• China syndromeChina Embraces Bigger Internet with Virtually Unlimited IP Addresses

    By John Xie

    China is pushing for the adoption of a new worldwide Internet Protocol that could make the internet bigger and faster, but also potentially less anonymous. The technology, called IPv6, is an upgrade of the internet’s architecture that would allow trillions more electronic devices to have unique addresses online.

  • RobokillersLethal Autonomous Weapons May Soon Make Life-and-Death Decisions – on Their Own

    With drone technology, surveillance software, and threat-predicting algorithms, future conflicts could computerize life and death. “It’s a big question – what does it mean to hand over some of the decision making around violence to machines, and everybody on the planet will have a stake in what happens on this front,” says one expert.

  • School surveillanceSchools’ Facial Recognition Technology Problematic, Should Be Banned: Experts

    Facial recognition technology should be banned for use in schools, according to a new study. The research reveals inaccuracy, racial inequity, and increased surveillance are the touchstones of a flawed technology.

  • AIMight Technology Tip the Global Scales?

    By Leda Zimmerman

    Benjamin Chang, a fourth-year MIT graduate student, is assessing the impacts of artificial intelligence on military power, with a focus on the U.S. and China. “Every issue critical to world order — whether climate change, terrorism, or trade — is clearly and closely intertwined with U.S.-China relations,” says Chang. “Competition between these nations will shape all outcomes anyone cares about in the next 50 years or more.”

  • China syndromeA Ban on WeChat and TikTok, a Disconnected World and Two Internets

    By Fang Bing, Adam Xu, Jiu Dao

    President Trump’s new executive orders banning Chinese social media apps TikTok and WeChat marked a significant escalation in the ongoing technology tensions between the U.S. and China. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, predicted in 2018 that within the next decade, there would be two distinct Internets: one led by the U.S. and the other one led by China. Only two years after his comments, that prediction seems to have become a reality.

  • Water securityOverhauling the Circulatory System of the American West

    It might be tempting to think of cowboys and cattle drives, but the real story of the American West can be summed up in one word: water. While the costs might be daunting, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) has teamed up with the Oregon-based Farmers Conservation Alliance to radically reimagine the role of irrigation systems in the West.

  • Next Generation 911Testing Interoperability, Compatibility of Next Generation 911 systems

    Next Generation 911 (NG911) is an updated version of the current nationwide emergency response system operating on an Internet Protocol (IP) platform that will enable voice, video, photographs, text, and future communications technologies to be transmitted to and by the public and first responders for assistance. The Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), a DHS Center of Excellence led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), will develop a framework and process for testing the interoperability and compatibility of NG911 systems.

  • Rare earth mineralsTurning Waste into Valuable Critical Minerals

    A new way to treat acid mine drainage (AMD) could help transform the environmental pollution problem into an important domestic source of the critical rare earth elements needed to produce technology ranging from smart phones to fighter jets.

  • Energy securityAssembling Offshore Wind Turbines

    The United States offshore wind energy industry is growing, with planned commitments to build 26 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind projects along the East Coast from now through 2035. This is the clean power equivalent of 26 nuclear power plants, or roughly 10 times the average electric energy used by the entire state of Delaware. Marshalling ports, large waterside sites with the acreage and weight-carrying capacity necessary to assemble, house and deploy the huge wind turbines ready to ship out into the ocean, will be critical to meeting this current and committed demand for offshore wind.

  • PrivacyProtecting Yourself against Facial Recognition Software

    The rapid rise of facial recognition systems has placed the technology into many facets of our daily lives, whether we know it or not. What might seem innocuous when Facebook identifies a friend in an uploaded photo grows more ominous in enterprises such as Clearview AI, a private company that trained its facial recognition system on billions of images scraped without consent from social media and the internet. A new research project from the University of Chicago provides a powerful new protection mechanism.

  • Dust explosionsReal-time Imaging to Help Prevent Deadly Dust Explosions

    Dust explosions can be among the most dangerous and costly workplace incidents. Dust builds up in agricultural, powder-handling or manufacturing settings, causing hazards to employees and posing the risk of exploding. Researchers have developed an image- and video-based application using OpenCV algorithms that detect explosible suspended dust concentration.

  • IoTConsumers Do Not Fully Trust Smart Home Technologies

    Researchers investigating the trust consumers have in “smart home” – homes in which smart devices are connected to each other to create an “internet of things” (IoT) — found that consumers were worried about the likelihood of security incidents. Businesses and policymakers will have to work together to gain consumer trust in smart home technologies.

  • TerrorismProtection against Terrorist Attacks with Homemade Explosives

    Terrorist attacks often feature the use of homemade explosives. For the police and security forces to be able to take appropriate precautions and assess the damage after an attack, they need access to the right kind of tools. Researchers have now developed a sophisticated risk-analysis system to help prevent such attacks. At the same time, the software-based system assists with the forensic investigation of such incidents.

  • Smart-home defenseNew Method to Defend against Smart Home Cyberattacks

    Instead of relying on customers to protect their vulnerable smart home devices from being used in cyberattacks, researchers have developed a new method that enables telecommunications and internet service providers to monitor these devices.

  • DronesIt’s a Bird... It’s a Plane... It’s Superman? No: It’s a Flapping-Wing Drone

    A drone prototype that mimics the aerobatic maneuvers of one of the world’s fastest birds, the swift, is being developed by an international team of aerospace engineers in the latest example of biologically inspired flight. The 26 gram ornithopter (flapping wing aircraft) which can hover, dart, glide, brake and dive just like a swift, making them more versatile, safer and quieter than the existing quadcopter drones.