I saw THIS and decided it had to be posted. It's super cool, fits like a.... glove(?). And uses leds to light. The best we had was the little lights that hung onto our buttonholes in the Army. They put out a lot of light when squeezed. Shined in different colors. These would be good because the light would be just where you need it, but a good headlamp is always appreciated for when you need to touch something.
Those GloveLED things would be great worn while carrying an M4 into a crowded house. You point your fireteam where you want them to go, and there is no confusion because of the light. Get them in IR for ultimate effectiveness with night-vision goggles (NVGs).
I'm ready to sign the contract now, are you?

If there's one positive thing that has come out of the entire Zeitgeist, Loose Change, 9/11 Truth Movement, it has been The Venus Project. The Project calls for a total realignment of our culture. A new paradigm if you will.
It operates out of a 21.5 acre research park in Venus, Florida. It believes that social reforms and think tanks can get together and make big decisions to change our culture. But it will take our whole world.
It seems to involve no ownership. From the projects Essay site:

"One of the basic premises of The Venus Project is that we work towards having all of the Earth's resources as the common heritage of all the world's people. Anything less will simply result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems inherent in the present system. "

Are we ready? Are you ready? I don't believe we are.

The future is NOW.

And if you need proof of it, there is a site called http://www.longbets.org/ that specializes in futuristic bets. Some of them, already have came to be claimed. All of them go to charity. There is a 200 US Dollar minimum and the charity has to be Federally recognized. My favorite was Ray Kurzweil and Mitchell Kapor betting whether by 2029 the (in)famous Turing Test will have been beaten. The stakes are a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the Kurzweil Foundation. I like those odds. Two of my favorite charities. You can even make your own bets of challenge someone else who made a wager to the air. Check it out....

The AR-15 Rifle (being used as the M-16 rifle and the M-4 Carbine) has been used as the primary combat and service rifle since before Vietnam. Well, being a former Army Infantryman, I've used the M-4 Carbine in Combat. It's an effective weapon, except for all the damned cleaning. I've heard of tests with weapons based on the AK-47 where they were buried in the sand removed, dusted off and fired without fail.
Well, the XM-29 was the newest improvement, made to not fire with failure so often (like the M-16/4). It was deemed to be too heavy for combat, so it was split into the XM-25 and the XM-8.
The XM-8 was pulled out of testing before fielding. I really cannot find out why.
The XM-25 is ready for combat testing later this year and it is the future of combat if it doesn't meet the same fate as the XM-8. It is made to fire around corners with a round that explodes in air. Read more about it here: http://strategypage.com/dls/articles2005/2005560144.asp

Well, what do you think of the possibility of Strong AI taking us all over? I think it highly unlikely as long as inventors remembering the three laws of robotics. I think it more likely that a insect-like nanobot form some kind of "Grey-Goo". But still, as long as we remember Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics in our engineering, we should be fine.

I found an article today that says scientist believe we should have nothing to fear, and I will end by quoting the entire thing here. It seems to talk some about the Terminator: Salvation movie. I haven't seen it, but the previews looked awesome. Anyway, here you go:

Despite 'Terminator,' machines still on our side: Scientists say AI will be humanity's 'Salvation'

By Ethan Sacks
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2009/05/26/2009-05-26_despite_terminator_machines_still_on_our_side_scientists_say_a
i_will_be_humanity.html#ixzz0GwSZrgNC&B

The post-apocalyptic "Terminator Salvation" depicts a world in which a computer becomes self-aware - and promptly makes the logical decision to wipe out the humans that made it. It's a scenario that's gotten a lot eerier in the 25 years since the pre-Internet days of the first "Terminator" movie.

But there's no reason banish the BlackBerry to the basement ...just yet, say computer scientists.

"We live in a world today where this is no longer science fiction," says McG, the director of "Terminator Salvation." "Artificial intelligence is absolutely everywhere, from the ABS brakes in your car to your BlackBerry, spelling the word you misspelled correctly on your behalf.

"It's here."

Not so fast.

While the most powerful supercomputer - the IBM Roadrunner at the Los Alamos National Laboratory - can do about a thousand trillion calculations per second, experts say machines still can't come close to a real-life Arnold Schwarzenegger when it comes to recognizing patterns and solving problems.

