Tag: technology

Humanoid Robot Goes Full Skynet After “Imperfect Coding”

A Unitree Robotics H1 humanoid robot, developed and produced in Hangzhou, China, was seen exhibiting “erratic behavior” in a video circulating on X.

Footage circulating on X, shared by one user, alleged the incident was caused by “imperfect coding.”

“If you buy Chinese stuff, it might all end up like this… They might even deliberately make it this way to harm people...” the X user said.

Unitree’s H1 robot is listed for $90,000 on its website. A note underneath the price reads: “Not include customs duties. Please comply with local customs laws, pay customs duties, and clear the goods.” 

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The Next Phase Of Surveillance? Getting Under Your Skin

AI and transhumanism: Hackable animals

My friends, let me introduce you to Yuval Noah Harari, a man chock-full of big ideas. He explained during the COVID crisis:

“COVID is critical because this is what convinces people to accept, to legitimize, total biometric surveillance. If we want to stop this epidemic, we need not just to monitor people, we need to monitor what’s happening under their skin.”

In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Harari repeated this idea: “What we have seen so far is corporations and governments collecting data about where we go, who we meet, what movies we watch.

The next phase is the surveillance going under our skin … He likewise told India Today, when commenting on changes accepted by the population during COVID-19:

“We now see mass surveillance systems established even in democratic countries which previously rejected them, and we also see a change in the nature of surveillance. Previously, surveillance was mainly above the skin; now we want it under the skin.

“Governments want to know not just where we go or who we meet. They want to know what’s happening under our skin: what is our body temperature; what is our blood pressure; what is our medical condition?”

Harari is clearly a man who wants to … get under your skin. He just might succeed.

Another recent interview finds him waxing philosophical:

“Now humans are developing even bigger powers than ever before. We are really acquiring divine powers of creation and destruction. We are really upgrading humans into gods. We are acquiring, for instance, the power to re-engineer human life.”

As Kierkegaard once said of Hegel when he talks about the Absolute, when Harari talks about the future, he sounds like he’s going up in a balloon.

Forgive me, but a few last nuggets from professor Harari will round out the picture of his philosophy, and his lofty hopes and dreams:

“Humans are now hackable animals. You know, the whole idea that humans have this soul or spirit, and they have free will and nobody knows what’s happening inside me, so, whatever I choose, whether in the election or in the supermarket, that’s my free will — that’s over.”

Harari explains that to hack human being, you need a lot of computing power and a lot of biometric data, which was not possible until recently with the advent of AI.

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New York Is Quietly Rolling Out Precrime Surveillance Tech

Picture this: it’s rush hour in New York City. A guy in a Mets cap mutters to himself on the F train platform, pacing in tight circles. Nearby, a woman checks her phone five times in ten seconds. Overhead, cameras are watching. Behind the cameras? A machine. And behind that machine? An army of bureaucrats who’ve convinced themselves that bad vibes are now a crime category.

Welcome to the MTA’s shiny new plan for keeping you safe: an AI surveillance system designed to detect “irrational or concerning conduct” before anything happens. Not after a crime. Not even during. Before. The sort of thing that, in less tech-horny times, might’ve been called “having a bad day.”

MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper, the man standing between us and a future where talking to yourself means a visit from the NYPD, is calling it “predictive prevention.”

“AI is the future,” Kemper assured the MTA’s safety committee.

So far, the MTA insists this isn’t about watching you, per se. It’s watching your behavior. Aaron Donovan, MTA spokesperson and professional splitter of hairs, clarified: “The technology being explored by the MTA is designed to identify behaviors, not people.”

And don’t worry about facial recognition, they say. That’s off the table. For now. Just ignore the dozens of vendors currently salivating over multimillion-dollar public contracts to install “emotion detection” software that’s about as accurate as your aunt’s horoscope app.

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Scientists spark major breakthrough with ‘blanket’ that makes rivers drinkable: ‘We are the only ones who have made these structures’

Ohio State University researchers have developed a way to supercharge titanium oxide nanoparticles, creating a light-absorbing blanket that can clean water and generate power.

The process starts with electrospinning — a method of applying electrical force to create small fibers — in order to develop fiber-like strips of titanium dioxide (TiO2). This material is often used in solar cells, gas sensors, and various self-cleaning technologies, as the school reported.

The power generation abilities of TiO2 have previously been limited since the necessary chemical reactions only occur through the use of non-visible UV light.

Following the addition of copper, however, these new nanomat structures are able to absorb enough light energy to break down pollutants in air and water, according to Professor Pelagia-Iren Gouma, the lead author of this study.

