#Google buys Titan Aerospace, a solar-powered drone company Solar-powered drone This week, Google announced the acquisition of Titan Aerospace for an undisclosed sum in a move that sees the technology
Following Facebook s $20 million purchase of U k.-based aerospace company Ascenta which has been working on the development of unmanned,
solar-powered aerial drones for the past few years Google acted fast to usurp an expected bid by Facebook to also acquire Titan Aerospace.
and nonstop for years at a time a technology Google hopes to utilize in order to extend its influence
a source close to Google said that the company offered to top any offer from Facebook for Titan Aerospace.
but as yet largely unproven technology that Google hopes can help beam internet access to areas of the globe that remain unserved by cellphone towers or telephone wires.
Solar-powered drones are an attractive proposition to company like Google and Facebook because of their reliability and stability in often adverse weather conditions.
Google s technical experts will work with Titan Aerospace to advance the material design for the drones wings,
while also developing advanced algorithms to help the aircraft better traverse wind patterns and flight routes.
and detail to atmospheric sensors used in many of Google s applications, such as Google maps. It is still early days
and environmental damage like deforestation, said a Google statement announcing the acquisition. Solar s influence Titan Aerospace caught Google s attention thanks to its innovative dragonfly-shaped drones that are powered by its wing-mounted solar panels
and onboard battery storage that allows the planes to fly at night. The drones are huge aircraft the smaller model,
whether the solar technology is advanced currently enough to deliver the kind of long-range reliability that Google will require.
and it takes a lot of power to broadcast internet signals. However, a source close to Facebook has revealed that the social media giants had been reviewing Titan Aerospace s solar-powered drones some six months ago,
and were impressed enough to open talks with the company about a possible acquisition. Google were evidently also eager to speak with Titan
and are believed to have gazumped Facebook s offer r
#Neuroscientists reverse symptoms of Alzheimer s in mice Researchers found that the overproduction of the protein known as p25 may be the culprit behind the sticky protein-fragment clusters that build up in the brains of Alzheimer patients.
The work, which was published in the April 10 issue of Cell, could provide a new drug target for the treatment of the disease that affects more than five million Americans,
In the mouse model of Alzheimer disease, inhibiting p25 production improved cognitive function, greatly reduced plaque formation and neuroinflammation, hallmark features of Alzheimer disease.
the era of suitcase-schlepping may soon be over. magine design is just data, and products could travel through the Internet as code,
produced on demand at any location, Kyttanen says in a video explaining the project. Now on view as part of Kyttanen solo exhibition at Galerie Vivid in Rotterdam
The files for these products could be sent in an email and then printed out, all in one operation,
The heavy lifting is done by the software that generates these designs employing a branch of mathematics called computational geometry.
For example, a user can tell the software he wants a two-wheeled robot of a certain size,
#DNA computers deliver drugs inside cockroaches Nano-sized entities made of DNA that are able to perform the same kind of logic operations as a silicon-based computer have been introduced into a living animal.
A computer inside a cockroach. The DNA computers known as origami robots because they work by folding
and unfolding strands of DNA travel around the insect body and interact with each other, as well as the insect cells.
and control of the nanobots is equivalent to a computer system. his is the first time that biological therapy has been able to match how a computer processor works,
which are suitable for our watches, our cars or phones, we can use these robots in life domains,
you can perform any kind of computation. In this case we have gone past that threshold, he says.
The team says it should be possible to scale up the computing power in the cockroach to that of an 8-bit computer, equivalent to a Commodore 64 or Atari 800 from the 1980s.
so the complexity of the computations will soon become higher, he says. An obvious benefit of this technology would be cancer treatments,
Below is a U s. Naval Research Laboratory Youtube video explaining the breakthrough Y
#Israeli startup Storedot charges smartphone batteries to full in 30 seconds Storedot It possible that youl be able to plug the smartphone in
and charge it from 0 percent to 100 percent in just under a minute, according to a report by the Wall street journal. An Israeli startup by the name of Storedot revealed the technology at Microsoft Think Next Conference using standard smartphone batteries,
and they claim itl even be portable. video) As the demo was held at a Microsoft conference,
the actual demonstration was shown on a Samsung galaxy S3; however, the technology will almost certainly be available for Apple smartphone.
