STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[Fuzz]

Damn! I'd love to have a print of this on my study wall.

[MIKA27]

Vertical Perspective Of Hong Kong’s Immense Skyscrapers

This collection by Romain Jacquet-Lagreze will have your head spinning in a dizzy state of confusion. The French photographer and graphic artist created Vertical Horizon as a visual exploration of Hong Kong and it’s rapid growth towards the sky. Using a unique perspective, Jacquet-Lagreze presents the ever-growing city in a repetitively graphic expression of its architecture.

The artist explains, “[The project] is a deep immersion into the city’s thick atmospheres and a visual record of its wildly diverse built environment. This book is like a contemplative dive into the raw nature of Hong Kong and an expression of its vertical élan.”

By eliminating people from his images, Jacquet-Lagreze has taken away the human qualities that normally define such a largely populated city and turned it into an abstract visual reality. The artist’s bio explains that he uses his camera to illustrate his feelings about Hong Kong, inspired mainly by “the geometry of the urban environment and the vivid lives it shelters”.

If you love these photos, you can buy the photographer’s 160-page hardcover book, called Vertical Horizon, that’s filled with them, here.

[MIKA27]

Damn! I'd love to have a print of this on my study wall.

Yeah its brilliant shot. Also, I read on another news site that that hurricane is approximately 4 times larger than Earth!

[MIKA27]

What Hurts More: Childbirth Or A Kick In The Nuts? Science Answers

In response to that one debate you had in eighth-grade PD class that ended abruptly because there wasn’t nearly enough coffee or cigarettes in the teacher’s lounge to put up with that crap, ASAP Science has attempted to answer who has it worse: women in childbirth or men who have been kicked in the junk.

OK, so this one is hard, because there isn’t an actual measurable unit of “pain”, despite internet folklore on the subject. Pain is actually received by sensory neurons called nociceptors, which send nerve signals to the spine or brain. They can fire off either dull, achey pain, or sharp, OH GOD HELP (response-inducing) pain. For the testicles, which are rotten with the things due to their importance, that sharp pain is compounded by the fact that the nociceptors are connected to the stomach and the brain’s vomit centre. So, that hurts.

For women, it isn’t really any better. The uterus is also lined with loads of pain-firing nociceptors, and they’re under duress for hours at a time during labour. And then there’s the nausea, fatigue and “stretching” (and tearing and involuntary pooping, and…).

Since pain is subjective, and not really measurable, the debate is called a tie. Pain is different for different people. Though, a humble dissenting opinion might look something like: SHUT UP FOREVER SHUT UP OBVIOUSLY CHILDBIRTH IS WORSE SHUT UP.

At least until the next time you see a highlight of an umpire taking a fastball to the crotch.

[Fuzz]

Vertical Perspective Of Hong Kong’s Immense Skyscrapers

This is Rob's view of HK when he's had a long night of partying.

[MIKA27]

The World’s First Tablet Projector Promises A 30m Display

A built-in projector isn’t quite at the top of anyone’s wish list for tablet improvements. But that didn’t stop Promate from putting one into its new LumiTab and declaring it the world’s first tablet projector. The average consumer might not be interested yet, but corporate honchos who live and die by PowerPoint presentations are surely smiling from ear-to-ear now.

Running Android Jelly Bean 4.2 and powered by a Texas Instruments 1.5GHz dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, the LumiTab runs on 1GB of RAM and comes with 16GB of storage inside plus a microSD slot to expand that. Its own 7-inch 1024×600 display is augmented with a 35-lumen 854×480 projector that promises images up to 100 inches diagonally, assuming you’re in a very dark room.

It doesn’t look like pricing details have been nailed down yet, but you can expect to pay a bit of a premium to be the first on your block with a projector-enhanced tablet.

[MIKA27]

RIP The World’s Largest Infrared Telescope

The Herschel Space Observatory was the world’s largest and most powerful infrared telescope, able to see parts of the universe nothing else could. Unfortunately, it met its maker last night when it ran out of the liquid helium coolant it requires to map hidden corners of the cosmos.

Per the European Space Agency:

Herschel’s observations have exceeded expectations, enabling scientists to learn more about how stars form, about the rates of star formation in galaxies across the cosmos, and about the origin and presence of water in different celestial bodies. While observations have come to an end and the spacecraft is to be propelled to a stable parking orbit around the Sun, where it will remain indefinitely, the science mission will continue for several years with many discoveries still to be made in the treasure trove of images and spectra collected by the observatory.

