Chicago Gets Crime-Fighting Robots(CBS) CHICAGO - Chicago now has its own RoboCops just like in the movies. City officials are touting the arrival of three new robots the city will use to diffuse bombs.
As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, two of the three new crime fighters are joining the Chicago Police Department. They're state-of-the-art robots able to locate and disarm explosives with a raft of new features.
"What we see is the Chicago police and fire departments always leading in technology," said ... (more)
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Web inventor fears for the futureThe British developer of the world wide web says he is worried about the way it could be used to spread misinformation and "undemocratic forces".
The web has transformed the way many people work, play and do business.
But Sir Tim Berners-Lee told BBC News he feared that, if the way the internet is used is left to develop unchecked, "bad things" could happen.
He wants to set up a web science research project to study the social ... (more)
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Video: Samsung’s $200,000 Machine Gun Sentry RobotSamsung has partnered with Korea University to develop a machine-gun equipped sentry robot, which consists of “two cameras: one for day-time and one for infrared night vision, zooming capabilities, a speaker for notifying the intruder, sophisticated pattern recognition to detect the difference between humans/trees, and a 5.5mm machine-gun.”
…are expected to sell for $200,00 USD and will be available late in 2007. The South Korean government plans to ... (more)
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iRobot Unveils New Technology For Simultaneous Control Of Multiple RobotsiRobot has released the first public photo of a new project in development, code named Sentinel. This innovative new networked technology will allow a single operator to simultaneously control and coordinate multiple semi-autonomous robots via a touch-screen computer.
Funded by the U.S. Army's Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) program, the Sentinel technology includes intelligent navigation capabilities that enable the robots to reach a preset destination independently... (more)
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Regulating the Net: World discusses internet futureThe future of the net is the ambitious topic under discussion at the first global Internet Governance Forum, being held in Athens over the next five days.
It has been set up by the UN to give governments, companies, organisations and individuals space for debate.
Nitin Desai, chair of the organising body for IGF, has said the forum needed "dialogue in good faith".
He warned that the biggest challenge in making the IGF successful was a "potential cultu... (more)
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Robot Armies: Launching a new kind of warfareIn November 2004, during the second battle of Fallujah, an American uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) - a robot plane - located a mortar battery that had been hampering the US operation to retake the town.The mortar's position was logged by the UAV's operator, who was sitting at his desk in Nellis Air Force base near Las Vegas, thousands of miles away. Using the internet, the operator contacted the operator of another armed UAV at a desk in central command ("Centcom") - a safe area away from the the... (more)
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Airport security to get laser and microwave guns US AIRPORT security staff are going to be equipped with laser and microwave blasters batteries under a cunning plan being tested by Homeland Security.
According to defensetech.com, Homeland Security is to spend $4.1 million to test out Raytheon's "Vigilant Eagle" system at airports.
Apparently the department is worried that terrorists might get their paws on some ground to air rocket launchers and bring down aircraft.
The Vigilant Ea... (more)
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Germany licenses the InternetTHE GERMAN government has hit upon a wizard wheeze to milk the internet to pay for its "dull but precise" state-run television broadcasts.
According to Reuters, all 16 German states have voted in a new law that will require Internet users to pay a licence fee of €5.52(£3.70) a month for each computer and mobile phone that can connect to the internet.
At a meeting in the aptly named Bad Pyrmont, ministers decided that if you can see a television or radio p... (more)
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Germany Extends License Fees to Computers, Mobile PhonesGerman state premiers have agreed on a monthly license fee for computers that can access television and radio programs via the Internet. The move has attracted criticism.
German state premiers agreed on Thursday that any household or company that does not already have a license will have to pay the new levy of 5.52 euros ($6.92) monthly, which is the same as the one currently charged for radio access.
German households pay just over 17 euros ($21.31) a month to wat... (more)
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Pig-to-Human Transplants on the HorizonThousands of patients die every year in the United States waiting for a suitable donor organ. So surgery professor David Sachs has been trying to figure out how to successfully put a pig organ into a primate. The Massachusetts General Hospital researcher and clinician thinks he has almost found the right protocol: a combination of organs from miniaturized, genetically engineered pigs and pig immune tissue that can prime the primate immu... (more)
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TV Watching Tied To Autism, Study SaysResearchers from Cornell University said they have discovered a link between TV watching and autism.
The authors looked at county-by-county information on when cable TV entered an area, as well as precipitation rates.
The analysis showed that children from rainy counties watch more television and that areas with high precipitation also had higher autism rates.
"The analysis shows that early childhood television viewing could be an environmental trigge... (more)
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Subliminal advertising: The voice withinA funny thing happened at a concert hall in Liverpool recently, when two artists attempted to implant a subliminal message in the minds of their audience. Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard refuse to reveal the message, nor did they attempt to discover what effect it had on listeners. Instead, their aim was to recreate the atmosphere of 19th-century seances.
This pair of music-obsessed conceptualists came to fame with re-creations of seminal gigs, David Bowie's last appearance as Ziggy... (more)
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Neocons in Space: Pre-emptive War Goes InterplanetaryWelcome to a radical new vision of space and the future, from the same crowd that brought you Iraq. In a little-noted policy document, the Bush Administration has unilaterally declared its right to conduct pre-emptive attacks on foreign spacecraft and on any objects or installations that might support them from the ground. It has also declared its opposition to international treaties that might restrict space exploration to primarily peaceful purposes.
These policies could ha... (more)
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Jury Awards $11 Million Over Defamatory Internet PostsA Florida woman has been awarded $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud."
Legal analysts say the Sept. 19 award by a jury in Broward County, Fla. - first reported Friday by the Daily Business Review - represents the largest such judgment over postings on an Internet blog or message board. Lyrissa Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in ... (more)
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DoD group seeks to give autonomy to armed dronesA proposal, unveiled publicly in September but never before publicised, would give "armed autonomous systems" the authority to shoot to destroy hostile weapon systems but not suspected combatants. Accordingly, any people killed or injured in the attack would be considered the collateral damage of a successful strike on a legitimate target.
"If you stop and think about what this is, it really is a new paradigm for conducting warfare," John S Canning, a chief engineer at the Naval S... (more)
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Four top doctors arrested over illegal human experimentationFour senior doctors at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot and Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera suspected of illegally experimenting on humans were arrested Monday.
The national fraud squad has opened an investigation into the affair. The four are suspected of abuse, aggravated assault, causing death through negligence, fraud, forgery, breach of statutory duty, and disruption of legal proceedings.
The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Monday extended by three days the rem... (more)
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Coming soon! Nanotech on your desktopWithin 15 years, desktop nanofactories could pump out anything from a new car to a novel nanoweapon, says a technology commentator.
And he warns that society needs to start preparing for this brave new world.
Mike Treder from the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) in New York says advanced nanotechnology, like these nanofactories, could help solve world poverty but it could also wreak economic and social chaos.
"It's the biggest challenge we'... (more)
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Marine Scientists Report Massive "Dead Zones"Rising tides of untreated sewage and plastic debris are seriously threatening marine life and habitat around the globe, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned in a report Wednesday. The number of ocean "dead zones" has grown from 150 in 2004 to about 200 today, said Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesperson.
"These are becoming more common in developing countries," Nuttall told IPS from Nairobi, Kenya.
Dead zones can encompass areas of ocean 100,000 square k... (more)
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