By Jason Bermas

DARPA is unofficially known as the mad science division of the Pentagon for a good reason. Now they apparently need a couple of city blocks underground to do some experiments, according to a recent DARPA tweet.

Most of what we see rolling out the public is, of course, already done.

Jason Bermas covers the ethics – or lack thereof – behind these announcements to continue modifying and manipulating nature.



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By Mac Slavo

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is looking for a large underground facility and they need it within days. Known for their secretive and ominous projects, DARPA explained in a tweet that the ideal location would be “several city blocks with complex layouts and multiple stories.”

According to a report by Gizmodo, DARPA sent out a tweet on Wednesday that’s making people a little nervous. The agency wants a large underground facility for “testing” of some sort and they needed it by Friday at 5 pm ET.

Attention, city dwellers! We’re interested in identifying university-owned or commercially managed underground urban tunnels & facilities able to host research & experimentation. https://t.co/tHZ1Tqy5nV

It’s short notice… We’re asking for responses by Aug. 30 at 5:00 PM ET. pic.twitter.com/TSWO07bJam

— DARPA (@DARPA) August 28, 2019

A follow-up tweet clarified what exactly the agency is looking for:

The ideal space would be a human-made underground environment spanning several city blocks w/ complex layout & multiple stories, including atriums, tunnels & stairwells. Spaces
that are currently closed off from pedestrians or can be temporarily used for testing are of
interest. pic.twitter.com/GkWKm2w2p9

— DARPA (@DARPA) August 28, 2019

And just what could DARPA need this for? Who knows…

“Complex urban underground infrastructure can present significant challenges for situational awareness in time-sensitive scenarios, such as active combat operations or disaster response,” a DARPA spokesperson who asked to remain nameless told Gizmodo by email.

“DARPA is interested in exploring this domain for researchers to analyze and enhance approaches to improve situational awareness and response times in emergency scenarios,” the DARPA spokesperson continued. “Locations submitted could help the research community identify relevant sites for further field experimentation to accelerate their development of such technologies.” –Gizmodo

That actually brings up more questions than answers.  Why would DARPA need an underground facility for “active combat operations?”  It makes one wonder who will be the enemy combatant. DARPA is currently hosting the Subterranean Challenge, which is for mapping and traversing underground environments. But the public is already aware of this.   DARPA’s “Urban Circuit” challenge is happening in February of 2020, so we can guess that this underground location might be for that, but we don’t know for sure. And it would be strange to only organize something like that on a week’s notice.

Gizmodo also received an angry email from Jared Adams, DARPA’s Chief of Communications, about the way the media outlet chose to characterize DARPA and their often nefarious experiments. But, as Gizmodo stated: perhaps the communications department should have a word with whoever controls the agency’s Twitter account. We weren’t the ones concurring that its desire for such a quick turnaround sounded “ominous.” And plenty of other news outlets seemed to think it was just as weird and a bit terrifying, knowing what DARPA has done in the past.

Even to us.

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— DARPA (@DARPA) August 28, 2019

Comforting…

Also See:

Mad Scientists Creating Mini-Brains And Makeshift DARPA Underground Facilities!

Secret DARPA Mind Control Project Revealed: Leaked Document

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This article was sourced from SHTFPlan.com

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Royal Society – Brain Waves

Nicholas West
Activist Post

In April of last year, Obama announced a $100 million brain-mapping project, which is being promoted as essential to unlocking the secrets behind degenerative brain conditions and kick starting job growth.

Despite a U.S. economy that is sliding ever faster toward complete implosion, Obama is doubling down on the initiative with another $100 million dollar commitment even as very little of the assertions about job growth have been proven.

In light of where the funding is coming from, it is worth re-examining the darker payoff potential.

According to the latest from LiveScience:

Under the proposed budget, released Tuesday (March 4), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will contribute an estimated $100 million to the effort; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will invest $80 million; and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will provide another $20 million. (Source)

[…] 

The NIH plans to develop a “toolbox” of technologies to map the brain’s circuitry, measure activity in brain circuits and probe how these circuits lead to unique human cognition and behavior.

DARPA will continue to develop memory prostheses as part of an effort called Restoring Active Memory, to create medical devices that measure and stimulate neurons to ease the symptoms of diseases such as PTSD and depression, a project called Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS); and to develop prosthetic limbs that would restore control and sensation to amputees, known as Prosthetic Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX).

The NSF will focus on three main areas: interdisciplinary research; new theories, models and tools to guide research; and technologies to handle huge amounts of new data. The NSF has already provided $25 million in funding to an MIT research center for “Brains, Minds and Machines,” as well as funding to support scientific collaborations.

Since this all sounds so positive, and we are apparently to believe that DARPA just wants to cure Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, we might want to re-visit some of what has been discussed previously in order to put this into proper context.

As The New American has rightly highlighted, whenever DARPA is involved, we can expect that there will be creepy military applications . . . like mind control. This mission has actually been around for some time within the halls of elite think-tanks, and now appears to be coming to full fruition. We’ve even seen the recent exposure by a whistleblower at the University of Arizona who came forward to reveal a connection to DARPA’s desire to recreate through narrative the results from Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. In short, affecting thought patterns and, in particular, changing religious views in order to thwart the fanaticism that supposedly underpins the War on Terror.

A closer look at the area being invested in by the National Science Foundation reveals what Big Data and the merger of human and machine intelligence is really about. Please read Medical Nanobots Will Connect Brain to Cloud Computing to get a better understanding of where this part of the initiative is headed, as well as the article Big Government Seeks New Ways to Manage “Big Data” to see how heavily invested our largest federal agencies are in collecting and analyzing data in order to find ways to predict human behavior – something that is already taking shape in “predictive policing” as we see it being rolled out in Chicago. Departments such as the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Geological survey, and DARPA are all right there.

