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Dawn Launch Coverage
[Launch Coverage] | [Commentary] 2:10 AM PST Too early! But despite the small hours of the morning here I am very excited for the big launch of the Dawn spacecraft planned for this morning. NASA TV playing in Windows Media Player, the oven heating for some waffles, and a groggy yet excited brain…here we go!…
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Dawn Prepares for Launch
Despite a 24-hour delay, preparations continue for the launch later this week of the Dawn spacecraft to explore two members of the Asteroid Belt. Dawn is now scheduled to be launched between 7:25 and 7:54 AM EDT on Thursday, September 27, 2007 after weather today interrupted the planned completion of launch vehicle fueling. The spacecraft…
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Reorientation and Shear Heating on Enceladus
In 2005 Saturn’s moon Enceladus was discovered to be an active world with water ice particle geysers at its south pole. The driver of this activity on a moon so small remains a mystery. One possible explanation has been suggested by Dr. Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist from the University of California Santa Cruz. Nimmo…
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Star Trek: Odyssey – “Illiad”
Notable for its use of green-screen technology to place actors in interesting Star Trek settings, a diverse cast, and gay and lesbian subplots, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier was successful enough to warrant a spin-off: Star Trek: Odyssey.
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Bionic Woman (2007)
NBC’s Bionic Woman is both a disaster and an insult in a long history of anti-technology storytelling.
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SENS3 and the Anchor Pub and Crap Documentaries
[Guest Post] I waddled into the Anchor Pub and there was Aubrey with a beer. He asked what I was drinking and I said “One of those” and pointed at his beer and soon had one because he brought me one and I was very tired and very merry and surrounded by excellent comrades. I…
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SENS3 – still processing
[Guest Post] I’ve been back from SENS3 for five days, and my brain remains scrambled. In reporting it I can only ramble – as evidenced by last Friday’s H+ Club weekly meetup in Tucson, where I exploited the SENS3 online meeting program to linearize my desultory observations before a nicely crowded Tubac Room. As my…
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WIRED NextFest Wrap-up
Image Caption: WIRED NextFest Banner at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Fourth Annual WIRED NextFest in Los Angeles, California, USA this past weekend offered a glimpse of our technological future with a variety of themed pavilions exploring the future of exploration, entertainment, security, education, design, robotics, green technologies, communication, play, health, and transportation. WIRED…
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Google Lunar X PRIZE Announced
Image caption: X PRIZE Moon exhibit and logo at WIRED NextFest A robotic scavenger hunt to the moon is the next big space competition. The X PRIZE Foundation announced at Wired NextFest, along with representatives from Google, NASA, and one of the Apollo 11 astronauts, the Google Lunar X PRIZE. The largest incentive competition in…
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WIRED NextFest – Introduction
The fourth annual WIRED NextFest event begins today in Los Angeles, California. Running through Sunday, the event will feature technology exhibits and demonstrations. In addition, the X Prize Foundation will announce their new space prize. Thursday is Education Day, with 4th through 12th graders and their teachers filling the LA Convention Center for an early…
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Speaker: Paul Saffo
Paul Saffo from Stanford University is a forecaster and essayist. He explored AGI at the Singularity Summit 2007 in the context of popularization. Even as the public begins to join the AGI discussion, pessimism is popular right now. News reporting and commentary are lurid and pessimistic. Saffo suggested that what we need are positive and…
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Speaker: Dr. Ben Goertzel
Dr. Ben Goertzel is SIAI Director of Research and chief science officer and acting CEO of Novamente. He believes that with the right funding and capital, AGI could be developed in nine years. Novamente is approaching AGI development by focusing on virtual agents in virtual worlds like Second Life. Goertzel defined AGI as “the ability…
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Speaker: Neil Jacobstein
Neil Jacobstein, chairman and CEO of Teknowledge Corporation, spoke in the afternoon of day one of the Singularity Summit 2007. He presented information about where we stand today with AI and where we might be heading in the medium term. Specialized AI applications have existed for a number of years and often outperform humans. Jacobstein…
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Applauding Death
[Commentary] During the Singularity Summit 2007, one of the most unexpected moments came during a panel session on day one. Peter Voss and Dr. Stephen Omohundro sat down to answer questions from the audience after their own individual presentations. Voss had suggested during his talk that AGI could benefit health and longevity research. An audience…
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NanoBio 2007 Day Two Speaker: Dr. J. Storrs Hall
Dr. J. Storrs Hall is an independent scientist, inventor, and author. His most recent books are Nanofutures and Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine. Hall talked about what nanofactories could make. Hall believes that just as computers are getting ever cheaper and smarter, nanotechnology will follow the same timeline and price improvement track.…
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NanoBio 2007 Day Two Speaker: Tihamer Toth-Fejel
Tihamer Toth-Fejel is a senior research engineer at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, member of the advisory board for the Nanoethics Group, and a chair for the Society for Manufacturing Engineers Nanomanufacturing Technical Group. Toth-Fejel stated that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t make it.” Nanotech needs to follow these guidelines: Accuracy Precision Reliability,…
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NanoBio 2007 Day Two Speaker: Ralph Merkle
Dr. Ralph Merkle is a nanotechnology expert, Alcor Director, Zyvex Principal Fellow, and Foresight Institute adviser. He talked about health, wealth, and atoms. If you shuffle around the same atoms found in coal, you could get a diamond. Arranging atoms allows for greater precision, diversity, and lower manufacturing costs. Suppose that you can build anything…
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NanoBio 2007 Day Two Speaker: James Von Ehr II
James Von Ehr II is the founder and chairman of Zyvex Corporation. He is recognized as a respected leader in the nanotech industry and has received many awards. Zyvex was created in 1997 to develop molecular technology and has now spun off into four different companies: Zyvex: Instruments, Performance Materials, Labs, and Asia. Zyvex is…
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NanoBio 2007 Day Two Speaker: Dr. Nadrian Seeman
Dr. Nadrian Seeman received a B.S. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Biological Crystallography. He has published over 200 papers. He presented a talk entitled “It’s more than the secret of life: Building with DNA”. Seeman lamented that he is a working scientist, and therefore his work does not progress as fast as he would…
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NanoBio 2007 Day Two Speaker: Chris Phoenix
Chris Phoenix is CRN’s Director of Research and has studied nanotechnology for more than 15 years. He has a BS in Symbolic Systems and an MS in Computer Science. The following is paraphrased from Phoenix’s lecture “A History of Nanotechnology from 1959 to 2029”. Some people like to trace the field of nanotechnology to 1959…
Richard Leis
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