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Submission + - Lucid dream startup says engineers can write code in their sleep (fortune.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Using a headpiece the company calls the “Halo,” Prophetic says consumers can induce a lucid dream state, which occurs when the person having a dream is aware they are sleeping. The goal is to give people control over their dreams, so they can use that time productively. A CEO could practice for an upcoming board meeting, an athlete could run through plays, a web designer could create new templates—“the limiting factor is your imagination,” founder and CEO Eric Wollberg told Fortune.

The Halo [is] a headband-shaped device that is worn like a crown. It will work by releasing focused ultrasound beams—or sound waves also used to monitor the health of a baby in the womb—into a region of the brain involved in lucid dreaming. The beams will activate the parts of the brain that control decision-making and awareness, initiating the lucid dream, the company says. To create the Halo, Prophetic is working with Card79 founder Afshin Mehin, who designed the Neuralink N1 device for Elon Musk’s brain implant company."

Submission + - The UN Wants to Build Floating Cities to Save Us From Climate Change (wired.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: On Wednesday the UN convened its first ever round table on floating cities. WIRED was in attendance to hear about one specific proposal--Oceanix City--the creation of a co-founder of Blue Frontiers, the for-profit wing of the Thiel-backed Seasteading Institute. This project, he says, is less about libertarianism and more about survival. It sounds like paradise, but many technological, economic, and political hurdles will have to be overcome before it's a reality.

Submission + - Researchers Created Reprogrammable Molecular Algorithms for DNA Computers (wired.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: In a major breakthrough for DNA computing, researchers from UC Davis, Caltech and Maynooth University developed a technique for creating molecular algorithms that can be reprogrammed. Prior to this research, molecular algorithms had to be painstakingly designed for specific purposes, which is "like having to build a new computer out of new hardware just to run a new piece of software,” according to the researchers. This new technique could blow open the door for a host of futuristic DNA computing applications--nanofactories, light-based computers, etc.-- that would've been impossible before.

Submission + - What It's Like to Smoke Salvia for Science (vice.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: Motherboard writer Daniel Oberhaus was the final participant in the world's first brain imaging study on salvinorin A, the psychoactive chemical in salvia divinorum. He wrote about what it's like to participate in a psychedelic drug trial, and why he volunteered to smoke the world's least favorite hallucinogen for science.

Submission + - An Amoeba-Based Computer Found Solutions to 8 City Traveling Salesman Problem (vice.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: A team of Japanese researchers from Keio University in Tokyo have demonstrated that an amoeba is capable of generating approximate solutions to a remarkably difficult math problem known as the “traveling salesman problem.”

As these Japanese researchers demonstrated, a certain type of amoeba can be used to calculate nearly optimal solutions to the traveling salesman problem for up to eight cities. Even more remarkably, the amount of time it takes the amoeba to reach these nearly optimal solutions grows linearly, even though the number of possible solutions increases exponentially.

Submission + - The Decline of American Peyote (vice.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: An investigation into the decline of America's peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus that is critically important to the rituals of the Native American Church, the largest pan-tribal religious organization in the US. Motherboard spoke with Dawn Davis, a research using satellite data to track the destruction of peyote's habitat, as well as Salvador Johnson, one of only four people who is licensed to harvest and sell peyote in the US by the DEA.

Submission + - NIST's New Atomic Clock Is More Accurate Than Our Measurements of Gravity (vice.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: Researchers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed an atomic clock that is so precise that our models of Earth’s gravity aren’t accurate enough to keep up with it. As detailed in a paper published this week in Nature , the atomic clock could pave the way for creating an unprecedented map of the way the Earth’s gravity distorts spacetime and even shed light on the development of the early universe.

“The level of clock performance being reported is such that we don’t actually know how to account for it well enough to support the level of performance the clock achieves, ” Andrew Ludlow, a physicist at NIST and the project lead on the organization’s new atomic clock, told Motherboard. “Right now the state of the art techniques aren’t quite good enough so we’re limited by how well we understand gravity on different parts of the Earth.”

Submission + - The Story of Lenny, the Internet's Favorite Telemarketing Troll (vice.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: Motherboard spoke with the developer who maintains the public server for Lenny, a robocalling algorithm throws telemarketers through a loop. Lenny was created in 2009 and almost a decade later has developed a cult following online. Anyone can forward their telemarketing calls to Lenny, who is a kind and forgetful old man who is interested in whatever the telemarketer is selling. Some telemarketers stay on the line for up to an hour interacting with this chatbot, leading to hundreds of hours of hilarious recordings on YouTube. This is the story of Lenny's rise, and an analysis of its effectiveness at stopping unsolicited calls.

Submission + - Mars Opportunity Rover Appears to Contact Earth After 5 Months of Silence (vice.com) 4

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: NASA's Mars Opportunity rover appeared to briefly make contact with the agency's Deep Space Network on Thursday afternoon after 5 months of silence. In June, a dust storm took Opportunity offline and every attempt to bring the rover back to life has failed. NASA scientists were hoping that seasonal winds that sweep the planet from November to February might blow the dust off of Opportunity's solar panels. Was this the rover's first attempt trying to get back into contact with Earth?

Submission + - How I Got Locked Out of the Chip Implanted in My Hand (vice.com) 1

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: Motherboard staff writer Daniel Oberhaus got an NFC chip implanted in his hand at Def Con a few years ago and almost immediately locked himself out of it. He learned the hard way that information security is a double-edge sword. Here's how it happened and how he eventually regained access to his own hand.

Submission + - Researchers Defeat Perceptual Ad Blockers, Declare 'New Arms Race' (vice.com)

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: Perceptual ad blockers were supposed to be the "superweapon" that put an end to the arms race between advertisers and users. According to new research, however, perceptual ad blockers will come out on the losing side in the war against internet advertisers and expose users to a host of new attack vectors in the process. Researchers at Stanford tricked six different visual classifers used in perceptual ad blockers with adversarial ads designed to trick the ad blockers by making nearly imperceptible changes to the ads.

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