This past summer, the FBI was compelled to release information about the operational facial recognition database they working on. As part of its Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, this database is part of the FBIs efforts to build a “bigger, faster and better” means of biometric identification. Earlier this month, the FBI announced that the system is now working at “full operational capability”, and many people are worried…
To break it down, the NGI database is made up of millions of stored mugshots and other photos, which are then used when analyzing footage taken by CCTV feeds or other cameras around the country. The full deployment of the program comes three months after James Comey, the bureau’s director, announced that the agency was “piloting the use of mug shots” alongside the bureau’s other databases, in order to catch wanted criminals.
Designed to replace the bureau’s aging fingerprint database, the NGI is different in that it is designed to be multimodal. This means that it will link multiple forms of biometric data to biographical information such as name, address, ID number, age and ethnicity. It’s currently focused on fingerprint and facial records, but it will also be capable of holding iris scans and palm prints, with the possibility of added voice recognition and gate analysis (i.e. how people walk).
As the FBI said in a statement on Monday, Sept. 15th, the NGI, combined with fingerprint database:
[W]ill provide the nation’s law enforcement community with an investigative tool that provides an image-searching capability of photographs associated with criminal identities.
Naturally, the worries that this database will be another step towards “Big Brother” monitoring. However, what is equally (if not more) worrisome is the fact that the details of the program are only a matter of public record thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The lawsuit was issued in June of 2013, wherein the EFF compelled the FBI to produce records in accordance Freedom of Information Act to detail the program and its face-recognition components.
Citing the FBI documents, the EFF claims that the facial recognition technology is not very reliable and that the way the database returns results is fundamentally flawed, as well as pointing out that it will indiscriminately combine the details of both criminals and non-criminals. Based on their own interpretation, they claim it could fail 20 percent of the time, which could lead to innocent persons becoming the subject of police investigations.
Nevertheless, the bureau remains confident that the system will simplify and enhance law enforcement both locally and federally. As they said of the program when it was first announced back in 2011:
The NGI system has introduced enhanced automated fingerprint and latent search capabilities, mobile fingerprint identification, and electronic image storage, all while adding enhanced processing speed and automation for electronic exchange of fingerprints to more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies and other authorized criminal justice partners 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
In 2012, the NGI database already contained 13.6 million images (of seven to eight million individuals) and by mid-2013, it had 16 million images. We now know it aims to have 52 million facial records in its system by next year, and those will include some regular citizens. This is another source of concern for the EFF and civil liberties advocates, which is the estimated 4.3 million images taken for non-criminal purposes.
Whenever someone applies for a job that requires a background check, they are required to submit fingerprint records. These records are then entered into federal databases. Right now, the FBI’s fingerprint database contains around 70 million criminal profiles, and 34 million non-criminal records. With the NGI database now up and running, photographs can be submitted by employers and other sources along with fingerprints, which puts non-criminals on file.
The database, while maintained by the FBI, can be searched by law enforcement at all levels. According to Jennifer Lynch, the EFF attorney behind the lawsuit:
Your image would be searched every time there is a criminal investigation. The problem with that is the face recognition is still not 100 percent accurate.” This means that the system is liable to make mismatches with data. If a camera catches a criminal’s face and that is compared to images in the database, there’s no guarantee that it will pop up an accurate result.
What’s more, when the database is searched it does not return a completely positive result; but instead provides the top hits, ranked by probability of match. So if your face just happens to be similar to a snapshot of a criminal caught in CCTV footage, you may become a suspect in that case. Combined with other forms of biometric readers and scanners, it is part of a general trend where privacy is shrinking and public spaces are increasingly permeated by digital surveillance.
This sort of data exchange and on-the-ground scanning will be made possible by – and is one of the explicit aims of – FirstNet, the nationwide broadband network for law enforcement and first responders, colloquially referred to by some as the “internet of cops”. Much like all things pertaining the expansion of the internet into the “internet of things”, this sort of growth has the capacity to affect privacy and become invasive as well as connective.
As always, fears of an “Orwellian” situation can be allayed by reminding people that the best defense is public access to the information – to know what is taking place and how it works. While there are doubts as to the efficacy of the NGI database and the potential for harm, the fact that we know about its inner workings and limitations could serve as a legal defense wherever a potentially innocent person is targeted by it.
And of course, as the issue of domestic surveillance grows, there are also countless efforts being put forth by “Little Brother” to protect privacy and resist identification. The internet revolution cuts both ways, and ensures that everyone registered in the torrential data stream has a degree of input. Fight the power! Peace out!
As a young man, there were few things cooler to me than tanks. Sure, I wanted to be a pilot at the time, with visions of fighter jets dancing in my head. But armored warfare and the cool and advanced designs of modern MBTs (Main Battle Tanks) were never far behind. And so I thought it was high time I did a post dedicated to the world of these behemoths and what the current crop have to offer.
British Mark V tank, ca. 1917
Originally invented in World War I as a means of infantry support, tanks quickly evolved over the ensuing decades to become a distinct and fearsome weapon of war. In 1917, they were deployed as a means of breaking the stalemate caused by trench warfare, and were little more than lumbering, thinly-skinned land fortresses. But by 1939/40, their use as fast, cohesive offensive weapons that could break through enemy lines and encircle entire armies was demonstrated.
Russian T-34/76 in World War II
Throughout the Second World War, tanks continued to evolve to sport heavier armor and guns with increased size, range, and muzzle velocity. By the end of the war, some truly interesting designs had been produced by all sides, ranging from the light to the super-heavy. But these were largely abandoned in favor of designs that could be mass produced and had a good balance of speed, durability, firepower and protection.
American M1 Abrams MBT
And by the 1970’s, the Cold War spurred on numerous developments that would culminate in the c0ncept of the MBT. These included the development of lighter, composite armor and advanced anti-armor systems. In addition, the MBT concept was intended to fill the heavy direct fire role of modern armies and replace the light, medium, heavy and super-heavy tanks that were common.
Since that time, every major world power has produced its own variant of the MBT. Here are all the top contenders, group in alphabetical order…
AMX Leclerc: Named in honor of General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, who led the French element of the drive towards Paris during World War II, the AMX Leclerc is The Main Battle Tank of France. Beginning production in 1991, the tank is now in service with the French Army, the army of the United Arab Emirates, and is also renowned for being the most expensive tank in history.
The tank’s main gun is the GIAT (Nexter) CN120-26 120mm smoothbore cannon, which is capable of firing the same NATO standard 120mm rounds as the German Leopard 2 and US M1 Abrams. Unlike other MBTs of its generation, the Leclerc comes with an autoloading system which reduces the crew to three, and has an ammo capacity of 40 rounds. It is also equipped with a 12.7 mm coaxial machine gun and a remote-controlled 7.62mm machine gun,
The hull and the turret are made of welded steel fitted with modular armor, which can be replaced easily for repair or upgraded over the years. Unlike other NATO tanks, the Leclerc does not use the standard Chobham composite armor and relies instead on a French variant that includes composite armor, titanium inserts on the sides of the turret, and Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) blocks.
It’s eight-cylinder 1,000KW (1,500 hp) diesel engine can achieve a top speed of 72 km/h (45 mph) and it has an operational range of 550 km (342 mi) or 650 km (400 mi) with external fuel tanks.
