Technology

The Largest Communication Antenna Ever Put Into Space Will Beam 4G Where Towers Won't

2011-01-23T15:21:00.001-08:00

SkyTerra Under Construction at Boeing Boeing

Boeing has received the first signals from SkyTerra 1, a communications satellite it built for LightSquared that was hurled into orbit aboard a Proton rocket launched from Kazakhstan yesterday. The satellite, which will provide signal coverage where terrestrial towers can’t reach, is part of a new LightSquared 4G-LTE mobile broadband wireless system and boasts the largest antenna reflector ever launched into space.
The mesh structure on SkyTerra 1 is an ultra-wide 72 feet across, and the increase in hardware up there should lead to space savings down here. The larger reflector will reduce the need to build bigger antennas and receivers into next-gen 4G devices, so a larger footprint in the sky translates into real estate savings in your pocket.
Boeing and Lightsquared will next initiate on-orbit maneuvers to move the 6-ton satellite into its geosynchronous orbit. It will be joined by SkyTerra 2 next year, and over the next 15 years will augment LightSquared’s ground coverage of North America, which should serve 90 percent of the U.S. population by 2015 under a deal inked with the FCC.

Kinect Camera Data Could Be Sold for Ad Targeting

2011-01-23T15:19:00.001-08:00

Kinect is Watching You Microsoft

When the multinational corporation began tempting us to purchase a network-connected camera to place in our living rooms, the Orwellian parts of us should have predicted this: Microsoft is hinting that it would like to use the Kinect to better target its content to users. That means gathering data from the camera – everything from basic demographics to what shirt you’re wearing – and use it to tailor its media offerings. That is, to better cater marketing to you by allowing marketers access to Kinect-driven data.
That’s not to say that Microsoft is toying with ideas that other companies like Facebook don’t already employ, nor does it mean your Kinect is spying on you right now (although it could be – it’s probably best just not to think about it). But at a conference last week Microsoft’s Dennis Durkin, a VP in the company’s interactive department, said at a conference he would like to use the Kinect to better target the media and advertising it presents to users.

Durkin's example: among people watching a sporting event, Kinect could differentiate between what jerseys they are wearing and deduce what team or teams they support (it would ostensibly do all this while also determining how many people are watching, the gender and age breakdown of the room, etc.). Advertisers could then target all or part of that group of people.

As DigitalTrends points out, that’s not so different from what Facebook ads do, though culling information from a public profile someone voluntarily puts on the Web is a bit different than watching someone watch TV in their skivvies at four in the morning.
Microsoft, in response, has made it clear that no data from the Kinect is being used for marketing purposes. But by toying with the idea that it might sometime in the future the company is more or less admitting that it could do so if it wanted to. This seems unlikely to go over well with privacy advocates, and may run afoul of President Obama’s new Internet privacy policy office, if and when one finally materializes.

President Obama Meets the Robots of Japan

2011-01-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

Obama and Fembot The commander-in-chief with a Geminoid F. NECN

Along with meeting heads of state and talking free trade, President Obama made some new friends at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit last week. Before entering a meeting in Japan, he met a Geminoid F robot and a group of yowling robotic seals.
In the video below, Obama bemusedly listens to a speech by a Geminoid, as robotic seals are heard mewling in the background. He talks to Takanori Shibata, the creator of Paro, and acknowledges the seal 'bots could be helpful in hospitals or other places in need of a pick-me-up. Is the commander-in-chief stressed out? He seems particularly taken with the seals.Finally, Obama takes a spin in Toyota's i-REAL personal mobility vehicle. He drives about an inch forward and almost leaps out when the machine suddenly tilts back.
We don't care how much the trip cost.

To Clear IEDs, a Secret High-Tech Beam Bypasses Triggers and Detonates Explosives Early

2011-01-23T15:05:00.001-08:00

The U.S. Army Clears an IED IEDs are the leading cause of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, but a new high-tech beam countermeasure could clear roadways of threats from a safe distance.

The U.S. military has been searching high and low for a technological answer to the relatively simple but extremely deadly improvised explosive device – the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan – and a relatively vague but interesting article in USA Today suggests they may have found it. According to the article, the military has been testing a secret high-tech beam that bypasses the explosive triggers of IEDs to detonate their payloads prematurely in Iraq since 2005, but researchers still have a ways to go to make the device battlefield-ready.
There are few details available about the highly classified technology, about which the Pentagon is remaining silent. USA Today describes it as a beam which “bypasses the triggering device of an IED and detonates its explosive.” As such, it can not only be used to detonate explosives on the ground, but explosives that are still being built and transported by insurgents.
While the idea of leveraging technology to give insurgents a taste of their own medicine may sound attractive to military on the ground, it also opens the door to potential problems, namely the collateral damage caused when an unexpected explosion of indeterminate magnitude is triggered in the middle of a street. It’s easy to see how such incidents could quickly get crosswise with Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s mandate to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Which brings military researchers to yet another problem – the countermeasure is reportedly huge, big enough in fact that a tractor trailer is needed to haul the thing around. It’s allegedly been tested at checkpoints in Iraq in both 2005 and 2008, but it’s highly cumbersome for mobile, outside-the-wire operations. In rugged terrain like that of Afghanistan, this presents a major logistical problem.
One U.S. Joint Forces Command official has suggested using the device from airborne platforms that could clear roadways ahead of convoys. In the meantime the Office of Naval Research, which developed the device, is looking to create a smaller, more mobile IED hunter.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket Poised For First Flight Today [Update: Orbit Achieved]

