USB "Broadcast Power" Charger

I used to love playing a pen and paper roll playing game called Gamma World. Gamma World was a post apocalyptic world where you made a character that roamed the radioactive ruins as you tried to survive. In the game there were remnants of super technology from the post-nuke world, including robotic units and human looking androids, most of which ran off of "broadcast power".

Well it looks like Gamma World's vision of broadcast power is coming closer. Pretty cool.

Airnergy Wi-Fi Powered Charger

Military Technology: 30 Day Drone

This is pretty cool. A drone that can stay airborne for 30 days.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/30-days-no-landing-darpa-aims-for-drone-endurance-record/

DARPA to Develop SKYNET

Remember the movie the Terminator? SKYNET was the AI in charge of Norad that decided that ALL humans were a threat, not just America's enemies, and thus started a nuclear war to try to rid the world of humans.

Well it looks like DARPA is trying to build SKYNET. Heck, you could even have this Slashdotted article as a movie prolog leading up to the early days before SKYNET.

Read onward here-

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/21/2137244&from=rss

And for some fun reading to prep you for the release of Terminator 4: Salvation, click on the image above to take you to a site that has some great writing based on the original Terminator Movie.

Work Begins On A River UUV

Check out ARES blog for info about a new river patrol unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3aab9fb812-1470-4983-ae14-687b08d9ebd0

Dude in Switzerland Pulls a Da Vinci

Pretty cool, a guy from Switzerland took to the skies for a five minute flight with his custom made jet assisted wing. Da Vinci would be proud. Read on -
http://www.news.com/2300-11397_3-6239730-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

Using Light to Hide

Below links to an article about how the military is using lights to reduce the visibility of objects in the sky. There are also hints that other spectrum beyond visible light are being manipulated as well.

Read on-

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/invisible-drone.html

China Uses India as a Punching Bag for Cyber Warfare Drills

I suspect China is waging a quiet cyberwar against India as testing for a larger potential cyber engagement with the U.S.

Read more [HERE].

Sourced from the Wired Defense Blog

Vigilante Robot Patrols Bar Parking Lot

Well, maybe not as glamourous as the picture, but still armed with a spot light and a water cannon, read below about an ex-marine's vigilante robot's battles against vagrants.
Robot Vigilante

Professor's Team Publishes 200,000+ Books Using AI

A professor, with the help of a few programmers and a computer grid, has come up with various algorithims that scower publically available information on a given subject and then through an automated process produce a book on that subject. Pretty cool. I guess in the works is an automated romance novel maker. Is techno music next?

Read more here-

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/business/media/14link.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5124&en=12d5e7b40bbb1a09&ex=1365825600&partner=digg&exprod=digg

Sourced from Digg.

P.S. Another interesting thing about this article is that is talks about BookSurge.com, Amazon's publish on demand publishing service that anyone can use.

F-117 Stealth Fighter Bids Fairwell

Another Cold War American technological marvel, the F-117 Stealth Fighter, heads for the history books.

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_8979043?source=most_emailed

Source: Zonker at Slashdot

The Internet II...Reality or Fluff?

Well, the next generation of the internet, called imaginatively "The Grid", is on its way. Essentially a parallel network of academics and corps that uses internet technology but with all fibre optic cables and new switches is how the grid is described.

Will this network replace the internet? I doubt it, but the internet, over time, will be upgraded to the tech standard of the Grid.

Read more here-

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece

Terminator Like "Mule" Is Born

I think Skynet's dog was just built. Check it out.




I found this over at http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/video-robo-mule.html

Good For Sony: No Porn on Blu Ray

As described in [this] article, Sony has decided to not allow Porn on Blu Ray disk. More reason to buy products from this Honorable company.

The New Media Further Solidifies: Jackass 2.5 Set for Internet Release

This popped up on my radar today and I almost overlooked it. Upon further reflection though I realized this was significant. What am I talking about? A movie being released not direct to video...not direct to DVD...but direct to interent. I take this is a sign of things to come, though I predict we are really more like 8 years out on this then 2, but more an more of these type of releases will show up as time goes by.

Jackass 2.5 is being set for direct to internet release, a further sign of the new media's maturation.

Read more [HERE].

I found the link on www.drudgereport.com

Lifespan of Worms Increased

This article from blog.wired.defense is actually pretty interesting. It talks about one DoD funded scientist that is doing some interesting experiments that have yielded significant life span increases in simple organisms, along with other possible ways to save wounded soldiers by putting them in a suspended animation state.

