HackingTheUniverse

You are browsing the archives of Singularity.

Miniature electronic resonaters known as microrings may significantly alter the way we exchange information of all types. These devices are very small, are low cost, require little power, operate at high frequencies and can handle high speed operations. This technology overcomes most signal interference problems and may enable replacing wire and cable connections [...]

Red Storm is a massively parallel processing supercomputer developed by Sandia Labs and Cray for the Department of Energy to do advanced simulation and modeling in nuclear weapons research. It is now being rededicated to national security problems including cyber defense, vulnerability assessments, situational awareness and more.

NNSA Dedicates National Security Computing Center at Sandia [...]

Graphene is a flat sheet of carbon atoms packed into a honeycomb like structure that is only one atom thick. Hexagonal Boron Nitride is a synthetically created ceramic that has a microstructure similar to graphite. A single layer of this substance is called a “nanomesh” which looks like an assembly of hexagonal pores. [...]

Willow Garage produces open source software and hardware for personal robotic applications. In the course of their development efforts they found the need for telepresence collaboration and naturally looked to their robot resources. The result is their “Texas Robot” project. Think of a multimedia station, including display, camera, speaker, microphone and a [...]

AI agents that can act as ethical advisors to humans will be possible soon. Once we have successfully coded ethics into a logic scheme that can be translated into programming code and the agents go through a sufficient learning curve, they will be capable of offering advice on ethical decisions.
EA (Ethical Advisor) agents will [...]

In 1951, the movie, “The Man In The White Suit” described the fictional invention of a fiber that never wore out and could repel dirt. The inventor was able to weave the fiber into cloth and made a magical suit from the fabric. Liquid glass is a thin layer of silicon dioxide that [...]

Martine Rothblatt explores the question of what qualifies as artificial intelligence and along the way, suggests a new name for it - Vitology. Then, in another article, she describes how fast it is arriving.
Will Uploaded Minds in Machines be Alive? - [ieet.org]
The differences between organic and cybernetic life are less important that their similarities. [...]

Effective argument can be considered as communication to persuade others through reasoned judgement. A discussion of the pros and cons of various options and an attempt to negotiate consensus as an outcome can be part of the process. Critical evaluation of the underlying logic and of the level of relevance of each component [...]

Trying to set a criteria for defining the rights we allow to non-human entities provides an interesting debate. The word, “intelligence” is usually used, but that is not simple to define and may not be adequate. Intelligence is often measured by ability to perform analytic reasoning. But just performing calculations or retrieving [...]

Eric Drexler created the term, “exploratory engineering” to describe a process of extrapolation in engineering. Drexler maintains that logical boundaries of scope can be defined based on performance from physically possible classes of devices. Using physical laws to draw the boundaries makes it possible to create hypothetical scenarios and accomplish modeling that have [...]