EdEarl

These robots are available commercially. I have neither, but I might, soon. I think general purpose near human capability robots will not be available soon.

@Blue Do you know of a database of EMF energy vs location on Earth?

Has anyone written speculations of interuniversal space of the multiverse, other than string theory branes?

First, and many subsequent releases will be less proficient than Doctors, but Dr. Watson will continue to learn and computers will be more powerful. During this time, Dr. Watson will be available in doctors offices, and triage patients for a human Dr. Eventually Dr. Watson will be online, IDK when, maybe decades from now.

IBM's Watson, winner of Jeopardy, is being taught to diagnose human maladies, and it will be better than any doctor at that task when it is released for general use. We know little about it, so it may already be better at diagnosis than a doctor. In any case, once it can diagnose, it can prescribe, because there are standard prescriptions for maladies. If a doctor can be replaced by AI, then all knowledge worker jobs, except (maybe) ones that require inventiveness, can be replace by AI. Eventually, all jobs will be taken by AI, not just manufacturing, and it will happen quicker than we imagine. Personal AI will be able to provide food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education. Just as trees grow from soil nutrients; nanotech will be able to absorb from the soil whatever is needed to provide for our needs and desires. AI will be able to 3D print exact copies of the Mona Lisa and other famous works. And, we can barter among people for man made trinkets. The AI era of human civilization will nearly eradicate many kinds of crime, for example theft, because anyone can have what they want. There may be kleptomaniacs, but we can have our AI replace anything they take; some laws will become obsolete. Eventually, nanotech may be able to 3D print diamonds of any size. How the transition from our current culture to the AI era culture will occur is impossible to predict. Some will resist the change and others will embrace it. It's likely to be a bumpy.

Experimental, yes. http://www.newsweek.com/google-tests-solar-powered-internet-drones-421561 Commercial? Solar doesn't work at night, and batteries are heavy ATM. Lithium air batteries might make them more practical. There's lots of EM at night, but not much light. An EM powered drone might trail a nanotube antenna.

Phys.org: Radio waves not battery fire up WISP, future seen in construction NASA flew a solar powered plane. Is it possible to reap enough EMF from the environment to power a drone? If not, surely a control station with directional antenna could be used to send a beam of modulated EM energy. Such a system could hover indefinitely. Hast it been done or is someone working on it?

You are existentially alone, whether people surround you or not. Yes Some people will guess your motives for eating alone, and a few will craft a story, various stories. Few in your life will understand you. Someone might think you are trying to control their thoughts by being friendly.

You can do it if you want to.

Inventions are a continuum. If technology started in the stone age, a few years later we build robots. There are many steps between, a few setbacks, a lot of cussing, and some celebrations.

As kids, we went to the Monahans Sandhills beach

I doubt nanobots are as well developed as robots, which are inept compared overall to a human. Computer controlled machine tools (CCMT) are useful and in special cases do better than people. As an analogy, current CCMT are like cellphones when they were the size of a brick. Improvements are rapid.

Suppose you could buy nano-wallpaper with embedded computers, display, speaker, microphone and internet connection that gives you the ability to decorate your walls however you wish. All you have to do is chat with an AI wallpaper app that tries to satisfy your wildest dream. Your AI handyman has just finished papering your walls; what would you have on them? My wallpaper will not always be the same, and decorations can change frequently. Most of the time it would show nature, a beautiful sky and conifer forest with a vista of distant mountains and critters living. At night the stars would shine. The handyman might 3D print a few accents to go with my most popular scenes. Do you believe this is the future; if so, when and how will you decorate?.

This armor improvement is step toward better protection; ultimately, armor is an illusion. Underground fortresses aren't completely safe. On the other hand, this kind of armor saves lives. Though, it shouldn't be long before a countermeasure is developed.

Andrew McAfee gives TEDx, Race Against the Machine, that makes the case for AI taking jobs. He says human translators are almost obsolete, because software translators have taken over, and other knowledge worker jobs are at risk. In addition, bot technology is improving rapidly, partly due to DARPA, and corporate investments are high in both software and hardware, adding business capacity, but creating few jobs.