"At this point, the technology is not to the point where it's self aware," said professor Reid Simmons of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. "So they're not going to make decisions such as, 'Oh, I'm getting tired of dropping bombs on Afghanistan, I think I'll fly over to Germany and I'll drop bombs there instead.' That's not going to happen."

If and when computers do become sentient, Simmons believes their human creators won't be that stupid: We will have engineered in basic safeguards.

"We'll still have control of the off plug," he says.

Noted futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, author of the book "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology," believes computers will be able to pass the so-called Turing test - when a computer shows an intelligence that is indistinguishable from a human - by the late 2020s.

Sound a little too science fiction? Take a note of Kurzweil's track record: in the 1980s, he predicted a computer would beat a human grandmaster at chess by 1998. He was a year late, since Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in 1997.

"This technology is growing exponentially," says Kurzweil. "What used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket. What used to fit in your pocket will fit inside a blood cell 25 years from now."

But rather than an adversarial war between man and machines envisioned in the "Terminator" series, Kurzweil believes the technical advancement of the next few decades will herald a literal rewiring of the human brain. Given the shrinking costs of nanotechnology, it's a matter of time before humans can turn themselves into supercomputers.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2009/05/26/2009-05-26_despite_terminator_machines_still_on_our_side_scientists_say_ai_will_be_humanity.html#ixzz0GwSm9fSq&B

"It's not going to be a clear distinction where you can walk in a room and say humans on the left side of the room and AIs, computers on the right side," says Kurzweil. "We're all going to be deeply integrated with these technologies."

McG isn't so sure. He points to the splitting of the atom as proof that the human race is at its most inventive when it's thinking up new ways to potentially destroy itself. What logical, free-thinking computer would want to share the planet with us?

"Not only do I think it's possible [that computers would want to terminate us,] I'm not certain humanity will be around in 50 to 100 years," he says.

Science fiction has certainly mined those fears over the years, whether it's been "2001's" homicidal computer, Hal 9000, or the computer that almost obliterated the world in a nuclear holocaust in "War Games." (In a case of life imitating art, the Roadrunner supercomputer at Los Alamos is used for nuclear simulations.)

But Andrew Ng, a computer science professor at Stanford University, says artificial intelligence will breed machines that are more R2-D2 than T-800s. In fact, he adds, there may be more legitimate worry that the future will resemble "Mad Max" or "The Day After Tomorrow" than the one predicted by "Terminator Salvation."

"I think humanity faces many doomsday scenarios today, such as those posed by global warming, possible nuclear war, maybe even asteroid strikes," he says. "AI is much more likely to see us through these problems than to cause them."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2009/05/26/2009-05-26_despite_terminator_machines_still_on_our_side_scientists_say_ai_will_be_humanity.html?page=1#ixzz0GwSzP0NP&B

As the Editor-in-Chief and publisher of Cheer10s.com, I scour through a lot of computer and technology news. It is important to me to convey to the Hacker world what is going on so they can be better prepared for the future.
This helps me to be the best Futurist that I can be.
Basically, I see more restrictions coming our way. Australia and Iraq, as well as China see large Censorship "walls", such as the Great Firewall of China.
This should be fought tooth and nail by everyone that believe in Human Rights.
Big Brother is watching us all and wants to take our internet.

Just think about setting up a Tor relay for the poor guys in China, Australia, Iran, and elsewhere that cannot use the Internet for legitimate reasons.
Protest to your Congressman and Senator.
You can make a difference.

So, Eugenics is a path that is being talked widely about with the study of Human Cloning for traits to the study of Human Cloning for health. So, what is Eugenics? Wikipedia says the word eugenics derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and the suffix -genēs (born), and was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, who defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations".^{[22]
That sounds like it even includes the study of plant "unnatural selection", as in breeding for traits like more vitamins or different colors that lead to a higher quantity of carotenes inside. Monsanto has been a company that I have long supported. I even wrote a eZine article supported by Biotechnology Organizations a few years back, which can be read at the bottom here: http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2534
I see nothing wrong with Eugenics. As long as we aren't killing babies or hurting people that choose not to be under other traits. I believe that people's "desired" traits will be so varied that there variety will remain.}