2011-01-23T15:04:00.000-08:00

Falcon 9 Launch

After launching their smaller Falcon 1 last summer (the first privately-developed liquid-fuel rocket ever to reach orbit), SpaceX is now ready for the first test launch of its larger, more advanced Falcon 9 rocket today. A four-hour, weather-dependent launch window begins now, and you can watch the countdown live. Update: Looks like the test was successful.
This first Falcon 9 is carrying a test version of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, a manned craft NASA has contracted (to the tune of $1.6 billion) to ferry cargo (and perhaps eventually astronauts) to the ISS in a post-Shuttle world.
The Dragon capsule on board today's test is a structural mockup without a heatshield, so it will not be returning to Earth. The test today is primarily for the rocket; SpaceX has learned the hard way that brand new launch vehicles often need the tires kicked, with several of their early attempts to launch the smaller Falcon 1 ending in misfires.
Stay tuned to SpaceX's live webcast here. Update: Watch an archived video of the launch here (via Fast Company):

Falcon 9 Launch 2:

Update 2:55 PM EST: After a brief delay due to an unexpected system shutdown during the first countdown, Falcon 9 lifted off at around 2:45 PM EST. It appears that stage separation, the second stage burn and final orbital insertion went off without a hitch.
Excellent photos of the launch can be seen at Spaceflight Now, taken by Ben Cooper.

Neural Networks Designed to 'See' are Quite Good at 'Hearing' As Well

2011-01-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

Architecture of an Auditory Neural Network Tom LH. Li, Antoni B. Chan and Andy HW. Chun

Neural networks -- collections of artificial neurons or nodes set up to behave like the neurons in the brain -- can be trained to carry out a variety of tasks, often having something to do with pattern or sequence recognition. As such, they have shown great promise in image recognition systems. Now, research coming out of the University of Hong Kong has shown that neural networks can hear as well as see. A neural network there has learned the features of sound, classifying songs into specific genres with 87 percent accuracy.
The network is composed of three "thinking" layers stacked one atop the other, with the first taking in the raw data and the third outputting a genre. Drawing from a database that spanned 10 musical genres, the machine went to work. Within each layer, each neuron only hears a snippet of the song about 23 milliseconds long. But each node overlaps the one next to it by half, so in total each node really gets to hear about two seconds worth of audio.

The algorithms employed by the network needed only that amount of time to process and identify the genres of songs from the database. However, when turned loose on songs not included in the library that it learned on, it didn't perform well at all. Which tells us a few things.

For one, to work universally the network needs to be trained on a more universally representative library, as there are more than 10 genres in the entire universe of music. But more importantly, as Technology Review points out, this neural network shows that a device designed for one function -- this particular neural network was inspired by the visual cortex of a cat -- can be re-wired to do something different (in this case, to hear).
Similar networks based on auditory cortexes have been rewired for vision, so it would appear these kinds of neural networks are quite flexible in their functions. As such, it seems they could potentially be applied to all sorts of perceptual tasks in artificial intelligence systems, the possibilities of which have only begun to be explored.

Before Orbit in 2014, James Webb Space Telescope Makes a Stop in Manhattan

2011-01-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

Traveling Telescope The JWST display model, which was built entirely for promotional purposes, has traveled from the Paris Air Show to Ireland to events and public spaces across the US, Atkinson says. John Mahoney

View Photo Gallery

When it becomes the successor to the illustrious Hubble later this decade, the James Webb Space Telescope's infrared eye will peer further into the edges of space (and time) than any telescope before it. But while the real thing is undergoing final construction at Northrop Grumman HQ, an exact 1:1 scale model has been touring the world, giving us a chance to get close to a realistic representation of an unconventional-looking spacecraft that will soon be the source of the most amazing images of the cosmos we've every seen.
We paid a visit to the JWST in Lower Manhattan's Battery Park city. Take a look at our photo gallery to see more:

Click to launch the photo gallery

Could We Stop the Gulf Leak With a Nuke? Maybe, But We're Not Going To

2011-01-23T10:39:00.000-08:00

Smoke on the Water

As the Gulf oil leak continues unhindered today, BP is trying yet another tactic to stem the flow of crude into coastal waters. But amid the news surrounding this latest effort -- it's another containment dome scheme like the two that failed before, in case you're keeping score at home -- comes this interesting bit of news via the New York Times: The U.S. government has actually addressed the proposed idea of sealing off the well with a nuclear blast. Their stance on the scheme: Absolutely not.
The idea of nuking the oil leak surfaced on various sites of dubious veracity over the past weeks as failure after failure to contain the leak rendered BP and U.S. agencies more and more desperate for a solution. It's rooted in the idea that, reportedly, the USSR used nuclear blasts to cap off five different gas wells from 1966 to 1981, with all of the attempts successful but the last.