Arjun: The MBT of India and produced by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the Arjun is named after the main protagonist and world’s greatest archer from the Indian epic, The Mahabharata. Design of the tank began in 1974 as a way of providing the Indian Army with an indigenously-designed and built tank. But delays prevented it from being officially developed until 2004.
The Arjun sports a 120 mm main rifled gun with indigenously developed Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot (APFSDS) ammunition, one 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun, and a 12.7 mm machine gun. The tanks is protected by the modular composite Kanchan armor that is composed of layers of composite alongside rolled homogenous steel, and a new honeycomb design of non-explosive and non-energetic reactive armor (NERA) is reportedly being tested as well.
Like most MBTs of its generation, the Arjun has a four-man crew, including the commander, gunner, loader and a driver. It is powered by a single MTU multi-fuel diesel engine rated at 1,400 hp, and can achieve a maximum speed of 70 km/h (43 mph) and a cross-country speed of 40 km/h (25 mph).
C1 Ariete: The MBT of the Italian Army, the Ariete was developed by a consortium formed by Iveco-Fiat and Oto Melara (aka CIO, Consorzio Iveco Oto Melara), with the chassis and engine produced by Iveco and the turret and fire-control system supplied by Oto Melara. Development began in 1988, with the first prototypes being delivered by 1995 and the tank entering into full service by 2002.
The Ariete’s main armament is a native 120 mm smoothbore cannon that uses the APFSDS-T, HEAT, and most NATO-standard rounds of the same caliber. The tank has a capacity of 42 rounds and secondary armaments consist of a 7.62 mm MG 42/59 coaxial machine gun and an additional 7.62 mm MG 42/59 configured as an anti-aircraft weapon that is fired from the hatch.
The vehicle carries the latest optical and digital-imaging and fire-control systems, which include a laser range-finder, thermal optics and a digital fire-control computer that can be networked. The Ariete’s armor is a steel and composite blend, similar to the British Challenger 2 and the American M1 Abrams. The tank is powered by a 25.8-litre turbo-charged Fiat-Iveco MTCA 12-cylinder diesel engine rated at 937 kilowatts (1,250 hp) that allows for a top cruising speed of 65 km/h.
Challenger 2: The MBT of the British Army, the Challenger 2 was designed and built by the British company Vickers Defence Systems (now known as BAE Systems Land and Armaments). Development of the tank began back in 1986 as an eventual replacement for the Challenger 1, which served as the mainstay of the British armor forces from the early 80s to the mid-90s.
The tanks main gun is the 120 millimeters L30A1 cannon which, unlike other NATO MBT’s, is rifled so that it can fire the high explosive squash head (HESH) rounds in addition to APFSDS armor-piercing rounds. The Challenger 2 is also armed with a 7.62 mm coaxial chain gun. a 7.62 mm roof-mounted machine gun, and can also mount a remote weapons system with a 7.62 mm machine gun, a 12.7mm heavy machine gun, or a 40mm automatic grenade launcher.
Challenger 2 is one of the most heavily armored and best protected tanks in the world, employing second-generation Chobham armor (aka. Dorchester) that is sloped in order to deflect the explosive energy of anti-tank weapons. Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) kits are also fitted as necessary along with additional bar armor and the tank’s shape is also designed with stealth technology to reduce radar signature.
The tank’s advanced targeting systems include a laser range-finder, night vision, thermal vision, digital fire control, and the option of a Battlefield Information Control System. It’s drive system consists of a Perkins 26.6 liter CV12 diesel engine delivering 890 kW (1,200 hp). It is capable of reaching 60 km/h (37 mph) on open road for 450 km (280 mi), or 40 km/h (25 mph) cross-country for 250 km (156 mi).
K2 Black Panther: A fourth-generation MBT in service with the South Korean armed forces, the K2 began development in 1995 and officially entered service in 2014. Despite enjoying technical superiority over North Korea’s aging army of T-55 and T-59 tanks, the purpose of the K2 was to create an MBT using entirely indigenous technology which could also be sold on the foreign export.
In terms of armament, the K2 comes equipped with L55 120 mm 55 caliber smoothbore gun that – capable of firing standard APFSDS rounds, as well as the Korean Smart Top-Attack Munition (KSTAM) anti-tank missile – a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun and a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun. It also comes equipped with an advanced Fire Control System (FCS) linked to a millimeter band radar system along with a traditional laser range-finder and crosswind sensor.
In terms of protection, the K2 employs a classified type of composite armor with ERA and NERA modular add-ons, in addition to soft-kill and hard-kill anti-missile defense systems. It also has a Radar Warning Receiver (RWR), radar jammer and Laser Warning Receivers (LWR) to alert the crew if the vehicle becomes “painted” and to deploy Visual and Infrared Screening Smoke (VIRSS) grenades.
The tanks drive system is a 4-cycle, 12-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine capable of generating 1,100 kW (1500 hp), with an operation range of 450 kilometers (280 mi). Its top speed on paved road is 70 km/h (43 mph), and 50 km/h (31 mph) cross-country.
Leopard 2: Developed by Krauss-Maffei in the early 1970s for the West German Army, the Leopard 2 entered service in 1979 to replace the older Leopard 1 models. In addition to being the MBT of a united Germany after 1989, the Leopard 2 is also one of the most widely-used tanks in the world, serving in a total of 16 armies that range from Germany and Austria, to Canada, Turkey, Singapore and Indonesia. Due to improved technology, the tank has also gone through many variations.
The primary gun on the Leopard 2 is the Rheinmetall L/44 120 mm smoothbore gun, which is capable of firing APFSDS warheads as well as the German DM12 multipurpose anti-tank projectile (MPAT) and the LAHAT anti-tank guided missile. It also has two 7.62mm machine guns, a coaxially-mounted one in the turret, and the other on an external anti-aircraft mount. The tank also has a stabilization system, a laser rangefinder, thermal imaging and a fire control computer.
For protection, the Leopard 2 uses spaced, multi-layered composite armor that incorporates Rolled Homogenous Armor (RHA), interior spall liners and the option of slat armor on the sides to protect from Rocket-Propelled Grenades (RPGs). The Leopard 2 is also equipped with a fire protection system that automatically dispenses halomethane foam in the event that the interior temperature rises above a certain point.
It is powered by a 1,103 kW (1,479 hp) V-12 liquid-cooled twin-turbo diesel engine with a fuel capacity of 1200 liters (317 gallons). It has a top speed of 72 km/h (45 mph) and an operational range of 550 km (340 mi).
M1 Abrams:The M1 is a third-generation tank and the MBT of the US Army US Marine Corps, Australian, Egyptian, Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian armies. Development began in 1972 and culminated in 79, with the first tanks entering service in 1980 to replace the older M60 Patton tank. Since that time, it has gone through multiple upgrades and variants in order to take advantage of the latest in technology.