“There hasn’t been an easy way to create something like a blanket that you can lay on water and start creating energy,” she said. “But we are the only ones who have made these structures and the only ones to demonstrate that they actually work.”

When it absorbs light, the report explained, TiO2 forms electrons that oxidize water and break down pollutants until they’re benign. The addition of copper was able to supercharge the process and optimize the material’s effectiveness.

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A Newly Discovered Algorithm in Wisconsin Voter File is Indisputable Evidence of Criminal Election Fraud

Andrew Paquette, Ph.D., has discovered a never-before-seen algorithm in the Wisconsin Election Commission’s (WEC) voter registration database, leaving no doubt someone has penetrated the WEC’s computer system to impose a criminal reordering on the voter files. This finding alone should draw the attention of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel. Yet, to date, we see no action whatsoever from the DOJ or the FBI investigating criminal election fraud.

Paquette first observed that the WEC voter role had an unusually high number of voter records that ended in zero. Assuming that the WEC voter roll assigned voter ID numbers sequentially, without breaks or outside manipulation, records ending in 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 should appear with equal distribution. As seen in Table 1, voter records ending in zero occurred in 30.6 percent of the voter records, while those ending in numbers 1 through 9 ended with each number appearing equally at 7.7 percent of the time.

Paquette was at a loss to explain this irregularity until he realized that every voter ID record ending in zero had two different Wisconsin voters assigned the same voter ID number. In searching the database, Paquette confirmed that in every case where the same voter ID number was assigned to two different voters, the voter record ended in zero.

We have labeled the two voter IDs tied to WEC voter records ending in zero as “doubles,” a term devised to distinguish this phenomenon from the “modified duplicates” that Paquette previously found in the WEC voter database. “Modified duplicates” involve making multiple voter records for the same voter, which can be done, for instance, by assigning a different birthdate or address to each duplicated record. Because duplicated voters each have different dates of birth or other addresses, the “modified duplicates” appear to be different people.

The point of the “modified duplicate” scheme is to create false voters, all of whom nevertheless get legitimate state voter ID numbers. The non-existent “multiple duplicate” voters can then be hidden back in the voter role, identifiable to the criminals by “algorithm locator numbers,” so they are available for use in fraudulent mail-in ballot schemes.

Why the “doubles” scheme assigns the same voter ID number to two different voters is more difficult to figure out. What is also not clear is whether one or both of the “doubles” are real voters or if both of the “doubles” voters could be fictitious.

A scheme this complicated must operate through a computer algorithm that creates “doubles” for every voter ID record ending in zero in a WEC database of over 7 million voters. That is, whatever rule is applied to pick the two voters who constitute the “doubles” in a database with over 7 million voters needs an algorithm if the scheme is to be applied, monitored, and updated on an ongoing basis.

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State Bar of California Makes ‘Staggering Admission’

The State Bar of California has disclosed that some multiple-choice questions in a problem-plagued bar exam were developed with the aid of artificial intelligence. The legal licensing body said in a news release that it will ask the California Supreme Court to adjust test scores for those who took its February bar exam.

  • “The debacle that was the February 2025 bar exam is worse than we imagined,” Mary Basick, assistant dean of academic skills at the University of California, Irvine, Law School, told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m almost speechless. Having the questions drafted by non-lawyers using artificial intelligence is just unbelievable.”
  • In February, the new exam led to complaints after many test-takers were unable to complete their bar exams. The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags and error messages, and could not copy and paste text, the Times reported earlier.
  • According to a recent presentation by the State Bar, 100 of the 171 scored multiple-choice questions were made by the company Kaplan Exam Services and 48 were drawn from a first-year law students exam, the AP reports. A smaller subset of 23 scored questions were made by ACS Ventures, the State Bar’s psychometrician, and developed with artificial intelligence.
  • “It’s a staggering admission,” says Katie Moran, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who specializes in bar exam preparation. “The State Bar has admitted they employed a company to have a non-lawyer use AI to draft questions that were given on the actual bar exam,” she says. “They then paid that same company to assess and ultimately approve of the questions on the exam, including the questions the company authored.”

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Florida bill would let homeowners use ‘reasonable force’ against drones

Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would permit homeowners to use “reasonable force” against drones — likely sparked by last year’s uptick in sightings of mysterious unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Keith L. Truenow (R) last month, was placed on the Florida Senate’s legislative calendar on April 16.

Constituents across the U.S. have signaled discontent with the federal response, prompting more questions on where the drones originated and how they could be regulated. The Biden administration stressed that the UAVs were not a threat to national security or operated by foreign adversaries.