Since then, the idea seems to have gained more and more adherents -- a Houston-based energy expert claimed Friday that "all the best scientists" are behind the idea (see video below) -- lending credence to the notion that the U.S. might attempt the tactic as other options seem to be running out. The fact that the New York Times actually asked DOE officials about it shows just how much traction the idea of dropping a nuke to the seabed off the coast of Louisiana has gained in the popular consciousness.

But just for the record, when the Times did ask, a DOE spokeswoman said the option never was, and is not, on the table. Aside from the fact that we would be entering technologically uncharted waters (all the alleged Soviet attempts to cap wells with nukes took place on land), to detonate a nuke in this day and age, even for peaceful purposes, would violate a variety of international agreements and perhaps undo whatever progress President Obama has made toward disarmament.
So no, we're not going to drop a nuke in the Deepwater Horizon wellhead. But if you're the type who enjoys mingling with the more sensational side of what the Internet has to offer, check out this article from Russia's Pravda, which kicked off discussion of the nuclear option in the first place (can we tempt you by noting that the film "Armageddon" is used as an analogy within the piece?). After that, it's probably a good idea to let this one die.

Mars500 Crew Enters Isolation Facility as 520-Day Simulated Journey to Mars Launches

2011-01-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

See You In 2011 The Mars500 crew, just before "launching" on their 520 day simulated journey to Mars. ESA / Elena Tokmantseva

The second phase of the Mars500 simulated mission to the Red Planet launched this morning as six men -- a Frenchman, an Italian, one Chinese man and three Russians -- were locked inside a 19,500-cubic-foot facility outside of Moscow, where they will remain for the next 520 days.
The crew will remain completely isolated for that duration, going through the motions of a real manned mission to the Martian surface, including a 250 day journey just to get there, 30 days in orbit around mars, and 240 days for the return trip. During the 30 days in orbit around Mars, three of the crew members will "descend" to the surface in a landing module and two will actually conduct a spacewalk on a reconstructed Martian surface.

During the trip, the crew will have to survive under conditions similar to that of a real Mars mission. All of the food they have for the entire journey was locked in the facility with them, so they'll have to ration their supplies. They'll also have to cope with intense periods of monotony, wherein lies the real value in the experiment. Researchers will be monitoring the mental and physical effects on the individual crew members as the deal with their confined environment and lack of communication with the outside world.

That's not to say the crew be totally cut off from their home planet. They will have access to email, though communications will be delayed by up to 40 minutes, just as they would be if the facility were humming through space millions of miles away. But aside from that, it's six dudes in a metal tube for the next year and a half. If all goes well -- meaning no one experiences life-threatening illness or has a complete mental breakdown -- the hatch won't open again until 2011. Let's hope someone packed a deck of cards.

Texas Congressmen Call for Electromagnetic Pulse Guns on the Border By Rebecca Boyle

2011-01-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

EMPs on the Border A fence along the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego. Two Texas lawmakers want the border patrol to use EMP devices to disable vehicles and other electronics. via Wikimedia Commons/Office of U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey

From aerial drones to virtual fences, the Department of Homeland Security employs a wide range of tools to protect the nation's borders. But a pair of Texas lawmakers now want a decidedly more futuristic approach: electromagnetic pulses.
Republican Michael McCaul and Democrat Henry Cuellar want the border patrol to use portable EMP emitters to disable cars, boats or a host of other electronic items.
A suitcase-sized EMP could thwart smugglers trying to drive illegal drugs or immigrants into the United States, the lawmakers say.

The EMP Suitcase Compact 2100 Series, developed by Austin-based Applied Physical Electronics, emits high-amplitude electronic fields powerful enough to disable various devices "without causing permanent physical damage or endangerment to individuals," as Cuellar's Web site says. Similar devices have been used by the Defense Department for the past 12 years.

McCaul notes that EMPs would allow border patrol agents to stop wayward vehicles without having to chase them. The ability to stop vehicles of smugglers from a distance without making direct contact would give our Border Patrol agents a distinct advantage," he says.
The lawmakers, who both sit on the House Homeland Security Committee, took a tour of the border this spring and saw the device remotely disable a computer. The pair has also advocated using aerial drones over the Texas-Mexico border. Drones are already being used in North Dakota and along the Rio Grande, and Cuellar's office says an unmanned vehicle will be flying over the Texas border by this fall.
The lawmakers say they both believe in using new technology for border security.

