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The MIT-designed SPHERES (that's Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage, and Reorient Experimental Satellite) aboard the ISS -- those little globes that fly around like tiny satellites even though they are confined to the station's interior -- are in line for some big upgrades from DARPA. And in true DARPA fashion, the hardware updates are bold: aside from designing the next generation of spheres, DARPA wants the current models to be fitted with vision-based autonomous navigation and force fields.
In January, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, told a stunned conference audience that they had managed to create a remote-controlled cyborg beetle by attaching a computer chip to the brain of a giant insect. Now, the paper explaining how they did it has been published in the journal Frontiers In Neuroscience, and they have released a video of the cyber-bug in action.
The cyborg beetle was designed as part of a DARPA project that looks to equip insects with cameras and other sensors in an attempt to turn them into tiny, biological UAVs. The rhinoceros beetle was selected because, as one of the world's largest insects, it could carry the biggest payload.
The fight against pathogens is usually reactionary; a pathogen evolves or mutates, developing a drug resistance or finding a more efficient path toward infection, and researchers scramble to shift tactics for fighting off said pathogen. That’s not good enough for DARPA, which wants a means to look into the future so researchers can stop an outbreak of a potentially dangerous pandemic before it ever begins. The aptly titled Prophecy program is seeking a range of technologies that will aid in the development of an effective crystal ball, including in vitro platforms for recreating virus-host interactions, better means of sequencing viral genomes to test for sequencing errors and mutations, and algorithms that can predict the rate, direction, and phenotype of viral mutations before they happen.
Originally posted by Pajjikor
Sorry had to add this just because I really want one. (wink wink)
When did we invent force fields????
so how much is that car/plane gonna run me?
And as long as you're configuring that hardware, DARPA says, "another goal of this program thrust area is to demonstrate wireless power transfer through resonant inductive coupling," so two SPHERES orbiting in tandem can share power between them.
Question When will this available for the public ?
Originally posted by LordBucket
Clearly if it was shown on national television almost fifty years ago, it doesn't make much sense to suggest that it's some secret black-op technology that nobody knows about.
not a sample of wireless POWER tranmission.
I just wonder when will it be available for mass consumption/production level