Robot dogs race to be soldier’s best friend

A timid-looking four-legged robot about the size of a Chihuahua might seem like an unlikely companion for soldiers of the future. New Scientist.

New World Economics: Simulations Controlling Reality in 2007

As of December 2006, the richest 2% of Earth humans owned more than half of the planet’s wealth. I suspect the numbers on that are a bit slippery, but the fact it’s anywhere close to that level of inequality is still disturbing. The feedback OODA loop of John Boyd has created a strange situation that humans have never faced before. When you can capture data on huge complex systems — like economies, crowds, nations, weather systems — and use that data to guide future decisions, that’s fairly normal government. What’s unprecedented is the speed of the feedback loop, when technocrats can accurately assess the results of their actions, in real time.

This is not particularly science fiction. I’ve disussed aspects of the surveillance state before, but I am far from an expert and the field is vast and mostly secretive. I would point you towarads recent articles at Global Research and Cryptogon for more knowledgeable takes on the surveillance enclosure. The peeks we do get are signifigant, such as the Sentient World Simulator that DARPA and Simulex have been working on, which is a fully-functional model of planet Earth, all it’s nations, and their people. The system is based off an earlier technology called Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation (SEAS), which markets this super-computer power to the corporate world.

Source: Skilluminati Research.

Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

The Futurist has published forcasts on global change the coming 25 years in their recent newsletter (”Forcasts for the Next 25 Years“). Compared to more radical molecular manufacturing and transhumanist groups the World Future Society represent main-stream futurism. So if this is the most conservative estimate on cognitive technologies we should be in for some mind-expanding times:

Forecast #4: We’ll incorporate wireless technology into our thought processing by 2030. In the next 25 years, we’ll learn how to augment our 100 trillion very slow interneuronal connections with high-speed virtual connections via nanorobotics. This will allow us to greatly boost our pattern-recognition abilities, memories, and overall thinking capacity, as well as to directly interface with powerful forms of computer intelligence and to each other. By the end of the 2030s, we will be able to move beyond the basic architecture of the brain’s neural regions.

Source: WFS.

Nanotechnology risks - where are we today?

Fadeel, an Associate Professor of Toxicology at the Karolinska Institute’s Division of Biochemical Toxicology, is first author of a review paper that summarizes the Stockholm Symposium (There’s plenty of room at the forum: Potential risks and safety assessment of engineered nanomaterials).

Fadeel’s review covers five major areas below:
Materials and methods: The importance of standardization
While a unified procedure to classify all nanomaterials and their applications seems unlikely, there is nevertheless an urgent need for answering some outstanding questions especially in connection to the biological effects of novel nanomaterials and the possible health and environmental problems they may cause. The two most obvious requirements concern the comparability of the methods used for monitoring of adverse effects and the materials that are subject to such investigations. Therefore, there is a need for standardized toxicological assays as well as reference materials to classify the measured effects and compare them with those from other laboratories in other countries.

Human studies of engineered nanoparticles: A comparison with air pollution
The researchers conclude that the hypothesis that systemic access of ultrafine insoluble particles may induce adverse reactions in the cardiovascular system, and other organs, leading to the onset of cardiovascular disease in human subjects, requires careful consideration. Moreover, other, not generally recognized routes of exposure to engineered nanomaterials, including the putative uptake of inhaled nanoparticles into the brain via the olfactory nerve also need to be considered, although the relevance of such clearance pathways for human exposure remains to be established.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes: Understanding and controlling their toxicity
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are some of the most researched nanoparticles. Their increasing use in industry has prompted a number of toxicology studies. The participants at the symposium discussed numerous studies that deal with some form of human health and biocompatibility of CNTs, especially single-walled CNTs.

Risk assessment of engineered nanomaterials:
The researchers pointed out that there is a strong likelihood that the biological activity of nanoparticles will depend on physico-chemical parameters not routinely considered in toxicity screening studies. One consequence of this would be that the regulation of human occupational exposures, which is currently based on airborne mass concentration, need to be reconsidered in light of these findings.

Regulation of the nanotechnologies: Identifying knowledge gaps
Several important ‘knowledge gaps’ were identified and discussed at the Nobel Forum minisymposium, and efforts to address these issues will be required to ensure science-based decision making and implementation of existing legislations: (i) nomenclature, definitions, and standards; (ii) hazard characterization; (iii) exposure and effects assessment; (iv) environmental fate, transport, and persistence; and (v) measurement, sampling, and monitoring of nanomaterials.

Source: Nanowerk.

Bullet-proof helicopters play key U.S. border role

TUCSON, Ariz (Reuters) - Pilot Rich Rouviere gazes through night vision goggles as he speeds the Black Hawk helicopter to where a high-tech drone far above has pinpointed 11 intruders from Mexico.As he sets the aircraft down in a swirling tornado of dust and debris, two agents in military style fatigues and flak jackets jump out and swiftly round up all but two of them, illuminated by a laser from the drone. From alert to arrest, the operation has taken 17 minutes.Welcome to a little known double act between spy planes and fast, military helicopters that is blazing a trail for the future of U.S. border security in a remote desert wilderness south of Tucson, Arizona.The Predator B Unmanned Aerial System, or drone, has been at work in Arizona since 2005, scouring the borderlands for drug traffickers and illegal immigrants from Mexico using high-powered cameras tucked on to its belly.

Silent and cloaked in darkness as it wheels miles above the desert, the spotting system cues elite tactical teams in Black Hawk helicopters to race in and carry out arrests, often many miles from the nearest highway.

“The UAS says ‘hey, this is what we see, we need you to come and grab it,’” said Rouviere, who alternates between flying Black Hawks and overseeing the Predator’s flights from a military base in southern Arizona.

Source: Reuters.

Computer games (or more precisely war-sims) like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter become more realistic as high-tech weaponry turns into “common-news”.

Public meeting will re-examine future of artificial intelligence

For decades, scientists and writers have imagined a future with walking, talking robots that could do everything from cooking your eggs to enslaving your planet.

Trouble is, this fabled artificial intelligence has never happened.

But this weekend, more than 700 scientists and tech industry leaders will gather at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theatre to plan for the day - still decades away - when computers start improving themselves without the approval of their former masters. Participants wonder whether this will yield the kindly Commander Data of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fame or the mob of killer machines that attempted a world takeover in the movie “I, Robot.”

Source: San Francisco Chronicle.

The 11th Hour Time Capsule

Source: 11th Hour Action.

Heat Ray Too Scary for Iraq

Many a DT reader will remember the so-called “Active Denial System” – a giant millimeter-wave electromagnetic antenna mounted on a Humvee that could be directed at large, unruly crowds to disperse them without firing a shot in anger.

The ray heats the human skin to such an uncomfortable level that he has to retreat. It is the hallmark of the Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons development plan…and the most controversial.

Source: Defensetech.