Uncle Sam Wants to Know About Your Internet Service

2011-01-23T10:20:00.001-08:00

Test My ISP The SamKnows dashboard will help Americans understand their Internet service providers' performance as the company collects data to send to the FCC. SamKnows

Want to know how fast your broadband connection is? So does Uncle Sam. With a new volunteer program, now you can both find out.
The Federal Communications Commission is hoping 10,000 Americans will sign up for a service that monitors broadband use, giving users — and the government — data about speed, availability and technical topics like packet loss.
Appropriately, the FCC contracted with a firm called SamKnows to do the monitoring. Sign up here. The firm will put 10,000 special routers in homes across the country to measure Internet service provider performance.
Earlier this week, the FCC said (PDF) a whopping 80 percent of Americans have no idea what their Internet connection speed is. What’s more, about 70 percent of Americans believe their ISP’s claims about that speed -- when, in fact, it’s often about half the advertised performance.

This is problematic for national broadband planning efforts, Ars Technica notes. Nobody really knows how fast broadband connections are and even what areas have broadband service. SamKnows’ routers aim to answer those questions.

The routers will perform speed tests at regular intervals every day, and send the results to a data hub that will compile information about individual ISPs. Along with speed, the routers will test connection consumption -- how much data is sent and received -- and more wonky details like jitter, DNS query resolution and others.
As the program's Web site notes, most people think of ISP speed as the most important performance metric. But it really depends on how you use your Internet. Gamers, for instance, should be more concerned with things like latency and packet loss. SamKnows tests all of that, unlike other speed-monitoring services. The test data can reach up to 2 GB a month.
It's a win-win: Volunteers will get individualized reports sent through a customized Web dashboard, and the government will get loads of detailed data that could inform future ISP disclosure rules and national broadband policy.

Quadcopter UAV Careens Through Extremely Tight Spaces Autonomously

2011-01-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

UPenn's Quadcopter, Ducking Through a 'Window' Daniel Mellinger/GRASP UPenn

Fully embracing the notion that there’s no point in building a UAV if it doesn’t make other UAVs look completely lame by comparison, UPenn’s GRASP Lab has developed an autonomous quadcopter that does a lot more than hover. It flips, dives, twists and otherwise dazzles, executing aggressive aerial maneuvers like dashing through tight windows with just three inches clearance and zipping in between other hovering quadcopters with graceful ease. All by itself.

The UPenn quadcopter certainly isn’t the first of its kind. MIT has one that navigates with tiny onboard laser scanners, while the the University of Tübingen's AscTec Hummingbird gets around autonomously using the same infrared camera as the Wiimote. For its part, the UPenn UAV keeps track of itself in space using 20 external Vicon cameras that digitally map its surroundings as well as an inertial measurement unit – basically a series of gyros and accelerometers like the ones in the iPhone.
Because it requires such a setup, the tiny quadcopter won’t be flying any missions outside of a predefined space anytime soon. But given the UAVs extreme agility, if researchers can figure out a way to untether the machine from the lab, it could have myriad applications in everything from search and rescue to intelligence to military operations. That’s not even taking into account how much civilian fun the thing could provide if it packed a camera and a little AR.

DARPA Wants To Look into the Future to Prevent Outbreaks Before They Happen

2011-01-23T10:15:00.001-08:00

DARPA Wants a Crystal Ball for Pathogens circulating

The fight against pathogens is usually reactionary; a pathogen evolves or mutates, developing a drug resistance or finding a more efficient path toward infection, and researchers scramble to shift tactics for fighting off said pathogen. That’s not good enough for DARPA, which wants a means to look into the future so researchers can stop an outbreak of a potentially dangerous pandemic before it ever begins.
The aptly titled Prophecy program is seeking a range of technologies that will aid in the development of an effective crystal ball, including in vitro platforms for recreating virus-host interactions, better means of sequencing viral genomes to test for sequencing errors and mutations, and algorithms that can predict the rate, direction, and phenotype of viral mutations before they happen.

Capping all that off, they want countermeasures that allow scientists and agencies to erect “high energy evolutionary boundaries” that keep genetic mutations that might result in a pandemic of some kind from ever happening.

Like pretty much all DARPA initiatives, this one sets an ambitious goal, but the real interesting stuff could be the technological fallout. As Danger Room points out, even if Prophecy fails to create those evolutionary boundaries that stop future mutations before they happen, the ability to predict, even in a vague sense, the way certain pathogens will likely evolve could lead to more efficient manufacturing and stockpiling of vaccines and allow health agencies to better organize their resources in front of an impending outbreak.

New Army Bot Blasts Land Mines With a 150-Foot Bomb-on-a-String

2011-01-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

Warrior iRobot's Warrior is capable of casting a line of explosives. via IEEE Spectrum

PackBot, iRobot’s longtime military robot, is getting some new cousins that just may be the most efficient cleaner bots yet. Nicknamed Warrior, the PackBot lookalike launches a rocket that tows a string of grenades to blow up land mines, barbed wire or other obstacles.
iRobot unveiled Warrior over Memorial Day weekend, and this impressive video (after the jump) might make you proud to be a robot-loving American.

