Category technology

Aug 28 2011

The greatest clock of all time?

Time is an ephemeral thing, moving like grains of rice through the fingers – each second passing to be replaced by the next.  But devices that can measure time do not need to be so temporary, they do not need to rust and be thrown away.  This is a vision that is conjoured up by the 10,000 year clock which is starting to be constructed in the Sierra Diablo mountains.  It is a monumental project to build a device that could run for a length of time that would allow a beam of light to travel almost a quarter of the way to the center of the galaxy.

It is an idea first conjured up by Danny Hillis in Wired magazine and has been sparked in to life by funding provided by Jeff Bezos.  It has an admirable goal of attempting to convince people to start thinking about the long term and to take actions that will provide benefit to mankind over centuries, not just quarters.

Learn more about the clock here: http://www.10000yearclock.net/

Read a longer article in Wired here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-06/24/10000-year-clock

James.

Aug 24 2011

Robots capture space station, eye the Moon

Robonaut 2 has come alive on the international space station.  Persuing its goal of claiming the moon for robot-kind it has made its first move.

Arriving on the space station in February, it initially kept a low profile, by remaining powered off.  But recently has been activated.  The other occupants of the space station seem unconcerned by its activation, and have engaged it in what the robot must consider to be play and games.

Robonaut 2 will demonstrate its prowess in space over the coming months and has already started to expand in to the sphere of social networking with a twitter account @AstroRobonaut and a Facebook account at http://www.facebook.com/NASArobonaut

Find out more about Robonaut 2 at Robonaut @ NASA

James.

Aug 23 2011

NASA partners with Tor-Forge to inspire science through sci-fi

A great piece of news for lovers of hard Sci-Fi.  NASA has partnered with publisher Tor-Forge to create a series of NASA-inspired works of science fiction.  They promise to be based on hard science – with NASA scientists and engineers linking up with the writers at Tor-Forge.

The stories will be fiction, so should contain engaging plots, but will also have technological elements checked by NASA’s scientists.

Full press release at NASA site here:

NASA And Tor-Forge Books Partner In Themed Science Fiction Works

If you are in to hard science fiction, and want a taste of realistic sci-fi, can I humbly suggest my own novel “Agencies” available on Kindle and soon in paperback.  (Not written in association with NASA – but hopefully the sort of story they would enjoy.)

(“Agencies” at Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE)

James.

Aug 22 2011

Researching AI by building systems modelled on the brain at IBM

IBM have made a lot of noise in the AI space, with their recent remarkable Watson victory – using a massive compute power and sophisticated algorithms to beat humans at natural language knowledge tasks.

Another of their projects has just received a $21m injection from everyone’s favourite future-tech funding source DARPA.  The money supports the SyNAPSE project which links IBM staffers with a host of researchers at top universities.

I’ve dabbled in research in this area myself and fully appreciate the challenge and complexity of even trying to frame the problem correctly.  I look forward to seeing the outcome of the SyNAPSE project – if not today, then at some point in the future.

If you want to check out the SyNAPSE project, then visit the IBM page:

SyNAPSE: A cognative computing project from IBM research

James.

Aug 9 2011

Cleaning up space junk in Earth orbit

Every year Earth-orbit gets filled with more and more junk – obsolete and defunct satellites and rocket pods, and debris caused by collisions of exiting junk.  Hopefullly this latest attempt to start the clean up process will gain some traction.  Providing the funding for private enterprise to do the clean-up will also help to nurture space technology skills within the private sector.

Article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405118

James.

Aug 7 2011

Private Space Race Heats up as Boeing Selects Atlas V Engine

I’m excited to see competition heating up in the provision of private orbital capabilities.  A healthy commercial market should open up new ways to exploit the technology and opportunity, such as tourism.  It will also allow national and international space agencies to start building the knowledge to tackle the bigger challenges of getting people back to the Moon and then out to the planets and beyond.

Details of Boeings latest move here: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/193171/20110805/spacex-boeing-private-space-race-nasa-atlas-v-rocket.htm

James

Aug 6 2011

Agencies – available now on Kindle

Agencies, the debut novel by James Aston, is now available on Amazon Kindle.  Buy your copy now.

Agencies

Humanity has made its first steps to colonise the Moon and exploit the resources of the asteroid belt and outer planets.

During a surveying mission to find water deposits within craters on the Moon, Aldion and his team discover a covert underground structure. No-one knows who built it or why – except one man.

The discovery is the flash-point that triggers the latent hostility between the now-private security agencies of Earth – leading to an escalating series of conflicts.  Threaded through these conflicts, Carth must try to get to the structure first to avoid an unthinkable loss.

"Agencies" by James Aston