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Category: transportation – Page 612

This futuristic fighter jet will probably be unveiled to America during the Super Bowl

A thing of beauty!

They zip and dart across the sky in a three-jet formation, a six-second apparition in a 30-second commercial touting the achievements of defense contractor Northrop Grumman. Unlike modern jets, such as the F-22 Raptor or F-16 Fighting Falcon, they have no tail and are likely to be armed with lasers that are straight out of a science-fiction movie.

They’re sixth-generation fighters, and Northrop Grumman appears poised to show them off during Super Bowl Sunday. The defense titan released a new commercial online Friday that touts its achievements and includes a glitzy glimpse at a plane whose fielding is likely decades away.

Here’s the clip in question:

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Your only choice is to build better artificial intelligence tech than others: Brad Templeton

Brand’s view and concerns about hacking driverless cars are valid. And, I do believe in time that government will eventually catch up in passing some laws that will make companies ensure that their technology is safe for consumer usage and are safe for the public. I just hope that the pendulum does swing too far to the other side of over regulation.

It is not easy to slot Brad Templeton. What do you make of a person who is not only the networks and computing chair at Singularity University in Silicon Valley but also a software architect, a director of the Foresight Nanotech Institute, board member of the cyberspace watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation, the first person to have set up an Internet-based business, a futurist lecturer, hobby photographer, artist, as well as a consultant on Google’s driverless car design team?

In a phone interview from the US, Templeton, who will be in India this month as a key speaker during the SingularityU India Summit (to be held in association with INK, which hosts events like INKtalks—a platform for the exchange of cutting-edge ideas and inspiring stories), shared his views on driverless cars, the perceived threat from intelligent machines and censorship of the Internet. Edited excerpts:

Driverless cars are not hacker-proof and may find it difficult to navigate chaotic traffic. How are we addressing such issues?

It’s absolutely true that people are concerned about security of these cars, but it is wrong to presume that people in the media learnt about this before those who built the driverless car. The people who built the car are working to make the car secure. They won’t be able to do it perfectly, but they are going to get there. The Google team certainly has the most miles to its credit. Right now over 2 million km in automatic mode, driving around mostly in California. The chaotic driving in India is slower than some of the roads in Europe or North America. And it is actually easier to do slower and chaotic driving than faster. You get more time to stop, perceive the situation and make accurate moves. The real challenge is that in many chaotic driving situations, there are unwritten rules so you have to figure out how to sort of, play a game with the other cars. It may mean that some of the more chaotic places may have to clean up their act a bit if they want to have a technology like this.

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Robot drills electrodes into British teen’s brain, cures epilepsy

A British teenager has become the first child in the UK to be cured of epilepsy by a robot that drilled deep into his brain.

Billy Whitaker, 15, had suffered daily seizures for seven years until the operation two weeks ago, which medical experts are convinced has cured him.

The procedure used a £350,000 ($503,455) robot, practically the same as those used on car factory production lines, to drill electrodes into Whitaker’s brain.

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Can Photon Probabilities Change the World?

Did you know that Quantum Theory does not know how probabilities are implemented in Nature? And for that matter neither does any other physical theory. Why? Or why not? The closest Quantum Theory comes to explaining probabilities, is to guess that a particle’s wave function is related to its probabilities. That’s it!

Why do we need to ask this question? Commercial opportunities. Imagine if you could control where a photon localizes (captured by an atom). Particle detectors become significantly more sensitive. Boring? No, in fact, DARPA aims to precisely spot single photons and explore the Fundamental Limits of Photon Detection. Anti-stealth is one application. Imagine if you didn’t need 1,000,000 radio wave photons to determine an aircraft’s radar signature, but only a 1,000?

Using probabilities to control photon switching “circuits”, probability switches. Imagine an empty box with optical cables entering and exiting. These probability switches cause photons to exit through different optical cables by controlling where they localize within the box. What if we could build computers with materials lighter than a feather to switch photon paths, instead of heavy silicon or gallium arsenide to switch electron paths? Imagine how fast these switches could operate, as no matter is involved.

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