Though the original M1 was equipped with the M68A1 105 mm rifled tank gun, it was quickly upgraded to a 44 and then 55 caliber 120 mm smoothbore gun (variants on Rheinmetall’s L/44 and L/55 used by the Leopard 2). It is capable of firing the APFSDS and HEAT rounds, as well as the M1028 anti-personnel canister cartridge. It also comes with two 7.62mm machine guns – one coaxial and one turret-mounted – and a 12.7mm machine gun mounted by the commander’s hatch.
The tank also has a full-stabilization system for the main gun an comes equipped with a laser rangefinder, crosswind sensor, a pendulum static cant sensor, thermal imaging and a firing computer. The tank’s crew is protected by a halon firefighting system similar to the Leopard 2’s, and a rear ammo compartment with blowout panels that protect the crew from its own ammo exploding.
The tank is protected by composite armor that is composed of alloys of steel, ceramics, plastic composites, and Kevlar, similar to British Chobam armor. It may also be fitted with reactive armor over the track skirts if needed and slat armor over the rear of the tank and rear fuel cells to protect against RPGs. Beginning in 1987, M1A1 tanks also received armor packages that incorporated depleted uranium components at the front of the turret and hull.
The M1 is powered by a 1,120 kW (1500 hp) turbine engine that is capable of running on gas or diesel with a fuel capacity of 1900 liters (500 gallons) and an operational range of 426 km (265 mi). The M1 and M1A1 have a a top speed of 67/72 km/h (42/45 mph) on the road and or 40/48 km/h (25/30 mph) off-road respectively.
Merkava IV: The latest MBT of the Israeli Defense Forces, the Merkava and its predecessors have the distinction of being designed with considerable input from soldiers themselves. The fourth variant of the Merkava program, the Mark IV began development in 1999 and entered service by 2004. Like its predecessors, it was designed for rapid repair of battle damage, survivability, cost-effectiveness and off-road performance.
Following the model of contemporary self-propelled howitzers, the turret assembly is located closer to the rear than in most main battle tanks and has the engine in front to provide additional protection against a frontal attack. It also has a rear entrance to the main crew compartment allowing easy access under enemy fire. This allows the tank to be used as a platform for medical disembarkation, a forward command and control station, and an armored personnel carrier.
The Mark IV includes the larger 120 mm smoothbore gun that can the HEAT and APFSDS rounds, using an electrical semi-automatic revolving magazine for 10 rounds. It also includes two 7.62 machine guns for anti-infantry defense. a 60 mm mortar, and a 12.7 mm machine gun for anti-vehicle operations. The tank’s 1112 KW (1,500 hp) turbocharged diesel engine can achieve a top road speed of 64 km/h (40 mph).
Some features, such as hull shaping, exterior non-reflective paints, and shielding for engine heat plumes mixing with air particles are designed to confuse enemy thermal imagers and make the tank harder to spot by heat sensors and radar. It also comes equipped with sectioned, modular armor that can be easily removed and replaced and carries the BMS (Battle Management System) – a centralized system that networks and shares data from all over the battlefield.
T-90: A third-generation MBT that is essentially a modernization of the T-72B and incorporating many of the features of the T-80U, the T-90 is the mainstay of the Russian armed forces. Proposed as a way of creating a single design that would cost less than employing tanks at once, the T-90 sought to marry the mass-production-friendly aspects of the T-72B with the modern amenities of the T-80U. Production began in 1992 and has continued unabated since.
The T-90’s main armament is a 125 mm smoothbore cannon that is capable of firing APFSDS rounds, high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT-FS), and high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) rounds, as well as the Refleks anti-tank guided missile. It also comes with a 12.7mm remotely controlled anti-aircraft heavy machine gun above the commanders hatch and a coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun.
The T-90 is fitted with a “three-tiered” protection system, the first of which is composite armor in the turret that consists of a basic armor shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section. The second tier is third generation Kontakt-5 ERA blocks which, along with sandwiching steel plates and composite filler, make up the turret’s forward armor package.
The third tier is a Shtora-1 (“curtain”) countermeasures suite that includes two electro-optical/IR “dazzlers” on the front of the turret (the distinct Red Eyes), four Laser warning receivers, two 3D6 aerosol grenade discharging systems and a computerized control system. The Shtora-1 warns the tank’s crew when the tank has been ‘painted’ and infrared jammer jams the guidance system of some anti-tank guided missiles.
The tank is powered by a 12-cylinder diesel engine that comes in the 618 kW (840 hp), 746 kW (950 hp), and 930 kW (1250 hp) varieties. Depending on the type of engine, the T-90 has an operational range of 550-700 kms (340-430 mi) and a top speed of 60–65 km/h (37–40 mph).
Type 10 Hitomaru: Designed to replace Japan’s aging Type 90, the Type 10 is a fourth-generation MBT and the second to be entirely developed by Japan for use by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. Development began in the 1990’s, the first prototypes being showcased at the 2008 Technology Research and Development Institute (TRDI), and the tank officially entered service with the armed forces by 2012.
In terms of armaments, the Type 10 is believed to use a 120 mm smoothbore gun developed by Japan Steel Works, similar to the L/44, L/50, and L/55 guns licensed by Rheinmetall. The gun is capable of firing all standard 120 mm NATO ammunition, including the newly developed APFSDS round. It also has a roof-mounted 12.7 mm machine gun and a coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun.
The vehicle’s armor consists of modular sections, composed of nano-crystal steel (or Triple Hardness Steel) and modular ceramic composite armor. The tank also has an auto loader which reduces the crew size to three, and comes with day and night sights as standard features. It also has the C4I (Command, Control, Communication, Computer & Intelligence) system which can be incorporated into the JGSDF network to enable sharing of information among units.
The tanks is powered by a 883 kW (12oo hp) V8 Diesel engine that is capable of acheiving speeds of up to 70 km/h (43 mph) in both forward and reverse, and has an operational range of 440 km (273 mi).
Type 99: Also known as ZTZ-99 and WZ-123, and developed from the Type 98, the Type 99 is a third generation main battle tank (MBT) fielded by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Much like its predecessor, the T-99 is designed to compete with both contemporary Russian and western designs. Development began in 2001 and a prototype was unveiled at the China People’s Revolution Military Museum in Beijing during the 2007 Our troops towards the sun exhibition.
The main armament is the 125 mm smoothbore gun which is capable of firing sabot APFSDS, HEAT, and HE-FRAG projectiles, as well as the Soviet AT-11 laser-guided anti-tank missiles and a specially-developed depleted uranium round. It also comes with a remotely operated 12.7 mm machine gun, a commander’s 12.7 mm machine gun, and coaxially-mounted 7.62 mm machine gun.
Though the nature of the Type 99’s armor protection remains classified, it is assumed to be of comparable RHA strength to other third-generation designs, as well as an experimental composite armor known as transparent ceramic. There is also observational evidence that the armor includes modular composite armor that comes in block form, or the addition of ERA blocks.
The Type 99 is powered by a 1100 kW (1500 hp) liquid-cooled diesel engine, with a special (2100 hp) engine for the
Type 99KM model. The tank has a maximum speed of 80 km/h (50 mph) with an operational range of 600 km (373 mi).
Summary/The Future: When looking at the full spectrum of third-generation and fourth-generation tank designs, a few common features become clear. Tanks that were conceived and designed during and after the 1970’s were all intended to take advantage of the latest in tank and anti-tank systems, and for good reason. Since their inception in the second decade of the 20th century, tanks grew in speed, lethality and versatility. Hence, countless systems were devised to knock them out.