As government data collection ramps up, the Obama administration through the Office of Science and Technology Policy has announced a $200 million investment in taking this information “from data to decisions.” So that’s now a total of $400 million in this overall data-brain initiative. All to make our lives more prosperous and healthy? Let’s look at other possibilities….

The UK think-tank, The Royal Society (which has openly admitted to studying how to play God with the climate) kicked off a program in 2010 that revealed its multifaceted investigation into the identification of organic brain function and potential control over human behavior.

The Brain Waves project is divided into four modules, each tasked with studying the impact of developments in the field of neuroscience and neurotechnology.  

The titles of the modules reflect the areas of examination:

Module 1: Society and policy
Module 2: Implications for education and lifelong learning
Module 3: Conflict and security
Module 4: Responsibility and the law

The results from these modules have been published, and clearly illustrate how this panel views the lower public masses in light of their status as the elite arbiters of human destiny. The dual approach to this investigation must be kept in mind as the U.S. government is now rolling out the BRAIN initiative as the next great thing since the human genome project. The ramifications are potentially even more momentous.

We often hear from critics that these think-tanks are an essential part of scientific discovery, and that drawing conclusions of a nefarious nature about their intent is paranoid conspiracy theory — they are only thinking, after all.  I would submit that objective scientific inquiry is absolutely necessary and that the proper role of science is to disseminate results to the public for open debate, prior to their implementation.  However, think-tanks such as the Royal Society betray, by their own language, subjective biases (and corporate connections) that have no place in true science.

The Royal Society funds over 700 private ventures, which undoubtedly are directed by findings from studies such as Brain Waves.  While their studies might be couched in scientific terminology, there is always a philosophical overlay that indicates a desire to study the sciences specifically for use toward a purpose that a relatively small group sees fit.  Furthermore, given that many developments in neuroscience are already being forced upon the public in a negative manner, the claims of open debate and “welcoming comments from the public” seem disingenuous.  Rather, what we have is a another think-tank blueprint that is merely stating the current course planned long ago, as well as what is to be rolled out in the near future under projects like BRAIN. 

Just as we have seen from other think tanks such as the Project For a New American Century, Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, and a host of others; their thoughts translate to reality on a less-than-coincidental frequency, so we would do well to listen to what they have been saying.

The Project (an elite view of the brain)

As an initial aside, perhaps lending insight into their philosophical perspective: the image they have chosen to represent Module 1 of the project is “a drawing of Purkinje cells (A) and granule cells (B) from pigeon cerebellum.” Slightly odd given that their results are directed toward humans, but this would be consistent with much of elitist statements and writings from Bertrand Russell to Aldoux Huxley, Henry Kissinger, and others who literally refer to the masses as a lower form of animal.  (Are we to assume we’re viewed here as bird brains?)

Module 1 (108-page PDF) An overview for subsequent modules in “neuroimaging, neuropsychopharmacology, and neural interfaces – and discuss(es) the translation of this knowledge into useful applications . . . as well as the ethical questions and governance issues.”

Activist Post Editor’s Note: Regular readers should be well aware of the warnings we have been putting out for years about the arrival of technology that will link brains to computers via implants, smart dust, Elon Musk’s Neuralink and more. It is our continuing mission to bring you the latest in this field of neuroscience research.

The roots of this technology can be found in programs from DARPA and other military-directed research that is primarily intended for mind control and the performance enhancement of soldiers. The appearance of the article below is certainly not an endorsement of this technology; it is merely offered in the pursuit of knowledge about what is being planned and the propaganda that is being presented to make it as appealing as possible.

By Yunlong Zhao, University of Surrey

Cyborgs are no longer science fiction. The field of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) – which use electrodes, often implanted into the brain, to translate neuronal information into commands capable of controlling external systems such as a computer or robotic arm – have actually been around for some time. Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, is aiming to test their BMI systems on a human patient by the end of 2020.

In the long term, BMI devices may help monitor and treat symptoms of neurological disorders and control artificial limbs. But they could also provide a blueprint to design artificial intelligence and even enable direct brain-to-brain communication. However, for the time being, the main challenge is to develop BMIs that avoid damaging brain tissue and cells during implantation and operation.

BMIs have been around for over a decade, helping people who have lost the ability to control their limbs, for example. However, conventional implants – often made of silicon – are orders of magnitude stiffer than the actual brain tissue, which leads to unstable recordings and damage to surrounding brain tissue.

They can also lead to an immune response in which the brain rejects the implant. This is because our human brain is like a guarded fortress, and the neuroimmune system -– like soldiers in this closed fortress – will protect neurons (brain cells) from intruders, such as pathogens or BMI.

Flexible devices

To avoid damage and immune responses, researchers are increasingly focusing on the development of so-called “flexible BMI”. These are much softer than silicon implants and similar to actual brain tissue.

A wafer of tens of thousands of flexible electrodes, each much smaller than a hair. Steve Jurvetson/Flickr, CC BY-SA

For example, Neuralink made its first designed flexible “threads” and inserter – tiny, thread-like probes, which are much more flexible than previous implants – to link a human brain directly to a computer. These were designed to minimise the chance of the brain’s immune response rejecting the electrodes after insertion during brain surgery.

Meanwhile, researchers from Lieber group at Harvard University recently designed a mini mesh probe that looks so much like real neurons that the brain cannot identify the impostors. These bio-inspired electronics consist of platinum electrodes and ultra-thin gold wires encapsulated by a polymer with size and flexibility similar to neuron cell bodies and neural nerve fibres.

Research on rodents has shown that such neuron-like probes do not elicit an immune response when inserted into the brain. They are able to monitor both the function and migration of neurons.

Moving into cells

Most BMIs used today pick up electrical brain signals that are leaked outside of the neurons. If we think of the neural signal like a sound generated inside a room, the current way of recording is therefore to listen to the sound outside the room. Unfortunately, the intensity of the signal is greatly reduced by the filtering effect of the wall – the neuron membranes.

