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SpaceX just failed at its third attempt..

The United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA,Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’ The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate...

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” —Stephen Hawking, Dec. 2 Does artificial intelligence threaten our species, as the cosmologist Stephen Hawking recently suggested? Is the development of AI like “summoning the demon,” as tech pioneer Elon Musk told an audience at MIT in October? Will smart machines supersede or even annihilate humankind? As a cognitive scientist and founder of a new startup that focuses on “machine learning,” I think about these questions nearly every day. But let’s not panic. “Superintelligent” machines won’t be arriving soon. Computers today are good at narrow tasks...

ATLAS Robot built by Boston Dyanmics- which Google recently bought Dubbed Ian, the Atlas robot is 6ft 2in tall and weighs in at 330lb The Atlas robot created by Google-owned firm Boston Dynamics is a formidable figure at 6ft 2in tall and weighing in at 330lb. The robot boasts 28 hydraulically actuated joints and stereo vision, and is one of the most advanced robots ever created.

The NSA cyberwarfare program, called MonsterMind, uses software to look for traffic patterns indicating possible foreign cyberattacks, according to Snowden, quoted in a lengthy profile in Wired. MonsterMind could automatically block a cyberattack from entering the U.S., then retaliate against the attackers, according to the Wired story. Snowden, when he was working as an NSA contractor, was concerned that MonsterMind could lead to misdirected counterattacks. "These attacks can be spoofed," he told Wired. "You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting...

* TrueNorth is being hailed as the world’s first neurosynaptic computer chip because it can figure things out on its own * Modern processors have 1.4 bn transistors and consume up to 140 watts but the IBM chip contains 5.4 bn transistors and uses just 70 milliwatts * Richard Doherty, the research director of tech research firm Envisioneering Group, hailed IBM's chip as a ‘really big deal’IBM has developed a computer chip which it says will function like a human brain in a giant step forward for artificial intelligence. TrueNorth is being hailed as the world’s first neurosynaptic computer chip...

If a robot soldier commits a war crime, who is held accountable?You can't punish a collection of parts and coding algorithms. But can you blame a human commander, who gave a legal order only to see the robot carry it out incorrectly? And what about the defense manufacturers, which are often immune from the kind of lawsuits that would plague civilian outfits if their products cost lives.The culpability question is one of a host of thorny moral dilemmas presented by lethal robots. On the one hand, if effective, robot soldiers could replace ground troops and prevent thousands of American casualties....

IBM has provided an outline of its plans to invest $3 billion over the next five years. It hopes the cash injected into its R&D activities will help it find ways to make chips even smaller and more efficient and research into practical alternative materials which will prove superior to silicon.Big Blue has observed the diminishing returns in the process reduction of silicon chips over recent years and has now decided it needs to bet big on the task of finding a suitable successor. Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President of IBM Systems & Technology Group said "We really do see...

Has Skynet become self-aware? It seems the 'robots' that run the US equity markets (HFT/algo trading dominates what little volume there is left) have decided to cut out the middle man in the market as Associated Press reports this morning that it will employ the story-writing software by start-up Automated Insights to automate the production of U.S. corporate earnings stories. To be frank, given the copy/paste nature of most mainstream media 'analysis' of earnings, we thought this had already occurred but AP notes, "We are going to use our brains and time in more enterprising ways during earnings season." Does...

Pressed to supply information in response to lawsuits charging that its widespread surveillance of US citizens is illegal, NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett contends that his agency cannot comply because “we’ve lost control over our computer system. We couldn’t retrieve the subpoenaed information if we wanted to. It’s like some kind of ‘Skynet’–alien and artificial intelligence has blocked access to all our data.” Ledgett told US District for the Northern District of California Judge Jeffrey White “we’re as scared about this as anyone. We don’t know who’s side the computer is on. We’d like to think that since we programmed...

The first demonstration of a “World Wide Web for robots” that allows machines to share information and learn from each other will take place this week in the Netherlands. Cloud-based RoboEarth aims to help robots benefit from the experience of other machines. For instance, if one robot has spent time developing an accurate map of a room it can upload the data so another machine entering it for the first time has a navigational head start. It can also store information on how to complete certain tasks or learned patterns for object recognition. This means that once one robot has...