In addition to anti-tank rifles and guns that were used throughout the 1920’s and 30’s, these ensuing decades added rockets and rocket-propelled grenades. At the same time, tanks themselves began to sport larger caliber guns with increased range, velocity and more sophisticated warheads. By the 1960’s, optically-tracked and computer-guided missiles were introduced and led to more rounds of innovation.
This led to the introduction of composite armor, which included aluminum alloy, ceramics, depleted uranium, and rolled homogenous steel. This was developed simultaneously with the advent of depleted uranium sabot rounds, shaped charge plasma rounds, and guided missiles that could be fired from a tank gun. Basically, third-generation tanks would combined the ultimate in tank protection and anti-tank weaponry.
Stabilization systems were also introduced along the way which had a revolutionary impact. Prior to their use, tanks were forced to stop driving in order to fire a shot at the enemy, which made them temporarily vulnerable. But with the new stabilizers – as well as targeting computers, night vision, and laser range finders – tanks were now extremely accurate, could fire while on the move, and could engage the enemy day or night.
Today’s fourth-generation tanks take advantage of all of this, and add to it with networking capabilities, more sophisticated computers, and defensive systems that let the crew know when they are being targeted by laser-guided munitions. Armor is also becoming increasingly modular and component-based so tanks can add to their protection or strip down to lighten their loads and increase their speeds.
When it comes to the future of tank warfare, the same forces appear to be at work. Basically, tank systems need to be smarter, stealthier, and more adaptable rather than simply heavier and more lethal. As such, there are numerous projects being developed by DARPA and other defense agencies around the world to create “stealth tanks”, vehicles that would be invisible to thermal imagine and could take advantage of adaptive camouflage to avoid being spotted.
Armata UCP concept
At the same time, there are efforts to create universal combat systems, such as a heavy military vehicle platform that can be fitted to serve in a number of roles. A perfect example of this is Russia’s Armata Universal Combat Platform, a tracked platform will be the basis for a main battle tank, a heavy infantry fighting vehicle, a combat engineering vehicle, an armored recovery vehicle, a heavy armored personnel carrier, a tank support combat vehicle or a self-propelled artillery gun.
With such a system, combat engineers would be able to mount whatever turret or additional components they need to create a vehicle of their choice, one which is suited to the combat role or mission it is expected to perform. This sort of adaptability and versatility also informs ideas for a new class of AFVs (Armored Fighting Vehicles) that would be lighter, more mobile, and could be retrofitted to act as a tank, APC, IFV, command vehicle, or anything else needed.
There are even plans to develop a whole new race of warmachines that would rely on a combination of avoidance, stealth, speed and maneuverability rather than heavy, modular armor for protection. Who can tell which will bear fruit ultimately? At this point though, one thing is clear: in the coming years, tanks will continue to get smarter and become increasingly networked, turning each one into a mobile command and combat platform.
Never let it be said that the zombie apocalypse is going out of vogue, as it now seems that The Walking Dead has some competition. It’s called Z Nation – a show that premiered on Sept 12th on the SyFy channel – and which takes a similar, but altogether different approach for dealing with the zombie pandemic. Whereas the former is dark in tone and the characters seem to lurch from one tragedy to the next, this new series is all about zombie smashing!
As creator Karl Schaefer said of his creation, comparing it to its immediate rival:
If you’re going to go through the apocalypse, would you rather be with the people onThe Walking Dead, who are always kind of miserable and not having any fun, or our guys that are out to go kick some zombie ass?
I know my answer, and I have to say I’m a little peeved as well as impressed. Kicking zombie ass was what my series Whiskey Delta was supposed to be about! In fact, reviewers of that series have said how much they like a story where, for once, the military isn’t totally incompetent and knows how to deal with the infected and the undead hordes. Man, I haven’t felt this ripped-off since J J Abrams’ Revolution first aired!
But enough about my half-assed grievances. As with The Walking Dead, World War Z, and a slew of other zombie franchises, the storyline revolves around a motley group of survivors who have come together in the aftermath of the collapse of civil order. In addition, the zombie concept is based on a virus that takes people over and reanimates their bodies once they die. But alas, there’s a big twist, which you will see in the trailer below.
Z Nation debuted to 1.6 million views for its premiere on Friday, September 12th, which is fairly modest for a Syfy drama series. But the network pointed out that this is a record for an acquired show produced by an outside party (Sharkado production company The Asylum made ZNation), and that noted more viewers watched Z Nation than the most recent telecasts of The Leftovers on HBO, Teen Wolf on MTV and Doctor Who on BBCA.
And interestingly enough, those ratings were comparable to the premier of The Walking Dead‘s fourth season fall premier, provided you add a decimal point in there. Yes, in a strange case of convergence, the WD episode “30 Days Without an Accident” garnered a total of some 16 million viewers, beating out the 2014 Winter Olympics AND the Beatles TV movie entitled The Beatles: The Night That Changed America.
So yes, it’s got some catchup work to do if it wants to be a contender for the top spot, but it’s really just getting started. Suffice it to say, I will be watching this show from now on! Check out the trailer and see if you agree:
Between artificial knees, total hip replacements, cataract surgery, hearing aids, dentures, and cochlear implants, we are a society that is fast becoming transhuman. Basically, this means we are dedicated to improving human health through substitution and augmentation of our body parts. Lately, bioprinting has begun offering solutions for replacement organs; but so far, a perfectly healthy heart, has remained elusive.
Heart disease is the number one killer in North America, comparable only to strokes, and claiming nearly 600,000 lives every year in the US and 70,000 in Canada. But radical new medical technology may soon change that. There have been over 1,000 artificial heart transplant surgeries carried out in humans over the last 35 years, and over 11,000 more heart surgeries where valve pumps were installed have also been performed.
And earlier this month, a major step was taken when the French company Carmat implanted a permanent artificial heart in a patient. This was the second time in history that this company performed a total artificial heart implant, the first time being back in December when they performed the implant surgery on a 76-year-old man in which no additional donor heart was sought. This was a major development for two reasons.
For one, robotic organs are still limited to acting as a temporary bridge to buy patients precious time until a suitable biological heart becomes available. Second, transplanted biological hearts, while often successful, are very difficult to come by due to a shortage of suitable organs. Over 100,000 people around the world at any given time are waiting for a heart and there simply are not enough healthy hearts available for the thousands who need them.
This shortage has prompted numerous medical companies to begin looking into the development of artificial hearts, where the creation of a successful and permanent robotic heart could generate billions of dollars and help revolutionize medicine and health care. Far from being a stopgap or temporary measure, these new hearts would be designed to last many years, maybe someday extending patients lives indefinitely.
Carmat – led by co-founder and heart transplant specialist Dr. Alain Carpentier – spent 25 years developing the heart. The device weighs three times that of an average human heart, is made of soft “biomaterials,” and operates off a five-year lithium battery. The key difference between Carmat’s heart and past efforts is that Carmat’s is self-regulating, and actively seeks to mimic the real human heart, via an array of sophisticated sensors.