To achieve the most accurate functional readings in order to create greater control of for example artificial limbs, electronic recording devices need to gain direct access to the interior of neurons. The most widely used conventional method for this intracellular recording is the “patch clamp electrode”: a hollow glass tube filled with an electrolyte solution and a recording electrode brought into contact with the membrane of an isolated cell. But a micrometre-wide tip causes irreversible damage to the cells. What’s more, it can only record a few cells at a time.

To address these issues, we recently developed a hairpin-like 3D nanowire transistor array and used it to read intracellular electrical activities from multiple neurons. Importantly, we were able to do this without any identifiable cellular damage. Our nanowires are extremely thin and flexible, and easily bended into the hairpin shape – the transistors are only about 15x15x50 nanometres. If a neuron were the size of a room, these transistors would be about the size of a door lock.

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Coated with a substance that mimics the feel of a cell membrane, these ultra small, flexible, nanowire probes can cross the cell membranes with minimal effort. And they can record intracellular chatter with the same level of precision as their biggest competitor: patch clamp electrodes.

Clearly these advances are important steps towards accurate and safe BMIs that will be necessary if we are ever to achieve complex tasks like brain-to-brain-communication.

It may sound a bit scary but, ultimately, if our medical professionals are to continue to understand our bodies better and help us treat diseases and live longer, it is important that we continue to push the boundaries of modern science to give them the best possible tools to do their jobs. For this to be possible, a minimally invasive intersection between humans and machines is inevitable.

---

Yunlong Zhao, Lecturer in Energy Storage and Bioelectronics, University of Surrey

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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By Truthstream Media

Now scientists with DARPA grants are talking about targeting the signal for depression so people’s brains can “unlearn” it…

We’re officially living in the prequel to Blade Runner.

Aaron & Melissa Dykes are the founders of TruthstreamMedia.com, Subscribe to them on YouTube, like on Facebook, follow on Twitter, support on Patreon.

Watch their mini-documentary Obsolete here and their full-length documentary THE MINDS OF MEN here.

By Nicholas West

Neural Dust – “Smart Dust” – previously entered mainstream discussion via the 2016 Independent article: “Tiny implant could connect humans and machines like never before.” It was implied to be a new technology that can wirelessly link a human brain to a computer via the implantation of a device the size of a grain of sand. This invention, however, is much older and was officially supported by the National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Strategic Plan.

In 2013, I covered how researchers at Berkeley Engineering discussed moving nanotechnology from environmental sensor applications toward human applications such as brain-computer interfaces. Their paper stated:

A network of tiny implantable sensors could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out. The smart dust particles would all contain an extremely small CMOS sensor capable of measuring electrical activity in nearby neurons. The researchers envision a piezoelectric material backing the CMOS capable of generating electrical signals from ultrasound waves. The process would also work in reverse, allowing the dust to beam data back via high-frequency sound waves. The neural dust would also be coated with polymer. (Source)

Now scientists believe that they have crossed a new threshold toward making the concept of smart dust a reality that would offer a far wider scope than originally envisioned.  At the recent IEEE Conference, researchers from Brown University, Qualcomm and the University of California San Diego announced that they are the first to have achieved a wireless transfer of information from an implanted neural device to an external computer that interpreted the data received.

It allows bidirectional communication between the implants and an external device with an uplink rate of 10 megabits per second and a downlink rate of 1 Mb/s.

“We believe that we are the first group to realize wireless power transfer and megabits per second communications” in a neural implant, says Wing Ching (Vincent) Leung, technical director at the Qualcomm Institute Circuits Lab at UC San Diego.

Nurmikko calls the 0.25-square-millimeter implants “neurograins.” They each consist of a chip capable of harvesting RF energy; that chip powers an electrode that senses spikes of voltage from individual neurons, as well as the wireless communications. An antenna set outside of the skull provides the RF power, transmits to the implants, and receives data from them.

Source: IEEE Spectrum

Researchers believe that the introduction of thousands of “neurograins” will enable far more complex data collection and transference than a single implant.

As I’ve highlighted in previous articles on the topic, this type of communication is a two-way street — some people might feel content, for example, with sending their brain’s information out to a doctor for evaluation, but this sensor network could also transmit data back, as was admitted by MIT in their 2013 article “How Smart Dust Could Spy on Your Brain.”

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That’s why Seo and co have chosen ultrasound to send and receive data. They calculate that the power required to use electromagnetic waves on the scale would generate a damaging amount of heat because of the amount of energy the body absorbs and the troubling signal-to-noise ratios at this scale.

By contrast, ultrasound is a much more efficient and should allow the transmission of at least 10 million times more power than electromagnetic waves at the same scale. (emphasis added).

This is also an area of research that continues to interest DARPA as one of the future methods of mind control.  A smart dust neural network that can communicate externally could form the basis for reading soldiers’ minds and creating thought-controlled weapons.

Back in May, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) announced that six teams will receive funding under the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. Participants are tasked with developing technology that will provide a two-way channel for rapid and seamless communication between the human brain and machines without requiring surgery.

“Imagine someone who’s operating a drone or someone who might be analyzing a lot of data,” said Jacob Robinson, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University, who is leading one of the teams. “There’s this latency, where if I want to communicate with my machine, I have to send a signal from my brain to move my fingers or move my mouth to make a verbal command, and this limits the speed at which I can interact with either a cyber system or physical system. So the thought is maybe we could improve that speed of interaction.”

[…]

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The agency is interested in systems that can read and write to 16 independent locations in a chunk of brain the size of a pea with a lag of no more than 50 milliseconds within four years, said Robinson, who is under no illusion about the scale of the challenge.

“When you try to capture brain activity through the skull, it’s hard to know where the signals are coming from and when and where the signals are being generated,” he told Live Science. “So the big challenge is, can we push the absolute limits of our resolution, both in space and time?” -Live Science

Scientists continue to push into territories that require the strictest examination of ethical implications. However, thus far, those discussions have lagged far behind the experimentation that is taking place.