President Trump earlier this year said he would look into the drone spotting, but he ruled they were “not the enemy” and likely authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or belonged to hobbyists.

The Sunshine State legislation seeks to change property owners’ guidelines for unmanned aircraft that remain suspended above their own land. It has already cleared several committees despite potential conflicts with federal law.

The FAA prevents people from shooting down drones even if they are hovering above their personal property.

“A private citizen shooting at any aircraft – including unmanned aircraft – poses a significant safety hazard,” the agency’s website reads. “An unmanned aircraft hit by gunfire could crash, causing damage to persons or property on the ground, or it could collide with other objects in the air.”

“Shooting at an unmanned aircraft could result in a civil penalty from the FAA and/or criminal charges from federal, state or local law enforcement,” it adds.

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Chinese Spies Bugging Park Benches, Pubs Near UK Gov’t Offices: Report

Chinese spies have planted surveillance throughout central London, including on park benches and pubs near Westminster, to eavesdrop on British political figures, a report has claimed.

Government sources have reportedly informed the Mail on Sunday that Chinese bugging devices have been discovered in popular areas frequented by civil servants and government researchers.

Such areas allegedly include the popular Red Lion pub, situated just steps away from the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street. A government source told the paper that the historic pub, which stands on the grounds of a 15th-century medieval tavern, is “full of Chinese agents”.

Other targets of Beijing’s dragnet reportedly ranged from five-star hotels to even benches in St James’s Park, located between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, and close to major government departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Treasury.

A government source told the paper: “We have been told the Chinese literally have the park bugged, with devices in the bushes and under park benches.”

“Commons researchers are regarded by the Chinese, and other spies including the Russians and Iranians, as the soft underbelly of Whitehall,” said one source.

It is said to be thought that Communist China is particularly interested in lower-level civil servants, researchers and junior staffers to parliamentarians, who Beijing sees as the “soft underbelly” of the UK state. Many such staffers often frequent the Red Lion pub or have lunch in St James Park.

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‘Cyborg 1.0’: World’s First Robocop Debuts With Facial Recognition And 360° Camera Vision

Thailand has debuted the world’s first ‘Robocop’ designed to detect and prevent crime with advanced AI.

Equipped with 360-degree cameras for eyes, the cutting-edge cyborg maintains constant surveillance with real-time monitoring. The robocop, named Police Colonel Nakhonpathom Plod Phai, meaning “Nakhonpathom is safe,” was unveiled during the Songkran festival in Nakhon Pathom province on Wednesday. The debut was announced via a Facebook post by the Royal Thai Police, according to a report by The Sun.

The robocop is also able to detect weapons, such as knives and wooden batons. In neighboring China, humanoid robots have started supporting police patrols.

Interesting Engineering reports:

In Shenzhen, PM01 model robots developed by EngineAI have been deployed alongside officers, wearing high-visibility police vests. These robots have been seen engaging with pedestrians—waving, shaking hands, and responding to voice commands—according to local media reports. A recent video shows a PM01 robot waving to a crowd, sparking curiosity about its purpose in law enforcement.

First launched in December 2024, the PM01 features agile mobility, an interactive touchscreen, and an open-source platform. This design allows developers worldwide to contribute to its evolution by adding new features and capabilities through secondary development.

Last year, Logon Technology, a Chinese robotics company, unveiled the RT-G autonomous spherical robot, described as a “technological breakthrough,” with an army of these spherical robocops spotted rolling through cities across China, The Sun said. The robocop’s debut underscores the growing importance of robot technology. During Tesla’s Q1 2025 All-Hands meeting, CEO Elon Musk revealed the the company is preparing aiming to begin the production of its own humanoid, Optimus, this year.

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White House Science Chief Says US Can “Manipulate Time and Space” — Trump Hints at Secret Weapons “No One Knows About”

In a bold and somewhat cryptic statement that’s turning heads and raising eyebrows across the globe, White House tech chief Michael Kratsios claimed the United States has cutting-edge technology capable of ‘manipulating time and space.’

Kratsios, who serves as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, made the comment during a keynote speech at the Endless Frontiers Retreat in Austin, Texas.

Just weeks into his new role, Kratsios wasted no time painting a picture of American innovation that, if true, would in all likelihood place us light-years ahead of our global competitors.

“We seem to have lost focus and vision, to have lowered our sights and let systems and structures and bureaucracies muddle us along. But we are capable of so much more. Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance, violated, cause things to grow and improve productivity,” Kratsios said.

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