Wikileaks Docs Show How the CIA Allegedly Infected Offline Computers

23 Jun 201722 Jun 2017

Hacking air-gapped machines—computers that are not connected to the internet, so theoretically less vulnerable—is always pretty interesting. On Wednesday, Wikileaks published a series of alleged CIA documents that supposedly show…

The Military Wants to Create the Ultimate Good Boy

28 Apr 201727 Apr 2017

US Special Forces wants to give doggos performance enhancers for the battlefield. By Ben Sullivan | MOTHERBOARD Humanity has kindly shared the horrors of war with our animal-kin for thousands…

The CIA Can Now Order Drone Strikes Without Pentagon Approval

15 Mrz 201714 Mrz 2017

President Trump is widening the CIA's remit on targeted killing. By Ben Sullivan | MOTHERBOARD Last November, Motherboard asked how President Trump would handle the legacy of his predecessor's drone program.…

Elite Scientists Have Told the Pentagon That AI Won’t Threaten Humanity

20 Jan 201719 Jan 2017

A new report authored by a group of independent US scientists advising the US Dept. of Defense (DoD) on artificial intelligence (AI) claims that perceived existential threats to humanity posed…

Watch the World’s Largest Useless Machine Light a Christmas Tree

11 Dez 201610 Dez 2016

Rube Goldberg machines are some peoples’ jam. Garage-hobby engineers get a real kick from stringing several feet of levels, fulcrums, swinging arms, springs and spinny things together from the junk…

Behold, an Impossibly Tiny Single-Cylinder Engine Made of Paper

10 Dez 20169 Dez 2016

Aliaksei Zholner doesn’t upload videos to his Youtube channel much these days. Six years ago, he uploaded five; seven months, just two. Last year, he made the viral video rounds…

Watch the Robot That Patrols the Large Hadron Collider

27 Nov 201626 Nov 2016

Hundreds of feet below the French-Swiss border lays the Large Hadron Collider. The 17 miles of strange tunnels accelerate particles at close to the speed of light before smashing them…

How 1.5 Millions Connected Cameras Were Hijacked to Make an Unprecedented Botnet

30 Sep 201629 Sep 2016

Last week, hackers forced a well-known security journalist to take down his site after hitting him for more than two days with an unprecedented flood of traffic. By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai…

This AI Sees Things in Art That Humans Don’t

3 Sep 20162 Sep 2016

What’s the same about a photo of the most recent Notting Hill Carnival parade and an 18th century portrait of an upper class family? It might not be obvious to…

GCHQ Details Cases of When It Would Use Bulk Hacking

20 Aug 201619 Aug 2016

As the UK prepares to solidify the country’s mass surveillance powers in law, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation on Friday published his review of those capabilities. By Joseph Cox…

Better Facial Recognition Tech Could Lead to Robot Hitmen

20 Jul 201619 Jul 2016

From catching thieves to finding lost pets, facial recognition technology has already done a fair bit of good for humanity. But artificial intelligence experts warn new developments in the field…

Using a Bomb Robot to Kill a Suspect Is an Unprecedented Shift in Policing

9 Jul 20168 Jul 2016

Authorities in Dallas used a “bomb robot” to kill one of multiple suspects in a sniping spree that left five police officers dead on Thursday, an unprecedented act in the…

Behold: The World’s First 1,000 Processor Chip

19 Jun 201618 Jun 2016

Engineers at the University of California at Davis have built the world's first "KiloCore" chip. Featuring 1,000 independently programmable processors, the chip, which was presented this week at the 2016…

New MIT Tool Quickly Roots Out Hidden Web App Security Bugs

1 Mai 201630 Apr 2016

It's a funny time for software testing. As more and more software is replaced by web applications—the cloud, that is—software bugs have more and more come to mean security holes.…

Humanoid Robot Diver Visits an Ancient Shipwreck for Its Maiden Voyage

29 Apr 201628 Apr 2016

In the autumn of 1664, Louis XIV of France, also known as the Sun King, was expecting his flagship vessel La Lune to return to French shores from its latest…

Dronecatcher Is a Drone for Stealing Other Drones

4 Apr 20163 Apr 2016

The Dronecatcher above has been a work in progress since 2014, with the first proof-of-concept video of the thing appearing in March 2015 with this explanation: By Michael Byrne |…

Watch These Ant-Like Robots Pull a 3900-Pound Car

16 Mrz 201615 Mrz 2016

When it comes to building robots, the ant has long been a model for engineers. Its incredible strength relative to its size makes it a natural marvel, but its abilities…

Why AI Can Still Hardly Pass an Eighth Grade Science Test

20 Feb 201619 Feb 2016

An artificial intelligence competition that asked AI models to answer eighth-grade science questions announced its winners this week—but it doesn’t look like robots will be graduating junior high any time…

Engineers Devise a Way to Harvest Wind Energy from Trees

11 Feb 201610 Feb 2016

Harvesting electrical power from vibrations or other mechanical stress is pretty easy. Turns out all it really takes is a bit of crystal or ceramic material and a couple of…

This Bacteria-Powered Microrobot Navigates via Electric Fields

8 Feb 20167 Feb 2016

Engineers from Drexel University have devised a bacteria-powered microrobot that can be steered through fluids with applied electric fields. Imagine a tiny, tiny robotic system covered over by even tinier…

Soft Robots for Surgery Are Just Around the Engineering Corner

7 Feb 20166 Feb 2016

Behind the collective cringe of surgery there's certainly many things: blood, lights, cold sterility, possibility of death. But the whole ordeal is symbolized perfectly by its tools, the rigidity of…