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POPS...2.3 gigapixel(s)... in real time!
Everyone knows that technology changes quickly. And most people have an adequate understanding of velocity and acceleration. So I'm always surprised when people ask about the next "new technology". After all, it's relatively easy to derive the "rate of change" in a technology's "position", over time and then compute its velocity and ecceleration. The attached article provides more than enough data that can be compared to the specifications of older equipment like the cameras used on the SR-71 "Blackbird" ("U2"). These two sets of data points can be used for a quick an dirty "linear" model. What is more interesting, however, is to acquire a few more intermediate data points and to then refine the "straight line" model's "rates of change". Anyone that wants an effective "shortcut" can simply use Moore's Law (capability doubles every 18 months) with the banker's "rule of 72" (72 divided by the annual rate = time to double). An even better approach is to go to any sales conv
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POPSDon't Try to Feed These Birds I don't thinl they'll come to your feeder, but they may peek into your windows. lol I wouldn't count on though, the stupid things only have a 20 sec. fly time. Oh yes, but our generous goverment is giving the creators a couple of mil to develop it just the same.
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POPS"First flapping, two-winged aircraft takes flight" more: "It's extremely complicated and technically challenging to come up with ways to control an aircraft with two flapping wings,"said Matt Keennon of AeroVironment, "but this is the closest anyone has come to a rudderless, flapping aircraft." AeroVironment wouldn't explain how the two wings accomplish flight, citing its contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
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POPSThe shape(s) of things to come more: An MIT group is building “self-folding origami” machines that “use specialized sheets of material with built-in actuators and data. These machines use cutting-edge mathematical theorems to fold themselves into virtually any three-dimensional object.” The Programmable Matter project is five months into its second phase, which is supposed to wind up early next Spring. When they’re done, the researchers ought to “assemble four or five three-dimensional solids of a specific size and shape from a set of building blocks.”
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POPSBrains! Brains!! As we increasingly move onward in our quest to better understand how we work, the human brain remains on the frontier of targets to look at. No longer are we satisfied with the homunculus seated in our cranium in grand Oz fashion. Nor does the pre-science religious concept of soul address the practical workings of the human mind.
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POPSBuilding a machine that can learn from experience There's another requirement: The finished cognitive computer should be as small as a the brain of a small mammal and use as little power as a 100-watt light bulb. It's a major challenge. But it's what our brains do every day. "Value systems or reward systems are important aspects," he said. "Learning is crucial because it needs to learn from experience just like we do." It won't be an easy task, says Tononi, a veteran of earlier efforts to create cognitive computers. Even the brains of the smallest mammals are quite impressive when you consider what tasks they perform with a relatively small volume and energy input. "I would be happy to create a mouse brain," Tononi says. "A mouse brain is quite remarkable. And from there, it shouldn't be too hard to scale up to a rat brain, and then a cat or monkey brain."
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POPSphysicists discover important step for making light crystals a bose-einstein condensate is a collection of atoms cooled with laser light to a temp just above absolute zero-kelvin, -273 degrees Celsius, or -460 degrees Fahrenheit...the first BEC ever produced was 170 nanokelvin, or 170 billionths of a kelvin- researchers have since produced condensates as cold as 500 picokelvin - or 500 trillionths of a kelvin....there is quite a bit more at source....interesting-
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POPSDecoding the sense of smell In future work, the team plans to work with researchers worldwide, including MIT's Media Lab and Department of Biology, to develop a portable microfluidic device that can identify an array of different odors. Such a device could be used in medicine for the early diagnosis of certain diseases that produce distinctive odors, such as diabetes and lung, bladder and skin cancers, Zhang said. There are also a wide range of industrial applications for such a smell-based biosensing device, he said. One application i can think of is developing an antidote for smelly things, people etc.. :)
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POPSDARPA's Amazing Robot Pack Mule Keeps its Balance On Ice Impressive! ...yet, while "human may not be quite ready to accept such lifelike behavior coming from a machine" - I wonder on the "human like behavior" that needs DARPA and military justification to support such technology. maybe this is the tantalizing reflection of this project...
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POPSPioneering Research in Neuromorphic Electronics that Function Like the Biological Brain The HRL team's ultimate goal is to build a low-power, compact electronic chip combining a novel analog circuit design and a neuroscience-inspired architecture that can address a wide range of cognitive abilities--perception, planning, decision making, and motor control. In the initial two phases of the SyNAPSE program, the team will translate the neuronal and synaptic functions of the biological cortex into similar microelectronic functions.
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POPSSmall Company in the big Airwaves Fight The Post profiles a small Virginia company, Shared Spectrum, addressing the matter of unused airwaves. Other big players here: the National Association of Broadcasters and Google.
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