In the Bible you hear about people living to be 800 years old. Most Christians put that off as myth, others explain it with voodoo science. Maybe something along the lines of what this researcher is into, if the environment on earth was much different before the flood, might explain things.

Regardless, the article is worth a read.

The Little Plane That Could: First Production T-38 Trainer Goes Into Retirement

This little plane, the T-38 supersonic trainer, has proven to be a very successful design that has been around for 45+ years. The first one ever to roll off the production line ended service recently after a career spanning from 1962 - 2007. You may have seen it flying close to an X-plane or monitoring a space shuttle as it landed. The humble plane probably trained hundred of pilots and numerous astronauts. Quiet a career.

Read more about the Talon [HERE].

Read more about the retirement ceremony for the first T-38 [HERE].

A Flaw in Moore's Law: Demand

Moore's Law is the observation that computer processing power tends to double every two years. This has seemed to hold true for the last 40 years or so, but I think that in the next couple of years, at least as far as home computers are concerned, Moore's Law will not hold true.

Here are 3 reasons why I think Moore's law will not hold up for Home Computers.

1) Home computers are becoming less and less the platform of choice for gaming. Consoles are now more popular then ever, and the PC gaming industry is feeling the punch. Does this mean PC games will go away? No, but it does mean that the bigger game developers will focus more and more on console game development, and PC gaming will become more of a niche thing (MMORPG, Indie developers). So, the need for PC's to have ever increasing processor and graphics power will not end, but it will slow.

2) Most home computer users use their computers to web surf, pirate music and movies, check email, instant message, and write a document every once in a while. We have approached a point now where operating systems and computer horsepower are more then enough to handle these tasks. Do consumers really need to update their computers every two or three years when their five year old machine is more then enough to handle these tasks? Probably not.

3) There are more and more internet enabled appliances that will compete with PC's for use for interent surfing, emailing, and instant messaging. These appliances are generally smaller and more connected through cellular networks then say a laptop, so these appliances are becoming more and more the communications medium of choice for younger people as opposed to PC's.

So these three factors, the slow down of the PC gaming industry, current PC's reaching the point where they can perform common task more then adequately fore the foreseeable future, and mobile devices competing with PC's as a communication device, all will create the perfect storm to slow down the home and to a lesser degree business demand for new personal computers. Thus we should see the investments in developing new processing power for PC's also slow somewhat, possibly making Moore's law no longer a law in the PC realm.

Apparently, the market slow down is already happening in Japan, which could be an indicator of a future global trend.

Read more about the PC market slow down in Japan [HERE].

Read more about Moore's law [HERE].

Programmable Matter

This is wild. My Father forwarded this one to me, a request by a DoD agency to begin researching "programmable matter". Apparently some pretty smart people think this is feasible. The future is here...just a while ago I believe I blogged on teleportation. I guess they have teleported molecules small distances, and I also read about a successful light bending technique used for invisibility the other day. The technology is in its very early stages, but on a molecular level they have succeeded in a "2-D" invisibility screen in front of particles.

So now we have on the horizon faster then light communication and computation, teleportation, invisibility, electromagnetic screens/armor, and now programmable matter.

Looks like Scotty one day will be able to whip up some Scottish meal out of thin air in the mess hall of the future.

Read more about the solicitation for RND in programmable matter [HERE].

Cool But Scary: Insect Sized UAV's Spotted in New York

It looks like the Man already has insect sized UAV's and is testing them out on the streets of New York, if [this] wired article is to be believed.

Awesomely cool, unless you are one of those civil rights freaks that is worried that it is becoming easier for the government to constantly survey it's citizens, from where you web surf, to how they spend their money, what they watch on TV, and now real time video surveillance. What's to worry about? Actually much, not so much now, but down the road. Like it or not, we are headed to and in many ways are already in a surveillance society. Watch your data shadow...but make sure you have one, because if you don't that comes up too.

It is good to see the guys at the wired defense blog are blogging about something interesting instead of their usual whining about Blackwater.

640 Gig Flash Drive?

4sysops reports that a Utah based startup (yes...Utah) will release 640 gig flash memory drives next year. They will be about 100x more expensive then conventional hard drives when they initially come out, but expect that price to drop.

I'd say we are about 5 years out before flash memory drives become standard.

Read more [HERE].