Aedan O'Brien

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted at what could be the announcement of a brain-machine interface that could one day hook human brains up to computers on Sunday. In response to a question asking for an update on Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup he founded in 2016, Musk replied that new information would be “coming soon”.   A “direct cortical interface,” according

The spoken word is a powerful tool, but not all of us have the ability to use it, either due to biology or circumstances. In such cases, technology can bridge the gap – and now that gap is looking shorter than ever, with a new algorithm that turns messages meant for your muscles into legible

Even if death metal isn’t a perfect fit for you as far as music genres go, you have to admire the AI smarts behind Relentless Doppelganger – a non-stop, 24/7 YouTube livestream churning out heavy death metal generated completely by algorithms.   And this is by no means a one-off trick by Dadabots, the neural

We know that self-driving cars are promising to make the roads safer and give us more time to relax, but the energy-saving and pollution-cutting benefits are also important. Now a new study suggests those benefits might not be as big as we thought.   The problem, according to researchers from the University of Michigan, is

The line between human-made materials and living organisms just got more blurred. Researchers have created a new biomaterial that isn’t alive, but which exhibits three key traits for life: metabolism, self-assembly, and organisation.   The new material can crawl forward like a slime mould, growing new strands from the front as the old ones at

After years of chastising us for failing to safely eject USB drives from computers, Microsoft has done the unthinkable: finally acknowledging it’s okay to yank that sucker out and live your best life.   Ever since USB drives became a thing, the Windows maker has warned and admonished computer users for not safely removing external

The world watched in horror Monday night while flames tore through the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As fire consumed the roof and toppled its iconic central spire, it seemed as though the historic church could be lost forever – but it’s possible, thanks to cutting-edge imagining technology, that all hope may not be lost.

The dog-like robots from Boston Dynamics are back with another video, albeit this time the video is less focused on virality and more a demonstration of raw power. Behold, 10 robot dogs pulling a large truck: (Boston Dynamics/YouTube) Pretty intense, no?   Don’t get too worried – these little guys aren’t coming to pull your

Scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind device that generates electricity from nothing other than the natural phenomenon of snowfall. Based upon the principles of the triboelectric effect, in which electrical charge is generated after two materials come into contact with one another, the researchers’ new technology exploits the fact that snow particles carry a positive electrical

In what the Israeli media is calling a “world’s first,” scientists at Tel Aviv University have 3D printed a small heart using human tissue that includes vessels, collagen, and biological molecules – a breakthrough, according to Haaretz, that they hope could one day render organ donation obsolete.   The technology is still many years out

Humanity could be on the verge of an unprecedented merging of human biology with advanced technology, fusing our thoughts and knowledge directly with the cloud in real-time – and this incredible turning point may be just decades away, scientists say.   In a new research paper exploring what they call the ‘human brain/cloud interface’, scientists

Stratolaunch, the massive aircraft dreamed up by the late Paul Allen, flew for the first time on Saturday, becoming the largest plane by wingspan ever to take to the skies. Larger than Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose – which flew only once, in 1947- Stratolaunch lifted off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in the

Facebook said it accidentally hid bizarre and “inappropriate” messages inside “tens of thousands” of virtual-reality controllers, including “Big Brother is Watching” and “The Masons Were Here.”   Nate Mitchell, the cofounder of Oculus, the Facebook-owned VR company, said on Twitter on Friday that the company inadvertently printed some unusual messages in its Touch controllers, handheld devices for

We are just days away from the final season of Game of Thrones, and the predictions just keep rolling in. Using artificial intelligence, students at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now put in their own two cents.   During a recent seminar, these budding computer scientists created an algorithm that predicts which characters

A new type of air filter has the potential to work faster, cheaper and better than any other, killing virtually all airborne bacteria and viruses in a fraction of a second. It’s a germaphobes dream, and a bullish weapon against the spread of infectious diseases, some of which, like measles, can remain suspended in the air

A team of scientists says they’ve built a quantum computer that generates a superposition of several possible futures the computer could experience. The research, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, describes how this quantum system could help futuristic artificial intelligence learn much faster than it can today – and it could mean quantum computers are finally

One of the scariest – and most troubling – iPhone problems is when your phone will not charge. But don’t panic. There are some fairly mundane reasons why this might happen, and they’re generally easy to solve.   On the other hand, keep in mind that to do something even as simple as charge your

When artificial intelligence systems start getting creative, they can create great things – and scary ones. Take, for instance, an AI program that let web users compose music along with a virtual Johann Sebastian Bach by entering notes into a program that generates Bach-like harmonies to match them.   Run by Google, the app drew