A man wading in a pool of his own consciousness, surrealistically draped in the hallucinations of an artificial intelligence, shouts at me about poetry. He contorts himself with passion as his rhetoric reaches its fever pitch — you might say he ‘peaks’ — and suddenly bursts into self-awareness like a phoenix, renewed. Finally, he shakes an iPhone at me, declaring it a monument to human ambition and actuation. After watching, I feel like I’m both a tiny worm on a big hook and the master of my own
A year after completing the first powered and controlled flight on another world, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is still setting records on Mars. The chopper recently hit a pair of new milestones: its farthest and fastest ever flights on the red planet. The rotorcraft traveled 704 meters at a speed of 19 kmph on its landmark 25th flight. That might not win a Grand Prix on Earth, but it’s pretty impressive on Mars. The red planet’s atmosphere is less than 1% as dense as ours, and its temperature ca
Video games are increasingly incorporating blockchains, the decentralised databases that underpin cryptocurrencies, as well as NFTs and other “digital assets”. New games are emerging expressly to support blockchain technology, while traditional games are being updated to incorporate blockchains. As of October 2021, “crypto gaming” accounted for more than half of the blockchain activity over that quarter. At the same time, a treasury inquiry has led to consumer groups calling for regulation in th
In the tropics, the deep sea is cold and the sea surface is very warm. That temperature difference can be harnessed and turned into electricity. If we can improve the technology, this method of producing power could be a godsend for island nations reliant on expensive and polluting diesel for their power. For more than a century, researchers have explored the idea of ocean thermal energy conversion. There’s nothing fundamentally new to the idea of extracting power from temperature differences. I
Humanity is edging ever-closer to extinction, but don’t worry — the tech lords have deigned to save us. Elon Musk, for instance, wants to take us to a Martian colony. Sure, many will perish on the journey, but the survivors can enjoy a nightmarish existence, which they’ll fund through indentured labor on the hellscape. Yes. There will be a lot of jobs on Mars! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2020 Peter Thiel, meanwhile, will extend children’s lives by giving them blood transfusions. Wait, th
Turned into a pop-culture icon by the Back to the Future film franchise, the DeLorean is coming back to life after 39 long years! And the best part? It’s being reimagined as a whole new EV by the incarnated DMC, which was acquired by Stephen Wynne in 1995, after the original company declared bankruptcy. After months of anticipation since it was first teased, we finally get the first proper look of this unique vehicle. Meet the now-called Alpha5+: Credit: DMC Paying tribute to the 1981 DeLorean c
When a company tells me it’s found a way to not only create a new form of public transport, but also make it financially viable without city funding, I’m skeptical. Silicon Valley company Glydways wants to turn conventional mass public transport on its head, by introducing small, electric automated vehicles or “pod cars” that can carry four people and operate on a network of specially built guideways. They run on-demand (instead of on a timetable) and travel point-to-point with no stops in betwe
Omnichannel’s steady march to ubiquity has continued over the past decade. It seems like literally every brand is now omnichannel. Or are they? According to a report by McKinsey&Company: We find that retailers are often swayed by new technologies that sound promising, but too often don’t deliver. In all the buzz, brands are struggling to be present everywhere, all the time. New platforms and tools are cropping up presenting new opportunities in both the digital and physical marketing space. So w
It was the veritable search for a needle in a haystack. With drug-resistant bacteria on the rise, researchers at MIT were sifting through a database of more than 100 million molecules to identify a few that might have antibacterial properties. Fortunately, the search proved successful. But it wasn’t a human who found the promising molecules. It was a machine learning program. One compound has been patented under the name Halicin in homage to HAL, the artificial intelligence (AI) in Arthur C Clar
AI now guides numerous life-changing decisions, from assessing loan applications to determining prison sentences. Proponents of the approach argue that it can eliminate human prejudices, but critics warn that algorithms can amplify our biases — without even revealing how they reached the decision. This can result in AI systems leading to Black people being wrongfully arrested, or child services unfairly targeting poor families. The victims are frequently from groups that are already marginalized