Nicholas West writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon for as little as $1 per month. Follow us on

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Adam Rawnsley
Wired

Perhaps you thought the four-legged BigDog robot wasn’t eerily lifelike enough. That’ll change soon. BigDog’s makers are working on a new quadruped that moves faster than any human and is agile enough to “chase and evade.”

Boston Dynamics, maker of the Army’s BigDog robotic mule, announced today that Darpa has awarded it a contract to build a much faster and more fearsome animal-like robot, Cheetah.

As the name implies, Cheetah is designed to be a four-legged robot with a flexible spine and articulated head (and potentially a tail) that runs faster than the fastest human. In addition to raw speed, Cheetah’s makers promise that it will have the agility to make tight turns so that it can “zigzag to chase and evade” and be able to stop on a dime.

Read Full Article 

RELATED ARTICLE:
How Close Are We to a Nano-based Surveillance State?

Editor’s Note: This is actually nothing compared to the nano-based surveillance initiative — also brought to us by our own tax dollars sent to DARPA — but it serves as yet more evidence that all of the data collection is more about behavior prediction than the investigation of crimes committed.

Evan Dashevsky
Extreme Tech

To be in public is to be on camera, but most video footage is discarded, as only so much can be sorted and analyzed — until now. DARPA has created a technology that can index and analyze video in real-time, marking the end of anonymity in public places.

In 2008, DARPA, the US military’s elite group of pocket protector warriors, began soliciting the tech industry to develop technologies that would allow computers to sort through and index surveillance footage from the military’s fleet of drones, satellites, and miscellaneous other super secret spy cameras.

This was all part of the Agency’s proposed Video Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool (VIRAT) that would be able to describe specific human activities in real-time. This automated index would allow for searchable queries (i.e. “how often did an adult male taller than six-foot get in a car in the early morning between November 1st and December 22nd in this compound in Abbottabad?”) or flag behavior such as when someone carries a large package towards a car on the side of a road in Basra, but walked away empty handed.

And it appears that DARPA has had some success to this end.

Earlier this week, the military released a mandated contract announcement describing how the VIRAT system will be deployed into various military-intelligence video archives and systems. The contract will be fulfilled by Lockheed Martin for an unspecified amount. We haven’t been given any detailed information on how this new technology works or how accurate it is, only that a belt-tightening defense industry is willing to invest in it.

The military has an inherent interest in transferring surveillance duties from human eyeballs to an algorithm that can’t be swayed by political pressure. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, human analysts famously misread surveillance footage as proof of Iraqi WMDs. (The problem with relying on flawed human analysis in order to support policy was described in depth in Malcolm Gladwell’s essay collection What The Dog Saw). The military already has the tools to capture a torrent of information (and as the truism goes the wars of the future will be won and lost with intelligence) but now it is developing the means to sort through it.

As with many DARPA projects, the technology will eventually filter down into commercial industry and then finally to consumers.

Read Full Article

Infowars image

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars

Infowars.com reporter Darrin McBreen was instructed by the “Facebook Team” to not voice his political opinion on the popular social networking site.

“Be careful making about making political statements on facebook,” McBreen was told in an email, “facebook is about building relationships not a platform for your political viewpoint. Don’t antagonize your base. Be careful and congnizat (sic) of what you are preaching.”

Facebook sent the message in relation to a comments posted about “Is living off the Grid now a crime?,” an article about “nuisance abatement teams” intimidating people who have decided to disconnect from the power grid in California.

The message provides further evidence that Facebook is not only monitoring discussions, but also feels compelled to warn users about the supposed inappropriateness of their political viewpoints, especially if they deviate from prepackaged left-vs-right political viewpoints propagated by the establishment.

The misspelling contained in the comment indicates it is probably not a boiler-plated message but was written specifically in response to the discussion.

The Facebook message received by McBreen is intimidation, pure and simple. Thousands of Facebook users utilize the site to push political agendas.

For instance, Obama has a Facebook page and his photo is emblazoned with “2012,” indicating that he will seek to be reelected to political office. Nancy Pelosi’s page identifies her as a “Government Official” and the top post on her page is about Obama’s politicalized “jobs” program.

Facebook obviously is a political platform. It is only an issue when Infowars.com and other politically incorrect individuals and groups post political content.

But Facebook is not merely a political platform in addition to a social one. It is also a spook platform designed for intelligence gathering.

Facebook’s funding can be traced back to the CIA through the venture capital firm Accel Partners. Its manager James Breyer was formerly chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and served on the board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. Anita Jones is also associated with the company. She sat on the In-Q-Tel’s board and was director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Pentagon and served as an adviser to the Secretary of Defense and was involved in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Before it was closed down after it was made public and drew an outraged response from civil libertarians, DARPA ran the Information Awareness Office, a sprawling data-mining scheme.

In-Q-Tel has invested in Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring the internet. “Visible Technologies examines more than half a million websites a day, looking through more than a million posts and interactions happening on blogs, in online forums and on popular social media sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Amazon,” The Telegraph reported in 2009.

Although not widely reported by the corporate media, Facebook has now implemented facial recognition software, the latest high-tech gizmo in service to the spook-state.

“The new facial recognition technology, which was announced in December but only introduced to a small test group, is basically Facebook’s way of creating a huge, photo-searchable database of its users. And yes, it’s terrifying,” writes PCWorld. “Facial recognition technology will ultimately culminate in the ability to search for people using just a picture. And that will be the end of privacy as we know it – imagine, a world in which someone can simply take a photo of you on the street, in a crowd, or with a telephoto lens, and discover everything about you on the internet.”

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CBS has capitalized on the in-your-face surveillance state in a promotion of a fall drama called “Person of Interest” by exploiting interactive billboards and installing them in New York City and Los Angeles. The billboards take photo of people and “the person’s face is incorporated into the display.