Unfortunately, the patient who received the first Carmat heart died prematurely only a few months after its installation. Early indications showed that there was a short circuit in the device, but Carmat is still investigating the details of the death. On September 5th, however, another patient in France received the Carmat heart, and according to French Minister Marisol Touraine the “intervention confirms that heart transplant procedures are entering a new era.”
More than just pumping blood, future artificial hearts are expected to bring numerous other advantages with them. Futurists and developers predict they will have computer chips and wi-fi capacity built into them, and people could be able to control their hearts with smart phones, tuning down its pumping capacity when they want to sleep, or tuning it up when they want to run marathons.
The benefits are certainly apparent in this. With people able to tailor their own heart rates, they could control their stress reaction (thus eliminating the need for Xanax and beta blockers) and increase the rate of blood flow to ensure maximum physical performance. Future artificial hearts may also replace the need for some doctor visits and physicals, since it will be able to monitor health and vitals and relay that information to a database or device.
In fact, much of the wearable medical tech that is in vogue right now will likely become obsolete once the artificial heart arrives in its perfected form. Naturally, health experts would find this problematic, since our hearts respond to our surroundings for a reason, and such stimuli could very well have unintended consequences. People tampering with their own heart rate could certainly do so irresponsibly, and end up causing damage other parts of their body.
One major downside of artificial hearts is their exposure to being hacked thanks to their Wi-Fi capability. If organized criminals, an authoritarian government, or malignant hackers were dedicated enough, they could cause targeted heart failure. Viruses could also be sent into the heart’s software, or the password to the app controlling your heart could be stolen and misused.
Naturally, there are also some critics who worry that, beyond the efficacy of the device itself, an artificial heart is too large a step towards becoming a cyborg. This is certainly true when it comes to all artificial replacements, such as limbs and biomedical implants, technology which is already available. Whenever a new device or technique is revealed, the specter of “cyborgs” is raised with uncomfortable implications.
However, the benefit of an artificial heart is that it will be hidden inside the body, and it will soon be better than the real thing. And given that it could mean the difference between life and death, there are likely to be millions of people who will want one and are even willing to electively line up for one once they become available. The biggest dilemma with the heart will probably be affordability.
Currently, the Carmat heart costs about $200,000. However, this is to be expected when a new technology is still in its early development phase. In a few years time, when the technology becomes more widely available, it will likely drop in price to the point that they become much more affordable. And in time, it will be joined by other biotechnological replacements that, while artificial, are an undeniably improvement on the real thing.
It certainly has been a momentous few weeks for space exploration! Between the final weeks of August and the month of September, we’ve seen the Curiosity rover reach Mount Sharp, the Rosetta spacecraft created the first full map of a comet’s, the completion of the Orion space module, and the MAVEN orbiter reach Martian orbit. And before the month is out, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will also arrive in orbit around the Red Planet.
Despite all these developments, that occurred (relatively) close to home, there was even more news to be had, coming all the way from the edge of the Solar System no less. At the tail end of August, NASA announced that the New Horizons space probe passed Neptune orbit and is on its way to Pluto. Launched back in 2006 for the purpose of studying the dwarf planet, the probe is expected to arrive on July 14th of next year.
NASA says that the the craft passed the Neptunian orbit at 10:04 pm EDT on Monday August 25th, which coincided with the 25th anniversary of Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune in 1989. But where Voyager came within 4,950 km (3,080 mi) of the gas giant, the New Horizons craft passed by at a distance of 3.96 billion km (2.45 billion mi). The spacecraft is now almost 4.42 billion km (2.75 billion mi) from Earth, and is the fastest man-made object ever sent into space.
Nevertheless, New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) was still able to capture images of Neptune and its giant moon Triton. As you can see from the image below, Neptune appears as the large white disc in the middle, while Triton is the small black dot passing in front and sitting slightly to the ride. NASA says that Triton may be very similar to Pluto and the information gathered by Voyager 2 may prove helpful in the coming encounter.
Ralph McNutt of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
There is a lot of speculation over whether Pluto will look like Triton, and how well they’ll match up. That’s the great thing about first-time encounters like this – we don’t know exactly what we’ll see, but we know from decades of experience in first-time exploration of new planets that we will be very surprised.
The first mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program, the New Horizons mission was launched on January 19, 2006 atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It broke the record for the fastest man-made object on lift off with a speed of 58,536 km/h (36,373 mph). The 478 kg (1,054 lb) spacecraft was sent on a 9.5-year mission to fly by Pluto – a distance so far that radio signals from the nuclear-powered probe take four hours to reach Earth.
Sent on a slingshot trajectory using the gravitational pull of Jupiter, which tacked on another 14,480 km/h (9,000 mph) to its speed, New Horizons will pass Pluto in July of next year at a distance of 13,000 km (8,000 mi). After this encounter, it will continue on out of the Solar System, during which it will be in the distant Kuiper belt studying one or more Kuiper belt objects (KBOs).
Though this will still not rival Voyager 1’s accomplishments, which left our Solar System last year, New Horizons promises to gather far more information on the Outer Solar System and what lies beyond. All of this will come in mighty handy when at last, humanity contemplates sending manned missions into deep space, either to Alpha Centauri or neighboring exoplanets.
Far from Silicon Valley in California, there is a place that some are now calling “Silicon Savannah.” Located around Nairobi, and centered on the nonprofit collective Ushahidi, an explosion in African tech is taking shape. And this month, backers of the collective’s 2013 Kickstarter campaign are finally getting their hands on BRCK – a long-awaited device that is the antithesis of shiny, expensive internet hardware.
A mobile Internet router, BRCK is essentially a self-powered, mobile Wi-Fi device that promises to bring internet access to remote communities and underdeveloped neighborhoods all around the world. And as an added bonus, it reverses the usual order of globalization – having been invented in a developing country, built in the US, and intended for customers in any country anywhere.
It can connect to the web in one of three ways: by plugging in a standard ethernet cable, by bridging with other Wi-Fi networks, or by accessing 3G or 4G data via a basic SIM card. Originally, Ushahidi invented it in order to overcome infrastructure challenges – specifically, inconsistent electricity and Internet connectivity – plaguing young upstarts in Nairobi. But it turns out, plenty of other people and places face the same challenges all over the world.
Contrary to public opinion, it is not just developing or underdeveloped countries that experience infrastructure challenges. Recently in the UK, Virgin Media customers across London lost service; while in the US, in what appeared to be an unrelated event, millions of Time Warner customers across the U.S. – largely in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and Tampa – were knocked offline.
But even just focusing on the developing world, BRCK’s potential market is enormous. While only a quarter of people from the developing world are currently connected, they already account for a staggering two-thirds of all people online today. While the technology is not exactly cutting-edge by most standards, it offers numerous advantages that take the needs of its potential market into account.
Beyond its three connection methods, BRCK can keep up to 20 users up and running for as long as eight hours during an electrical outage. And should the internet be unavailable in a given locale, the device continues operating offline, syncing up when its connection is restored. In addition, the stock hard drive is 4 gigabytes big, and it has a storage capacity of up to 32 gigabytes.
