Palin's Hometown Acquires Giant Battlemech Superiority, No Wolf or Clear Minded Individual is Safe!

Giant battlemechs have been the dream of both Japanimation freaks and cooky DARPA engineers for decades. Now the dream has become a reality. But to the horror of both these esteemed groups and the rest of the civilized world the dream has been realized by an army mechanic working out of his garage in Wasilla, Alaska. This could mean that an army of buffont sporting mega robots could descend from the North to liberate the Joe-sixpacks and hockey moms (really? americans still play hockey?) that the rest of us have kept in submission for half a century. My advice, outfit your various motorcycles, dirt bikes, mopeds, motorized razor scooters, and segways with tow cables to disable the monolithic beasts, because if these Wasillians are smart they will surely make their armor to strong for blasters.

"ViddyHo" attack

There's a deady worm passing through gChat; I was attacked this afternoon! I survived by not doing anything. Don't give them your gmail information!

A phishing attack is quickly spreading through instant-messaging sessions, including Google Chat, and directing victims to a Web site called “ViddyHo.”


A link, shortened through TinyURL, directs message recipients to a ViddyHo login page. That page instructs them to enter their Google account information, which is then used to break into the victim’s account and send the link to other users in the victim’s address book or buddy list.






That’s particularly risky in the case of Google, he said, since a spammer with access to a victim’s GChat account might use it to tap his or her Gmail, Blogger or other Google accounts.

UPDATE: Kevin Gilbertson, TinyURL’s founder, said that the site is now blocking any TinyURLs from being created that point to the site.

Readers, have you been spammed by these phishing attacks yet? Have you seen them anywhere else?

via http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/24/viddyho-attack-spreads-through-chat-sessions/

RIP Mars lander Phoenix

The Mars lander Phoenix, which has been shralping the Arctic plains since May, has sent its final transmission. The New York Times describes the machine's spacedust-addled final moments as a harrowing ordeal similar to me trying to use my iPod this morning:

The spacecraft first put itself into a low-energy “safe mode,” then fell silent. It revived itself on Oct. 30, but, with the dust still swirling, was never able to fully recharge its batteries. Each day, the solar panels would generate enough electricity for the spacecraft to wake up, but then the batteries drained again.

The Phoenix mission was a success for NASA. It confirmed the presence of ice on the surface of the planet, tested the soil, and took thousands of photos. It was expected to only last for 3 months but was extended twice. It also made a twitter account and posted 605 updates (the last few are posthumous) which gathered 38,000 followers.

There's a really slim chance that Phoenix will be reincarnated as Zombie Phoenix if it's electronics survive being encased in Martian ice for several months. 

Monkeys control robots!

As the old saying goes: Either monkeys or robots are going to take over the earth (either Planet of the Apes style or a Terminator situation). Now they are working together, our assured destruction is not far off. Sure they say there are great implications for allowing paraplegics to operate mechanical arms, enabling them to be more self sufficient, I just say be careful...


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/science/29brain.html?hp

Update (5/30/08): Thanks to reader Elliot for sharing the link. I want to quote a piece from the Times article to clarify that this is actually a really cool advancement because the monkeys began to use the appendage as their own (not simply control a mouse cursor or mechanical arm, as they and humans had done before). The monkeys quickly adapted the new arm as their own, and making adjustments and fine tuning motions as they would their own arm. Really quite exciting for this field. Excerpt:

In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill.

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time.

Peaceful Flower Bots Attempt to Stave Off Robot Uprising

Patricia, loveliest of all readers, has sent us the above video, proving that not all robots are hell-bent on destroying us all. Will the gentle swaying and electro-synth-love of these flora-bots be enough to mitigate the mindless evil of Arachnobot Jr. and his army of doom-loving minions? Only time will tell...

First steps in creating deadly Terminator T-1000 already under way

There is no scarier scene in cinema than when a distraught T-100 sees the more-advanced T-1000 regenerate after being blown up in the last act of Terminator 2: Judgment Day

We all thought the T-100 had it wrapped when he says 'Hasta La Vista Baby.'

