3D printed Graphene Aerogel, stronger than steel and 99.8% lighter
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s materials will be lighter, stronger and more flexible than todays, and that opens up a whole host of new applications. The world’s lightest 3D printed structure, a Graphene Aerogel, is so lightweight that it can be placed on top of a cotton ball...
This is the world’s first 3D printed carbon fiber bike
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Carbon fiber’s light weight and superior strength make it idea for many applications, but up until now it’s been expensive and very difficult to work with to create products, that’s all about to change. Modern carbon fibre bikes, stiffer and stronger than their metal...
US military and DARPA team up to develop tech to uncover fake news
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The advent of powerful AI tools, adaptable neural networks and the democratisation of hi definition rendering have taken fake news to a new level and this program aims to unmask the fakes. We’ve all seen that video where Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms make it seem like Barack...
Fantastic self-healing material regenerates after suffering “catastrophic damage”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are lots of dangerous industrial applications, and other use cases, where equipment of all kinds suffer extreme wear and tear, this new material could extend the life of products by multiples of time. The idea of creating self-repairing machines has been a popular...
Two breakthroughs make it impossible to fake nuclear weapon decommissioning
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Making sure countries subject to nuclear disarmament treaties are actually decommissioning real, not fake, nuclear weapons has always posed a problem, this breakthrough will no longer let the fakers get away with it. In past negotiations aimed at reducing the arsenals of the world’s...
Futurist in Reading: Adapt or Die, Cherwell European Conference
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The pace of change, and disruption, is accelerating. In this presentation I show just how fast, and how crazy, the world’s business environment is getting, it’s impact on every sector, and what you can do to future proof yourself. Firstly, I’d like to thank...
Scientists turn a Drangonfly into a controllable, living drone
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF While many people are focused on traditional drones there are others who are trying to create bio-machine drone hybrids, and their uses could include surveillance and other nefarious purposes. At a certain point it becomes really difficult to scale down machines, after all, a...
Deadly new “Cyber RAT” turns any factory, power plant or oil rig into a bomb
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One thing about the future is certain, all of our digital and physical systems are going to come under increasing attack, and it’ll be a war without end. Hacks that can jump between and steal data from ultra-secure air gapped systems, fileless malware that...
Suspicious nuclear power plants can now be monitored remotely using WATCHMAN
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Up until now it’s only been possible to assess the status of a sovereign states nuclear power program by physically inspecting the site, which is sometimes difficult, but now it can be done remotely from thousands of miles away. A consortium led by UK...
The US military is funding an AI that’s learning to write its own code
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One day non-programmers will be able to instruct AI’s to create software on their behalf, this is one step in realising that goal and it has wide ranging ramifications for al of us, and AI development. If you’re tired of writing your own boring...
Hackers use electromagnetic attack to steal data from air gapped systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Faraday cages are supposed to be the ultimate in stopping air gapped computer systems from being attacked and their data exfiltrated, but hackers in Israel have just proved that’s no longer the case. Two common methods of physical cybersecurity, air gapping and Faraday cages,...
Hackers found a way to steal data from air gapped networks using powerlines
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Air gapped systems normally hold highly sensitive and secret data, and the number of ways to exfiltrate data from them, once compromised, is growing. Hot on the heels of exploits that use fan noise, infra red cameras, heat, LED lights and drones, magnetic fields and...
European Space Agency’s new Ion thruster runs on thin air
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF When satellites and rockets burn all their fuel they inevitably fall back to Earth and crash, but what if they didn’t need to carry fuel in the first place? That would change the economics of space flight… While ion thrusters are a promising propulsion...
China looks to re-create DARPA to create next generation weapons systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF DARPA’s public-private model of collaboration has been wildly succesful in helping the US military remain dominant over the years, now China wants its own version. China, who over the past year has announced new military breakthroughs in everything from Quantum Communications, Quantum Radar and...
The robots of the future might not have a brain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The classical view of an intelligent robot is one whose intelligence comes from a centralised location, such as a brain, or in their case, a centralised computing platform, but there’s no reason why this has to be the case. The classical view of a...
DARPA funds programs to get black box AI’s to explain their decisions
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI continues to be weaponised by military powers, getting it to explain its decision making, and actions, will be crucial, and it’s not going to be an easy task to achieve. Intelligence agents and military operatives may come to rely heavily on Machine...
Lockheed Martin awarded contract to arm US Navy destroyers with lasers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We are entering a new era of warfare, full of AI fuelled semi-autonomous weapons, hypersonic missiles and lasers. The US military is increasingly ramping up its interest in, and spending on, new laser weapons, that will be positioned at forward operating bases, and on...
The Pentagon is making lasers that create voices out of thin air
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to use lasers to create sound opens up a weird array of new use cases, from crowd control to just plain being able to freak people out… Within three years, the US Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons lab hopes to have a direct energy...
Google’s Lunar XPrize will continue, without Google
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Sometimes the prize isn’t the prize, it’s just a bonus, and in this case most of the teams who were involved in the original Google Lunar XPrize still have their sights set on a Moon landing in 2019. The Google Lunar XPRIZE, a $30...
Blackberry’s AI Robo-hacker gets to work finding bugs in connected cars code
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more products become reliant on software to function, and as programs get increasingly complex, human developers are finding it increasingly difficult to find and patch all the bugs and vulnerabilities. As cars, especially self-driving ones, become more reliant on software it’s critical automakers...
