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Archive for the ‘computing’ category: Page 761

Apr 18, 2016

Implanted Medical Devices Save Our Lives And Tempt Computer Hackers

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, cyborgs, health, internet, mobile phones, neuroscience, security

All true and good points. Until the under pinning technology and net infrastructures are update; all things connected will mean all things hackable.


Medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps will save many lives, but they also represent an opportunity to computer hackers who would use the Internet to cause havoc. Former futurist-in-residence at the FBI, Marc Goodman says it is easy to take for granted how connected we’ve already become to the Internet. Most American adults keep their phones within arm’s reach all day, and keep their devices on their nightstand while they sleep — and forget about actually remembering people’s phone numbers. That is a job we have outsourced to machines.

In this sense, says Goodman, we are already cyborgs. But digital devices connected to the Internet will continue to move inside our bodies, just as pacemakers and insulin pumps have. In his interview, Goodman discusses cases of computer hackers taking advantage of these devices’ connectivity to show how vulnerable we could soon become to their potentially destructive wishes. In one case, a hacker demonstrated he could release several weeks of insulin into a diabetic’s body, certain to cause a diabetic coma and death. In another, hackers induced epileptic seizures by hacking the Epilepsy Foundation’s webpage.

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Apr 18, 2016

Quantum computing closer as researchers drive towards first quantum data bus

Posted by in categories: computing, nanotechnology, quantum physics

Australia’s Quantum Data Bus; nice. We’re getting closer and within the next 7 years we will more than likely have quantum in mainstream computing at this rate.


RMIT University researchers have trialled a quantum processor capable of routing quantum information from different locations in a critical breakthrough for quantum computing.

The work opens a pathway towards the “quantum data bus”, a vital component of future quantum technologies.

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Apr 18, 2016

Will Quantum Encryption Arrive Before Quantum Computers Break All Our Passwords?

Posted by in categories: computing, encryption, engineering, quantum physics

Australia is making great strides in this area as well.


Scientists are racing to deploy foolproof quantum encryption before quantum computers come along that render all our passwords useless.

Passwords work today because the computers we have, while theoretically capable of breaking passwords, would take an impractical amount of time to do so.

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Apr 16, 2016

Novel miniaturized circulator opens way to doubling wireless capacity

Posted by in categories: computing, internet, military

Re-inventing the integrated circuit.


Since the advent of the integrated circuit in 1958, the same year the Advanced Research Projects Agency was established, engineers have been jamming ever more microelectronic integration into ever less chip real estate. Now it has become routine to pack billions of transistors onto chips the size of fingernails.

DARPA (the D for Defense was first added in 1972) has played key roles in this ongoing miracle of miniaturization, giving rise to new and sometimes revolutionary military and civilian capabilities in domains as diverse as communication, intelligence gathering, and optical information processing. ‎Now a DARPA-funded team has drastically miniaturized highly specialized electronic components called circulators and for the first time integrated them into standard silicon-based circuitry. The feat could lead to a doubling of radiofrequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—meaning even faster web-searching and downloads, for example—as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.

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Apr 16, 2016

Micro spaceships powered by lasers to search for alien life

Posted by in categories: alien life, computing, internet, mobile phones, robotics/AI, space travel

Microscopic spaceships powered by Earth-based lasers are being developed to hunt for extra-terrestrial life in Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to ours.

The £70m Breakthrough Starshot concept involves creating a tiny robotic spacecraft, no larger than a mobile phone chip, which would carry cameras, thrusters, a power supply and navigation and communication equipment.

Physicist Stephen Hawking, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Russian internet billionaire Yuri Milner have all joined the project’s board giving it major backing.

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Apr 16, 2016

We have entered the age of the computer chip brain implant

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience

Yes; we have. BMIs are here; and only going to advance from here.


It’s a huge breathrough.

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Apr 16, 2016

Cyborgs Aren’t Just For Sci-Fi Anymore

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, cyborgs, engineering, neuroscience, transhumanism, wearables

Nthing new; nice to see more folks waking up.


We’re moving beyond just prosthetics and wearable tech. Soon, we’ll all by cyborgs in one way or another.

From The Six Million Dollar Man to Inspector Gadget to Robocop, humans with bionic body parts have become commonplace in fiction. In the real world, we use technology to restore functionality to missing or defective body parts; in science fiction, such technology gives characters superhuman abilities. The future of cyborgs may hinge on that distinction.

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Apr 16, 2016

Human Intuition Defeats Artificial Intelligence in Quantum Computing Game

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Quantum computing game creators find humans more capable than AI in solving complex problems.

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Apr 16, 2016

Trudeau stuns with perfect answer to quantum computing question

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Breaking the stereotype stigma; great article on CAN PM. I love it when folks break the boundaries and stereotypes that society often places on groups.


Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proved he’s more than just a pretty face when he wowed a room full of reporters and physicists with his knowledge of quantum computing.

The dashing politician was delivering his budget announcement at a press conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Waterloo in Ontario, when he was put on the spot by a journalist.

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Apr 15, 2016

WiFi capacity doubled at less than half the size

Posted by in categories: computing, internet, mobile phones, nanotechnology

“This technology could revolutionize the field of telecommunications,” says Krishnaswamy, director of the Columbia High-Speed and Mm-wave IC (CoSMIC) Lab. “Our circulator is the first to be put on a silicon chip, and we get literally orders of magnitude better performance than prior work. Full-duplex communications, where the transmitter and the receiver operate at the same time and at the same frequency, has become a critical research area and now we’ve shown that WiFi capacity can be doubled on a nanoscale silicon chip with a single antenna. This has enormous implications for devices like smartphones and tablets.”

Krishnaswamy’s group has been working on silicon radio chips for full duplex communications for several years and became particularly interested in the role of the circulator, a component that enables full-duplex communications where the transmitter and the receiver share the same antenna. In order to do this, the circulator has to “break” Lorentz Reciprocity, a fundamental physical characteristic of most electronic structures that requires electromagnetic waves travel in the same manner in forward and reverse directions.

“Reciprocal circuits and systems are quite restrictive because you can’t control the signal freely,” says PhD student Negar Reiskarimian, who developed the circulator and is lead author of the Nature Communications paper. “We wanted to create a simple and efficient way, using conventional materials, to break Lorentz Reciprocity and build a low-cost nanoscale circulator that would fit on a chip. This could open up the door to all kinds of exciting new applications.”

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