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Print your own lasers, lights and TV screens Liquid inks based on quantum dots that can be used to print devices have been developed by Jacek Jasieniak and his colleagues... (July 2, 2010) [Read more] HIRO III lets you feel what you see on screen Researchers in Japan are developing a "haptic interface robot" -- the HIRO III, a robot hand that can transmit realistic... (July 2, 2010) [Read more] Genes for Extreme Longevity By analyzing just 150 spots on the genome, Boston University researchers can predict who will live to extreme old age with... (July 1, 2010) [Read more] This Beer Knows Where You've Been Chemical traces in your hair can be used to track your visits to different locations, because water molecules differ slightly... (June 30, 2010) [Read more] Casimir effect put to work as a nano-switch A European research team has developed a new technique that uses the Casimir effect* to reduce the power consumption of... (July 2, 2010) [Read more] KurzweilAI.net 2.0 launches July 5 KurzweilAI.net will launch a redesigned version of its Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence (KurzweilAI) website on Monday, July... (July 1, 2010) [Read more] Virtual reality you can reach out and touch A team from nine European universities and research institutes in developing technology to make VR objects and characters... (July 1, 2010) [Read more] Robots get an artificial skin Artificial skin that can cover robots and floors for safety has been developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for... (July 1, 2010) [Read more] Fossilised cell blobs could be oldest multicellular life At 2.1 billion years old, a new fossil from Gabon, West Africa, could be the earliest known multicellular life form. (El... (July 1, 2010) [Read more] Nanoscale Random Number Circuit to Secure Future Chips Intel has developed a new circuit for generating random numbers that has a fully digital design, making it possible to... (June 29, 2010) [Read more] First Direct Photo of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed A planet outside of our solar system, said to be the first ever directly photographed by telescopes on Earth, has been... (June 29, 2010) [Read more] Google Revamps News Page Google is rolling out changes to its News page that give users more ways to customize the kinds of headlines they see and... (June 30, 2010) [Read more] Intel Lab To Study Computer, Human Interaction Intel has launched an Interaction and Experience Research division, focusing on natural interfaces, such as touch, gesture and... (July 1, 2010) [Read more] Cell reprogramming decoded Scientists at Tel Aviv University in collaboration with researchers at Harvard University have succeeded in tracking the... (June 30, 2010) [Read more] Brain's energy restored during sleep, suggests animal study In the initial stages of sleep, energy levels increase dramatically in brain regions found to be active during waking hours,... (June 30, 2010) [Read more] Discovering the Virtues of a Wandering Mind Researchers have found daydreaming to be remarkably common -- and often quite useful. A wandering mind can protect you from... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] PCs that Work While They Sleep UCSD computer-science professors have developed software that lets desktop computers continue to function in sleep mode; it... (June 30, 2010) [Read more] Quantum Entanglement Holds DNA Together, Say Physicists Elisabeth Rieper at the National University of Singapore and colleagues have created a model that suggests that DNA may be held... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] Gorilla psychologists: Weird stuff in plain sight In the book Six intuitions you shouldn't trust, psychologists explain why they put a person in a gorilla suit in the middle of... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] Nanoparticles combat cancer by inducing hyperthermia Kansas State University researchers are exploring the use of iron-iron oxide nanoparticle-induced hyperthermia to overheat or... (June 29, 2010) [Read more] Scalp-implanted chip for deep brain stimulation developed An experimental chip that could one day provide therapeutic deep brain stimulation (DBS) for drug resistant epilepsy and other... (June 29, 2010) [Read more] Gliding robot designed for search and rescue A miniature glider robot capable of jumping, gliding and perching for search and rescue or detection of forest fires have been... (June 29, 2010) [Read more] Technology Innovator's Mobile Move SRI International is hoping to bring the concept of virtual personal assistants closer to reality. Recently, the institute has... (June 27, 2010) [Read more] Memories are made of this: New study uncovers key to how we learn and remember University of Leicester scientists have found one of the key proteins involved in the process of memory and learning: the... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] Lizard-like robot can 'swim' through sand A robot can that swim through sand and could help find people trapped in the loose debris resulting from an earthquake has been... (June 25, 2010) [Read more] Mountain View's global teacher of 1,516 lessons and counting Sal Khan is educating the globe for free. His 1,516 videotaped mini-lectures are transforming the former hedge fund analyst... (June 20, 2010) [Read more] Carbon nanotubes form ultrasensitive biosensor to detect proteins A cluster of carbon nanotubes coated with a thin layer of protein-recognizing polymer form a biosensor capable of using... