Technology

Artificial Intelligence Can Beat Many Of Us In Chess, Yet Strangely Not In Memory

Computers are well-known for being able to recover information quickly- a Google search will often give you the result you wanted as you type, even if you make spelling errors- but are not known for creativity. They are good for storage and retrieval. A ne ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 19 2021 - 9:17am

Twitter Was Telling The World About COVID-19 When China Was Still Suppressing Information

In January of 2020 we began to write about "coronavirus 2019" due to concern regarding increased cases of pneumonia during a mild flu season, while the Chinese dictatorship was denying there was any problem at all. Just over a week later a key wh ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 25 2021 - 1:44pm

The First 3D Printed House Is On The Market, And It Still Costs $300,000

If you are thinking you might buy a Creality 3-D printer to save money making stuff at home, a new MLS listing may make you change your mind. It is the first 3D-printed home to get a government permit in the United States and is on sale for a whopping $299 ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 26 2021 - 5:01pm

An Alternate Approach To Stopping Mosquitoes That Spread Zika- Using CRISPR To Make Them Resistant To Carrying It

The mosquitoes that carry zika, like Aedes aegypti, are considered by all but the most activist ecologists to be useless disease vectors. There is nothing they do in nature that isn't easily done by other mosquitoes and they can safely join the 99.999 ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 28 2021 - 11:14am

Is Sustainable Packaging Possible?

The world is addicted to plastic. Plastic pollution is one of the most urgent environmental issues of our time. Each year, 78 million metric tons of plastic packaging is produced across the world and of that, only 14% is ever recycled. What isn’t recycled ...

Article - Arthur Fong - Mar 10 2021 - 3:46pm

End Of The Uncanny Valley? The COVID-19 Pandemic Made Us Love Machines More

Whatever Uncanny Valley when it comes to machines still existed in 2019 got a lot smaller in 2020. We're even being nicer to them since 2020. People mostly dispense with social norms of human interaction and treat machines differently. The behavior ho ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 22 2021 - 12:58pm

Can 5G Cell Phone Tech Eventually Bring Us Tesla's Wireless Electricity?

At the height of his career, the pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla became obsessed with an idea. He theorised that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly through the air at long distances – either via a series of strategically positioned to ...

Article - The Conversation - Apr 10 2021 - 6:01am

What Skynet? People Trust Computers More Than Humans

Though it is common to complain that advertising is following you everywhere and algorithms control our news, it is instead the case that the more tedious or challenging a task becomes, the more humans trust computers instead. Not many people listen to 4,0 ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 13 2021 - 1:35pm

Can AI Help Slow Future Pandemics?

If you missed the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, wait a few years and catch the next one. One happened in 2012, and in 2003, and since it was only discovered as distinct from the common cold in the 1960s, they may have been happening forever. If it isn' ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 14 2021 - 9:33am

Uncanny Valley: A Webcam That Looks Like A Human Eye

Are you being monitored all of the time? You certainly are, by both corporations and the government. It just may not be obvious in the U.S., whereas in London you are filmed by government 300 times each day, and that concerns privacy advocates. What if the ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 16 2021 - 6:01am