A controversial AI can allegedly reveal your personality from just a photo
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A system that can tell a persons personality from a photo can be used to help approve loans, provide better healthcare, and create smarter surveillance solutions. In the past I’ve heard of Artificial Intelligent (AI) platforms that can, controversially, judge a persons character from...
MIT researchers have taught their AI to see through solid walls
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are times when seeing through walls is useful, for example in hostage negotiations, search and rescue, and to see when mum and dad are about to bust in on your gameplay. Recently we’ve seen camera developments from both China and MIT that help...
China unveils their revolutionary ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As lasers become more efficient, and as the battery packs needed to power them become more dense and powerful, we’ll continue to see the miniaturisation and deployment of increasingly powerful laser weaponry. Artificially intelligent “fire and forget” cruise missiles, quantum internet and quantum radar,...
US spy agencies prepare to build DNA computers and molecular storage systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Storing and processing huge amounts of data requires huge power hungry hyperscale datacenters, which could all be replaced with DNA and Molecular computers the size of a table, powered by a car battery. This week Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a group within...
Bin your headphones, Noveto streams sound straight into your ears
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Wired headphones get tangled, wireless headphones need charging, so why bother with headphones at all? When Apple introduced the iPhone 7 they removed the headphone jack and spun it as a win for consumers who could now use wireless headphones, obviously preferably Apple branded...
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...
Researchers use duelling AI’s to defeat facial recognition technology
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As both our online, as well as our offline privacy, continue to be eroded, scientists are using AI to fight back. Most of us probably don’t like the idea of some stranger finding out who we are, and then where we live, or what...
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...
This AI reads your mind to recreate the faces you’re thinking of
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to read someone’s mind leads down two roads. It can either be used as part of a dystopian state apparatus, or to help catch criminals and help people who can’t communicate communicate. It’s frustrating to have a clear mental image of something...
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...
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...
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,...
Elon Musk warns that AI could “become an immortal dictator”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Musk has a point that an all controlling AI could become the embodiment of an immortal dictator, but hopefully it’s a vision that won’t come to pass. By definition Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), is a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that isn’t just smarter...
AI starts reading sentences directly from people’s brains
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI becomes increasingly adept at helping unlock the secrets of the brain it’s also becoming more adept at helping decode and visualise complex thoughts onto TV’s and other devices. The capabilities and accuracy of Artificial Intelligence (AI) “mind reading” systems, as they are increasing...
MIT and DeepMind’s new AI can’t be tricked with weird lighting
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we produce more systems that rely on machine vision to do their jobs or keep people safe, systems that can’t see the world accurately pose both a danger and a risk. Machine Vision has come a long way since Imagenet, a large repository of labelled...
New graphene filter turns filthy water into drinking water
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Millions of people around the world don’t have regular access to clean drinking water, and this breakthrough could help them. Every year millions of people around the world die from diseases they’ve contracted from drinking unclean water but now researchers in Australia have developed...
AI helps emergency dispatchers diagnose heart attacks by listening in on phone calls
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Humans can only detect a narrow range of sound, but the sounds that AI can detect and analyse are only limited by the sensors they use, now sound is being used to diagnose health conditions in new ways. Emergency dispatchers have a tough job,...
New Graphene sieve turns seawater into drinking water
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Water scarcity is one of the greatest worries facing the modern age, and as the world watches one of its great cities face the real prospect of running out of water in months, not years, the search for new water filtration systems has never been...
Hitachi’s newest surveillance AI can follow you through a crowd
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF You might not care too much about your privacy today, but what about your children’s privacy tomorrow? The technologies to track and analyse our every thought and move have already been assembled, the next step is deployment. Not only can a new Artificial Intelligence...
Harvard revolutionises camera technology, invents Metalense
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Centuries after they were first invented most lenses are still made of plastic or glass and Harvard’s new metalense will revolutionise the industry and let us make cameras and lenses that, eventually, will be just atoms thick. Metalenses, flat surfaces that use nanostructures to...