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] Building a Substitute Pancreas for Diabetics ViaCyte (formerly Novocell) is developing an implant as a treatment for type 1 diabetes, using specially wrapped... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] The Challenge of Molecular Communication Emulating the efficient way that bacteria communicate with molecules, computer scientists are developing a mathematical theory... (June 28, 2010) [Read more] Brain stimulation technique boosts language ability in Alzheimer's patients Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain boosts the language ability of patients with Alzheimer's disease,... (June 23, 2010) [Read more] NIST team advances in translating language of nanopores National Institute of Standards and Technology scientists have moved a step closer to developing a rapid diagnostic blood test... (June 24, 2010) [Read more] Breathing New Life into Old Lungs Yale University researchers have built a functioning lung by growing cells on the skeleton of a donor lung. The engineered... (June 24, 2010) [Read more] Computers Make Strides in Recognizing Speech A host of companies -- AT&T, Microsoft, Google and startups -- are investing in services that hint at the concept of machines... (June 24, 2010) [Read more] Scientists grow new lungs from stem cells University of Texas Medical Branch researchers have seeded mouse embryonic stem cells in rats into acellular* rat lungs to... (June 25, 2010) [Read more] Researchers develop living, breathing human lung-on-a-chip A device that mimics a living, breathing human lung on a microchip has been developed by researchers from the Wyss Institute... (June 25, 2010) [Read more] [Click here to check out all News items] Openness and the Metaverse Singularity By Jamais Cascio The four worlds of the Metaverse Roadmap could also represent four pathways to a Singularity. But they also represent potential dangers. An "open-access Singularity" may be the answer. The people who ... (November 7th 2007) What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen? By Vernor Vinge It's 2045 and nerds in old-folks homes are wandering around, scratching their heads, and asking plaintively, "But ... but, where's the Singularity?" Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge--who originated... (March 14th 2007) Foreword to The Intelligent Universe By Ray Kurzweil The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublim... (February 2nd 2007) [Click here to check out all The Singularity articles] BREAKPOINT: terrorists vs. transhumanists By Richard A. Clarke Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. "Globegrid," a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combi... (May 18th 2007) Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III By William B. Scott Space Wars by Willliam Scott, Michael Coumatos, and William Birnes, Forge Books (April 17, 2007) describes how the first hours of World War III might play out in the year 2010. While fiction, it's bas... (April 17th 2007) The Moon as backup drive for civilization By KurzweilAI.net Imaginative new ideas for using space to protect civilization against existential risks, such as killer asteroids, nuclear war, and global terrorism, are in the works. The public increasingly sees NAS... (September 24th 2006) [Click here to check out all Dangerous Futures articles] Why Language Is All Thumbs By Chip Walter Toolmaking not only resulted in tools, but also the reconfiguration of our brains so they comprehended the world on the same terms as our toolmaking hands interacted with it. With mirror neurons, some... (March 15th 2008) AI Meets the Metaverse: Teachable AI Agents Living in Virtual Worlds By Ben Goertzel Online virtual worlds have the power to accelerate and catalyze the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). As AGIs involved in this metaverse become progressively more intelligent from ... (October 18th 2007) The Age of Virtuous Machines By J. Storrs Hall In the "hard takeoff" scenario, a psychopathic AI suddenly emerges at a superhuman level, achieving universal dominance. Hall suggests an alternative: we've gotten better because we've become smarter,... (June 1st 2007) [Click here to check out all How to Build a Brain articles] Gelernter, Kurzweil debate machine consciousness By Rodney Brooks, Ray Kurzweil, and David Gelernter Are we limited to building super-intelligent robotic "zombies" or will it be possible and desirable for us to build conscious, creative, volitional, perhaps even "spiritual" machines? David Gelernter ... (December 6th 2006) Cyber Sapiens By Chip Walter ...We will no longer be Homo sapiens, but Cyber sapiens--a creature part digital and part biological that will have placed more distance between its DNA and the destinies they force upon us than any o... (October 26th 2006) Why We Can Be Confident of Turing Test Capability Within a Quarter Century