The future doesn't always arrive with a gasp and a boom like Skynet inTerminator. No, sometimes it's more like Office Space. At least that's the idea I get watching this video of the Marines' testing the Legged Squad Support System. DARPA built the LS3 to act as an autonomous pack horse that "can carry 400 lbs of a squad’s load, follow squad members through rugged terrain and interact with troops in a natural way, similar to a trained animal and its handler." And yet, in the hands of real Marines, it sounds like they're testing a new network printer out,...

Scientists, engineers and policymakers are all figuring out ways drones can be used better and more smartly, more precise and less damaging to civilians, with longer range and better staying power. One method under development is by increasing autonomy on the drone itself. Eventually, drones may have the technical ability to make even lethal decisions autonomously: to respond to a programmed set of inputs, select a target and fire their weapons without a human reviewing or checking the result.

A mystery drone has crashed into Sydney Harbour Bridge - just three days before Prince Harry arrives at the harbour to review an international navy fleet. The prince is due to make an appearance tomorrow - alongside warships, galleons and tall ships from around the world - to help Australia celebrate its navy's centenary. However, counter terrorism teams have been placed on high alert after the remote-controlled 'quad-copter' was discovered at the foot of one of the iconic bridge's pylons. Officials have said they do not believe the drone - which crashed on Wednesday - is linked to the International...

Curiosity can autonomously zero in on the rocks it needs to take pictures, but has to beam the pictures to Earth for the scientists to do the analysis remotely. If Curiosity is out of range of a Mars orbiter, the uploads are painfully slow – about 250 times slower than what a human on Earth encounters on a typical 3G cell phone network. TextureCam would instead take a 3D picture of the rock using stereo cameras. A processor, not linked to the rover's main computer, would then scan the picture for textures, allowing the machine to figure out the difference...

Neuroscientists Say Dimitry Itskov's Plan Is Not RealisticA Russian multimillionaire said he would like to see the technology to allow humans to outlive their bodies made into a reality – to the point where “people” with artificial computer-driven brains and hologram bodies would exist in a mere 32 years. Dmitry Itskov was at Lincoln Center Saturday for his Global Future 2045 conference. Itskov, who looks younger than his 32 years, has an aggressive timetable in which he’d like to see milestones toward that goal met: — By 2020 – a mere seven years away — robots we can control remotely...

Can the City That Never Sleeps become the City That Never Dies? A Russian multimillionaire thinks so. Dmitry Itskov gathered some of humanity’s best brains—and a few robots—in New York City on Saturday to discuss how humans can get their minds to outlive their bodies. Itskov, who looks younger than his 32 years, has an aggressive timetable in which he’d like to see milestones toward that goal met: By 2020, robots we can control remotely with our brains.By 2025, a scenario familiar to watchers of sci-fi cartoon show “Futurama:” the capability to transplant the brain into a life-support system, which...

This article was posted on 04/01/2013 Russian billionaire’s plan for immortality by 2045 includes turning us into cyborgs Technology may be advancing, but it doesn’t change the fact that the human body is limited. Eventually, human beings die.  Maybe immortality sounds like science fiction, especially when thinking about cyborgs, avatars, and robots, but for one Russian man, living forever in a machine’s body is the future, and it’s not so far away. After Dmitry Itskov made a fortune as founder of a web publishing company, New Media Stars, he began thinking about the meaning of life and consciousness. Last February, Itskov gathered...

If Dmitry Itskov's 2045 initiative plays out as planned, humans will have the option of living forever with the help of machines in only 33 years. It may sound ridiculous, but the 31-year-old Russian mogul is dead serious about neuroscience, android robotics, and cybernetic immortality. He has already pulled together a team of leading Russian scientists intent on creating fully functional holographic human avatars that house artificial brains which contain a person's complete consciousness - in other words, a humanoid robot. Together, they've laid out an ambitious course of action that would see the team transplant a human brain...

At the recent Global Future 2045 International Congress held in Moscow, 31-year-old media mogul Dmitry Itskov told attendees how he plans to create exactly that kind of immortality, first by creating a robot controlled by the human brain, then by actually transplanting a human brain into a humanoid robot, and then by replacing the surgical transplant with a method for simply uploading a person’s consciousness into a surrogate ‘bot. He thinks he can get beyond the first phase--to transplanting a working brain into a robot--in just ten years, putting him on course to achieve his ultimate goal--human consciousness completely disembodied...