DARPA is developing smarter, faster armored vehicles

Roku CEO: All-in-One Smart TVs of the Future Will Make Apple TV Boxes Useless

What will TVs in the future look like? According to the founder and CEO of Roku, they’ll be smart screens that seek out content and provide it in a simple-to-use interface. Speaking to The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, Anthony Wood outlined his vision for the future of television at the Collision conference in New Orleans Tuesday.

Even though Roku is likely associated in most people’s minds as a device you plug into the TV, Wood clearly has a different vision for the company’s future. Instead, TV makers will build in the Roku software into their sets, so consumers don’t have to buy any extra dongles or boxes.

Initially, Wood thought that future TVs would be nothing but dumb monitors, ready to hook up to smart boxes. “You’d think that’s the way it is, but that’s not the way it is!” he said. While the general TV market has stayed flat, smart TVs are growing. In a few years time, Wood predicts, every TV will be powered by a “smart” operating system like Roku.

“TVs are gonna win. The consumers like convenience,” Wood said.

Wood’s comments go against the vision companies like Apple or Amazon, who want to sell consumers a box for their simple monitor. Patel asked Wood whether people would end up buying one of these Roku-powered TVs and plug in something like the Apple TV to add in more services. “Why would they do that?” Wood asked.

There are currently 60 Roku TVs on the market, from five different manufacturers. The Roku OS, Wood explained, runs half on the TV and half in the cloud. In the future, consumers may have to upgrade their TVs like they do with smartphones, which could get costly. Wood, however, dismissed the inconvenience behind that by saying you could buy a Roku TV for $125 in the Black Friday sales from Wal-Mart.

Expect a lot more advertisements in this future, however. Wood noted that its ad partnerships with companies like Amazon and Hulu have proven particularly lucrative. As anyone with a Roku box today knows well, companies pay to “skin” the Roku home interface regularly, with a recent campaign from Hulu making customers’ home screens look like Jerry’s apartment from Seinfeld. If your whole TV is a Roku, you won’t be able to unplug your box to hide from ads of this style, which are less delightful – a Friends full-screen takeover, for instance.

Also expect Roku to continue working on its interface. Wood said that the company could do more to help consumers find content from other apps. When it does come, though, Roku may come one step closer to total TV dominance.

“The streaming revolution is going to continue at full force,” Wood said.

Step away from your dog!

April 26, 2016

Will ‘mind-controlled’ drones be the newest way to fly?

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The University of Florida’s inaugural brain-computer interface (BCI) drone competition last weekend was a success for its 16 competitors, who used brain monitors to propel small UAVs through a 10-yard sprint across a basketball court. But the world’s first ever mind-controlled drone race was also heralded as an achievement for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform, and other technologies powered by brain waves.

The process was made possible by a BCI computer program which had the “racers” focus on digital cubes displayed on a laptop screen that translated into the drones’ movements. An electroencephalogram (EEG) worn on their foreheads picks up the brain’s commands, which programmers’ codes then translate into ones that the drones, hovering over the court, can understand.

“With events like this, we’re popularizing the use of BCI instead of it being stuck in the research lab,” Chris Crawford, a doctoral student in computer science, told the Associated Press. “BCI was a technology that was geared specifically for medical purposes, and in order to expand this to the general public, we actually have to embrace these consumer brand devices and push them to the limit.”

Brain-powered control is not a brand new science: earlier advances are already being applied to developments in automobile manufacturing,artificial limbs for amputees and trauma victims, and even the control of others’ bodies. But while the tech has been used before, it’s now becoming accessible to people outside of medical and research settings and could provide progress in a variety of disciplines.”We’re starting a new trend in society; there will be future brain drone competitions,” Juan Gilbert, a University of Florida computer science professor whose students were in charge of the race, says in a video about it. “We’re starting out with a simple little race right now. Who knows where this will go? It’s exciting.”

BCIs are still a long way out from perfect – the drones in the Florida race wavered rather than whizzed down the court – but using thought-control in a competition is the latest example of the tech becoming more widely accessible. The setups used by the university cost around $500 each, as the AP reported, while companies like NeuroSky are offering ‘mind-controlled’ drones for $230.

Scientists foresee BCIs becoming an eventually ubiquitous component of everyday life, allowing simple control of household items without lifting a finger.

“One day you could wear a brain-controlled interface device like you wear a watch, to interact with things around you,” Dr. Gilbert told the AP.

The use of thought control does not come without its own challenges and moral questions. As cybersecurity becomes a bigger issue in the tech world, popularizing yet another hackable subject – people – could prove concerning. EEG signals are personal, and their use could be traced back to individuals, a facet of the technology that makes its ethical use more complicated.

