cross pond high tech

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, the secretive company developing brain-machine interfaces, showed off some of the technology it has been developing to the public for the first time. The goal is to eventually begin implanting devices in paralyzed humans, allowing them to control phones or computers.

The first big advance is flexible “threads,” which are less likely to damage the brain than the materials currently used in brain-machine interfaces. These threads also create the possibility of transferring a higher volume of data, according to a white paper credited to “Elon Musk & Neuralink.” The abstract notes that the system could include “as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads.”

The threads are 4 to 6 μm in width, which makes them considerably thinner than a human hair. In addition to developing the threads, Neuralink’s other big advance is a machine that automatically embeds them.

Musk gave a big presentation of Neuralink’s research Tuesday night, though he said that it wasn’t simply for hype. “The main reason for doing this presentation is recruiting,” Musk said, asking people to go apply to work there. Max Hodak, president of Neuralink, also came on stage and admitted that he wasn’t originally sure “this technology was a good idea,” but that Musk convinced him it would be possible.

In the future, scientists from Neuralink hope to use a laser beam to get through the skull, rather than drilling holes, they said in interviews with The New York Times. Early experiments will be done with neuroscientists at Stanford University, according to that report. “We hope to have this in a human patient by the end of next year,” Musk said.

During a Q&A at the end of the presentation, Musk revealed results that the rest of the team hadn’t realized he would: “A monkey has been able to control a computer with its brain.”

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has delivered the first tubes to its research center in the southwest of France as it begins construction on its first Hyperloop network to carry people and freight.

 

The company expects to complete a 320-meter system that will go into operation later this year, and it will build out another 1-km network in 2019.

 

HyperloopTT announced last year that it was opening a European research center in Toulouse, France. Toulouse is the country’s fourth-largest city but also home to a number of transportation and aerospace giants, including Airbus. HyperloopTT began moving the tubes in yesterday, which created a buzz among spectators and local press.

 

“Five years ago, we set out to solve transportation’s most pressing problems: efficiency, comfort, and speed. Today, we take an important step forward to begin to achieve that goal,” said HyperloopTT CEO Dirk Ahlborn in a statement. “Hyperloop is more than just displays of rapid acceleration and more than just breaking speed records. The real opportunity is to create an efficient and safe system with an unparalleled passenger experience.”

 

Founded in 2013, HyperloopTT now has a team of 800 engineers and 40 corporate and university partners. The company is based in Los Angeles and uses an open collaboration model. People can “join” HTT and be compensated for their work with stock options. So far, HTT has raised $31.8 million, and it had 30 salaried employees as of last year.

 

In addition to Toulouse, the company has offices in several regions around the world where it has signed agreements for development and trial of Hyperloop systems.

 

The tubes being installed in Toulouse have a diameter of 4.0 meters, which means the system can be adapted for both passenger pods and shipping containers. The company hopes to have the passenger capsule — which is being built in Carbures, Spain — later this summer.

SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by the Mars-hungry tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, just made a big move to enshroud the planet in high-speed internet coverage.On November 15, the company filed a lengthy application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 4,425 satellites. (We first heard about the filing through the r/SpaceX community on Reddit.) That is a hell of a lot of satellites.

Elon Musk has unveiled a prototype underground tunnel in Los Angeles which is designed to transport cars at high speed around the city.

The tunnel is only a mile (1.6km) long at the moment but the goal is a network to ease chronic traffic congestion.

Modified electric cars would be lowered into the tunnel and travel at speeds up to 150mph (240km/h), Mr Musk says.

The tunnel has been built by Mr Musk's Boring Company, which boasts state-of-the-art engineering techniques.

 

Mr Musk, best known as the head of Tesla electric cars and the commercial SpaceX programme, arrived at the launch on Tuesday in a Tesla car modified to work on the "loop" system.

He was cheered by a small crowd as he emerged from the car at one end of the tunnel bathed in green and blue interior lights.

 

The plan envisages modified cars being lowered into the tunnel network by lifts and then slotted into tracks on the "loop".

"The profound breakthrough is very simple: it's the ability to turn a normal car into a passively stable vehicle by adding the deployable tracking wheels, stabilising wheels, so that it can travel at high speed through a small tunnel," Mr Musk said.

 

 

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Alana Semuels, of The Atlantic, told the BBC World Service that Mr Musk had yet to unveil the technology that would allow vehicles to travel at such high speeds through the system.

"At first he said we're going have these tunnels and transport people in pods, now he's saying we're going to transport them in cars, so I'm not sure even he knows how it works," she said.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is backing a brain-computer interface venture called Neuralink, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company, which is still in the earliest stages of existence and has no public presence whatsoever, is centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence. These enhancements could improve memory or allow for more direct interfacing with computing devices.

Musk has hinted at the existence of Neuralink a few times over the last six months or so. More recently, Musk told a crowd in Dubai, “Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.” He added that “it's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output." On Twitter, Musk has responded to inquiring fans about his progress on a so-called “neural lace,” which is sci-fi shorthand for a brain-computer interface humans could use to improve themselves.

These types of brain-computer interfaces exist today only in science fiction. In the medical realm, electrode arrays and other implants have been used to help ameliorate the effects of Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and other neurodegenerative diseases. However, very few people on the planet have complex implants placed inside their skulls, while the number of patients with very basic stimulating devices number only in the tens of thousands. This is partly because it is incredibly dangerous and invasive to operate on the human brain, and only those who have exhausted every other medical option choose to undergo such surgery as a last resort.

This has not stopped a surge in Silicon Valley interest from tech industry futurists who are interested in accelerating the advancement of these types of far-off ideas. Kernel, a startup created by Braintree co-founder Bryan Johnson, is also trying to enhance human cognition. With more than $100 million of Johnson’s own money — the entrepreneur sold Braintree to PayPal for around $800 million in 2013 — Kernel and its growing team of neuroscientists and software engineers are working toward reversing the effects of neurodegenerative diseases and, eventually, making our brains faster and smarter and more wired.

On June 14, SpaceX's Grasshopper flew 325 m (1066 feet)--higher than Manhattan's Chrysler Building--before smoothly landing back on the pad.