The photo is accompanied by a phone number and identification number to text-message. If the person sends the text, they receive a link to their ‘classified file’ and can post the photo on Facebook or Twitter,” explains The Wall Street Journal.

Darrin McBreen’s experience reveals that Facebook not only is in the business of data-mining and surveillance, but also in select instances of informing the targets of that surveillance that they are being watched, a tactic often used by the Stasi and secret police in other totalitarian states.

Thus a seemingly friendly act of instruction on how not to antagonize fellow users of the service becomes an act of political intimidation by an organization with documented links to the CIA and the Pentagon.

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Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

Because of the risks involved to rescue aid workers and human response teams, DARPA awarded Boston Dynamics, Inc. a $10.9 million contract to manufacture humanoid robots that are bi-pedal, built like humans and have a sensor head with on-board computing capabilities. Completion of the project is expected for August of 2014.

These robots are being created to assist in excavation and rescue missions, according to DARPA. They could also be employed to evacuation operations during either man-made or natural disasters.

Kent Massey, director of advanced programs for HDT Robotics, who attended the DARPA meeting in which the purpose of the allocation of humanoid robotic technology was explained, said:

The goal of this Grand Challenge is to create a humanoid robot that can operate in an environment built for people and use tools made for people. The specific challenge is built around an industrial disaster response.

Another of DARPA’s interests into robotics is the Avatar for the allocation of bi-pedal robots and essential super-soldiers and has devoted $7 million of its $2.8 billion 2012 budget to developing “interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.”

These human-controlled robots will be strong enough to “clear a room” and “facilitate sentry control and combat causality recovery.” Yet these “terminators” would easily be the most effective weapon against civil unrest or radical revolutionaries that did not subscribe to the globalist agenda.

Stanford University’s Aerospace Robotics Laboratory (ARL) wants to introduce autonomous robots into law enforcement situations; such as response in lieu of police SWAT teams.

In high-risk tactical situations, autonomous robots could replace trained personnel without threat of injury or loss of life. Under the direction of a tactical commander, those robots could be released to provide safe and secure assurance of mission completion. Possible voice recognition software could be used to allow the commander to direct the robot, convey commands, and gather information about the environment before deploying human law enforcement.

Autonomous robots, equipped with Taser guns have already been sold to police departments across the nation. iRobot of Massachusetts manufactures PackBot who carries lethal weapons. While these robots were first introduced as assistance in military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have found their way into local police departments.

The Naval Research Laboratory interests SAFFiR, the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot. SAFFiR is an autonomous bipedal humanoid robot, based on the CHARLI-L1 robot created at Virginia Tech.

This robot can interact with humans with a comprehensive response system that utilizes language – including slang to make it more familiar.

A robot that can hold a conversation and fight fires is quite impressive.

In 2008, the Pentagon solicited for the advancement of Multi-Robot Pursuit System technology which is the development of a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment.

These robots, although only semi-autonomous, have been theorized from the gaming community arising out of first-person shooting games. A team of robots could be under the direction of one human operator. The purpose of this robotic technology would be to seek out and detect non-cooperative human subjects.

The beginning stages of the global Elite’s visions for “robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs” are becoming a reality. These robots will be armed and autonomous. Their cranium sensors will be able to “detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat.”

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A force of robotic “peacekeepers” that are programed to become violent without remorse – will enable the government to organize and act where human law enforcement may hesitate. What if?

https://dailymotion.com/video/xa5c71


Humanoid Automonous Police Robot por tlwsq

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Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism. Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporately funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.

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Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

It seems that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has taken a major step forward in creating an astoundingly cheap and quite small robot that “can change the color, contrast, pattern, apparent shape, luminescence, and surface temperature of soft machines for camouflage and display,” according to a report published in Science.

Along with the DARPA-funded miniature spy computer known as the Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors (F-BOMB), this robot very well could be produced for less than $100 per unit with costs going down even further over time.

The robot, which is part of the Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program, is around the size of an average person’s palm and can be seen in motion in the below video provided by DARPA:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpOl_pEmRqs]

It utilizes microfluidic networks to create the astounding changes which even “can be changed simultaneously in the visible and infrared — a capability that organisms do not have. These strategies begin to imitate the functions, although not the anatomies, of color-changing animals,” according to Science.

The research is being performed at Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering under Drs. George Whitesides and Stephen Morin while the funding is coming from DARPA.

The researchers have demonstrated that microfluidic channels can be used in soft robots for a range of functions from camouflage to display, actuation to fluid transport and temperature regulation.

DARPA states that they are backing the research – with our non-existent tax dollars I might add – because they believe the future of defense will include a wide range of robots of various shapes and sizes.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this technology is the incredibly low cost compared to the costs usually associated with robotics.

The silicone-based robots utilize a manufacturing method which leverages the power of molds and the microfluidic channels are created by introducing many narrow channels into the mold.

These channels allow various fluids as well as air to be pumped through the robot thus changing color, shape, temperature and even produce a glow through chemiluminescence.

However, the most vital function of these small passages is the ability to create movement through the pneumatic pressurization and inflation of the channels in a coordinated fashion.

“DARPA is developing a suite of robots that draw inspiration from the ingenuity and efficiency of nature,” said DARPA program manager for M3, Gill Pratt. “For defense applications, ingenuity and efficiency are not enough—robotic systems must also be cost effective.”

“This novel robot is a significant advance towards achieving all three goals,” Pratt added.

At this point, what seems to be the biggest drawback to this technology is the relative slow speed of travel with a maximum of 67 meters per hour, or around 0.04163 miles per hour.

DARPA has said that they will continue to focus on making the movements more smooth but they did state that the speed of the robot’s movement is secondary to the flexibility and ability to maneuver in tight spaces.

As you can see in the above video, the researchers used a tethered option for the robot which has the power source and control system outside of the robot itself.

Leaving the pumps and power source outside of the robot significantly reduces the size and weight of the robot but future iterations of the technology could very well have the equipment onboard the robot itself, making it an entirely self-contained system.