The Warrior is much bigger than its PackBot kin; where PackBot is hand-portable, Warrior is not. Military personnel remotely drive the robot close to the area that needs to be cleared, and then Warrior fires an APOBS, an Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching System. It's basically an explosive line charge with a parachute at the end.

The rocket drags a 150-foot line of grenades through the air, and once it lands, the grenades explode and destroy any improvised explosive devices, land mines or other obstacles. The result is a clear, secure path.

It’s similar to the Python explosive whip developed by the British Army. That weapon casts a 1,600-foot tube across the ground, like a fisherman, and explodes any mines, traps or IEDs in its path. But the Python is attached to an armored truck, while the Warrior can go almost anywhere, keeping a safe distance from its human operators.

Robot Fish Take Over Schools, Lead Real Fish To Safety

2011-01-23T10:11:00.001-08:00

Robot Fish In Your Hand This cyberfish is capable of leading real fish in a school. Maurizio Porfiri/NYU-Poly

A researcher in New York is building fish robots that infiltrate schools of fish and take them over. The cyberfish could be used to lead fish away from unsafe underwater turbines or other hazards. The same mathematical models that drive them could conceivably be used to lure birds to new wintering grounds or even to herd mammals, the researchers say.
Maurizio Porfiri, an assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, studied the fluid dynamics of leader fish to build a realistic fishbot. The university says the technology could even be expanded to tap energy from the movement of water to charge its batteries.
Scientists know plenty about the flocking and schooling behavior of fish and birds, but the way in which certain individuals become leaders is less understood. Porfiri had to research “leader fish” dynamics to understand how their behavior affects an entire school.
He used a tank of common bait fish, which swim in huge balls in the ocean. They decide whether to school based on what they see and the flow they feel, making them easy targets for predator fish and mammals but also solid subjects for fluid-dynamics studies.

Porfiri and colleagues found that leaders beat their tails faster, accelerate to get other fishes’ attention, and then gather a school. The team built mathematical models to explain the phenomenon, and the results are reported in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Meanwhile, the researchers built a fishbot out of ionic polymers, which contract like artificial muscles when voltage is applied to them. The fishbot thus swims realistically enough for real fish to accept it as their leader.

Startling Harvest

2011-01-23T10:10:00.001-08:00

Seed Cathedral Aly Song

These acrylic rods make up the Seed Cathedral, the centerpiece of the U.K. Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, China. Encased at the tip of each 25-foot-long rod are seeds provided by China’s Kunming Institute of Botany. Sixty-six feet tall and consisting of 60,000 rods, the structure took about four months to install at a rate of approximately 536 rods a day. The theme of the U.K. Pavilion emphasizes the importance of incorporating gardens and parks into urban life, and the Seed Cathedral, by English designer Thomas Heatherwick, is meant to specifically highlight the concepts of sustainability and diversity of life. The seeds themselves represent Kew Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank, which aims to accumulate samples of 25 percent of the world’s seeds by 2020.
Snapshot in Time: The now-finished Seed Cathedral, seen here under construction, is lit from the inside at night

UK School Replaces Library Cards for Kids with Fingerprint Scans

2011-01-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

Fingerprints They've been used in security schemes forever, but now UK schools are scanning the 'prints of kids as young as four in order to check out library books. Vince Alongi

We already know that biometrics could provide some useful new tools for identifying approaching threats or tracking people moving through crowds. But what about checking out books from a children’s library? A Manchester UK primary school is testing out just such a scheme, having children as young as four years old scan their fingerprints as ID for checking books in and out of the school’s library.
Not surprisingly, parents and privacy groups have a huge problem with children's biometric data being so cataloged --not to mention the precedent it sets.
To check out a book, students swipe a bar code placed inside the book at a computer station, which then asks for them to press their thumb on a fingerprint scanner. Books are checked back into the library the same way: no library card or identification required. School officials say the fingerprints are converted to and saved as digital electronic codes that are recognized by the computer, so that no actual fingerprint images are kept on file or shared.

Critics of the system, however, find the use of such biometric systems with children so young a breach of privacy and a dangerous overreach by authorities, conditioning children to treat their personal biometric information as something trivial. And it’s worth noting this isn’t the first biometric identifying scheme hatched by UK schools; a fingerprint identifier introduced as part of a cashless school cafeteria system has previously drawn the ire of UK parents who don’t like the idea of their kids being fingerprinted without permission.

But the library system is purely voluntary, and parents are allowed to opt their kids in or out. The system does perhaps treat biometrics a bit lightly, but, given the way technology is moving, things like iris and fingerprint scans will likely become a far more prevalent form of ID for everything from credit card purchases to withdrawals at the ATM in coming decades.
When you think about the fact that we have a permanently manned space station and the Internet, using plastic cards with pictures on them to officially identify ourselves seems a bit archaic. Biometrics are more efficient and safer than a PIN, and unlike a magnetic card, a fingerprint can’t be easily stolen or duplicated. So maybe this is just a sign of the times, even if four years of age is perhaps a bit early to be an early adopter.