BRCK CEO Erik Hersman, who cut his teeth in the industry as a blogger, sees the company’s base in Nairobi as one of its greatest assets, particularly given its target market. Having been born in Sudan and having settled in Kenya with his young family, ( is well-suited to addressing local needs with local solutions:
I describe it as a new remix of old technology. That’s the key to understanding Africa’s technology… If it works in Africa, it’ll work anywhere… We’re playing with dirty power and crappy Internet, so the device has to be resilient.
While designed in Kenya, BRCK is manufactured and assembled in Texas by a company called Silicon Hills, which is located outside of Austin. With its matte black, rubberized case, BRCK is elegant, but mostly unassuming, and has the relative dimensions of an actual brick. It’s too large to fit in a pocket, but small enough to carry in a backpack, place on a desk, or even on the hood of your Land Rover in the African countryside.
By weight, BRCK is substantially heavier than a plastic router, but it’s also much more than one. In addition to its battery, BRCK has multiple ports, including a general-purpose input/output, enabling users to program and connect other hardware – such as sensors or a solar charger – to the device. But what is perhaps most compelling about BRCK, are its potential applications.
In truth, the greatest possibilities lies in the ability to break away from the model of centralized internet providers. This could lead to nothing short of a revolution in how people get online, and in way that would ensure a far greater measure of “equality of access”. As Hersman explained it:
We see enormous resonance with the work of other organizations. Take the proliferation of web-enabled laptops and tablets in schools; why is it that each of these devices connect to a mobile tower? Why not to a single, centralized point? …We’re at a place in history where the barriers to entry are no longer in the software space, but in the hardware space. Because we don’t yet have fully functioning maker spaces and rapid prototyping abilities here in Nairobi, the design process is still relatively slow and expensive, but the barriers are coming down.
Education, health, environmental, and even military and governmental organizations are already in conversation with BRCK and multiple entities are testing it out. For consumers in emerging markets, BRCK’s $200 price tag may be a stretch, but the company is looking at purchasing plans, which have worked well in developing nations for both the cell phone and energy sectors.
But BRCK’s business model is ultimately based more on companies than individual consumers. Digital Democracy, a nonprofit organization that has worked in two dozen countries around the world, is one such company. According to its founder and executive director, Emily Jacobi:
The reason that we backed BRCK and that I’m excited to see it come about is because it fills an important gap in hardware and tools. We’re going to remote areas and training groups – indigenous groups, refugees, and other at-risk populations – to map the land and communities using GPS devices and cameras. We’re particularly excited about BRCK’s ability to facilitate collaborative work, as well as function offline.
If there was one thing that the Digital Revolution promised, it was to bring the world together. Naturally, there were those who thought this to be naive and idealistic, citing the fact that technology has a way of being unevenly distributed. And while today, people live in a world that is far more connected than in any previous age, access remains an illustrative example of the gap between rich and poor nations.
Hence why an invention like the BRCK holds so much promise. Not only does it neatly reverse the all-too-common direction of technological development – i.e. technology conceived by a wealthy country, built in a poor one, only sold in wealthy ones – it also helps to shorten the gap between rich and poor nations when it comes to accessing and enjoying the fruits of that development.
This month, orders began shipping to buyers in 45 countries around the world this month. To get your hands on one, check out Ushahidi’s website and learn more about their efforts to develop open-source, equal-access technology.
In November 2013, NASA launched the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) space probe from Cape Canaveral. Described as a “time machine” for Mars, the orbiter would spend the next ten months traversing space, assuming an orbit around the Red Planet, and look for an answer as to how Mars went from being a planet with an atmosphere and water to the dried out husk that we know today.
And this evening, after trekking some 711 million kilometers (442 million-mile) across our Solar System, MAVEN will have arrived in orbit around Mars and will begin its year-long mission to study the planet’s upper atmosphere. The arrival will be broadcast live, courtesy of NASA TV and Space.com. The live webcast will run from 9:30 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. EDT (0130 to 0245 GMT), and if all goes well, MAVEN will enter orbit around Mars at 9:50 p.m. EDT (0250 GMT).
As David Mitchell, NASA’s MAVEN project manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement:
So far, so good with the performance of the spacecraft and payloads on the cruise to Mars. The team, the flight system, and all ground assets are ready for Mars orbit insertion.
Though plans to study Mars’ atmosphere in detail have been in the works for years, the MAVEN program received a big push from the ongoing efforts from the Curiosity rover. During its ongoing mission to study the surface of Mars, Curiosity was able to confirm that Mars had extensive surface water billions of years ago. This revelation came very early in the mission, and indicated some rather interesting things about Mars’ past.
For instance, although Mars is now too cold for flowing water today, it might have had a thicker atmosphere in the past that warmed its surface and allowed the liquid to remain stable on the surface. And while scientists have a pretty good idea how it was lost (i.e. too far our Sun, too low a gravity field), the rate of loss and when it disappeared are just some of the questions that MAVEN will attempt to answer.
Much of what scientists know about Mars’ upper atmosphere comes from just a few minutes’ worth of data from the two Viking landers that took measurements as they made their way to the Martian surface in the 1970s. This time around, NASA will be able to collect data for an entire year, gathering far more data than either the Viking landers or any other spacecraft has since had the opportunity to do.
As Bruce Jakosky, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, explained it:
The MAVEN science mission focuses on answering questions about where did the water that was present on early Mars go, about where did the carbon dioxide go. These are important questions for understanding the history of Mars, its climate, and its potential to support at least microbial life.
NASA scientists understand that Mars’ upper atmosphere acts as an escape zone for molecules floating dozens of miles from the planet’s surface. They theorize that as the solar wind hits the atmosphere, the radiation strips away the lighter molecules and flings them into space forever. To test this hypothesis, MAVEN will be examining the state of Mars’ upper atmosphere, and ionosphere to determine its interactions with the solar wind.
In so doing, NASA hopes to determine what the current rates of escape are for neutral gases and ions, and thus get a better picture of how long it took for the atmosphere to degrade and when it began degrading. The upper atmosphere of Mars likely changes as the sun’s activity increases and decreases, which is why MAVEN investigators hope to run the mission for longer than a year.
MAVEN will began making science measurements around Nov. 8, due to it taking a short break from its commissioning phase to watch Comet Siding Spring pass close by on Oct. 19. The $671 million MAVEN spacecraft is one of two missions that launched toward Mars last November and which are making their arrival this month. The other probe is India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, which launched just before MAVEN and will arrive at the Red Planet this Wednesday (Sept. 24).
It is an exciting time for space exploration, and the coming years are sure to be characterized by an escalating and accelerating rate of learning. Be sure to head on over to Space.com to watch the arrival broadcast live. And be sure to check out the following videos – the Mars Arrival trailer; NASA Goddard Center’s “Targeting Mars” video; and the NASA MAVEN PSA, hosted by LeVar Burton:
With numerous plans for a manned mission to Mars, some of which are scheduled to one-way settlement projects, the question of how and what people on Mars will eat is an important one. What will the Martian diet look like? How will they grow their food? Will it people subsist on endless supplies of freeze-dried rations, or will they get all the veggies, fruits and protein they need from hydroponic produce?
