Lifeboat Foundation

NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) worked with two private firms to develop advanced structures for high power solar arrays that are stronger, lighter, and package more compactly for launch. This technology investment furthers the agency’s deep space exploration goals and aids the commercial communications satellite industry, the provider of direct-to-home television, satellite radio, broadband internet and a multitude of other services.

The Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA) is one of the options eyed by NASA that could power an advanced solar electric propulsion spacecraft that makes possible such endeavors as the agency’s Asteroid Redirect Mission—plucking a multi-ton boulder from an asteroid’s surface, and then maneuvering that object into a stable orbit around the moon for human inspection and sampling.

Tapping into ROSA technology allows the conversion of sunlight into electrical power that drives the ion thrusters of a solar electric propulsion spacecraft. ROSA is expected to enable a number of space initiatives and is a cost-saving plus to transport cargo over long distances beyond the Earth.

Continue reading “Roll Out Solar Array Technology: Benefits for NASA, Commercial Sector” »

Horizon Robotics, led by Yu Kai, Baidu’s former deep learning head, is developing AI chips and software to mimic how the human brain solves abstract tasks, such as voice and image recognition. The company believes that this will provide more consistent and reliable services than cloud based systems.

The goal is to enable fast and intelligent responses to user commands, with out an internet connection, to control appliances, cars, and other objects. Health applications are a logical next step, although not yet discussed.

Wearable Tech + Digital Health San Francisco – April 5, 2016 @ the Mission Bay Conference Center.

Continue reading “AI on a chip for voice, image recognition” »

Dark Net v. Law Enforcement — who is winning and who is struggling.

The Dark web is a privileged place for cyber criminals that, under specific conditions, could operate in anonymity.

The United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has published its annual report that contains a specific mention to the illicit trade of goods and drugs in this hidden part of the web.

Continue reading “Law enforcement and the Dark Web, a never ending battle” »

Want to buy the World-Check terror suspect DB? You can on the Dark Web for $6750.

Last month’s borked Couchdb breach delivers more pain to Thomson Reuters.

Their back.

The internet has always been the most preferred platform for carrying out illicit activities. The underground black markets are not a new phenomenon in the virtual world. However, these black markets are now becoming more sophisticated and organized. Darkness is one such underground marketplaces which are rising and becoming uglier. Though law enforcement agencies have brought down the number of such illegal platforms, the Darknet markets are up and running. Darknet markets are growing bigger than ever with over $50 million UDS transactions reportedly flowing through these marketplaces and it is a big challenge in front of security agencies and governments to finish this underground industry from its roots.

Decoding Darknet

Continue reading “Darknet Market Raises Its Ugly Head Again” »

Today’s high-speed wired communication networks use lasers to carry information through optical fibers, but wireless networks are currently based on radio frequencies or microwaves. In an advance that could one day make light-based wireless communications ubiquitous, researchers from Facebook Inc.’s Connectivity Lab have demonstrated a conceptually new approach for detecting optical communication signals traveling through the air.

The team described the new technology, which could pave the way for fast optical wireless networks capable of delivering internet service to far-flung places, in Optica, The Optical Society’s journal for high impact research.

Bridging the Digital Divide

Continue reading “New detector overcomes key challenge in using light for wireless communications: With data rates of more than 2 gigabits per second, new approach in photodetection could simplify free-space optical communication” »

Luv it; more believers.

Quantum computers promise to enable faster, far more complex calculations than today’s silicon chip-based computers. But they also raise the possibility that future computers could retroactively break the security of any digital communications that exist today, which is why Google is experimenting with something called “post-quantum cryptography.”

While quantum computer development remains in its early stages, some such computers are already in operation. In theory, future generations of quantum computers could “decrypt any Internet communication that was recorded today, and many types of information need to remain confidential for decades,” software engineer Matt Braithwaite wrote yesterday in a post on Google’s security blog. “Thus even the possibility of a future quantum computer is something that we should be thinking about today.”

Continue reading “Post-Quantum Cryptography Aims To Fend Off Advanced Hack Attacks” »

Science and the internet have an uneasy relationship: Science tends to move forward through a careful and tedious evaluation of data and theory, and the process can take years to complete. In contrast, the internet community generally has the attention span of Dory, the absent-minded fish of “Finding Nemo”(and now “Finding Dory”) — a meme here, a celebrity picture there — oh, look … a funny cat video.

Thus people who are interested in serious science should be extremely cautious when they read an online story that purports to be a paradigm-shifting scientific discovery. A recent example is one suggesting that a new force of nature might have been discovered. If true, that would mean that we have to rewrite the textbooks.

As a physicist, I’d like to shed a disciplined scientific light on the claim.

Continue reading “A Fifth Force: Fact or Fiction?” »

The warning from QuintessenceLabs’ CTO John Leisoboer is stark. “When sufficiently powerful quantum computers become generally available,” he says, “it’s guaranteed to break all existing cryptographic systems that we know of.”

In other words, he adds, “Everything that we’re doing today will be broken.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Google’s Chrome security software engineer Matt Braithwaite who wrote in a blog post earlier this month that “a hypothetical, future quantum computer would be able to retrospectively decrypt any internet communication that was recorded today”.

Continue reading “Can we find a quantum-resistant algorithm before it’s too late?” »