Of course in an attempt to make it seem like this is a project which will somehow benefit us all instead of just the parasitic “defense” industry and the military, they claim that this technology could have medical applications as well.

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“Aside from their potential tactical value, DARPA said soft robots with microfluidic channels could also have medical applications,” writes Government Security News. “The devices could simulate fluid vessels and muscle motion for realistic modeling or training, and may be used in prosthetic technology.”

Indeed, DARPA has worked on some quite impressive prosthetic technology in the past, but to think of DARPA as anything but a research and development arm of the Pentagon is clearly absurd.

DARPA is and always will be tasked, first and foremost, with providing the military with some of the most unbelievable technology on Earth. I believe that any claims to the contrary are just a sorry attempt to justify the massive sustained expenditures devoted to the shadowy agency.

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This article first appeared at End the Lie.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm — 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE.  If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

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By Nicholas West

This is an update to the chronicle detailing the evolution of humanoid robots (with videos)

In the age of computers, things evolve exponentially. In just a few generations robots have gone from a scientific fantasy, to a playful curiosity, to entering the battlefield to replace and/or augment their human counterparts.

We are already at the point where we have to consider what the next step of robotic evolution looks like. According to robotics engineers, it appears that at some point in the near future the next step could very well be whatever the next generation robot chooses for itself.

Just late last year it was posited that the humanoid robot was poised to take a leap from a mere facsimile of human behavior to one that futurists suggest will not only walk like a human, but will possess self awareness, as well as a full range of high-tech computational spectrum analysis and capabilities . . . and emotions.

That day has apparently now arrived.

The chronicle below charts the advancement from the rudimentary, through the downright creepy, and toward today where, according to the final video from New Scientist, we see that the new generation of iCub humanoid robot can in fact determine its own goals and exhibit emotional behavior and language skills that so far have been exclusively human.

You will notice that the physicality of robots has now advanced to a point that is leading to serious concern about the economic impact of humans being outsourced to robots for tasks as diverse as service, manufacturing, nursing, housework, yard maintenance and full-fledged agricultural duties. Some are predicting that robots of all types could fully replace humans by 2045.

It is typical of any science with military applications to evolve in a dual- or even multi-use fashion. For example, humanoid robots were initially advertised as a study in how to benefit those who have lost limbs; and, indeed, this has been a noted benefit. However, the real money — the black budget money — goes into applications which can be downright frightening.

A perfect case in point might be MIT’s new HERMES robot, which has an extraordinary level of human flexibility and reaction time. As you’ll see in this video, it is clearly stated that this is an attempt to put a human’s brain inside a robot. But, in the case of HERMES, there also could be a human on the other end operating as a remote-control “pilot” – at least until these robots become fully autonomous.  For the “rescue mission” of course. Or as the soldier, or as the robot police officer, or as….

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-5n2IsdCqU]

Enter DARPA, which had already been working on its own projects, but through its Robotics Grand Challenge has spurred a huge influx of inventors looking to receive DARPA funding to offer the next generation of humanoids. The Challenge has been couched in the comforting language of “disaster response” research, but what is emerging seems to be capable of far more than that:

The primary goal of the DARPA Robotics Challenge program is to develop ground robotic capabilities to execute complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments. The program will focus on robots that can utilize available human tools, ranging from hand tools to vehicles. The program aims to advance the key robotic technologies of supervised autonomy, mounted mobility, dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength, and platform endurance. Supervised autonomy will be developed to allow robot control by non-expert operators, to lower operator workload, and to allow effective operation despite low fidelity (low bandwidth, high latency, intermittent) communications. (Source)

From the task section:

The specific tasks are:

1) The robot will maneuver to a open frame utility vehicle, such as a John Deere Gator or a Polaris Ranger. The robot is to get into the driver’s seat and drive it to a specified location.

2) The robot is to get out of the vehicle, maneuver to a locked door, unlock it with a key, open the door, and go inside.

3) The robot will traverse a 100 meter, rubble strewn hallway.

4) At the end of the hallway, the robot will climb a ladder.

5) The robot will locate a pipe that is leaking a yellow-colored gas (non-toxic, non-corrosive). The robot will then identify a valve that will seal the pipe and actuate that valve, sealing the pipe.

6) The robot will locate a broken pump and replace it.

The robot will be teleoperated, at least at the supervisory level. DARPA will control the communications bandwidth and latency, in order to make the task more difficult and force higher levels of autonomous behavior. If necessary, this control over communications will be used to discriminate performance levels between competitors and select a winner.

[…]

The goal of this Grand Challenge is to create a humanoid robot that can operate in an environment built for people and use tools made for people. The specific challenge is built around an industrial disaster response.

The current array of robots designed over the last few years to match human capability demonstrate what is listed above, and then some:

PETMAN: An anthropomorphic robot designed for testing chemical protection clothing. Its range of motion allows it to balance, walk, crawl, and even climb stairs, while also having the ability to simulate human physiology such as sweating. (Source)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0?feature=player_embedded]

B.E.A.R: Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot. Demonstrates a wide range of capability, while adding a semi-human appearance.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rdRxV-qn3w]

ARM: A new level of robotic hand that employs an opposable thumb to increase dexterity vs. the robot seen above which uses plier-like grips. The ARM is capable of unlocking and opening doors, as well as picking up thin objects like cards or keys. (Source)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvhCk6BvLBE?feature=player_embedded]

Golf robot: This might seem like a goofy novelty, but golf is an extremely precise sport with a lot of room for error — humans can play for decades and never reach a level of mastery. The golf robot can fire shot after shot with stunning accuracy from a long distance. This ad for the European Tour has the added benefit of offering the “coolness” factor to all ages. (Source)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft2fLuz9mF0?feature=player_embedded]

And, naturally, this has all evolved into anything but fun and games. The evolution of PETMAN is an actual Terminator-like robot called ATLAS. Meanwhile, even mainstream institutions like Cambridge and major international human rights groups say that “terminators” are one of the greatest threats to humanity.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkBnFPBV3f0?feature=player_detailpage]

As you’ll see in the next video, ATLAS has advanced quite a bit since its introduction in July of 2013. While ATLAS still proceeds slowly on its tether, it is moving with far better agility than its previous incarnation:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG2gGIbtkAk?feature=player_detailpage]

And now even better still as it takes to the outdoors. Still tethered, but the plan is for a self-powered version:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwrjAa1SgjQ]

However, these are still just workhorses and advanced tools of human mimicry. For these creations to get to the next level, they have to become self-aware and eventually autonomous. The computing power is certainly arriving as evidenced by what has been achieved through flying drone swarms and work being done on autonomous, interconnected battlefield systems such as MUSIC.

