There is no word on pricing, but I wonder how much each drone might cost? They don't look particularly complicated. Even if each of them cost $100,000, that would provide blanket 5G coverage to all of Africa for $15 billion. For context, the total 2024 telecoms spending in Africa is expected to be $63 billion.
Much of current SETI efforts are focused on searching for radio signals. That approach has one major flaw - the huge amount of radio waves generated on Earth that have to be filtered as possible false positives. These researchers say their method may completely bypass this problem.
China has the world's largest radio telescope, the 500-meter FAST telescope, and they say these techniques will be used there. There are many global efforts to scan exoplanets for simple microbial extra-terrestrial life, but it's possible techno-signatures from something more advanced could be discovered first.
I think I might try that approach, you're right it could motivate a subset of people. We have a pinned post spot at the top of the sub-reddit I'm going to use again in a few days. When I used it before, I'd guess a few thousand people read the post, but it seemed to generate very few people moving to the Lemmy site.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/15wi75l/rfuturology_is_now_in_the_fediverse_at/
The ability of devices and AI to decode thoughts is advancing rapidly. Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) achieved over 40% accuracy in early experiments with a thought translator called DeWave AI. You have to wear a special cap for it to work, but as time goes on I'm pretty sure AI will get better at surveilling our thoughts without the need for that.
As this article explains, this is a whole new field of law and human rights, that is barely keeping pace with how fast the technology is developing.
Slightly off-topic, but how are you finding encouraging Reddit users to make the switch to Lemmy?
I mod r/futurology, which is close to 20 million subscribers, but most of the growth for futurology.today has come from within the fediverse. Any tips for encouraging Redditors to migrate?
Xiaomi has a great track record with electronics, especially smartphones, so it will be interesting to see if they can bring some of that success to EVs. On paper this looks impressive. Xiaomi has been doing a lot of independent research into autonomous driving. This will launch with impressive abilities, but it's not at Level 4 driving yet.
It's probably impractical to build these tunnels to everyone's front door, but they might make sense if they worked like train networks and journeys terminated at local stations. That way the last few hundred meters could be above ground.
If this were ever to take off I wonder how it would be financed? The cost of infrastructure like this would rival the money spent on rail and road projects.
Interestingly, they say testing has so far exceeded their expectations, and that they believe the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for this may be comparable to wind turbines. One of existing wind turbine technology's biggest drawbacks is limitations on location. This technology sounds like it would have far fewer problems with that. If it works, it may be able to dramatically broaden the places wind can create electricity.
but you’re absolutely not well adjusted.
The American Revolution was terrorism from Britain's POV. As was every single other national liberation and independence movement from the POV of whoever they wanted to get rid of.
I've no doubt that as AI & robotics become capable of more and more work, and thus displace more and more human workers, anger & hatred will grow in some quarters. It's already happening. I hope we get to the "other side" as quickly as possible. Machines doing all the work, should ultimately mean a world of abundance.
There have been many indications lately that the current boom in AI is feeding through to robotics, and rapidly advancing their development. This is another sign of that. The article references "your household robot" - but I wonder if this tech will show up in work environments sooner? It looks like it's almost ready for a wide range of unskilled or semi-skilled manual work.