So why was Herschel such a big deal? With a main mirror 3.5m across — one and a half times larger than the Hubble Telescope — it was able to reveal to us a previously unseen process of star birth and galaxy formation. In fact, the big guy could chart the universe in amazing ultra-specific detail, from far-infrared to submillimetre wavelengths of light.

Herschel was launched in 2009, and although he’s gone, he leaves behind an important legacy — more than 35,000 scientific observations and a whopping 25,000 hours of data. Included in that are incredible images of parts of deep space like the Eagle Nebula (seen up top) and Andromeda Galaxy. And it was also able to record stars born closer to home in the Milky Way, thanks to its helium-cooled instruments. Data from Herschel will be used in research for many years to come. Needless to say, it was a very important telescope. And although Herschel is gone, it’s certainly not forgotten.

[MIKA27]

Archaeologists Uncover Hundreds Of Mysterious Orbs In Ancient Temple

In news that will likely delight Apollo 11 deniers, Roswell frequenters and Illuminati enthusiasts alike, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of mysterious, once-metallic spheres buried deep beneath an ancient pyramid in Mexico City. And we have absolutely no idea what they’re for.

Described by Jorge Zavala, an archaeologist at Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute, as an “unprecedented discovery”, the orbs have called one of the most important temples an ancient, pre-Hispanic city home for the past 1800 years.

But this wasn’t just your average ancient township; the city, Teotihuacan, was once one of the biggest in the world, boasting over 100,000 residents at a time when the Earth itself only held around 200 million. And it’s this relatively massive population that makes the city’s total abandonment for “mysterious reasons” in 700 AD all the more puzzling.

Plus, it seems that the Teotihuacans knew damn well they weren’t coming back. Before fleeing the famine and/or alien invasion that consumed their home, people had filled their beloved temple’s tunnels with so much debris and ruins that it took scientists several years of planning alone before they could dig their way in.

The fruit of all that prepatory labour? A team of wireless robots working together to offer a glimpse into an increasingly esoteric past.

Unearthing the Tomb

The robotic system, dubbed Tlaloque, includes a larger rover to take over carpool duty for two smaller mechanisms it chauffeurs around the ruins’ dilapidated tunnels. Once the trio arrives at an actual chamber, one vehicle will break off and take infrared shots of the entire space while its smaller, flight-enabled drone friend zooms around to capture video footage. In this case, it’s the infrared scanner that stumbled upon the orb-loaded chambers, which held hundreds of the clay-cored, yellow-tinted balls currently stumping scientists.

Fool’s Gold

They yellow colour comes from jarosite, which forms as pyrite — or fool’s gold — oxidizes. So back in 300 AD, when the Teotihuacanos used with these variously sized (1.5 to 5 inches) balls in whatever ceremonies or rituals they engaged in, they were looking at what might have seemed like beautiful, glimmering balls of gold.

As George Gowgill, professor emeritus at Arizona State University told Discovery News:

Pyrite was certainly used by the Teotihuacanos and other ancient Mesoamerican societies. Originally the spheres would have shown brilliantly. They are indeed unique, but I have no idea what they mean.

As the walls themselves were also dusted with pyrite — giving a lovely golden sheen to the potter and crystal-covered masks scattered around the room — the archaeologists believe that “high-ranking people, priests, or even rulers went down to the tunnel to perform rituals.”

Ancient Intentions

What these golden-ball-requiring rituals might have entailed though remains just as inconclusive. As Zavala succinctly and ominously states: “No one can establish their function.”

It seems entirely possible though that they served some sort of religious purpose; Teotihuaca — translation: the place where men become gods — began as a religious centre for the region, and the site has been thought to include a burial ground. The Teotihuacan people worshiped eight gods, and were known to practice human sacrifice during the dedication of buildings like, say, giant temples. All of which would have looked quite compelling against a gleaming gold backdrop.

Full answers may still come, and soon; there are still three chambers left for the researchers (and their robot friends) to go digging through. That last one might yield an even bigger surprise, its thick walls were demolished about 1,800 years ago so that the Teotihuacan people could deposit “something very important” in the safest part they could. Forget golden orbs; we might just be in for crystal skulls.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: This Nuke Detector Will Spot World-Ending Warheads

The US and USSR had more than 60,000 nuclear warheads pointed at each other at the height of the Cold War. While the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970 and START in 1994 have shrunk that figure to around 26,000, nobody is really sure how many still exist — because nobody’s ever actually verified the number of warheads, just the delivery systems.

