IEEE Spectrum

Do #chatbots really understand our world? Join the Computer History Museum for a debate hosted by Spectrum's #AI editor Eliza Strickland where experts tackle the big questions about #LLMs. Register here: https://lnkd.in/ebr5d-ae

Why would you want to put a data center on the moon? Turns out there are some very good reasons, including a cold, very stable environment, and also data sovereignty: no country has sovereignty over the moon, so the data can be free of national restrictions or stipulations. https://lnkd.in/ecC_F79v

This machine makes following the strict rules for cryptographic one-time pads a little bit easier. Read how to build one yourself: https://lnkd.in/ejc5e8hV

A Chinese rocket launch last March intended to put 2 satellites in lunar orbit, but failed in Earth orbit. The Chinese Academy of Sciences then got to work trying to salvage the mission. They did, but it took 167 days, during which they initiated five orbital maneuvers, five further trajectory corrections to fine-tune the course, and three?gravity?assists from the Earth and moon. Andrew Jones reports https://lnkd.in/e_Evyzmq

U.S. President Donald #Trump's assertion, in a?Fox News interview, that #Ukraine should give the United States US $500 billion in rare earth resources has baffled mining experts and diplomats alike. “I told them [Ukraine] that I want the equivalent like $500B worth of rare earth. And they've essentially agreed to do that so at least we don’t feel stupid,” Trump said in the interview. It's true that Ukraine has substantial mineral resources including the rare-earth elements that underpin huge and vitally important commercial and defense industries, including?electric vehicles. But analysts quickly pointed out some problems. ?53% of Ukraine’s mineral resources are in the four regions annexed illegally by #Russia. Large parts of these regions are currently under the control of Russian forces. ?The United States doesn’t need rare-earth ore nearly as much as it needs the facilities to process that ore into specific rare-earth oxides, such as neodymium oxide and praseodymium oxide, or, better yet, into the metals themselves. Metal alloys are the forms needed to produce key rare-earth-based strategically useful goods, such as permanent magnets. ?Today, more than 85% of the facilities for processing rare-earth ores into oxides are in China. And 97% of the facilities for making the metal are in China. So no matter how much ore you have, unless you have processing facilities, you almost certainly must rely on China to process that ore into a useful form. The United States and its allies have huge reserves of rare earth ore, and no shortage of companies that want to mine it. What they don’t have is the ability to turn all that ore into useful forms. More Ukranian ore won’t help with that. For more perspective: https://lnkd.in/ggYhTvEc? https://lnkd.in/gRFud5k8 Fox news interview: https://lnkd.in/ej4cz_xw

Can we come closer to the brain's enormous capability and efficiency by more closely mimicking the way the brain works? That's the idea behind the SpiNNaker neuromorphic computer architecture. Edd Gent spoke with Steve Furber, a leader on the SpiNNaker team. https://lnkd.in/e783E7_5

ANELLO Photonics and OSCP have introduced optical gyroscope systems on a chip, which are being used in compact, rugged, navigational hardware that can provide GPS-free guidance for hundreds of kilometers with accuracy as good as 0.1 percent of the distance traveled. Among many uses, these tiny units could make GPS spoofing largely obsolete. https://lnkd.in/e6p9rCVR

Two German "white hat" hackers used a few hundred dollars' worth of hardware, including a commercially available antenna, a software-defined radio receiver and basic computer hardware (based on the Intel N100 CPU or a plain old Raspberry Pi), to hack the Iridium satellite network. The network has 2.3 million users, 145,000 of which are in the U.S. Government. https://lnkd.in/gtGnj7hp

A human pilot has flown Boom Supersonic's prototype supersonic aircraft, the XB-1, at Mach 1.122 and at an altitude of 10.7 km. Boom plans to introduce a supersonic aircraft, Overture, in 2030, capable of carrying 64 to 80 passengers. Overture will be designed to fly at Mach 1.7 and at altitudes up to 18 km. For comparison, the Concorde could fly at Mach 2 and carry 92 to 128 passengers at altitudes up to 18 km. https://lnkd.in/gcyzSWyq

Driven by military imperatives and supply-chain worries, the United States is getting into rare-earth magnet manufacturing, an industry now utterly dominated by Chinese companies. It's the start of a new era in magnet making, made possible by billions of dollars in grants, subsidies, and loans, which have resulted in mines, processing plants and, most recently, magnet factories. In Fort Worth, Texas, for example, MP Materials has just turned out its first neodymium-praseodymium alloy (pictured) and magnets made from the alloy. https://lnkd.in/gRFud5k8