Fast battery chargers already exist, but theye expensive, unwieldy things for special batteries. Storedot, however, claims that its technology will only cost around twice as much as traditional chargers.
Batteries traditionally charge quickly during the first 80 percent of the charge, but slow to a trickle for the last 20 percent
however, this technology could be used for other products such as Macbooks and ipads. And as Cult of Mac points out,
Press it and whatever you say will be stored as a search the next time you visit the Amazonfresh website.
The Dash is currently free but y invitation only, according to its website, and no release date has been announced yet.
#Europe to abolish roaming charges by December 2015 The first move was to slash pricing of mobile phone roaming costs across Europe.
Then calls were made to abolish mobile roaming costs completely, with a view towards afeguarding citizensright to access an open Internet.
Today that vision has become a reality. Neelie Kroes has been one of the main drivers behind this reform, with the outspoken European commission VP a strong proponent if a single ICT and telecoms market,
previously saying she would ight with my last breath to get us there together. Perhaps the most significant nugget from today news is that the European parliament has voted now to banish roaming charges by Christmas 2015.
This headline-grabber constitutes part of the broader move towards the onnected Continentthat would be created by a single telecoms market.
This is an historic day for the open Internet. The finer nuances of the net neutrality law have yet to be ratified,
distinct capacity, cannot be mistaken for Internet, no replacement of Internet services by specialised services. In other words, an ISP can reclassify Amazon Instant Video
or Netflix as a service other than Internet to bypass these new net neutrality laws. It a pretty solid advance for the Internet in Europe,
one that will ensure providers can slow down or otherwise degrade the speed of an Internet connection on a whim.
The European parliament is being very clear about this: the Internet cannot be affected by specialised services.
While there could still be some twists and turns with the finer details still to be ironed out,
and prevent someone from procuring a mobile phone plan in a cheaper EU country, and using it exclusively in another.
The main focus with this ruling is to ensure that you pay the same for calls, texts and data across the EU,
while contract rules will also apply to non-telecoms elements of bundles, such as TV. And there will be no automatic extension of contract terms
#3d printing is transforming manufacturing and General electric wants to lead the way A 20-year-old Indonesian student has helped General electric save considerable sums of money in development
And that all thanks to 3d printing. While it may be today buzzword, in reality it just a fraction of the overall manufacturing process and General electric wants to lead the way.
Furstoss told attendees at the Inside 3d printing conference in New york on Thursday that the aker movementis revolutionizing how the traditional manufacturers look at their own design
The Fairfield, CT-headquartered conglomerate has been pushing hard in the 3d printing and the next-generation manufacturing space.
And it also about learning and gathering data. And I can also make tooling that can use more conventional manufacturing. t not just about making a final part,
and advantages that 3d printing has to offer, it invested in more than three hundred 3d printers across the company,
which helps it to learn how to develop the more difficult or traditionally expensive parts for aviation, oil and gas, healthcare,
and 45 other jurisdictions that have adopted new Common Core standards for English and math. The unprecedented scope of the move to standardize K-12 academic achievement targets has resulted in a flurry of business activity among startups,
state estimates peg the implementation costs of Common Core around $3 billion, opening the door for companies pitching cost-effective tech tools. here a cottage industry
now that sprung up around Common Core, said Deborah Stipek, an education researcher and professor at Stanford university. eople in district offices in schools have a really tough job.
and Google have attracted much attention and tens of millions of dollars intheir bid to translate increasingly expensive college courses into cheaper online formats.
Common Core offers new market incentives for entrepreneurs who can navigate those thorny realities. he big market condition that it enabling is consistency
Muhammed Chaudhry, CEO of the Silicon valley Education Foundation, said of the Common Core requirements. efore we had 50 states with 50 different standards.
like Portland-based Edcaliber, specifically mention Common Core in their mission statements. Edcaliber, which raised a $500,
advertises a curriculum management system that aims to urn Common Core into common practice. But one unique dynamic in the K-12 education tech market
Mountain view Khan academy already counts 10 million monthly users, and Neeru Khosla Palo alto-based CK-12 Foundation provides free online tools to more than 38,
Lots and lots of ipads. The proliferation of mobile technology is used often as a selling point for entrepreneurs hoping to get their products into classrooms.
