-five years ago, the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner became an instant science fiction classic. Set in a sodden, squalid Los Angeles of 2019, the neo-noir masterpiece influenced a generation of filmmakers and video-game designers. Long before I teamed up with Jamie Hyneman to form the MythBusters, I was a special-effects modelmaker, and Scott's cyberpunk gem almost instantly became the most important film in the canon of movies I love. I'm still such a big Blade Runner fan that I watch it at least once every 18 months. I also own pretty convincing replicas of the "blade runner blaster" wielded...

Just heard this on the radio. This guy went before Congress and denied he took steroids. What was he thinking? He has a year left in career and he doesn't stop using it. This will probably takes him out of the Hall of Fame.

<p>DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- With her sparkling blue eyes, wispy eyelashes and demure smile, Hertz is the center of attention wherever she goes.</p> <p>If you're lucky enough to meet her, try to ignore the tangle of wires slinking from behind her face. If you speak with her, talk slowly and loudly. And no matter what you say, don't be offended if she looks at you blankly and repeatedly asks, "What did you say?"</p>