Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink has been given clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to carry out its first trials in humans, according to news reports. Neuralink aims to use its brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to restore movement in people with quadriplegia, meaning complete or partial paralysis of the arms, legs and … Read more
Using a new machine-learning algorithm, scientists have picked up eight extraterrestrial signals that seem to bear the hallmarks of technology. The research, published Jan. 30 in the journal Nature Astronomy, doesn’t claim to have really found proof of intelligent aliens; a brief follow-up search for the signals detected in the study turned up only silence. … Read more
A senior software engineer at Google was suspended on Monday (June 13) after sharing transcripts of a conversation with an artificial intelligence (AI) that he claimed to be “sentient,” according to media reports. The engineer, 41-year-old Blake Lemoine, was put on paid leave for breaching Google’s confidentiality policy. “Google might call this sharing proprietary property. … Read more
The mysterious Antikythera mechanism, thought by some to be the world’s first computer, was first “started up” on Dec. 22, 178 B.C., archaeologists have now found. Discovered by sponge divers in a Roman-era shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, the elaborate ancient computer, which looks like a shoebox-size contraption with gears and … Read more
Quantum computing is a new generation of technology that involves a type of computer 158 million times faster than the most sophisticated supercomputer we have in the world today. It is a device so powerful that it could do in four minutes what it would take a traditional supercomputer 10,000 years to accomplish. For decades, … Read more
The green energy revolution promised by nuclear fusion is now a step closer, thanks to the first successful use of a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system to shape the superheated hydrogen plasmas inside a fusion reactor. The successful trial indicates that the use of AI could be a breakthrough in the long-running search for electricity generated … Read more
The world is in the grip of a new age of conflict, cyberwarfare. Countries are using hackers to target power grids, financial markets and government computer systems of rival nations, all with potential results that are every bit as devastating as any bullet or bomb. The idea of using tech to pilfer information goes back … Read more
Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today: Researchers working in partnership with Google may have just used the tech giant’s quantum computer to create a completely new phase of … Read more
We’re launching a brand new feature on Liminal Fiction – “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Today: Scientists have created key parts of synthetic brain cells that can hold cellular “memories” for milliseconds. The achievement could one day lead to computers that work like the human brain. These … Read more