But with a new zero-knowledge protocol, arms inspectors will soon know exactly what they’re dealing with.

Nuclear regulatory agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency toe a difficult line. They must identify and confirm the presence of nuclear warheads without revealing or discovering any information about the delivery system that houses it or the chemical makeup of the nuclear material itself (which would violate any number of state secrets). This leaves inspectors in a bit of a quandary, how do you confirm the presence of a nuclear warhead without directly inspecting the device? A team of researchers from Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Department of Energy found the answer in cryptography.

The system consists of a small steel probe, a high energy particle beam and two warheads — the one being verified and a “golden warhead”, an identical model known to contain nuclear material. Inspectors bombard the golden warhead with high energy neutrons and record how many strike a particle detector situated on the other side of the missile. This provides a baseline reading with which the inspectors can compare readings from the unverified warhead. If the numbers match, the second warhead is a nuke. If the numbers differ, it’s a regular warhead.

As John Greenwald of the PPPL explains,

The neutrons that do reach the detectors are counted and added to the number that the host nation whose warheads are being inspected had “preloaded” into the detectors. Inspectors would measure the total number of counts in the detectors without knowing how many had been preloaded. This total count could be straightforwardly tallied with non-electronic neutron counters such as the personal dosimeters used to measure exposure to radiation in nuclear power plants.

If the total number of counts matched the number that the parties had stipulated in advance, the warhead would be found to be a true one. But if the total differed from the stipulated number, the warhead would stand exposed as a spoof. To prevent cheating by preloading detectors in such a way that a spoof would pass the test, the inspector decides on the spot which preloaded detectors will be used on the “golden warhead” and which on the item offered for inspection.

This approach can also be applied to batch testing. Inspectors gather a large number of warheads — including a few deployed missiles that are likely to be nukes — and compare their readings. If all the warheads read the same, they’re all confirmed as nukes.

The project is funded by a $US100,000 grant from the US State Department as well as another $US162,500 from Global Zero. “The goal is to prove with as high confidence as required that an object is a true nuclear warhead while learning nothing about the materials and design of the warhead itself,” said co-principal investigator, physicist Robert Goldston. The team hopes to begin full phase testing by the end of the year.

If the program proves successful, it will revolutionise non-proliferation efforts by removing one of the key impediments to inspection: the protection of state secrets.

[MIKA27]

Laser-Cut MacBook Lids Are More Stunning Than Stickers

Visit any tech-heavy conference and you’re bound to find a sea of MacBooks covered in clever decals playing up the glowing Apple logo on the lid. But a sticker only offers so much customisation; if you really want your hardware to stand out you need to take things to the next level with a custom-cut Uncover replacement lid.

It sounds like a complicated process, and that’s why Uncover requires you to either send in your MacBook to be enhanced, or just buy a new one through them that they can customise before sending your way. The company offers a series of existing designs if you’re not that creative, but since you’ll be spending anywhere from $260 up to $780 for the service, you’ll probably want to choose a design that’s completely unique to your machine. Here’s a few examples of what Uncover has created already:

[Uncover]

[MIKA27]

Sadly, People Who Walk And Text Could Actually Use This

Anyone who has tried to navigate down a busy footpath while dodging people who are obliviously looking down at their phones will appreciate this latest prank by ImprovEverywhere. Its latest mission in New York City was to pose as municipal workers, with orange “Department of Transportation” vests, and act as “Seeing Eye People” for texting-obsessed pedestrians.

In the first part of the day’s performance, the “texters” are also in on the shtick, but later, ImprovEverywhere (in collaboration with Buzzfeed) provided the service for real people! Hey, it’s an idea — and you know Mayor Bloomberg is obsessed with New Yorkers’ health and safety.

[Phillys]

Mika, I love this thread, very interesting. Keep 'em coming.

[polarbear]

Pacific Rim’s Latest Trailer Is Even Better Than The First

When we first saw Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim back in December, it was just a tease filled with robots, creatures, loud noises and explosions. And now we have a little more insight into both the mechs and creatures from a new trailer cut with scenes from Con-exclusive footage.

Pacific Rim drops in cinemas on July 11.

AWESOME!

