1. One thing that helps
Would you put a contactless payment chip in your hand? I would! I know most of you would expect me to put this in the “wary” section whilst banging on about technology overreach – but I really hate carrying wallets, credit cards, keys and phones around.
British-Polish firm, Walletmor, is claiming to be the first company to offer implantable payment chips on a commercial basis. Such microchips use either NFC (near-field communication) or RFID (radio-frequency identification). If these terms sound familiar, it’s because they are. NFC is commonly used in smartphone systems while RFID is the same tech used in credit cards. Only this time, instead of using a phone or a card, a microchip implant takes on the same functions.
We could unlock doors, start our cars, pay for our dinner and eventually make phone calls and send messages – all with our pockets gloriously empty and light!
It seems I am not alone in being open to this. A survey of over 4000 people in the UK and European Union revealed that 51% of people would consider getting themselves chipped. Of course there are privacy and data concerns, but these already exist with carrying around the same chips constantly in the phones that we never let go.
OK, I do agree that the wider implications of “chipping” people is definitely something we need to be extremely wary of, but this time I’m just excited to pay for my teriyaki rice bowl with my hand.
2. One to be wary of
“Responsible Military AI” may raise some eyebrows, and it probably should. The US Department of Defense has just released a 47-page document to reassure the public about its thrust towards integrating AI. From the looks of it, they know that the public isn’t entirely sure about giving AI the capability to destroy human life.
In the paper titled “Responsible Pathway to AI Development and Acceleration”, the department claims that adversaries of the United States have increased their AI capabilities to such an extent that they pose a threat to global security. The thing is, they are right and they probably do need to catch up but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. The DOD claims that it has “matured its ethics framework to account for Al’s unique characteristics and the potential for unintended consequences”. There doesn’t seem to be any more more detail that explains what that means in practical terms though.
There is no doubt that nations are now competing with one another in digital warfare. The scary thing is that we haven’t yet any idea about how to control and limit AI even with things like chatbots – let alone autonomous weapons.
3. One to amaze
“Put a microphone in a room with a bunch of musicians, and while you’ll capture every last note and nuance of their individual performances, you’ll be left with a single recording with everything all mixed together. But to make that performance sound even better, you ideally want every instrument and musician captured separately, so each performance can be re-mixed back together by a sound engineer with a skilled ear.”
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have come up with a way to identify and separate sounds coming from each source – in this case each instrument – and record them separately using video cameras. I’m a bit of an audiophile and music lover so this one excites me. I recommend clicking through to the linked article that outlines this amazing innovation brilliantly.
Using a laser and two cameras, the technique works by measuring the acoustic vibrations from the instruments that are being played. The laser illuminates the instrument’s surface as it is played while two cameras record the random interference pattern, called speckle, in 2D. The key with this development is that the system doesn’t have to use expensive high-speed cameras: global-shutter and rolling-shutter cameras will work just as well. The 2D speckle sheet is then reinterpreted by a software algorithm that replays the audio with incredible quality! Better yet, you don’t have to worry about your favorite guitarist moving excessively while playing the piece – the system can handle such movements without effect on the quality.
The optical microphone can also reproduce sounds that bounce off a given object. For instance, it can recreate sound from the surface of a bag of chips that happens to be near a speaker. The system does its job really well. However it’s not just for audiophiles as the linked article states:
“The system has other interesting applications outside of music. A video camera monitoring all the machines on a factory floor, or pointed at the engine of a running car, could determine when individual parts or components are making an abnormal sound, indicating maintenance may be required before a problem actually becomes a problem.”
Super exciting developments!