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Archive for the ‘engineering’ category: Page 209

Jun 15, 2016

Android Creator Andy Rubin Bets Big On Quantum Computing And Smartphone AI

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, mobile phones, neuroscience, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Smart man.


Android creator Andy Rubin has several tricks up his sleeve. Rubin’s company Playground is currently tinkering with quantum computing and smartphone AI, and he believes that this combination could create a conscious intelligence that would underpin all of technology.

andy rubin

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Jun 14, 2016

These Experiments Are Building the Case to Terraform Mars

Posted by in categories: engineering, environmental, space

Maybe the researchers needs to meet with the professor out in University of WA who has been experimenting in shifting weather patterns such as making some areas have more rains while other areas not have as much rain.


If we want to live on Mars, we need to make it warm and wet again.

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Jun 13, 2016

Breakthrough technology to improve cyber security

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, engineering, particle physics, quantum physics

Another article on Quantum Security; this time from Sydney (generating single photons to make communications and information secured).


With enough computing effort most contemporary security systems will be broken. But a research team at the University of Sydney has made a major breakthrough in generating single photons (light particles), as carriers of quantum information in security systems.

The collaboration involving physicists at the Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), an ARC Centre of Excellence headquartered in the School of Physics, and electrical engineers from the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, has been published in Nature Communications.

The team’s work resolved a key issue holding back the development of password exchange which can only be broken by violating the laws of physics. Photons are generated in a pair, and detecting one indicates the existence of the other. This allows scientists to manage the timing of photon events so that they always arrive at the time they are expected.

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Jun 13, 2016

Quantum dots may hold key to superior 3D printing materials

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, chemistry, engineering, quantum physics

New research demonstrates that quantum dots solve a key issue with current 3D printing materials. I spoke with Keroles Riad, PhD student at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada, about his thesis on the photostability of materials used for stereolithography 3D printing. The research was supervised by Prof. Paula Wood-Adams, Prof. Rolf Wuthrich of the Mechanical and industrial engineering department at Concordia and Prof. Jerome Claverie of the Chemistry department at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

While quantum dots have been shown to cure acrylics, Riad says this work is the first demonstration of the process in epoxy resin.

3D printing is often richly rewarding because it spans multiple disciplines. Here we look at a new thesis that advances the critical area of materials. The approach taken uses engineering, chemistry and physics to overcome the issue of stability present in current stereolithography processes. The results could form the basis of superior materials and wider use of 3D printing in many areas.

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Jun 12, 2016

Nick Bostrom: ‘We are like small children playing with a bomb’

Posted by in categories: climatology, cybercrime/malcode, engineering, robotics/AI, sustainability

Some truth to this if the engineering team and designers are not reflective of the broader world population. Good example, is the super race research of the Nazis and attempts to make it happen. Today, AI in the hands of a N. Korea for example could be bad for the world. However, the larger threat that I see with AI is still the hacking of AI, and stolen AI by criminals to use against society.


Sentient machines are a greater threat to human existence than climate change, according to the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom.

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Jun 10, 2016

The World’s Oldest Computer May Have Been Used to Predict the Future

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, space

Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world’s first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2,000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device, including the revelation that it may have been used for more than just astronomy.

The Antikythera Mechanism is one of the most fascinating and important archaeological discoveries ever made, one that reveals the remarkable technological and engineering capacities of the ancient Greeks as well as their excellent grasp of astronomy. This clock-like assembly of bronze gears and displays was used to predict lunar and solar eclipses, along with the positions of the sun, moon, and planets. It wasn’t programmable in the modern sense, but it’s considered the world’s first analog computer. Dating to around 60 BC, nothing quite like it would appear for another millennium.

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Jun 9, 2016

Using Adenosine Triphosphate to Create Biological Super-Computers

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, engineering, nanotechnology, sustainability

Machines running on human energy? Yes, it can happen, according to Dan Nicolau, Jr. from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California. Nicolau and his colleagues successfully completed a proof-of-concept study of a book-sized computer that runs on adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a biochemical that releases energy in cells and aids in energy transfer.

The study results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), describe the combination of geometrical modeling and engineering as well as nanotechnology to create circuitry that uses 1.5 × 1.5 cm in area and the naturally occurring protein to operate.

A More Sustainable Option

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Jun 8, 2016

Venus Floating Station Concept — NASA

Posted by in categories: engineering, habitats, space travel

For a planetarium program intended to show possible future NASA exploration directions, Home Run Pictures was tasked with creating plausible human habitats on the various planets and moons in the Solar System. Engineering concepts required understanding of the environments and the structures or spacecraft necessary for longer term human survival. Avoiding being too science fiction was difficult at times. The surface of Venus is a rough environment with temperatures and pressures at the extreme. But the dense atmosphere seems to allow the possibility of “floating” a space station hanging below some sort of blimp-like structure. An attempt at using what would look like modular structures, similar to what has been used with the International Space Station was implemented. A circular structure was used to keep the station in balance in the turbulent Venusian upper atmosphere with a long strut hanging down from the center to help stabilize the craft and provide mounting points for various experimental packages and docking ports for shuttles or exploratory probes. Small shuttles would drop into the upper atmosphere delivering cargo and personnel. When the station’s scientists desire to dive deeper into the Venus atmosphere for exploration, shuttles that lean more towards the submersibles used for Earth ocean exploration are used. The Venusian atmosphere is very dense and the pressure would crush anything but craft that are constructed like submarines with reinforced portholes instead of windows. Instead of using rocket power for maneuvering, the shuttle/submersible vehicles use large turbo-fan like engines. Everything needs to be constructed of cororsive-resistent materials to survive the acidic Venusian atmosphere. Scientists theorize that massive lighting events would be the norm and electronic and digital hardware would need to be insulated from the extreme electrical environment.

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Jun 7, 2016

How Ray Kurzweil Sees the Future

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, Ray Kurzweil

The Kurzweil vision.


A Q&A with the top author, computer scientist, futurist, inventor, and Google engineering director.

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Jun 7, 2016

10 Theoretical Megastructures, From Big to Massive

Posted by in category: engineering

For much of its modern history, science fiction has had a particular fascination with engineering, with authors and artists imagining fantastic, massive structures in the depths of space. Here are 10 of them, from incredibly large to unbelievably massive.

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