[MIKA27]

TitanArm Exoskeleton: Elysium Is Basically Already Real

There’s unfortunately no secret shortcut to building muscle and toning your body. But if you’re just after the extra strength, not the six-pack abs, the TitanArm exoskeleton lets you cheat your way to impressive feats of heavy lifting.

Designed and engineered by a group of students at the University of Pennsylvania who are probably secretly planning to take over the world, the official story on the TitanArm is that it was developed to assist those with limited mobility and to enhance rehabilitation.

Those of us who’ve seen the Elysium trailer know the real story though, and the TitanArm’s aluminium frame, powerful electric motor, and cable driven system should grant anyone superhero-like powers — at least in their right arm.

The arm helped the University of Pennsylvania students claim the silver medal in a recent engineering competition, but it will surely take gold in arm wrestling events across the country as long as they’re able to hide it under a bulky sweater.

[MIKA27]

Audi’s E-Tron R18 Racer Sounds Like A Fighter Jet

Holy. Crap. Audi built a serious race-car with the E-Tron R18. Here it is whipping around corners at over 300km/h, with no sign of a wiggle or a drama. The best part? It sounds like a goddamn jet.

The car we see in this video is actually the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro: a hybrid version of the R18 that minces tracks all over the world.

It has a special electric system that accumulates energy and unleashes it on the front wheels for extra push and four-wheel drive at speeds above 120km/h. I think we can safely say that system is at work in this video

[OZCUBAN]

Earbuds Under $50 That Actually Have A Hope Of Sounding Good

Apple EarPods — or whatever crap headphones came with your phone — aren’t the best way to listen to music, but nice gear is expensive. You can’t blame people for not wanting to spend a lot of money on something they’re just going to lose or destroy. Well, here’s a $40 alternative to garbage that’s almost certain to sound pretty good.

Why am I so confident that Sol Republic’s new Jax in-ear headphones will sound better than other stuff in its price range? Since its first over-ear headphones came out a couple of years ago, Sol Republic has built its reputation on solid, aesthetically handsome gear that’s cheaper than the competition’s offering.

The buds have a newly designed drivers, tangle free cables, and your standard three-button remote. While they’re not as striking to look at as other Sol Republic stuff, they’ve got an admirable minimalism — hopefully Sol Republic making sure the guts sound great. [Sol Republic]

I can personally vouch for this brand bought a$100.00 or so pair last year in brissy, the sound is awesome

Can recommend the brand

[MIKA27]

This Incredible Transformers Costume Totally Redeems Those Movies

Say what you will about the robot designs in the Michael Bay Transformers movies, they make for one badass costume when someone puts an incredible amount of detail into it. In this case the someone is Marc De Repentigny who crafted this obscenely over-the-top costume based on the Transformers movies aesthetics.

In other words, brushed stainless steel with lots of pointy metal corners. But it seems to work here, and that’s probably due to the awesome details Marc included like moving eyes, glowing thrusters complete with exhaust steam, and a voice controlled animated mouth piece. In six months he’s sure to win any Halloween costume contest he enters.

Mika; I want one. Dunno how practical it is but looks awesome!

[Fuzz]

TitanArm Exoskeleton: Elysium Is Basically Already Real

Whilst this is a fantastic invention, they made the mistake of stopping at the wrist. If you can't physically grab and hold onto the item, you'll never be able to lift it. And even if you could hold on, if the weight exceeds the tensile strength of your wrist and finger joints, I'd hate to see the results of attempting the lift. Would've been better if they included an attachment for assisting in the grabbing/holding of items.

[MIKA27]

This 3D-Printed Cyborg Ear Comes With A Built-In Antenna

While still not entirely commonplace, 3D-printed body parts made of actual, living tissue have started popping up at a wonderfully alarming rate. The most recent iteration takes the concept one whole cyborg-tinged step further.

Researchers at Princeton successfully created a prototype, artificial ear that rolls 3D-printed cells in with an antenna for one terrifyingly awesome hearing aid.

Using a hydrogel gel embedded with printed calf cells as a base (which allowed researchers to duplicate the structure of an ear more accurately than with other methods, such as cartilage grafts and tissue cultures), Michael McAlpine, an assistant engineering professor at Princeton, added layers of silver nanoparticles to form a coiled antenna that somewhat mimics the ear’s natural structure. The cell-loaded base could then grow into cartilage around its embedded antenna, which would then connect to a cochlea-simulator and allow actual interpretation of sounds.

