H+ News Network : Transhuman News

Your source for news and articles related to Transhumanism / the H+ Movement, Futurism, Cybernetics, AI, and the rapidly changing technological world.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

The Future in 3D: How Micro-Manufacturing can Empower the Disenfranchised

"[...] talk of things like microeconomics and small business dynamics might not seem particularly scintillating. However, it remains an absolutely essential task, as only by demonstrating how our ideas and methods can address the practical needs and moral imperatives of the present can we ever hope to build popular, sustainable, and comprehensive support for the better, more ambitious future that we dare to imagine. The rise and proliferation of new micro-manufacturing or '3D printing' is one such practical, tangible example whose impact has only just begun to be felt, rife with new possibilities to foster in innovation and offer a particularly potent promise to disempowered communities and individuals."

[hplusnewsnetwork]

NBA uses Google Glass to turn courtside celebrities into broadcasters

"The NBA's love affair with Google Glass is continuing through the playoffs, with the Indiana Pacers adding a new feature to its in-stadium Glass live streaming: celebrities. The Eastern Conference team that's had one of the best records in the league this year already uses Glass to beam live pictures from around the court to its scoreboard, but now it's doing it with famous attendees donning the headset. The first of these new Glass-casters is NFL defensive end Robert Mathis, a longtime member of the Indianapolis Colts and last season's leader in sacks."

[hplusnewsnetwork]

Should Your Driverless Car Kill You to Save Two Other People?

There's a train speeding down the tracks towards five innocent people who will never get away in time. You can save them by pulling a switch, but it'll kill another person on a different track. It's a thought experiment people have debated for ages, but it's about to become a real dilemma when we program robots to pull the switch, or not.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

"Is it possible to develop 'moral' autonomous robots with a sense for right, wrong, and the consequences of both? Researchers from Tufts University, Brown University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute think so, and are teaming with the U.S. Navy to explore technology that would pave the way to do exactly that."

[hplusnewsnetwork]

Mind-controlled prosthetic arm from Segway inventor gets FDA approval

Nearly eight years ago, DARPA, the US Defense Department's advanced research agency, set out to find a better solution for amputees than the metal hooks still widely used today. Now, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted its approval to one of the projects that came from that effort: a mind-controlled prosthetic limb called the DEKA Arm. A number of other scientists and engineers around the world are working on similar devices, but this is the first such prosthetic to get FDA approval. The prosthetic device comes from a company founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen, and it is roughly the size and weight of an adult arm.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

Torri's biggest dreams was to give her dad a hug.  She was born with a right arm that only grew up to her elbow. In the fall of 2013, her high school friends started a campaign called #HandforTorri that they hoped might get the attention of someone who could help. The Buried Life, with the generous support of Invisible Children and Hanger Clinics, were able to come through for Torri.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

Inside the Startup That’s Trying to Build a Battery That Lasts Forever

Imergy has spent years perfecting an energy storage device that, if it lives up to its billing, will help accelerate the big green future by allowing companies and homeowners to pull the plug on their local utility by banking electricity from solar arrays and wind farms for use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. A 250-kilowatt battery system installed in a 40-foot container, for instance, could store solar energy from the rooftop arrays of a 40-home neighborhood for later use.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

DARPA’s new Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program seeks to deliver [...] naturalistic sensations to amputees, and in the process, enable intuitive, dexterous control of advanced prosthetic devices that substitute for amputated limbs, provide the psychological benefit of improving prosthesis "embodiment," and reduce phantom limb pain. The program builds on neural-interface technologies advanced during DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics and Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) programs that made major steps forward in providing a direct and powerful link between user intent and prosthesis control.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

"TRANSHUMAN VISIONS" was held on February 1, 2014, at the Conference Center in Fort Mason, San Francisco.

The first #Transhumanist Visions conference was held in February, and here is a playlist with all the talks!

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10 New Breakthrough Technologies 2014 | MIT Technology Review

Technology news is full of incremental developments, but few of them are true milestones. Here we're citing 10 that are. These advances from the past year all solve thorny problems or create powerful new ways of using technology. They are breakthroughs that will matter for years to come.

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Back to the future with Isaac Asimov

How well did Asimov's 50-year predictions from 1964 fare? You may be surprised.

It is 2014, and we should all be in therapy. At least, that's according to Isaac Asimov, one of the 20th Century's best-known science fiction authors, who in 1964 published an essay predicting what our world would look like today.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

What if you never had to charge your wearable tech — because it was able to harvest your body heat to run? That could soon be possible, thanks to a device developed by researchers at KAIST, led by electrical engineering Professor Byung Jin Cho — and not just for wristbands, but for heart monitors, smart glasses and other wearable tech.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

Google Acquires Titan Aerospace, The Drone Company Pursued By Facebook

Both Ascenta and Titan Aerospace are in the business of high altitude drones, which cruise nearer the edge of the earth’s atmosphere and provide tech that could be integral to blanketing the globe in cheap, omnipresent Internet connectivity to help bring remote areas online. According to the WSJ, Google will be using Titan Aerospace’s expertise and tech to contribute to Project Loon, the balloon-based remote Internet delivery project it’s currently working on along these lines.

[hplusnewsnetwork]

Artificial blood 'will be manufactured in factories'

It is the stuff of gothic science fiction: men in white coats in factories of blood and bones.

But the production of blood on an industrial scale could become a reality once a trial is conducted in which artificial blood made from human stem cells is tested in patients for the first time.

[signsfromthenearfuture]

(Icon by Hypermorgen through The Noun Project)

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[Fluff] Signs from the Future offers a possible glimpse into our near-future urban spaces.

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Philosophy of Mind & Robotics with Dan Barry.

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Genetically modified monkeys created with cut-and-paste DNA

Cut-and-Paste transgenics: easier genome editing procedure Crispr/Cas9 tested in primates.

Researchers have created genetically modified monkeys with a revolutionary new procedure that enables scientists to cut and paste DNA in living organisms. The macaques are the first primates to have their genetic makeup altered with the powerful technology which many scientists believe will lead to a new era of genetic medicine.