See the latest from Singularity Hub. For more, check out our Archive page.
Latest
Hey Google … What Movie Should I Watch Today? How AI Can Affect Our...
Have you ever used Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, or Amazon Alexa to make decisions for you? Perhaps you asked it what new movies have...
Can We Trust AI Doctors? Google Health and Academics Battle It Out
Machine learning is taking medical diagnosis by storm. From eye disease, breast and other cancers, to more amorphous neurological disorders, AI is routinely matching...
Scientists Just Achieved Room Temperature Superconductivity for the First Time
Superconductivity could be the key to groundbreaking new technologies in energy, computing, and transportation, but so far it only occurs in materials chilled close...
When Did We Become Fully Human? What Fossils and DNA Tell Us About the...
When did something like us first appear on the planet? It turns out there’s remarkably little agreement on this question. Fossils and DNA suggest...
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through October 17)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
A Radical New Technique Lets AI Learn With Practically No Data
Karen Hao | MIT Technology Review
"Shown photos of a horse and a rhino,...
NASA’s About to Try Grabbing a Chunk of Asteroid to Bring to Earth—and You...
If you’ve seen the movie The Martian, you no doubt remember the rescue scene, in which (spoiler alert!) Matt Damon launches himself off Mars...
Estonia Is a ‘Digital Republic’—What That Means and Why It May Be Everyone’s Future
People around the globe have been watching the buildup to the US election with disbelief. Particularly confusing to many is the furor over postal...
Alphabet’s New Moonshot Is to Transform How We Grow Food
In the 1940s, agronomist Norman Borlaug was tasked by the US government with improving the yield of wheat plants in Mexico. The thinking was...
Scientists Found a New Way to Control the Brain With Light—No Surgery Required
If I had to place money on a neurotech that will win the Nobel Prize, it’s optogenetics.
The technology uses light of different frequencies to...
Space Mining Should Be a Global Project—But It’s Not Starting Off That Way
Exploiting the resources of outer space might be key to the future expansion of the human species. But researchers argue that the US is...
Watch a Jet Suit Pilot Glide Up a Mountain in a Test for Wilderness...
A few years ago, I saw a guy in a jet suit take off in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The roar was deafening,...
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through October 10)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
GPT-3 Bot Spends a Week Replying on Reddit, Starts Talking About the Illuminati
Rhett Jones | Gizmodo
"..the length of the replies was especially unusual...
A Ridiculously Huge New Solar Farm Just Came Online in China
The Chinese economy has suffered as a result of the pandemic, but one sector that’s forging full-steam ahead is energy. Last week saw the...
A New Factory in France Will Mass-Produce Bugs as Food
Though the world’s population is no longer predicted to grow as much as we thought by the end of this century, there are still...
2020 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Work on Black Holes—an Astrophysicist Explains the...
Black holes are perhaps the most mysterious objects in nature. They warp space and time in extreme ways and contain a mathematical impossibility, a...
How Machine Learning Made Hops-Free Hoppy Beer (and Other SynBio Wonders) Possible
Synthetic biology is like a reality-altering version of Minecraft. Rather than digital blocks, synthetic biology rejiggers the basic building blocks of life—DNA, proteins, biochemical...
New Reactor Design Could Produce First Ever Energy-Positive Fusion Reaction
Nuclear fusion has gone from a scientists’ pipe dream to a technology attracting serious investment. Now one of the startups chasing this holy grail...
The Far Side of the Moon Is an Ideal Place to Listen For Alien...
Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question whose answer—whether it's yes or no—would philosophically and scientifically rock our world to the core.
To...
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through October 3)
COMPUTING
Trapped-Ion Quantum Computer Sets New Mark for Quantum Volume
John Timmer | Ars Technica
"While still the offerings of companies that are using superconducting...
These Robotic Virtual Reality Boots Make It Feel Like You’re Walking While You Stay...
Last year I did a VR experience meant to simulate what it’s like to be at the US-Mexico border wall. The tall, foreboding wall...
This Tiny Electric Car Is Selling Like Hot Cakes in China
Though far too many sectors of the economy have suffered enormous losses during the coronavirus pandemic, a few are doing alright. One of those...
Digital Technologies Will Help Build Resilient Communities After the Coronavirus Pandemic
Amid the horrific public health and economic fallout from a fast-moving pandemic, a more positive phenomenon is playing out: Covid-19 has provided opportunities to...
‘The Social Dilemma’ Will Freak You Out—But There’s More to the Story
Is social media ruining the world?
Dramatic political polarization. Rising anxiety and depression. An uptick in teen suicide rates. Misinformation that spreads like wildfire.
The common...
How a Memory Quirk of the Human Brain Can Galvanize AI
Even as toddlers we’re good at inferences. Take a two-year-old that first learns to recognize a dog and a cat at home, then a...
The World’s Space Agencies Are on a Quest to Deflect a (Harmless) Asteroid
People have a bottomless appetite for all things space these days. Some space news is truly mind-blowing, like the first image of a black...