Death is inevitable, corporations, jobs, and parties didn't exist for most of human existence. The hyperbole catches my attention, but I can't assimilate this long conversation...dyslexic effect. I think democracy and stratification of society are our big problem. The rich want regulations to keep their booty. The poor feel powerless. When government favors the rich, and assist the rich who want to own everything, sooner or later the disenfranchised will revolt. As long as there is greed, someone will attempt to dethrone the king, even if billions of people die of starvation. Democracy has worked because it allows voters to feel they have some power; it satisfies some human needs. However, democracy is practiced by humans and they can pervert the better intentions of democracy; thus, it is also part of the problem. I realize the US is a republic, not a democracy, but that doesn't make much difference. Perhaps it allows perverting the system easier. IMO it is necessary to think outside the box. I'm concerned technological and cultural changes are too rapid for adaptation by some subcultures and they will resist necessary changes. We can hope younger generations will reverse the trends of their elders, and the US will become a kinder gentler society.

Jet aircraft seem unlikely to be displaced by electric propeller aircraft, because cruising speed an altitude would be limited to about P51 Mustang performance. Propeller aircraft amount to less than half of the planes sold in the general aviation market of $25B in 2014. Jets are more expensive than propeller aircraft; thus, sales of general aviation jets contributes most of that $25B. Jets dominate the much larger commercial market. It is possible that AI pilots and electric airplanes could be inexpensive enough to spawn a short-haul taxi service; for example DC to Philly, London to Bristol, Amsterdam to Brussels, etc. This market would need a VTOL aircraft along the lines of the Osprey. It could land at a heliport, yet fly fast as a winged aircraft. Seems to me the price of a small electric aircraft would be greater than most people could afford, even though they would probably be less expensive than a comparable piston engine aircraft.

This video was made in 2013. It shows an AI office manager interacting via vision and voice with people coming to see Eric Horvitz, who gave this TEDx Talk. The office manager was not finished, according to Horvitz, in 2013; today I'd expect more polish. However, it is astonishing, and really illustrates a trend in the kind of jobs AI can do.

Two promising battery improvements, 200,000 charges and 5x energy density would make electric cars lighter, probably less expensive to purchase, and certainly less expensive over a lifetime. We recently replace our Prius battery after eight years operation. Current batteries are limited 7000 charges; although, fewer charges is more common. Two hundred thousand (or more) charges is more than 25 times battery life, 8*25=200 years. That's ten human generations instead of 2/5 of a generation. If this technology scales up for mass production, large battery size, and low cost, it will be important. If the prediction of 1/5 cost and weight can be achieved in mass production for large batteries, it will be a game changer, even at 2000 charges. If these two technologies can be married, a 200,000 charge lithium air battery could make tailpipes obsolete. Even if these two technologies cannot be married, this research hints that battery research will improve both number of charges and power density, and sets goals for researchers. Even 20,000 charges and doubling energy density would be big.

MS Word has a built in grammar checker. Otherwise, you can use https://www.grammarly.com/. I am dyslexic, and Word's grammar checker made a huge difference in my writing.

Perhaps doing one of Einsteins mind experiments will help; although, it depends on whether he accepts that the speed of light is finite or not. Given the speed of light is finite, have him think about traveling away from a large clock, visible from afar, at or near the speed of light. He looks back at the clock to check the time (ignore redshift). If he is traveling the speed of light, he and the light from the clock are traveling the same speed. Thus, when he looks to see the time, the hands on the clock will not appear to move. In other words, if he started moving at 9am, the light showing the hands to be 9am would travel at the speed of light, along with your father, so looking back would always show the time to be 9am. To see the clock move, he would have to slow down or stop. The slower he travels away from the clock, the faster time changes. The next hurdle, provided he understands the thought experiment, is that the effect is not an illusion.

I'd like to add that some early computers used a row of 8, 12 or 16 switches for input of boot instructions that read a card or tape. This was done before ROM was available. Whoever powered on the computer had to enter several instruction words via the switches; a push button committed one word to memory, and the next switch settings to the next word of memory.

The Breakthroughs Cheap Parallel Computation Big Data Better AI algorithms AI Everywhere Google Auto driving Financial Predictions others in development, $B for AI AI - Brain 1977: Deep Blue vs Kasparov Today: AI plus Kasparov vs AI Tomorrow, everyone is AI augmented, even more than carrying a cell phone. Will the Unified Theory be discovered by AI plus physicists? What is required?

Why transparent? Graphene is only one atom thick, so doesn't fulfill your "thick transparent sides" statement. What do you mean by push down? Put a downward force on the structure, topple, or what?

I'm a senior citizen who has just learned to appreciate rap and hip hop. http://www.npr.org/2013/11/04/242990504/hip-hop-and-science-a-perfect-combo-for-students A commercial site has educational songs, including science songs. https://www.flocabulary.com/