The ultimate goal is for the bionic ear to be able to attach to human nerve endings, aiding or even totally replacing our antiquated ol’ organic ears. But McAlpine doesn’t want to stop there — he’s hoping to make major advancements in the field of seamlessly integrated, bionic organs as a whole.

And while you probably won’t see these sorts of otological electronics slapped on the side of someone’s head any time soon, the implications of McAlpine’s success are incredible to consider. Humans could even one day control their ears with a smartphone, turning up and down volume as need be. So be careful what you say — you never know who (or what) could be listening.

[MIKA27]

How The Hell Did This Helicopter Land On A Rail?

Helicopters aren’t supposed to do this. I know this because I’ve seen too many military movies (Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark 30) where the chopper nosedives into destruction. They’re sensitive machines. You need a clear landing pad! You need an open target! You don’t land a freaking helicopter on a freeway guard rail. Or do you?

I wonder if people could ever land a helicopter like this in a video game, let alone real life.

[MIKA27]

Shaolin Warrior Stunts Are Even Crazier In Slow Motion

If you live in a fairly well-populated city, you’ve probably been visited by one of those Shaolin Warrior travelling shows. But the next time they roll through your town, you should save your money and instead queue up this fantastic high-speed footage of their incredible acrobatics as captured by BBC Earth Productions.

It goes without saying that you probably shouldn’t try any of these stunts at home. Unless you’re also a genuine Shaolin Warrior with access to a high-speed camera.

MIKA: Simply brilliant.

[MIKA27]

Science Finds Fountain Of Youth Brain Region That Slows Down Ageing

Eternal or even elongated life is an idiotic thing to wish for. You don’t want to get old, and then tack on 50 more years of wrinkles and Metamucil. But prolonged youth? Full body youth? More time being young and nubile and beautiful? Absolutely. And the key to that could lie right inside your brain.

Scientists have for the first time found a region of the brain — a signalling pathway in the hypothalamus — that can slow down or speed up the ageing process in mice. Their lives and youthful vigour were extended by about 20 per cent by a combination of blocking a protein complex with a distressingly long name (nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells, or “evil magic”) and injecting the brain with a hormone (“good magic”, or gonadotropin-releasing hormone [GnRH]) that is blocked by that protein.

The long and short? Poke the brain, stay young like Aragorn or Halle Berry.

The hypothalamus controls functions like growth, reproduction and metabolism, so it’s not an outlandish leap to think it could also regulate ageing. It’s not confirmed that this function carries over to humans, but, if it does, the results could be groundbreaking.

Injecting GnRH, for example, not only slowed physical ageing, but cognitive decline as well, by encouraging neuron regeneration.

This would be great for degenerative conditions like Alzheimers and dementia, or possibly for brain injuries suffered in sports.

It’s still not known exactly how ageing works, scientifically. Whether it’s a bunch of individual changes throughout your body, or if there’s one main trigger point telling the rest of your body to get old, according to Livescience. So this could be just one piece of a much larger cosmos of anti-aging science. To that end,researchers at Johns Hopkins have been working on a Benjamin Button But Not Crap solution that could revert cells all the way back to the state they were in the day you were born. But given these results, there should be plenty more research down this path.

Naturally, there are a lot more factors to keeping humans young and fabulous than you see in mice. Wrinkles and gross old people skin, for instance. Collagen and elastin in the skin break down over time, and it’s possible that wouldn’t be related to the brain.

Similarly, the liver spots prominent on the elderly are simply caused by a buildup of melanin over time.

The hypothalamus region of the brain.

[MIKA27]

Say Hello To The Inspirational, Feel-Good Side Of Russian Dash Cams

When you think Russian dash cams, you think of low-flying fighter jets, random gunfire, and giant freaking meteors. We see so much of it that we think this is normal in Russia. But for all the weird, there is even more good that occurs. Here’s a feel-good compilation to start your week.

Sure, some of the stuff in this video is still crazy (Why is a small child just wandering in the middle of a busy road?!), but the cameras show off what a normal day is probably like in Russia.

Men help the elderly cross streets. Strangers clear off taillights covered with snow. A man singlehanded lifts a Lada to get it out of a jam.

Good to see Russia isn’t all logs destroying cars at stop signs and cops crashing into bus stops.

MIKA: Wow, I actually admire how drivers stop, get out of their vehicles and assist the elderly.