Transhumanist icon Ray Kurzweil’s website featured a story about Samsung’s Roboray, which just got a major upgrade. Roboray still has an obviously robotic physical look, but its “intelligence” is increasing:

Roboray can now build real-time 3D visual maps, so he can walk around without being spaced out and wandering off.

Roboray has stereo cameras (one in each eye), allowing him to build a mental map of its surroundings, and to “remember” where he has been before. That kind of autonomous robot navigation will also come in handy in places where there’s no GPS signal.

Furthermore, its walking demo as shown in the video below make it appear more humanoid than its initial outward appearance, something desirable for those who seek to make the human-to-robot emotional connection:

Roboray walks in a more human-like manner by using “dynamic walking” — actually falling at every step, and using gravity to carry himself forward.

Which is how humans naturally walk. So this makes him better accepted by people and more energy-efficient, says team leader Dr. Walterio Mayol-Cuevas, Deputy Director of the Bristol Robotics Lab.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYmhY-rUFXQ?feature=player_embedded]

For the next phase of development, it is always important to watch the battlefield, but we should also watch for the signs of marketing that aims to normalize the robot presence in our day-to-day lives.

This is being attempted through next-level artificial intelligence called Embodied General Intelligence (essentially, common sense). The next phase of humanoid robots are those that become virtually indistinguishable from us. There is no lack of effort to try to make this happen. Here is an ongoing Indiogogo project to give humanoid robot Adam Z1 a real brain. This is an effort that also has parallels with NeuroGaming. These two videos leave nothing to the imagination as to what the endgame is: not only the economic acceptance of robots, but the emotional acceptance.

Not that long from now, full-sized humanoid robots will be in wide use as personal assistants, etc. And cheaper versions will be widespread as toys before long: think “RoboSapien with a cute face and a cloud-based mind.”

GENI Lab

So the team has formed GENI Lab, whose medium-term goal is “the creation of a life-sized humanoid robot featuring a realistic, emotional face and personality; a fluidly moving body, based on the integration of analog, digital and mechanical control; an adaptive general intelligence, utilizing the OpenCog architecture and the DeSTIN machine vision system; capability of simple — but socially and emotionally savvy — communication in English and ultimately other natural languages; and communication about its physical environment and its tasks and behaviors therein.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlLqHvq2P_Y?feature=player_embedded]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VblofRjtXjQ?feature=player_embedded]

iCub

This robot is an attempt to put it all together, including tactile sensations and learning from those contact interactions. From Science World Report:

What if a robot could act and even feel like a human? Researchers are getting a bit closer to accomplishing that feat. They’re working on a robot that feels, sees, thinks and learns like us as the lines between man and machine become a bit more blurry.

The robot is called the iCub robot. Currently, twenty European laboratories have an iCub, which was developed in Italy. In the future, researchers hope to develop the robot enough so that it can learn and think like a human does. Although this may seem farfetched, decades of research into cognitive psychology and the human brain have given researchers knowledge about language, memory, motor skills and perception that could help design such a robot.

“The application of cognition in technical systems should also mean that the robot learns from its experiences and the actions it performs,” said Frank van der Velde, one of the researchers, in a news release. “A simple example: a robot that spills too much when pouring a cup of coffee can then learn how it should be done.”

[…]

“The new iCub has a skin and fingers that have a much better sense of touch and can feel strength,” said Van der Velde. “That makes interaction with humans much more natural. We want to ensure that this robot continues to learn and understands how people function. This research ensures, for example, that robots actually gather knowledge by focusing on certain objects or persons. In areas of application like healthcare and nursing, such robots can play an important role. A good example would be that in ten years’ time you see a blind person walking with a robot guide dog.” [emphasis added]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcTwO2dpX8A?feature=player_embedded]

Apparently, even guide dogs are slated to be part of the outsourcing to computers and robots, which threatens to extinguish up to half of all jobs in the near future.

Poppy

Poppy is the latest humanoid robot and presents the first of its kind: Poppy was created by a 3D printer. A group of French researchers were able to cut costs by a third utilizing the latest 3D tech. Poppy’s creators have focused on a biologically inspired walking motion that they hope will allow for better human-to-robot interaction. You can see the incredibly human-like, heel-toe motion in the video below.

To begin with, it has an articulated spine with five motors – almost unheard of in robots of this size, but one of the ongoing topics at INRIA Flowers since its first humanoid, ACROBAN, from several years ago. The spine not only allows Poppy to move more naturally, but helps to balance the robot by adjusting its posture. The added flexibility also helps when physically interacting with the robot, such as guiding it by its hands, which is currently required to help the robot walk. (Source)

[vimeo 76917854 w=100 h=450]

Outside of the military, the truly intelligent humanoid robots have only attained a very small physical stature like the several mentioned above. However, a new development by Spanish robotics company, PAL Robotics, is a first step toward offering a human-sized robot that can presumably better fit into its human-occupied surroundings. As you’ll see in the video and diagram below, the REEM-C is quite slow, but does demonstrate some of the fluid movements of other humanoid robots, while measuring in at a respectable 5 ft. 4 inches. This marks another level in the attempt to acclimate humans to the presence of intelligent robots. And the outsourcing continues . . . always accompanied by delightfully creepy upbeat music.