By Ray Kurzweil The advent of strong AI (exceeding human intelligence) is the most important transformation this century will see, and it will happen within 25 years, says Ray Kurzweil, who will present this paper at... (July 13th 2006) [Click here to check out all Will Machines Become Conscious? articles] Bootstrapping our way to an ageless future By Aubrey de Grey Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey expects many people alive today to live to 1000 years of age and to avoid age-related health problems even at that age. In this excerpt from his just-published,... (September 19th 2007) Press ignores bias in study of multivitamins and prostate cancer By Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman In a recent paper reporting on the National Cancer Institute study of multivitamin use and the risk of prostate cancer, the NCI authors cited several possible bias factors. An analysis by Ray Kurzweil... (May 25th 2007) Strategic Sustainable Brain By Natasha Vita-More The human brain faces a challenging future. To cope with accelerating nanotech- and biotech-based developments in an increasingly complex world, compete with emerging superintelligence, and maintain i... (March 31st 2006) [Click here to check out all Living Forever articles] How to Build a Virtual Human By Peter Plantec Virtual Humans is the first book with instructions on designing a "V-human," or synthetic person. Using the programs on the included CD, you can create animated computer characters who can speak, dial... (October 20th 2003) Remarks about Tod Machover In Presenting the 2003 Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music By Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil presented the 2003 Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music to Tod Machover at the Fourth Annual Telluride Tech Festival (August 8-10, 2003). The award was in recognition of Machover's p... (August 11th 2003) Glitches Reloaded By Peter B. Lloyd In Matrix Reloaded, how can Neo fly and use telekinesis if the Matrix is supposed to a physics simulation? Peter Lloyd decodes this and other technical enigmas--reverse-engineering the design of the M... (June 2nd 2003) [Click here to check out all Virtual Realities articles] Who Will Rule the 21st Century? By Jack Welch Straight-line extrapolation shows that China and India, with their faster growth rates, will eventually catch up to the U.S. in terms of pure economic size. But America has a final competitive advanta... (May 25th 2008) EGOGRAM 2007 By Sir Arthur C. Clarke The Golden Age of space travel is still ahead of us. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will gain access to the orbital realm -- and then, to the Moon and beyond, says Sir Arthur, 89.... (February 7th 2007) I'm Confident About Energy, the Environment, Longevity, and Wealth; I'm Optimistic (But Not Necessarily Confident) Of the Avoidance Of Existential Downsides; And I'm Hopeful (But Not Necessarily Optimistic) About a Repeat Of 9-11 (Or Worse) By Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil responds to John Brockman's The Edge Annual Question - 2007: WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY? ... (February 4th 2007) [Click here to check out all Visions of the Future articles] Response to 'The Singularity Is Always Near' By Ray Kurzweil In "The Singularity Is Always Near," an essay in The Technium, an online "book in progress," author Kevin Kelly critiques arguments on exponential growth made in Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity I... (May 4th 2006) Wolfram and Kurzweil Roundtable Discussion By Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Wolfram "The most dramatic possibility is the universe started from a simple initial condition that had some simple geometrical symmetry. It might be the case that if we turn our telescope off to the west, an... (February 24th 2006) Ray Kurzweil Responds to Richard Eckersley By Ray Kurzweil "Eckersley bases his romanticized idea of ancient life on communication and the relationships fostered by communication. But much of modern technology is directed at just this basic human need."... (February 3rd 2006) [Click here to check out all Point/Counterpoint articles] Engines of Creation 2.0: Molecular Engineering: An Approach to the Development of General Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation By K. Eric Drexler Developing the ability to design protein molecules will make it possible to construct molecular machines. These can then build second-generation machines that can perform extremely general synthesis o... (March 20th 2007) Engines of Creation 2.0: Advice To Aspiring Nanotechnologists By K. Eric Drexler It makes no practical sense to try to build a molecular assembler today. But we can build enabling technologies today, including protein engineering, general macromolecular engineering, and micromanip... (March 15th 2007) Engines of Creation 2.0: Letter From Author By K. Eric Drexler Engines of Creation in 1986 inspired an explosion of interest in nanotechnology. Version 2.0 updates this classic book, including new concepts for molecular manufacturing and new uses for nanotech, s... (March 15th 2007) [Click here to check out all Nanotechnology articles]