Well, according to Dutch ecologist Wieger Wamelink, the Martian settlers might just be able to grow their food in the local soil. In a series of experiments using soil tailored to fit extra-terrestrial environments, Wamelink was able to make a mustard seed sprout. The soil was provided by NASA, a sample which they had collected from the desert, dried out, and cleansed of certain nutrients that’s meant to replicate what Martian and lunar soil would be like.
Wamelink had ordered more than 100 pounds of each type to his research greenhouse in the Netherlands to see what kinds of plant life might prosper in greenhouses on other planets. He and his team planted tomato seeds, stinging nettle, carrots, rye, and a host of other wild species in the soils in a series of 840 pots, then published their results in PLOS One late last month.
As Wamelink, who works for the Alterra Institute at the University of Wageningen, explained:
I think we’re really the first to do that. We have looked at how plants see what [nutrients are] available in these soils, and it was unknown to NASA. They were very happy when we sent our results.
What was perhaps most impressive about the results was how well some plants fared in the imitation Mars soil. Some seeds germinated after just 24 hours and flowered within 50 days, something Wamelink had never expected. He knew that nitrogen might not be available in alien soils, but when he analyzed the Martian soil compared to nutrient-poor sand from the banks of the Rhine, he found that Mars actually had much more going for it than he thought.
The Martian atmosphere contains nitrogen, and gusts of gases from the sun charge the nitrogen into a form that is digestible for plants. The planet also contains phosphorus, ammonium, and nitrates – all essential for plant growth. Field mustard and a tough, wild Dutch species called “reflexed stone crop” produced some of the best results. Lunar soil, by contrast, didn’t provide very friendly turf for earthling plant species.
Soil on the moon is thin, dusty, and full of aluminum and other heavy metals. Martian soil also contains lots of heavy metals, but it is aluminum that most plants don’t do too well in the presence of. So for the time being (or rather, if and when we settle the Moon), Lunar greenhouses will have to look to imports of Earth soil while Martian settlers can simple scoop the soil they need from outside their airlocks.
However, there are a few snags. For starters, even though Wamelink’s study provided some of the first evidence that species of Earth plants can grow on planets other than Earth, it still doesn’t show how eating those plants might affect humans. The Martian surface experiences lots of radiation, and eating radioactive plants full of heavy metals might not be the best idea for the human digestive system.
Nevertheless, Wamelink believes that some aspects of the Martian climate might actually be beneficial for plant growth. On a planet with a third of the gravitational pull of Earth, he suspects that plants might be able to grow taller than they ever would on their home planet. In his mind’s eye, he pictures plants encased in skyscraper Martian greenhouses. Alas, not all scientists agree with him, and he admits its an unresolved issue.
Still, its an exciting one that is loaded with potential. And who’s to say that after a little processing and decontamination, Martian soil would have everything the settlers need to grow their own food? The very fact that it is being considered and examined so seriously shows our commitment to making an enduring human presence on Mars a reality someday. And as that day get’s closer, more and more questions are likely to be addressed.
And figuring out how to grow our own crops in Martian soil will provide inevitable feedback on how we could use Earth plants to one day convert the ecology of the Red Planet and make it into something a little more suited to full-scale habitation. Who knows? In a few centuries time, Red Mars may become Green Mars. And perhaps even Blue Mars. Oh, Kim Stanley Robinson, you daring dreamer, you!
When IBM’s artificial intelligence program – named Watson – won Jeopardy in 2011, it was a major boon for the industry. However, far from showing that it was Turing-compatible, Watson was merely processing information that it had been programmed to know. But now, IBM is pushing the software forward in the hopes that the machine will be able to answer the really tough questions – i.e. the ones that have no answer and require educated guesses.
This is part of IBMs attempts to turn Watson into a new line of business and make it useful in a wide range of industries that are dealing lately with an overwhelming amount of data. At an event in New York at the end of August, IBM showed off the ways some of its early customers are using the Watson “Discovery Advisor” in research, development, and innovation, especially in the realm of biotech and life sciences.
Watson’s aim is to speed up discoveries by teams of researchers by, for example, scanning and interpreting millions of scientific books, articles, and data points–far more than any person’s brain could analyze–and generating new hypothesis or leads that might be fruitful to investigate. As John Gordon, the vice-president of IBM’s Watson group, put it, it’s all about giving researchers “smarter hunches”:
It’s not giving answers that people know anymore, it’s pointing people in directions that they should investigate. We’re talking about a computing system that inspires people.
Scientists at the Baylor College of Medicine and IBM Research have already used Watson to discover new pathways to cancer therapies, which they reported in a study presented at an academic conference late last month. Watson looked closely at 70,000 scientific articles on a protein, called p53, that’s involved in more than half of all cancers, and picked out 6 different proteins that it felt were good candidates for new drugs and therapies.
Drug companies, too, which are struggling today to develop new commercial drugs, are some of the earliest users of Watsons predictive capabilities. Sanofi is using Watson to look through the research literature and its own data to find new uses for its existing drugs on the market. And Johnson & Johnson has developed a system that analyzes clinical studies to compare the efficacy and safety of different treatments.
Soledad Cepeda, Johnson & Johnson’s director of epidemiology, used the example of back pain, for which there are 27 treatments studied in more than 3,000 clinical trials. As she explained:
[Analyzing this] is slow, it’s tedious, it’s expensive, and it’s prone to errors. Now imagine we can teach Watson to do that for us. So instead of six months, Watson can do it in minutes.
Johnson & Johnson has been working to train Watson to read each study, put it in context, and pick out how many patients dropped out of the study or trial due to side effects or ineffective results. If Watson can give researchers all of this comparative data, rather than them combing through thousands of papers, it would allow researchers to come up with better questions to ask and directions to explore.
But of course, this is not always an easy things for Watson to do and requires setup and new skills for it to learn. For example, in Johnson & Johnson’s work, in the studies Watson was analyzing, authors often reported the key data in the form of flow diagrams. So Soledad and her team had to first teach Watson to correctly read flow diagrams of varying levels of complexity and design.
So far, Watson’s earliest discovery applications have been in the field of biomedical research. But the company hopes it will prove useful in a wide array of fields where the data available to analyze is growing faster than even the world’s top experts are capable of comprehending – such as law enforcement and finance. Whether it’s determining whodunnit, or predicting market trends in the next quarter, Watson could prove very helpful in tackling the task of big-data crunching.
To illustrate the potential for law enforcement, Roberto Villasenor, chief of police for the city of Tucson, Arizona, spoke at the event and detailed an open case of a young child who went missing from her home. Over two years of investigating, the police have generated 15,000 pages of lab reports, records, and warrants, 25,00 pages of interviews, 4,000 pages of transcribed wiretaps, and much other data.
His department has already worked with IBM on software that integrates different police databases to make it easier for investigators to make connections between disparate data sources. But he hopes systems like Watson will eventually go further and be capable of aiding investigators in combing through data, making subtle connections, and generating new leads in difficult cases.
However, the most public demonstration of Watson’s new abilities thus far has been in the form of “Chef Watson”. IBM has put Watson to the task of learning how to cook and then creating creative tasty and unexpected new recipes. It debuted this capability at a food truck at SxSW this year, but has also been working with the Institute of Culinary Education and Bon Appetit magazine to refine and stretch Watson’s cooking skills.
