A robot that can “decide” to harm humans is the latest attempt to provoke debate about artificial intelligence. But it’s debatable whether there’s any intelligence involved. The “First Law” robot is the work of Alexander Reben, a designer at University of Berkely, California who “designs robots and novel interfaces to explore our evolving relationship with technology.” […]
Designs for prosthetic arms based on Deus Ex are to be released royalty-free for use on 3D printers. It follows a man receiving an arm based on Metal Gear Solid. While the MGS arm was a high-tech one-off sponsored by Konami and designed by an artist, the Deus Ex arms will be manufactured by the […]
The built in navigation systems in many Lexus vehicles have been hit by a “purple screen of death.” Despite some initial excitement, the problem appears to be a failed software update rather than hacking. While reports from owners are mixed, it appears the problem may affect all Lexi (to give the correct plural) from 2014 […]
South Korean train passengers no longer need risk the embarrassment of mistakenly implying a woman is pregnant. A pilot program uses wireless sensors to trigger a light when a pregnant woman approaches a seat. The ‘Pink Light’ program in Busan involves the women carrying a small beacon that runs for six months on a single […]
A Google artificial intelligence project has written a mediocre piano melody. It’s definitely a case of the process being more interesting than the product. The project, Magenta, is part of Google Brain which is the company’s machine learning department. Magenta is an attempt to advance machine learning beyond understanding content to creating art and music. […]
Periscope is to ask users to act as a “flash jury” to decide if comments are abusive. There’s no word on whether parent company Twitter will adopt the idea. The move is designed to deal with the problem of navigating the spectrum between clear-cut cases of abusive content, more debatable cases, and incidents where the […]
Linus Torvalds transformed technology twice — first with the Linux kernel, which helps power the Internet, and again with Git, the source code management system used by developers worldwide. In a rare interview with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Torvalds discusses with remarkable openness the personality traits that prompted his unique philosophy of work, engineering and […]
![By Qurren (Qurren's file) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i1.wp.com/www.geeksaresexy.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/eightinch.jpg?resize=180%2C180&ssl=1)
A US government report has revealed that the Pentagon uses floppy disks as part of the communications network used for issuing nuclear strike commands. The revelation is part of an urgent call for the government to update its ageing technology. The disks in question aren’t the 3.5″ ones in a rigid case that many of […]
Google reportedly plans to draw public attention to manufacturers that take too long to roll out Android updates. It may publicly release an internal ranking of which companies lag behind. One of the big drawbacks of Android being an open system that can be modified and implemented in many ways (and on varying hardware) is the […]
A major electronic ink company says its found a way to produce life-like color displays. The catch is that for now at least it’s more suited to signs than e-readers. The news comes from E Ink, the company that first commercialized electronic ink and created the screens for several early e-reader models including some Kindles. The […]
A British university says courts could one day use virtual reality to let jurors “visit” a crime scene. There’s no sign of the technology being adopted any time soon however. Dr Caroline Sturdy Colis will lead a project using chromakey (green screen) displays and VR headsets produced by Valve to recreate a scene. The idea would […]
Google says its modular smartphone Project Ara won’t be quite as modular as planned. Several key components will be non-replaceable, including the screen and memory. The original plan for Ara — or at least the concept Google initially explored — was that literally every part of the handset could be replaced, Lego style. Google has […]