REEM-C

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeoN58vgyMk?feature=player_embedded]

Romeo

a href=”http://projetromeo.com/”>Romeo seeks to become the leader in the areas of robotic care giving and personal assistance with a more emotional element. Romeo builds off of a smaller humanoid robot called NAO that generated more than 5,000 sales or rentals worldwide.

The robot has the size of a child of eight years (1.40 m) and weighs a little more (40 kilos). To be as light as possible, its body is made of carbon fiber and rubber, and was designed to avoid the risk of injury to the person that will attend. Today, Romeo can walk, see the three-dimensional environment, hear and speak, much like NAO

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[…]

The timeline for testing the robot in real-world conditions is projected for 2016, with the final objective of being able to use it in a retirement home in the 2017 or 2019.

Funded in part by the French government and the European Commission, the Romeo project budget totals 37 million Euros over the period from 2009-2016. (Source)

NASA’s Valkyrie

NASA has even entered the fray with its entry into the latest DARPA Robotics Challenge December 20th and 21st in search of the $2 million prize. The focus for the challenge is on emergency response where robot entrants will have to perform 8 consecutive challenges. NASA’s robot has been named Valkyrie – from the Old Norse meaning “chooser of the slain.” The legend says that this female figure decides who lives and dies in battle, bringing their chosen to Valhalla. (Source) Nice imagery.

IEEE Spectrum got the first look at the robot recently and shared the details. Valkyrie is 1.9 meters tall, 125 kilograms, and has 44 degrees of freedom. The battery-powered humanoid robot was built by NASA’s Johnson Space Center team in Houston, in partnership with the University of Texas and Texas A&M.

Valkyrie is equipped with a large amount of sensors: cameras and LIDAR in the head, more cameras and sonar in the abdomen, and even more cameras in the forearms, knees, and feet. All of these data won’t be transmitted back to Valkyrie’s operators all at once, but being able to take advantage of whatever sensor is most relevant to the robot’s current task should help Valkyrie be fast and efficient, whether it’s being teleoperated or functioning more autonomously. (Source)

Here is the Valkyrie in action as it preps for the DARPA Robotics Challenge:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE-YBaYjbqY?feature=player_embedded]

Update: NASA’s Valkyrie, despite being called a “Super Hero Robot” by many in the tech press, turned out to be a super failure at the DARPA Robotics Challenge, scoring 0 points. The top award went to Google-owned, SCHAFT, as seen in the video below, which scored 27 out of 32.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diaZFIUBMBQ]

One thing that was critically demonstrated at this year’s challenge is the huge gap between what is conceptual and what is practical. None of the robots sufficiently passed the challenge to drive a vehicle, for example. Even the winner, most would agree, came off incredibly clunky, despite some impressive functions such as manipulating small objects like keys in order to open doors.

However, hope seems to be on the horizon for robotics engineers: “super muscle” that would equip robots with 1,000 times the strength of humans. The secret lies in the cells that comprise muscle, as Extreme Tech explains:

Each cell lining the muscle’s length has its own limited contractile ability, one driven by tiny motor and ratchet proteins that crumple up a cell and refuse to let it relax. Rather than being a single continuous muscular action, your bicep contracts as a result of millions of tiny, discreet contractions all working in concert. That being the case, it’s always been something of a misnomer to refer to robot muscles as muscles, per-se — despite being visually similar, they are really just servos, or hydraulic pumps, or whatever else. This week marks the first proof of concept for an attempt to change that, to make usefully strong artificial muscles that actually work like muscles — with all the advantages and disadvantages that come with it.

The research comes from the US Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab, and it focuses on an amazing material called vanadium dioxide. It’s already used widely in electronics and other industries, mostly because it has an amazing ability to switch between being an electrical insulator and conductor, based purely on temperature.

[…]

The advantages of this model of muscle action are numerous. Think about the fact that, despite being made from relatively weak constituents like protein and fat chains, animal muscle has only now been surpassed by technology. Of course, a bulky, pneumatic Atlas muscle could outperform both this and a human in terms of raw strength, but not while remaining so light and compact, nor is it so instantaneously responsive as a system based on micro-meter movements. The actual energy costs per unit strength are unknown right now, but has the potential to be extremely efficient, relative to current solutions. (Source)

You can see a short video description of this polymer technology here.

iCub – The robot that has a sense of self.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW425vW4BtQ?feature=player_detailpage]

It appears that all of the components are coming together which are leading to the possibility of a true terminator robot. And once these humanoid robots merge with fully autonomous intelligence, we will have witnessed the next stage of evolution toward the full Transhumanist dream of The Singularity – the moment when computer intelligence surpasses that of humans to such an extent that humans become practically redundant.

Robots already have transformed our human world and are rapidly evolving. If The Singularity is reached, in tandem with military funding and direction, we can expect the darker version of science fiction to rise above any notion of attaining human freedom and leisure on the backs of our machine counterparts.

I find it ironic that these sentient robots are only made so by injecting them with humanity. But we are continuously bombarded by the global elite with the message that humanity is the core problem. The fact is that robots are nothing without the boundless potential that resides within the human brain; nothing but a computer doing fancy tricks that imitates us. True, we have a long way to go to reach our full potential and mitigate our self-destructive tendencies, but a complete replacement of our species at this juncture appears to be short-sighted and is obviously artificial.

How much of this technology should be embraced, and how much rejected? Now is the time to set the boundaries. Please leave your comments below.

Image Credit

Sources:
http://www.2045.com
http://www.kurzweilai.net/humanoid-robot-builds-real-time-3d-visual-maps-walks-like-humans

Timeline of humanoid robotics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanoid_robot

Updated 8/17/2015

Read the Latest: ATLAS: Next Generation of DARPA Humanoid Robot Released

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