Bon Appetit is now beta testing a consumer app that allows readers to input an ingredient and desires and have Watson generate suggested recipes. It held a Watson recipe contest this summer–the winner of the “best use of Watson as a creative discovery tool” was a “Roasted tomato and mozzarella tart” recipe. Cooking isn’t like curing cancer or solving crimes, but to IBM it’s most about getting the public excited about its advances.
As IBM senior vice president Mike Rhodin said:
Much the same way that Jeopardy helped people understand systems that can answer questions using natural language, Chef Watson is a way for us to understand how these new systems can be used in our everyday lives.
And that’s the real aim here, long-term, which is adapting computer-learning into our daily lives. And given time, we may have access to AIs that can do the difficult and mind-numbing task of sifting through gigabytes, terabytes and even petabytes of information in order to find answers to tough questions, discern the patterns, and come up with solutions. One can only hope they don’t use that information for evil and try to destroy us!
It may look like something a dedicated hobbyist built, and sound like something cheekily named, but NASA’s new electrical vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) machine is a very serious venture. Known as the GL-10 Greased Lightning, this unmanned hybrid-electric aircraft is the agency’s proposal for a vehicle that one day replace the reigning champion of VTOL – the helicopter.
The G-10 is in part the result of the recent strides made in electric propulsion, which is made possible thanks to the growing power and energy density of batteries allows for some very efficient hybrid-electric aircraft designs. With eight prop engines mounted on the two main wings and another two mounted on the tail, the vehicle swivels them into vertical position for takeoff and landing, and then horizontal for conventional flight.
While it’s not particularly hard to create an aircraft capable of VTOL, it has so far proven to be very tough to create an aircraft that can also efficiently cruise through the air after taking off vertically. The helicopter is the only common example of a VTOL aircraft that can also cruise acceptably, but at a cost. Compared to other aircraft, an everyday helicopter has a much lower-lift-drag ratio, which means it burns more fuel, has less range and can carry less weight.
However, electric propulsion allows for much more efficient designs, since vehicles no longer have to accommodate large fossil fuel-powered engines or manage the mechanical stress across the airframe. Instead, they can rely on smaller, more efficient, optimally placed electric motors, and without the mechanical complexity of big jet engines, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to have wings and propellers that can swivel between horizontal and vertical.
While pure-electric aircraft do exist – in the form of quadcopters – hybrid-electric designs with longer range are generally of more interest to military and commercial groups. In the case of NASA’s Greased Lightning, there are two small diesel engines in the body of the aircraft that turn electric alternators that constantly recharge the lithium batteries. This theoretically gives the GL-10 the same range and duration as a modern plane alongside its VTOL capability.
Interestingly, NASA also says that such a hybrid-electric design is “scale free” — meaning the same principles could be used to revolutionize everything from helicopters, to military UAVs, to massive jetliners. Much like hybrid-electric cars, the concept is set to revolutionize an entire fleet of aircraft designs that could be far more efficient than they currently are. One party who is sure to be interested in the possibilities is the US military, with its ever growing fleet of UAVs.
For now, Greased Lightning only has a wingspan of 3 meters (10 feet), and on its first test flight – which took place on National Aviation Day, August 19 – it was tethered. Untethered flights are planned for later in the year, an event which is sure to be a media sensation and produce some viral videos!
This past summer, the FBI was compelled to release information about the operational facial recognition database they working on. As part of its Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, this database is part of the FBIs efforts to build a “bigger, faster and better” means of biometric identification. Earlier this month, the FBI announced that the system is now working at “full operational capability”, and many people are worried…
Designed to replace the bureau’s aging fingerprint database, the NGI is different in that it is designed to be multimodal. This means that it will link multiple forms of biometric data to biographical information such as name, address, ID number, age and ethnicity. It’s currently focused on fingerprint and facial records, but it will also be capable of holding iris scans and palm prints, with the possibility of added voice recognition and gate analysis (i.e. how people walk).
Citing the FBI documents, the EFF claims that the facial recognition technology is not very reliable and that the way the database returns results is fundamentally flawed, as well as pointing out that it will indiscriminately combine the details of both criminals and non-criminals. Based on their own interpretation, they claim it could fail 20 percent of the time, which could lead to innocent persons becoming the subject of police investigations.
In 2012, the NGI database already contained 13.6 million images (of seven to eight million individuals) and by mid-2013, it had 16 million images. We now know it aims to have 52 million facial records in its system by next year, and those will include some regular citizens. This is another source of concern for the EFF and civil liberties advocates, which is the estimated 4.3 million images taken for non-criminal purposes.
The database, while maintained by the FBI, can be searched by law enforcement at all levels. According to Jennifer Lynch, the EFF attorney behind the lawsuit:
This sort of data exchange and on-the-ground scanning will be made possible by – and is one of the explicit aims of – FirstNet, the nationwide broadband network for law enforcement and first responders, colloquially referred to by some as the “internet of cops”. Much like all things pertaining the expansion of the internet into the “internet of things”, this sort of growth has the capacity to affect privacy and become invasive as well as connective.
Never let it be said that the zombie apocalypse is going out of vogue, as it now seems that The Walking Dead has some competition. It’s called Z Nation – a show that premiered on Sept 12th on the SyFy channel – and which takes a similar, but altogether different approach for dealing with the zombie pandemic. Whereas the former is dark in tone and the characters seem to lurch from one tragedy to the next, this new series is all about zombie smashing!
But enough about my half-assed grievances. As with The Walking Dead, World War Z, and a slew of other zombie franchises, the storyline revolves around a motley group of survivors who have come together in the aftermath of the collapse of civil order. In addition, the zombie concept is based on a virus that takes people over and reanimates their bodies once they die. But alas, there’s a big twist, which you will see in the trailer below.
And interestingly enough, those ratings were comparable to the premier of The Walking Dead‘s fourth season fall premier, provided you add a decimal point in there. Yes, in a strange case of convergence, the WD episode “30 Days Without an Accident” garnered a total of some 16 million viewers, beating out the 2014 Winter Olympics AND the Beatles TV movie entitled The Beatles: The Night That Changed America.
BRCK CEO Erik Hersman, who cut his teeth in the industry as a blogger, sees the company’s base in Nairobi as one of its greatest assets, particularly given its target market. Having been born in Sudan and having settled in Kenya with his young family, ( is well-suited to addressing local needs with local solutions:
When IBM’s artificial intelligence program – named Watson – won Jeopardy in 2011, it was a major boon for the industry. However, far from showing that it was Turing-compatible, Watson was merely processing information that it had been programmed to know. But now, IBM is pushing the software forward in the hopes that the machine will be able to answer the really tough questions – i.e. the ones that have no answer and require educated guesses.
While pure-electric aircraft do exist – in the form of quadcopters – hybrid-electric designs with longer range are generally of more interest to military and commercial groups. In the case of NASA’s Greased Lightning, there are two small diesel engines in the body of the aircraft that turn electric alternators that constantly recharge the lithium batteries. This theoretically gives the GL-10 the same range and duration as a modern plane alongside its VTOL capability.
Stories by Williams 