The New Face of Autism Therapy

2011-01-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

Smile for the Camera Bandit, a robot designed to engage children with autism, has stereo cameras for eyes. John B. Carnett

In a small, sparsely furnished room, a young boy in a black T-shirt backs himself into a corner. He’s cautious. Cameras capture his movements, and microphones record every sound. But this doesn’t intimidate him; he doesn’t even seem aware that he’s being observed. His mom, sitting nearby, is not the object of his focus either. Brian (his name has been changed here to protect his privacy) is autistic, and he’s staring across the room at a two-wheeled, gray, humanoid robot with big, cartoonish eyes. The machine, Bandit, is roughly Brian’s size, and it has been trying to engage him by slowly rolling toward him.
Bandit uses infrared sensing and cameras to calculate Brian’s position. Seeing that the boy is backing away, the robot tries a different approach. It stops moving and makes a “come-here” gesture, waving him closer. It works. Brian approaches and then stands alongside Bandit, shoulder-to-plastic-shoulder. Bandit stops moving, and Brian backs off. The boy is like a boxer sizing up an opponent. Finally, emboldened, Brian steps up to the robot and leans his face toward it, curious and confident. For the researchers observing the interaction through a two-way mirror in an adjoining room, this small gesture is an encouraging sign. The boy is warming up to the machine, and that’s the point.
This unusual pair is part of a research initiative at the University of Southern California to build robots sympathetic and sensitive enough to serve as both therapists and playmates to kids with autism. Bandit is programmed to perform simple facial expressions and movements, and researchers are working to give the robot the ability to make complex decisions in response to the child’s behavior. This way, Bandit and robots like it could draw socially detached kids into simple games, like Simon Says or hide-and-seek and, ultimately, social activities with people. As USC computer scientist and project leader Maja Matari´c explains, “The robot is a catalyst for social interaction.”
In its current form, Bandit has only rudimentary social skills. For instance, it cannot yet understand speech; a researcher in the other room must command the robot to respond if the child speaks to it. But early results are encouraging. Matari´c’s team has conducted experiments similar to the interaction between Bandit and Brian with 14 other autistic children, most between five and nine years old. Some of the kids were incapable of speech, while others could talk in full sentences but were prone to physical tics like hand-flapping or obsessions with moving objects like trains. The interactions lasted on average about five minutes—not long enough to produce permanent behavioral changes—but many of the children became more sociable, and more vocal, with a robot in the room.
That may seem surprising, since robots are hardly known for warmth and sociability. Yet there is increasing evidence that kids with autism respond more naturally to machines than they do to people. Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge in England, along with other autism experts, believes that robots, computers and electronic gadgets may be appealing because they are predictable, unlike people. You can pretty much guess what a computer is going to do next about 90 percent of the time, but human interactions obey very few entirely predictable laws. And this, Baron-Cohen explains, is difficult for children with autism. “They find unlawful situations toxic,” he says. “They can’t cope. So they turn away from people and turn to the world of objects.”
Perfecting a robot that bridges the gap will call for advances in almost every facet of modern robotics: artificial intelligence, machine vision, mechanical and electrical design, signal processing. Among other requirements, robot therapists must be subtle enough to respond to their patients without scaring them away, and smart enough to identify and react to autistic behaviors. For instance, if a child starts rocking back and forth, which can be a sign of increased anxiety, the robot should be able to recognize the motion and modify its behavior until the child appears more comfortable. “Yes, there’s work to be done,” Matari´c acknowledges. “But it’s doable. What I want is a robot that can sell for the price of a laptop, a decade from now.”

Archive Gallery Addendum: Hunting Eagles with Airplanes in 1917

2011-01-23T10:06:00.000-08:00

Eagle Slaughter Popular Science, December 1917

In between sausage balloons, elegant blimps and ill-fated steam planes, yesterday's archive gallery on aviation yielded a fantastic array of old-school flying machines. After hearing of the Wright brothers' success at Kitty Hawk, most people were eager to see airplanes drop bombs or transport passengers across the Atlantic, but one Popular Science writer contemplated a hilariously sinister alternative for aerial technology.
His article, titled "Fishing for Birds of Prey in the Air" and published in December 1917, proposed that people use airplanes to capture flocks of now-endangered bird species. Although we'd hate to imagine that our magazine contributed to the slaughter of our national symbol, we can't read quotes like this one without laughing at our misguided visions of a better future:
"Why should it not be possible to trail fine piano-wire nets, spread by small kite-buoys between two airplanes connected by a long wire, and enmesh the condors and eagles that soar over inaccessible mountain peaks? That ought to be a fascinating sport."
We promise that there's more where that came from, and the article is well worth a read, if only for the author's thorough recommendations on how best to capture a vicious horde of bald eagles. We won't spoil the best parts for you, so read them for yourself in "Fishing for Birds of Prey in the Air."

