Tag: technology

THIS STARTUP IS DEVELOPING A FUSION PROPULSION DRIVE FOR DEEP SPACE TRAVEL THAT COULD REACH MARS IN JUST TWO MONTHS

Helicity Space, a startup founded in 2018, is developing a fusion drive poised to transform space travel. With a fresh round of investment, the company is developing a proof-of-concept for a fusion-powered propulsion system that can get from Earth to Mars in two months.

In a recent press release, the space-based startup recently secured $5 million in seed funding from Airbus Ventures, TRE Ventures, Voyager Space Holdings, E2MC Space, Urania Ventures, and Gaingels. 

Unlike traditional rockets that rely on chemical reactions, Helicity’s fusion drive operates on a magneto-inertial fusion method. This involves fusing two hydrogen isotopes into helium, releasing immense energy – ten million times more per unit mass than chemical fuels​​.

According to Helicity, the core technology behind their fusion drive efficiently converts electricity into plasma heating, using a unique approach to scale fusion conditions and directly produce thrust​​. Their method, distinct from conventional magnetic or inertial (laser) fusion, employs self-organized Taylor relaxation and magnetic reconnection physics, combined with a peristaltic magnetic compression scheme.

In very simple terms, the engine uses hot ionized plasma gas heated by magnetic fields that are constantly forced together to the point where they must then break apart. It is this seesaw of magnetic forces that generates vast amounts of energy, heating the plasma to the point where fusion occurs, forcing the nuclei so close that they overcome their electrostatic repulsion and fuse together. To simplify this even more, the energy created by that fusion is aimed out of the tailpipe of the Helicity Drive, and you generate a helluva lot of thrust.

So much so that it cuts the current seven or eight-month trip to Mars down to two, or the six-year trip to Jupiter down to just one.

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AlphV ransomware site is “seized” by the FBI. Then it’s “unseized.” And so on.

The FBI spent much of Tuesday locked in an online tug-of-war with one of the Internet’s most aggressive ransomware groups after taking control of infrastructure the group has used to generate more than $300 million in illicit payments to date.

Early Tuesday morning, the dark-web site belonging to AlphV, a ransomware group that also goes by the name BlackCat, suddenly started displaying a banner that said it had been seized by the FBI as part of a coordinated law enforcement action. Gone was all the content AlphV had posted to the site previously.

Around the same time, the Justice Department said it had disrupted AlphV’s operations by releasing a software tool that would allow roughly 500 AlphV victims to restore their systems and data. In all, Justice Department officials said, AlphV had extorted roughly $300 million from 1,000 victims.

An affidavit unsealed in a Florida federal court, meanwhile, revealed that the disruption involved FBI agents obtaining 946 private keys used to host victim communication sites. The legal document said the keys were obtained with the help of a confidential human source who had “responded to an advertisement posted to a publicly accessible online forum soliciting applicants for Blackcat affiliate positions.”

“In disrupting the BlackCat ransomware group, the Justice Department has once again hacked the hackers,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in Tuesday’s announcement. “With a decryption tool provided by the FBI to hundreds of ransomware victims worldwide, businesses and schools were able to reopen, and health care and emergency services were able to come back online. We will continue to prioritize disruptions and place victims at the center of our strategy to dismantle the ecosystem fueling cybercrime.”

Within hours, the FBI seizure notice displayed on the AlphV dark-web site was gone. In its place was a new notice proclaiming: “This website has been unseized.” The new notice, written by AlphV officials, downplayed the significance of the FBI’s action. While not disputing the decryptor tool worked for 400 victims, AlphV officials said that the disruption would prevent data belonging to another 3,000 victims from being decrypted.

“Now because of them, more than 3,000 companies will never receive their keys.”

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MACHINE LEARNING BREAKTHROUGH CREATES FIRST EVER AUTOMATED AI SCIENTIST

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have pioneered an artificially intelligent system, Coscientist, that can autonomously develop scientific research and experimentation. Published in the journal Nature, this non-organic intelligent system, developed by Assistant Professor Gabe Gomes and doctoral students Daniil Boiko and Robert MacKnight, is the first to design, plan, and execute a chemistry experiment autonomously. 

Utilizing large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude, Coscientist demonstrates an innovative approach to conducting research through a human-machine partnership​​​​.