“EEG readings are similar to fingerprints,” Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kit Walsh told the AP. “Once I know what the readings look like from your brain in a certain situation…I’ll be able to recognize you by that pattern again later on.”

That may seem innocent enough for BCI drone races, but could add a wrinkle to widespread, everyday use of such systems in the future, including cases where the drones are lethal. A Pentagon-funded programallowing EEG control of multiple UAVs is one example of how the seemingly helpful development could prove more ethically challenging.

“The progress of the BCI field has been faster than I had thought ten years ago,” Dr. Bin He, a biomedical engineer at the University of Minnesota, told the AP. “We are getting closer and closer to broad application.” 

Mind-Controlled Drones Race to the Future

AP

New artificial protein assembles materials at the nanoscale

A buckyball, or buckminsterfullerene molecule, is spherical molecule made up of 60 carbon atoms. Photo by ibreakstock/Shutterstock

HANOVER, N.H., April 26 (UPI) — Proteins are the contractors of the nanoscale natural world, assembling and building at the atomic, molecular and cellular levels. Increasingly, materials scientists are working to harness that power.

Recently, researchers at Dartmouth College created protein capable of crafting buckyball molecules. “Buckyball” is a nickname for buckminsterfullerene molecules, a soccer ball-shaped molecule of 60 carbon atoms.

The newly synthesized protein organizes buckyballs into a periodic lattice — a wall of buckyballs.

“Learning to engineer self-assembly would enable the precise organization of molecules by design to create matter with tailored properties,” Gevorg Grigoryan, an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth, said in a news release. “In this research, we demonstrate that proteins can direct the self-assembly of buckminsterfullerene into ordered superstructures.”

Nanoscale superstructures are prized by materials scientists for their superior strength and lightweight qualities. Nanoscale materials can also be manipulated for more precise control of spectral qualities and chemical reactivity.

Researchers described the advantages and potential of their protein in the journal Nature Communications.

“This is a proof-of-principle study demonstrating that proteins can be used as effective vehicles for organizing nano-materials by design,” Grigoryan added. “If we learn to do this more generally — the programmable self-assembly of precisely organized molecular building blocks — this will lead to a range of new materials towards a host of applications, from medicine to energy.”

Amazon Echo Dot offers greatest hits in slimmer package

By Jim Rossman / The Dallas Morning News

WHEN I reviewed the Amazon Echo last July, I said I believed we were all going to have something like this in our homes in the future. After a few months of owning my own Echo, I’m convinced I’m right. The $180 Echo is a wireless speaker combined with a virtual assistant called Alexa.

The Echo is finally getting everyday use in our house, but I found we don’t really need all the Echo’s functionality.

One of the Echo’s main features is as a wireless music player, but in our house, a Sonos wireless speaker system pipes music to several rooms.

I’m sure a good chunk of the Echo’s cost is for a decent-sounding speaker system that gets no use from me. I love the Echo’s virtual assistant capabilities, but I don’t really need another way to play music in my house, especially if I can’t sync it up in every room like I can with Sonos.

Luckily for me, Amazon read my mind and introduced a new Echo product, the $89 Echo Dot, which is exactly what I wanted—it’s Alexa without the big speaker. The Dot has a tiny speaker so you can interact with Alexa, but it really shines when you connect it to speakers you already own through an aux-out port or Bluetooth.

In my house, I’m connecting the Dot to my Sonos Connect’s auxiliary input port.

Now I can say, “Alexa, play my James Taylor station from Pandora,” and the music is funneled through my Sonos system all over the house.

Many better clock radios also have an aux-in jack, and I see the Dot as the perfect bedside companion.

In fact, since our Echo sits on one side of the house in the living room, we placed the Dot in the bedroom so we can use Alexa from both ends of the house.

The Dot looks exactly like an Echo with the top 2 inches chopped off. It has the same array of microphones around its top edge, which rotates to adjust the volume.

Like the Echo, the Dot is always listening for its trigger word, which is “Alexa” by default, but it can also be changed to Echo or Amazon. When the trigger word is spoken, the top of the Dot lights up with blue LEDs. Whatever you say next is transmitted instantly to Amazon’s server for translation, and your command is transmitted back.

There is an Alexa companion app for your smartphone or tablet that lets you configure the Echo or Dot. In the app, you will list all the commands you’ve spoken, complete with an audio snippet of your voice. The app lists what it thinks you said and asks if it heard you correctly. You can submit feedback to Amazon if Alexa didn’t understand or didn’t do what you asked.

You can also help the Dot’s voice recognition by using the voice-training portion of the app. You’ll be asked to read aloud 25 different phrases that will help Alexa understand your commands.