Pentagon: A Space Junk Collision Could Set Off Catastrophic Chain Reaction, Disable Earth Communications

2011-01-23T10:03:00.001-08:00

Orbital Debris The dots on this NASA-generated chart represent known pieces of large orbital debris. NASA

Every now and again someone raises a stern warning about the amount of space junk orbiting Earth. Those warnings are usually met with general indifference, as very few of us own satellites or travel regularly to low Earth orbit. But the DoD's assessment of the space junk problem finds that perhaps we should be paying attention: space junk has reached a critical tipping point that could result in a cataclysmic chain reaction that brings everyday life on Earth to a grinding halt.
Our reliance on satellites goes beyond the obvious. We depend on them for television signals, the evening weather report, and to find our houses on Google Earth when we're bored at work. But behind the scenes, they also inform our warfighting capabilities, keep track of the global shipping networks that keep our economies humming, and help us get to the places we need to get to via GPS.
According to the DoD's interim Space Posture Review, that could all come crashing down. Literally. Our satellites are sorely outnumbered by space debris, to the tune of 370,000 pieces of junk up there versus 1,100 satellites. That junk ranges from nuts and bolts lost during spacewalks to pieces of older satellites to whole satellites that no longer function, and it's all whipping around the Earth at a rate of about 4.8 miles per second.

The fear is that with so much junk already up there, a collision is numerically probable at some point. Two large pieces of junk colliding could theoretically send thousands more potential satellite killers into orbit, and those could in turn collide with other pieces of junk or with satellites, unleashing another swarm of debris. You get the idea.
To give an idea of how quickly a chain reaction could get out hand consider this: in February of last year a defunct Russian satellite collided with a communications satellite, turning 2 orbiting craft into 1,500 pieces of junk. The Chinese missile test that obliterated a satellite in 2007 spawned 100 times more than that, scattering 150,000 pieces of debris.
If a chain reaction got out of control up there, it could very quickly sever our communications, our GPS system (upon which the U.S. military heavily relies), and cripple the global economy (not to mention destroy the $250 billion space services industry), and whole orbits could be rendered unusable, potentially making some places on Earth technological dead zones.

Archive Gallery: A Century of Aviation, From the Wright Brothers to Stealth

2011-01-23T10:02:00.001-08:00

This is the Fastest Fighter in the World PopSci, December 1953

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Earlier this week, the Air Force announced that the X-51 WaveRider, a wingless scramjet, would make its first hypersonic flight. After learning that the scramjet would reach Mach 6, we couldn't help but reflect on the progress aviation has made in just a century. We've combed the archives to build just one of many amazing snapshots of these incredible 100 years.

Click to launch the photo gallery

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On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers embarked on the first sustained, heavier-than-air, man-powered flight aboard the Wright Flyer. Although they made history that day at Kitty Hawk, people were skeptical of aviation technology's potential. An article we published in March 1904 examined what the brothers' feat meant for aviation before concluding that the machines would never develop into commercial carriers. "To say nothing of the danger, the sizes must remain small and the passengers few....navigable balloons and flying machines will constitute a great mechanical triumph for man, but they will not materially upset existing conditions as has sometimes been predicted."
Well, shame on us, because just over a hundred years later, we're launching wingless jets and maneuvering zombie satellites. There's even talk of an electric tethered hovering platform.
Of course, the progression we've made in aviation was largely a matter of trial and error. For every legendary fighter jet that soared, there was a sausage plane or a zeppelin that went under. Still, as the content our archives will attest, a little imagination and perseverance went a long way.
Click through the gallery for our favorite airplanes, airships, flying boats, and spaceships.

Japan Plans a Moon Base by 2020, Built by Robots for Robots

2011-01-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Let's Build a Moon Base JAXA

America may have eighty-sixed its moon base ambitions, but the Japanese have no plans to let perfectly good lunar real estate go to waste. An ambitious $2.2 billion project in the works at JAXA, the Japanese space agency, plans to put humanoid robots on the moon by 2015, and now official backing from the Prime Minister's office says the Japanese could have an unmanned lunar base up and running by 2020.
Key to all of this, of course, is the robots themselves, and who better than the Japanese to dream up and realize the kind of intelligent, self-repairing, multitasking bots that will be needed to fulfill such a mission.

As currently envisioned, the robots that will land on the lunar surface in 2015 will be 660-pound behemoths equipped with rolling tank-like treads, solar panels, seismographs, high-def cameras and a smattering of scientific instruments. They'll also have human-like arms for collecting rock samples that will be returned to Earth via rocket. The robots will be controlled from Earth, but they'll also be imbued with their own kind of machine intelligence, making decisions on their own and operating with a high degree of autonomy.

Those initial surveyor bots will pave the way for the construction of the unmanned moon base near the lunar south pole, which the robots will construct for themselves. That base will be solar powered and provide a working/living space future robot colonizers, as well as -- presumably -- a jumping off point for future human moon dwellers.
Sound far-fetched? It's certainly an ambitious project given the timeline. But considering Americans put actual men on the moon in a decade span with far inferior technology it certainly seems within the realm of possibility. Moreover, the massive technological fallout from that initial push for the moon was a boon for private industry, seeding some important and amazing technological breakthroughs. Even if Japan falls short of its 2020 deadline, the advances in robotics technology that could fall out of this little project could be as exciting as the moon base itself.