Dunno how I feel about that child in the middle of the road... still can't get over that one!

[CanuckSARTech]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing that one, Mika! Well done to those good samaritans.

[MIKA27]

How Close Are We To Living In The Star Wars Universe?

Over the weekend, geeks everywhere (Smithy ) celebrated May The Fourth: the world’s pre-eminent celebration of all things Star Wars. After you’ve donned your favourite Jedi cloak, played with your replica lightsaber and rebuilt your favourite X-Wing Lego replica for a third time, come with us on a journey down the rabbit hole as we ask just how long it will take to live in the Star Wars universe.

Believe it or not, we’re well on our way to creating many of the technologies we saw and fell in love with when we first watched Star Wars.

The most interesting innovations are being powered by the internet. The way we search for information and the way we’re presented with knowledge has evolved rapidly over the last decade.

Google is the search giant of choice for the world these days, and what was once a platform where people plugged in keywords and got a result is now a platform that feeds information to you.

Google started as a basic search engine: put stuff in, get stuff back based on the keywords and commands. Now it’s becoming an engine to feed you the information without you asking for it thanks to inventions like Knowledge Graph.

The machine isn’t just going to spew information at you all-day, everyday: it’s contextually-relevant.

When you wake up, you care about weather because of how you dress. Calendars plan your day and tells you traffic on the way to work and the specific route so you don’t lose time. Meetings, packages being shipped are there too. Google works to remove friction from your day-to day-life and helps you get around.

All of this culminates in Google Now: Google’s personal assistant that gives you the information you need, when you need it, without even asking. Google’s goal is to have computers do the hard work of finding information for you, so all you need to do is read it.

How is that helpful for us living in a Star Wars universe, though? Because the information isn’t for you, it’s for the Droids.

Jonathan Roberts is the Research Director of CSIRO Autonomous Systems Laboratory. What does that mean? He has 50 people design robots all day to do stuff.

He tells us that there are advances being made to droid-like technology everyday, adding that we’re now starting to work alongside robots rather than just have them work in a vacuum environment. Rather than machines work to assemble or paint a car on a production line, for example, workers are now having robots act as personal assistants on production lines. They’re going to get tools, holding stuff in place and generally helping out, he tells us.

So how far are we from having protocol droids dressed in gold suits of armour talking to us? Jonathon says a fair way yet.

“The Star Wars robots are very different to the ones we have now. They’re incredibly capable and they can do just about anything. The robots we have today are made only for a specific task, there’s not a general all-purpose robot like C-3PO.

“There is a desire to make more general robot rather than getting them to make one specific thing. That’s just also a driver for a better business model for robots: nobody’s going to buy one if they can’t do more than one thing.”

The biggest problem right now when designing Star Wars-style robots for the real world is autonomy: robots can’t really think for themselves yet.

“We talk about three things when it comes to building a robot: you need sense, think and act sensors.

A robot has a sensor world, so it compares what’s in the world and compares that to the task it has to do, and then it acts, so that means moving its legs or its wheels. We’re quite well progressed in the acting part because we can execute code, but percieiving the environment — sensing — is very hard. It’s not as mature as the acting part. the thinking part also isn’t mature, that’s what we need for an all-purpose robot,” Jonathon tells us.

“A common misconception, however, is that you have to have the brain in the robot. You don’t. You can outsource that to the internet to think for it. That gives us hope that we can make some more rapid progress and because of cloud computing — scaling up a brain,” he adds.

That’s where people like Google come in with the way they present information to systems. It’s an internet of things.

Robotics aside, the basic premise of Star Wars is that two factions, good and evil, fight it out for control of the galaxy. We’re not having a world war, let alone an interstellar war just yet, but that won’t stop researchers coming up with new ways to wreak havoc.

Our weapons of war are getting smarter.

Rail Gun:

We have pain rays, rail guns and sound cannons, and while we might not have a sword made of light and energy that can cut people in half, we have laser cutting technology that we’re putting to more practical use.

SOUND CANNON:

We’re even inventing clever spacecraft like the SpaceX Dragon and the Virgin Galactic, and other craft that are capable of delivering payloads to our nearest space station.

Speaking of space stations, there’s even a few competing projects to build humanity’s first Death Star.

So while we may not be ready for interstellar war, sword-wielding future samurais and moon-sized space stations just yet, the technology from a galaxy far, far away is certainly coming.