But Khosla said there one major hitch in the vision for software-powered classrooms: A lack of necessary hardware. he biggest challenge is said access,
she, noting that many schools don have the technological infrastructure to make ed tech products viable on a consistent basis. Teacher training is another challenge that Chaudhry group has identified.
Apple Inc.,Google Inc.,Microsoft corp. and Cisco systems Inc. are a few major Silicon valley tech companies selling either hardware or software to K-12 educators.
In the meantime, Stipek said success in the field remains about much more than the number of users a provider can claim. don give a whole lot of confidence in just the fact that (the technology) is being adopted,
GPS-guided rounds and stealth design that gives the 610-foot ship the radar signature of a small fishing vesselhere also a computer intelligence capable of preparing the ship for battle
which made most of the ship computer systems. his is a $5 billion UAV. Unlike aerial drones,
The Zumwalt also boasts what Raytheon calls a Total Ship Computing Environment, which allows it to be controlled from any of a couple dozen consoles around the ship.
If the captain happens to be on the bow or the stern rather than up on the bridge when there an emergency,
The captain just signs in to the nearest console and enters a password, as if he doing some online banking.
#Altaeros Energies floating wind turbine churns out electricity and Wi-fi This floating turbine, developed by Altaeros Energies could someday travel to every remote corner of the globe.
and Internet connectivity to people and villages living off-the-grid. Video) Think of these floating turbines as the wind farms of the future
While in the air, the turbines can also serve as Wi-fi, cell service hubs, and weather monitoring stations.
you instantly get data coverage, electricity and local weather data, even if your previous system involved a sun dial and carrier pigeons.
Underpinning this vision is the provision of high-speed wireless internet connectivity for citizens in all public locations.
Bristol, England The Connecting Bristol digital partnership leads the city work on next generation broadband infrastructure, smart city, open data, green IT and digital inclusion,
Glasgow aims to open up data to demonstrate how providing integrated health, transport, energy and public safety services can improve both the local economy and the quality of life for the city citizens.
The machine sends out an email when it is running low on stock. It also has built-in security features such as cameras
The new technology makes it easy for users to read as quickly as 1, 000 words per minute by focusing userseyes on a single word at a time.
The company says its technology places each word at the optimal location on the screen,
ensuring users can rapidly recognize them. his method makes communication faster, easier and more effective by removing the inefficient eye movements associated with traditional reading,
According to the company, with traditional reading, users spend 80%of their time simply moving their eyes
A demo of Spritz technology can be found on the company website. Spritz is set to launch in April as a feature with the upcoming Samsung galaxy S5 smartphone
and the Gear 2 smartwatch. ith the growth of wearable devices, Spritz patent-pending technology will enable Samsung device users to read emails comfortably
and conveniently one streaming word at a time, the company said in a statement. Spritz said it is working on enabling its technology so it can also be used to read text messages
social media streams, web content and digital books. At 1, 000 words per minute, users could potentially read the shortest Harry potter book he Sorcerer Stone,
which is about 77,000 words long in a little more than an hour. The longest book he Order of the Phoenix,
#In-car facial recognition system can detect road rage Researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet. When Katie Hall saw a light-bulb glowing in the middle of a room with no wires attached she was shocked.
they are the same kind of fields used in Wi-fi routers. In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet.
If all goes to Witricity plans, smartphones will charge in your pocket as you wander around,
televisions will flicker with no wires attached, and electric cars will refuel while sitting on the driveway.
Witricity have demonstrated already their ability to power laptops, cellphones, and TVS by attaching resonator coils to batteries
and an electric car refueller is reportedly in the works. Hall sees a bright future for the family without wires:
It great to see so much discussion of this technology on social media and the comments thread.