Coscientist’s design enables it to perform various tasks, from planning chemical syntheses using public data to controlling liquid handling instruments and solving optimization problems by analyzing previously collected data. Its architecture consists of multiple modules, including web and documentation search, code execution, and experiment automation, coordinated by a central module called ‘Planner,’ a GPT-4 chat completion instance. This structure allows Coscientist to operate semi-autonomously, integrating multiple data sources and hardware modules for complex scientific tasks​​.

“We anticipate that intelligent agent systems for autonomous scientific experimentation will bring tremendous discoveries, unforeseen therapies, and new materials,” the research team wrote in the paper. “While we cannot predict what those discoveries will be, we hope to see a new way of conducting research given by the synergetic partnership between humans and machines.”

The system’s capabilities were tested across different tasks, demonstrating its ability to precisely plan and execute experiments. For instance, Coscientist outperformed other models like GPT-3.5 and Falcon 40B in synthesizing compounds, particularly complex ones like ibuprofen and nitroaniline. This highlighted the importance of using advanced LLMs for accurate and efficient experiment planning​​.

A key aspect of Coscientist is its ability to understand and utilize technical documentation, which has always been a challenge in integrating LLMs with laboratory automation. By interpreting technical documentation, Coscientist enhances its performance in automating experiments. This capability was extended to a more diverse robotic ecosystem, such as the Emerald Cloud Lab (ECL), demonstrating Coscientist’s adaptability and potential for broad scientific application​​.

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SCARY AI CAN LOOK AT PHOTOS AND FIGURE OUT EXACTLY WHERE THEY WERE TAKEN

A trio of Stanford graduate students have made a powerful AI that can guess the location of a wide variety of photos with remarkable accuracy.

Known as Predicting Image Geolocations (PIGEON), the AI is trained on Google Street View and can effortlessly pinpoint where photos were taken, even outwitting some of the best human “geoguessers.”

The developers claim their AI can correctly guess the country where a photo was taken 95 percent of the time, and usually within a startling 25 miles of the real location.

They also note some of its potentially game-changing applications, such as assisting in biological surveys or quickly identifying roads with downed power lines.

For all its very useful potential, though, it sounds like a privacy nightmare waiting to happen, with some experts fearing the abuse of such AI tools in the hands of the wrong people.

“From a privacy point of view, your location can be a very sensitive set of information,” Jay Stanley at the American Civil Liberties Union told NPR.

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China’s Spaceplane Has Released Multiple Mystery Objects In Orbit

China’s shadowy miniature spaceplane appears to have deployed at least six objects into orbit while conducting its latest mission, its third. The reusable space vehicle, which is understood to be broadly comparable to the U.S. Space Force’s X-37B, clearly has military applications, although the exact nature of its payloads remains mysterious.

The Chinese spaceplane, named Shenlong (meaning Divine Dragon), has placed the objects in Earth orbit since it was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on December 14. The existence of these objects has been confirmed by amateur spacecraft trackers.

The spaceplane itself is launched atop a traditional space launch rocket and is propelled into orbit using a secondary booster. It returns to Earth in an unpowered mode, much like the X-37B.

One amateur astronomer, Scott Tilley, told Space.com’s Brett Tingley that some of the objects — which have been named A, B, C, D, E, and F — seem to be transmitting signals. Tilley has described these objects as “mysterious wingmen,” a nod to the “loyal wingman” terminology used for the drones that operate collaboratively with piloted aircraft. The Shenlong, of course, is uncrewed.

Tilley also provided Space.com with details on the differences in transmissions between the objects, with Object A said to be sending small amounts of data, while Objects D and E seem to be only emitting “placeholder” signals, without accompanying data.

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DREAM CHASER SPACEPLANE IS GEARING UP TO HELP NASA DELIVER CARGO TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

An innovative new spaceplane cargo system is advancing toward its first delivery to the International Space Station (ISS), as one of NASA’s commercial partners providing resupply services.

The Dream Chaser spaceplane, designed by Colorado-based Sierra Space, is an uncrewed cargo spacecraft that is expected to carry out its first demonstration mission next year, NASA said in a news release.

Currently the only commercial runway-capable spaceplane, the reusable cargo system comprises two components, the Dream Chaser, a lifting body spacecraft, and its cargo module, Shooting Star. The system, a modified HL-20 spacecraft, is designed for reuse as many as 15 times and can be prepared for launch in as little as 24 hours.

Dream Chaser’s first flight will undertake in-orbit demonstrations next year to help Sierra Space and its partners at NASA gauge its readiness for future resupply missions. Flight controllers with Sierra Space will oversee the launch, with assistance and support from NASA personnel and the agency’s launch facilities.