Hovering Vehicle Can Launch an Observation Platform 300 Feet Skyward

2011-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Electric Tethered Observation Platform Israel Aerospace Industries

The Israelis are developing a hovering, rapidly deployable eye in the sky that smartly skirts the usual problems associated with hovering aircraft. Israel Aerospace Industries has worked up two functioning prototypes of a hovering platform that launches from a moving vehicle to which it is tethered, leaving the heavy power source that usually drags down hovering platforms on the ground below.
The electric tethered observation platform (ETOP) can carry 44 pounds up to 328 feet, making it an ideal platform to carry observation equipment and sensors to higher vantage points so troops on the ground can see what's all around them. The platform's four propellers can hover at predetermined altitudes for durations limited only by the power source on the ground, which pipes power to the machine via its tether.

The fact that ETOP can be launched from a moving vehicle or a fixed location on the ground offers added versatility, especially for military applications. Israeli security forces spend a good deal of time operating in urban environments, and the ability to quickly deploy an observation platform that offers a 360-degree bird's eye view of an operating area would offer troops on the ground a distinct advantage when hunting the enemy or maintaining a secured area.

And might one be able to weaponize such a platform? We'll leave that kind of ingenuity to the Israelis, but 44 pounds is a decent enough payload. Israel Aerospace has already completed ten successful test flights with one prototype, with a second prototype now operating. ETOP should be operational by 2011.

Fastest Integrated Circuit Doubles the Previous Record, Getting Close to One Terahertz

2011-01-23T09:58:00.001-08:00

The Fastest Integrated Circuit The 670 GHz compact circuit layout (right), alongside a detail of Northrop Grumman's 30-nanometer Indium Phosphide T-gate (left). Northrop Grumman

Following up on a 2007 world record for the fastest transistor speed, Northrop Grumman announced today that it has shattered the world record for integrated circuit performance. The new circuit layout operates at 0.67 terahertz, or 0.67 trillion cycles per second, more than doubling the frequency of the fastest known IC in the world.
Northrop Grumman’s Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) was developed as part of DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program, which aims to introduce the next generation of high-performance electronics that push performance levels above the 1 terahertz center frequency range. Such electronics should lead to better communications technologies, sub-millimeter wave sensors, and terahertz imaging systems that blow current technologies out of the water.

Obviously, 0.67 terahertz doesn’t quite reach DARPA’s goals, which as always are quite ambitious. But TMIC amplifiers could still have an appreciable impact on technologies ranging from communications to radar to explosives detection. And naturally these advances should trickle down to benefit those of us who don’t have security clearance as well.

If you’re the type who really likes to dig into the nuts and bolts, the technical paper on the circuit is available in PDF here.

Massive Wind Turbine Survives Pummeling By Equally Massive Testing Machine

2011-01-23T09:57:00.001-08:00

Massive Turbine Test Samsung's 90-ton, 2.5-megawatt wind turbine drive train meets the National Wind Technology Center's 2.5-megawatt dynamometer. Rob Wallen, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Wind turbines of the future will be hulking behemoths, each capable of producing multiple megawatts of power. But before they’re installed in wind farms, manufacturers need to be sure they are built to last. To this end, a monstrous 2.5-MW turbine--one of the world's largest--just survived an equally big test.
The 2.5-megawatt dynamometer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory blasted the turbine’s drive train, built by Samsung, with 12.6 million inch-pounds of torque, the energy lab says.
In other words, the turbine drive train went through years of wear and tear in about two months. It was the largest full-scale dynamometer test of a wind turbine ever done in the United States, NREL says.
The dynamometer — a cool name for a machine that measures force and torque — has a 3,550-horsepower electric motor coupled to a three-stage epicyclic gearbox, according to NREL. It can produce speeds up to 30 revolutions per minute, meaning it can simulate anything from a slight breeze to a full-force gale.

Computer models simulate the tower, rotor and turbine blades, and other models calculate what the main shaft torque should be, depending on weather conditions. The shaft therefore responds to various wind conditions just like it would in the field, NREL says.

Special Turbine Delivery: NREL technicians unload a 90-ton Samsung wind turbine drive train after it made the trip on semi-trailers from Houston to NREL's National Wind Technology Center. Rob Wallen, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Samsung has a 2.5-MW turbine in operation in Texas, but it’s never been tested above 600 kilowatts. Samsung wanted to take its drive shaft out for a spin, so the company shipped the 185,000-pound device from Houston to Golden, Colo., using a gigantic 185-foot-long, 19-axle rig.

All this bigness is peanuts compared to future wind turbines, however — NREL is already building a 5-MW dynamometer, which would be capable of testing the next generation of huge wind turbines