But now scientists, as if in unison, are beginning to explore ways to make the T-100s worst nightmare a reality (most likely un-consciously ordered to do so by Skynet), as demonstrated in the following clip.





This sort of self-maintaining robot has many possible applications, such as remote surveillance and unmanned exploration missions, but is more likely to just scare the shit out of anyone who has ever seen a Terminator movie.

Are We Alone? Hopefully.

Expatriot reader Darren reports from Thailand that Nick Bostrom, the director of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute (I now know where I'll go to grad school if I ever decide to go) hopes that we find no evidence of past or present extra-terrestrial life on Mars, or anywhere for that matter.

No, this guy is not a space-hater. In fact, he is a space-lover, and has high hopes for the future of human inter-galactic colonization. According to him, "the silence of the night sky is golden, and that in the search for extraterrestrial life, no news is good news". How so, you may ask? Because the lack of evidence of intelligent life, or any life for that matter, gives weight to the theory that humans are exceptional in the fact that we have overcome billions upon billions of potential evolutionary dead-ends, and have passed through the so-called "Great Filter", allowing us to take the next great step into the stars. The other option is that we have not yet encountered the Great Filter, and that it will take the much more exciting form of some sort of "existential risk", i.e.:

"a nuclear war fought with arms stockpiles much larger than today's (perhaps resulting from future arms races); a genetically engineered superbug; environmental disaster; an asteroid impact; wars or terrorist acts committed with powerful future weapons; super­intelligent general artificial intelligence with destructive goals; or high-energy physics experiments"

I'm placing my bets on the 'superintelligent general artificial intelligence with destructive goals' based upon the prevalence of sinister-robot-related news that has been showing up on PS lately.

Prototype Arachnobots Under Construction

A company called BAE Systems is working to design "autonomous, multifunctional collection of miniature intelligence-gathering robots that can operate in places too inaccessible or dangerous for humans".

What's the big deal you ask? This.

Science Save Me

While clearly not a fully fledged Arachnobot 9000, we don't want any miniature arachno-minions running around. Why not make it a robotic squirrel or slug. No one ever suspects a robotic slug.

Europe Messing Around With AI in Space; Someone Should Tell Them "Not Cool, Dude"

Hooray! Another space post! Someone needs to reign me in before this gets out of control.

Anyways, the European Space Agency is using artificial intelligence to assist its Mars Express orbiter as it searches for water and other stuff on Mars. Yes, you heard that right, ARTIFICIAL FUCKING INTELLIGENCE, as in Skynet or the Matrix or that crappy movie by Steven Spielberg. I'm very torn by this news, since I am equally as excited about exploring Mars as I am fucking horrified by the prospect of the inevitable robot apocalypse that this sort of behavior will surely bring about. And since time travel is now officially impossible, we can no longer count on a friendly Terminator coming back in time to protect us.

Please Science, don't let the Robopocalypse turn out like this!!!

80s Robots > 00s Robots?

Is it just me, or does it seem that robots in the 80s were way more badass than more modern robots (maybe with the exception of Big Dog). Take, for instance, this wicked awesome synth-organ playing robot named Wabot-2. As far as robots go, it doesn't get much more functional or awesome than that.

re: gchat fun

"If I knew the future was going to suck so much, I never would have signed up for the Robot Apocalypse"

Although I don't understand why Manuel picked this particular entry for gchat fun, it does bring up two important points: Wall-e DOES look like it will be rad, and that Silent Running is a true science fiction gem. It doesn't fall into the laser-filled space shootout trap that many so called "science fiction" stories inevitably suffer from. Instead it addresses potential issues, consequences, and emotions like loneliness and isolation that the future may bring. Plus it will make you cry harder than the last 10 minutes of Terminator 2. If you don't believe me, just ask Jeff Collamore.