At the time of launch, Dream Chaser’s wings are folded within five-meter fairing panels that are jettisoned once they reach orbit, which protect the spacecraft while being carried to orbit on board a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket.

On its way to the ISS, Dream Chaser’s wings are deployed, as well as solar arrays on its cargo module, Shooting Star, which can deliver pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the ISS, as well as retrieve it and bring it back to Earth. The cargo module is disposable, and after each use, it can be jettisoned before reentry.

Before entering joint operations with NASA Mission Control in Houston, Dream Chaser will first demonstrate attitude control, abort capabilities, and other crucial maneuvers well beyond the vicinity of the ISS during initial test phases. These will be followed by near-field demonstrations, which will feature sensor systems and response commands that test its ability to maneuver within proximity to the space station before ultimately being cleared to approach it.

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Amazon Fires Up Its Space Lasers 

A shoot-out featuring thousands of lasers is about to break out in low earth orbit. Luckily, no one will get hurt—the lasers’ targets are the protagonists’ own communications satellites.

Amazon has just announced that two of its prototype internet satellites equipped with infrared lasers transferred data at 100 gigabits per second over a distance of nearly 1000 kilometers. The company says all of its upcoming 3236 Project Kuiper satellites will include such interlinks, forming a high-speed mesh network to route data around the world.

SpaceX’s rival Starlink system, which already boasts over 1.5 million customers including the Ukrainian military, has been experimenting with optical interlinks for about a year. It recently claimed to have more than 8,000 space lasers on its newest generation of satellites, which began launching earlier this year.

Now the race is on to build the first complete optical inter-satellite link (OISL) constellation, at a price that’s competitive with terrestrial 5G and fiber networks.

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AI gives birth to AI: Scientists say machine intelligence now capable of replicating without humans

Artificial intelligence models can now create smaller AI systems without the help of a human, according to research published Friday by a group of scientists who said the project was the first of its kind.

Essentially, larger AI models — like the kind that power ChatGPT — can create smaller, more specific AI applications that can be used in everyday life, a collaboration between Aizip Inc. and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several University of California campuses demonstrated. Those specialized models could help improve hearing aids, monitor oil pipelines and track endangered species.

“Right now, we’re using bigger models to build the smaller models, like a bigger brother helping [its smaller] brother to improve. That’s the first step towards a bigger job of self-evolving AI,” Yan Sun, CEO of the AI tech company Aizip, told Fox News. “This is the first step in the path to show that AI models can build AI models.”

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Eye-Ball Scanning Digital ID Company Worldcoin Integrates With Reddit, Telegram, and More

Worldcoin, the eye-ball scanning protocol co-founded by Sam Altman, is cracking open a wider integration network by adding support for platforms such as Minecraft, Reddit, Telegram, Shopify, and Mercado Libre to its World ID offering. This comes on the back of the cohesive upgrades it has already sealed with Discord, Talent Protocol, and Okta’s Auth0.

Digital ID systems, like the one used by WorldCoin, raise significant privacy concerns due to the sensitive nature of the biometric data they collect and store. The other issue is that identity becomes immutable.

Consider a scenario where your digital identity becomes inaccessible, perhaps due to regulatory action or technical issues. In conventional financial systems, including traditional cash and most cryptocurrencies, you can simply create a new wallet and start over. However, with systems tied to unique biometric identifiers, such as iris scans, you can’t easily replace your identity. Unlike a plot from a science fiction movie, obtaining a new iris scan is not a feasible option.

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WORLD’S FIRST SUPERCOMPUTER THAT WILL RIVAL THE HUMAN BRAIN TO BE UNLEASHED IN 2024

Researchers in Australia are developing the world’s first supercomputer capable of simulating networks at a scale comparable to the human brain, which they say will be complete by next year.

The remarkable supercomputer, which its creators call DeepSouth, is a neuromorphic system designed to be capable of simulating the efficiency of biological processes, achieved with hardware that emulates large networks of spiking neurons at an astounding 228 trillion synaptic operations each second.

The human brain is remarkable for its efficiency. Capable of processing the equivalent of one billion-billion mathematical operations per second, known as an exaflop, each second while only using 20 watts of power, researchers have long hoped to be able to replicate the way our brains process information.

Under development by a research team at Western Sydney University, Australia, the astounding 228 trillion synaptic operations per second that DeepSouth is expected to be capable of will not only rival the capabilities of the human brain, but also pave the way toward the future creation of synthetic brains that may exceed the remarkable capabilities ours possess.

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