HOME AUTOMATION

In my previous review, I said, “I can see the Echo being a great way to control complex home automations.” Amazon’s been busy adding features to the Echo, including compatibility with many home-automation hubs and products.

I’ve only had the Echo for a few months, and my wife and I are using it several times per day to turn on and off our connected lights.

We have a Wink hub with a variety of connected light bulbs and an Emerson Sensi Wi-Fi thermostat. I can control the lights, individually or in groups, and raise or lower the thermostat setting without getting out of bed.Amazon has added support for Nest, Insteon, Lutron, SmartThings, Wink, LIFX, TP-Link, Ecobee and Philips Hue and some others.

I’m using an app called Yonomi that can connect to the Echo and to my Sonos system and act as a bridge between them.

The Dot shares all of the original Echo’s features, including music streaming, audio books, shopping and to-do lists, timers and alarms, news and sports briefings and skills.

Echo skills are third-party integrations you can add as you like.

Skills include ordering a pizza from Domino’s, calling an Uber, finding out what movies are playing nearby and a few hundred more.

ONE MORE THING

Alongside the Echo Dot, Amazon also introduced the Echo Tap, a battery-powered version of the Echo designed to be used wherever it’s convenient for you, like out by the pool.

The Tap is a tallish cylinder, like the original Echo, but it’s shorter, and to conserve the battery, the microphones are not constantly listening for a wake word. To get Alexa’s attention on the Tap, you press a button on top. But be aware, while the Tap is portable, you still have to be within range of a Wi-Fi network for any of Alexa’s features to work.

WHICH ONE?

SO now there are three Echo products—but which is right for you? All three feature Alexa.

The original Echo is a good choice for most households. Its speaker is perfect for bringing music to any room of the house. Many of my friends have one in their kitchen. The Dot is for Echo users who have their own sound systems they’d like to use, and the Tap is suited for use in the backyard. Frankly, I’m looking to sell my Echo and pick up another Dot, but the Dots are back-ordered until July.

By the way, the Tap ($130) is available now on Amazon for all customers, but the Dot is restricted to Amazon Prime subscribers. It must be ordered through Amazon voice shopping on an Echo or a Fire TV’s voice remote.

There is a limit of one Dot per order and two per customer. So if you don’t already have a Dot, it’ll be a few months before you’ll get one. But if you ask me, it’s worth the wait.

• Pros: Small size, fits anywhere, Alexa, audio out port, Bluetooth.

• Cons: Not many. The built-in speaker is too small for quality music enjoyment.

• Bottom line: This is the Echo I’ve been waiting for.

DARPA Seeks Blockchain Messaging System for Battlefield Use

A major US defense agency devoted to advanced R&D is seeking to create a secure, blockchain-based messaging system.

Disclosure of the still-theoretical system, comes courtesy of a notice posted to the website of theDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DAPRA), an office in the US Department of Defense (DoD) that has long played a role in promoting emerging technologies.

Among the more famous DARPA projects as ARPANET, a predecessor of today’s Internet.

According to the notice, DARPA is seeking pitches for a “secure messaging system” that would use a “decentralized ledger” to facilitate the broadcast of encrypted secrets in a transparent fashion.

The notice explains:

“There is a critical DoD need to develop a secure messaging and transaction platform accessible via web browser or standalone native application. The platform separates the message creation, from the transfer of the message within a secure courier to the reception and decryption of the message.”

DARPA envisions three stages for the project.

The first would focus on the development of a system “built on the framework of an existing blockchain framework”, suggesting that an existing blockchain like bitcoin’s could be used directly or as inspiration.

From there, prototypes and commercial-scale versions of the network would see development and deployment, according to the notice.

Possible applications

According to DARPA, the proposed system could function as a means for offices within the DoD to interact with one another in a secure way.

Specific applications include the use of the network to organize satellite communications or facilitate interdepartmental purchases within the DoD.

The notice states:

“By doing this, significant portions of the DoD back office infrastructure can be decentralized, ‘smart documents and contracts’ can be instantly and securely sent and received thereby reducing exposure to hackers and reducing needless delays in DoD back office correspondence. As an example, Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests (MIPR) could be implemented using the secure ledger.”

As a result, oversight of such purchase requests could be magnified due to the transparent nature of those distributed ledgers used, DARPA goes on to say.

The network would also potentially see battlefield applications. According to DARPA, the messaging system could be leveraged during instances in which troops are attempting to communicate.

“Troops on the ground in denied communications environments would have a way to securely communicate back to HQ, and DoD back office executives could rest assured that their logistics system is efficient, timely and safe from hackers,” DARPA wrote.