As Witricity have mentioned on their website the Highly Resonant Wireless power transfer technology they have developed is also distinct from Tesla creations and
#Samsung develops ultrasonic smartphone case to help visually impaired sense their surroundings A smartphone case that helps the visually impaired by enhancing their awareness of their surroundings has been developed by Samsung.
The Ultrasonic Cover for its Galaxy Core Advance smartphone helps owners sense the presence of people and objects up to two meters away.
The cover includes a number of physical buttons to aid disabled users. The Ultrasonic Cover emits a high-frequency sound, listening for the sound wave that bounces back.
the phone lets the smartphone owner know by sending a vibration alert or text-to-speech notification.
Reacting to Big data However Bitcoin is not just a currency that promises to eventually end the trend of patchwork national currencies that exist for the almost sole purpose of allowing governments to endlessly fund their own deficit spending.
When the Internet was growing in the 90s it promised a future in which everyone everywhere had access to all the knowledge in the world,
and closer everyday as more people in underdeveloped countries have access to cheaper and cheaper smartphones and Internet access.
Google, Facebook, as well as many others, all keep meticulous track of user data for advertising and other purposes.
On several occasions, the massive amounts of data collected by Internet service and telecommunications companies have been utilized by agencies such as the NSA, under morally questionable motives at best.
The result is a system that has evolved with the ability to track everything you do
like, go, and know, and then provide all of that data to one central authority you may
or may not trust, all with little choice for the consumer. The Internet has recently been more reminiscent of Orwell s 1984,
rather than the future of individual empowerment that was promised. Cryptocurrency is the first major technological advancement that,
intentionally or not, is a massive reaction to the trend of Big data. It is decentralized and anonymous by design,
and it is these key features within the Bitcoin protocol itself that may be the key to weakening the hold of massive data collecting service companies like Google.
which could allow users to opt out of advertising with anonymous#micropayments. Yet many#other cryptocurrencies#such as#Namecoin#are attempting to take the protocol that enables this
Among these can be email, domain names, and other such systems. Decentralized applications This is only the beginning however,
businesses will hopefully creatively utilize the open source design of Bitcoin to provide entirely secure and anonymous end-to-end experiences.
Because of that, it is conceivable that DAS for payments, social networking, and cloud computing may one day surpass the valuation of multinational corporations like Western union, Visa, Facebook, Google,
and Amazon that are are currently active in the space. At the very least, the ever-growing success of bitcoin thus far candidly illustrates that there is indeed a massive demand for anonymity online,
the Internet, or even to gold 5, 000 years ago. While it does possess similarities with many of these things,
#U s. to give up remaining control over the internet U s. officials announced plans to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet last week.
and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web. Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U s. authority over the system of Web addresses
and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National security agency surveillance.
The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group.
That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete. e look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan,
Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement. The announcement received a passionate response,
. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve
and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance. But former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)tweeted:
hat is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to?
This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet. The practical consequences of the decision were harder to immediately discern, especially with the details of the transition not yet clear.
Politically, the move could alleviate rising global concerns that the United states essentially controls the Web
An international meeting to discuss the future of Internet is scheduled to start on March 23 in Singapore.
a trade group representing major Internet commerce businesses. U s. officials said their decision had nothing to do with the NSA spying revelations
and international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance, Strickling said in a statement.
inclusive process to find a new international oversight structure for the group. othing will be done in any way to jeopardize the security and stability of the Internet,
The United states has maintained long authority over elements of the Internet which grew from a Defense department program that started in the 1960s.
The relationship between the United states and ICANN has drawn wider international criticism in recent years, in part because big American companies such as Google,
Facebook and Microsoft play such a central role in the Internet worldwide functioning. The NSA revelations exacerbated those concerns. his is a step in the right direction to resolve important international disputes about how the Internet is governed,
said Gene Kimmelman, president of Public knowledge, a group that promotes open access to the Internet.
Verizon, one of the world biggest Internet providers issued a statement saying, successful transition in the stewardship of these important functions to the global multi-stakeholder community would be a timely and positive step in the evolution of Internet governance.
