Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Tag Archives: DARPA

NSA secretly funding code-breaking quantum computer

tin foil hat

The NSA is funding quantum computer work that it hopes will allow it to break virtually any encryption used today, The Washington Post reports — though there’s no sign it’s managed to crack the puzzle better than any of the other companies or agencies working on the same thing. Leaks from Edward Snowden reveal a $79.7 million research program called “Penetrating Hard Targets,” including classified funding to research a quantum computer that could be used for cryptography. The Post says that much of the research is being done at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Physical Sciences, but not much more is revealed about the program, including how far quantum computing work has actually progressed. Quantum computing hinges, very broadly, on allowing individual bits (called qubits) to contain superimposed values of zero and one, vastly increasing computing power. Its implications for cryptography, medicine, and research have made it a major goal for public services and …

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Meet ATLAS! (video)

atlas robot

Say hello to ATLAS, one of the most advanced humanoid robots ever built!

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DARPA Building Robots With ‘Real’ Brains

robot brain

The next frontier for the robotics industry is to build machines that think like humans. Scientists have pursued that elusive goal for decades, and they believe they are now just inches away from the finish line. A Pentagon-funded team of researchers has constructed a tiny machine that would allow robots to act independently. Unlike traditional artificial intelligence systems that rely on conventional computer programming, this one “looks and ‘thinks’ like a human brain,” said James K. Gimzewski, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gimsewski is a member of the team that has been working under sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on a program called “physical intelligence.” This technology could be the secret to making robots that are truly autonomous, Gimzewski said during a conference call hosted by Technolink, a Los Angeles-based industry group. This project does not use standard robot hardware with integrated …

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1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS. World’s highest resolution video surviellience platform by DARPA

argus

1 million terabytes a day saved forever. The ARGUS array is made up of several cameras and other types of imaging systems. The output of the imaging system is used to create extremely large, 1.8GP high-resolution mosaic images and video. The U.S. Army, along with Boeing, has developed and is preparing to deploy a new unmanned aircraft called the “Hummingbird.” It’s is a VTOL-UAS (vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system). Three of them are being deployed to Afghanistan for a full year to survey and spy on Afghanistan from an altitude of 20,000 feet with the ability to scan 25 square miles of ground surface.

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