ICANN most important function is to oversee the assigning of Internet domains such as dot-com, dot-edu and dot-gov
and ensure that the various companies and universities involved in directing digital traffic do so safely.
Concern about ICANN stewardship has spiked in recent years amid a massive and controversial expansion that is adding hundreds of new domains,
to the Internet infrastructure. More than 1, 000 new domains are slated to be made available, pumping far more fee revenue into ICANN.
however, that con artists already swarm the Internet with phony Web sites designed to look like the authentic offerings of respected brands. o set ICANN so-called free is a very major step that should done with careful oversight,
Duke university engineers have demonstrated the world first three-dimensional acoustic cloak using a few perforated sheets of plastic and extensive computation.
Duke university professor of electrical and computer engineering Steven Cummer and his colleagues used metamaterials the combination of natural materials in repeating patterns to achieve unnatural properties.
The humanoid robots Google recently bought are neat but most machines being used or tested by national militaries are, for now, more like robotic weapons than robotic soldiers.
or if their user experience made it easier to accept than reject automated targeting. What if, for example, a robot tasked with destroying an unmanned military installation
as a spokesman put it in an email interview with Singularity Hub. Sensing and artificial intelligence technologies are sure to improve,
but there are some risks that military robot operators may never be able to eliminate. Some issues are the same ones that plague the adoption of any radically new technology:
but as a computer scientist there are other things that bother me. I mean, how reliable is a computer system?
Sharkey, of Stop Killer Robots, said. Sharkey noted that warrior robots would do battle with other warrior robots equipped with algorithms designed by an enemy army. f you have two competing algorithms
and you don know the contents of the other person algorithm, you don know the outcome.
Anything could happen, he said. For instance, when two sellers recently unknowingly competed for business on Amazon,
the interactions of their two algorithms resulted in prices in the millions of dollars. Competing robot armies could destroy cities as their algorithms exponentially escalated,
Sharkey said. An even likelier outcome would be that human enemies would target the weaknesses of the robotsalgorithms to produce undesirable outcomes.
say a machine that designed to destroy incoming mortar fire such as the U s c-RAM or Germanymantis, is tasked also with destroying the launcher.
The U s. sometimes programs its semi-autonomous drones to locate a terrorist based on his cell phone SIM CARD.
The terrorists, knowing that, often offload used SIM CARDS to unwitting civilians. Would an autonomous killing machine be able to plan for such deception?
the history of the web suggests that terrorists could find others. Of course, most technologies stumble at first
This is the first time cannabinoid receptors have been identified in the central nucleus of the amygdala in a mouse model,
The discovery may help explain why marijuana users say they take the drug mainly to reduce anxiety,
and three-quarters said they would be excited more in financial services provided by Google, Amazon, Apple, Paypal,
A device that allows desktop 3d printers to print in color for less than $100 Full color printing is generally a privilege limited to professional and high-end consumer 3d printers,
so the more casual user is stuck likely printing in one or two colors. But Cédric Kovacs-Johnson and Charles Haider, both chemical engineering undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, say they have come up with a solution:
a sub-$100 device that upgrades desktop 3d printers to print in a full rainbow of colors.
The system is fused compatible with deposition modeling 3d printers that use a standard-size spool of filament.
FDM printers melt string-like plastic bit by bit and lay it down in layers to create an object.
allowing printers to shift between colors. hat we find really innovative in our approach is we went back to the roots of paper printing
Desktop 3d printer makers have gotten generally around the one color problem by adding more than one print head. botobjects,
a desktop printer maker that has been teasing the community for years with its full-color printing abilities,
Spectrom doesn require a specialized printer to work. The idea is that you install it on your existing printer
and youe ready to go. Your computer outputs code that tells the device when to switch between colors
and your printer operates as if it was printing with a regular filament spool. The duo didn arrive at the method immediately.
During a year and a half of development, they tried combining different colors of filament and different dyeing methods.
and as a result are focused on making sure it is compatible with any printer. e want to get it out to as many people as possible,
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