A team of US and Korean researchers has developed a 3D-printing ink that makes easy-to-recycle structures without the need for any heat or light.
The ink, made from a polymer, solidifies on contact with salt and dissolves back into re-usable ink on contact with fresh water.
The researchers say their ink could be useful for disposable electronics, robotic components, and prototyping.
They’ve published their findings in Nature Communications.
The structure created via 3D-printing with a re-usable polymer ink. Credit: Donghwan Ji
Polymer inks are useful tools for 3D-printing complex, small-scale devices. But they typically need high amounts of energy or extra solvents to print properly.
The researchers’ method uses a polymer called poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), or PNIPAM. This is a non-toxic substance used by the pharmaceutical industry for drug delivery systems.
PNIPAM dissolves in water to make a liquid, but it solidifies when it comes into contact with a salty calcium chloride solution.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is accusing TikTok of sending personal data about American citizens to the Chinese Communist Party. The department filed a formal accusation, accusing the parent company, ByteDance of violating U.S. law.
The filing states, “This resulted in certain sensitive US person data being contained in Lark channels and, therefore, stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees located in China… Lark contained multiple internal search tools that had been developed and run by China-based ByteDance engineers for scraping TikTok user data, including US user data… bulk user information based on the user’s content or expressions, including views on gun control, abortion, and religion.”
The US Department of Justice has alleged that TikTok shipped personal information to China and allowed profiling of the short video app’s users based on their attitudes to some ticklish topics.
The Department’s views emerged in a filing [PDF] from the US government in response to attempts by TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to strike down laws that force a sale of the platform’s stateside operations – and closure if that can’t be arranged.
The filing details an internal tool called Lark that TikTok staff use for internal communications. The DoJ alleges “significant amounts of restricted US user data (including but not limited to personally identifiable information)” was shared over Lark.
“This resulted in certain sensitive US person data being contained in Lark channels and, therefore, stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees located in China,” the filing asserts.
It gets worse: the filing claims “Lark contained multiple internal search tools that had been developed and run by China-based ByteDance engineers for scraping TikTok user data, including US user data.”
A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel asked California on Wednesday why a state law requiring social media platforms to disclose their policies about moderating hate speech and disinformation doesn’t amount to a violation of the First Amendment.
The three-judge panel took up X Corp.’s appeal of a federal judge’s refusal to block what California Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022 said was a first-of-its-kind social media transparency law to protect Californians from hate and disinformation spread online.
The law, AB 587, requires large social media businesses with annual revenue over $100 million to provide the state with reports about how they define and moderate content like hate speech, extremism, harassment and misinformation, as well as data on their enforcement of these policies.
The recently retired and now former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Miley has stated he thinks the U.S. military will be 1/3 robotic by 2039 or sooner. He said, “Ten to fifteen years from now, my guess is a third, maybe 25% to a third of the U.S. military will be robotic,” speaking at an Axios newsletter launch event.
The 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes growing artificial intelligence and unmanned technology could lead to robotic military forces in the future.
“Ten to fifteen years from now, my guess is a third, maybe 25% to a third of the U.S. military will be robotic,” said retired Army Gen. Mark Milley at an Axios event Thursday launching the publication’s Future of Defense newsletter.
He noted these robots could be commanded and controlled by AI systems.
Advancements in technology and changes in the nature of war will enable militaries worldwide to make smarter and faster decisions, Milley said.
He was careful to clarify the difference between the nature and character of war. The former, he said, involves human activity and acts of politics.
“One side is trying to impose its political will on the other by the use of organized violence,” said Milley.
He noted this aspect of war rarely changes.
The character of war, however, involves tactics, technologies, weapons systems and leader training. Milley said that while these dynamics often change, the world is currently experiencing the biggest fundamental shift in human history with the rise of AI and robotics.
He cited the transition from the Civil War musket to the rifle as a prime example of a transformation that forever altered the landscape of armed conflict.
The country that implements these technologies the quickest for military use will gain the most decisive advantages over its adversaries, Milley said.
For America to maintain its supremacy as the world’s most lethal military, Milley believes it must not only adapt quickly but also in ways that might cause seismic shifts in operations.
Milley said current U.S. policy stipulates a human must always be involved and in charge when it comes to military robots and their use of lethal munitions. He explained the current thinking is that humans possess an ethical framework for decision-making that should be prioritized above all else.
Technology doesn’t have morality, he said.
But he didn’t rule out a reality where that might change.
“You can imagine a future from a technical standpoint [where] a machine enabled by AI, a robot enabled by AI, could make its own decisions,” said Milley. “Is that something the world wants?”
Riley Ceder is an editorial fellow at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice and human interest stories. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the ongoing Abused by the Badge investigation.
Appealing to the anti-cancel-culture audience, President Donald J Trump’s media company, the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) is looking to enter the streaming market, promising to build own streaming service that “cannot be cancelled.”
Former U.S. president Donald J. Trump’s Truth Social
The company behind Truth Social, former president Donald Trump’s social media platform, the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has plans to further extend its media reach with a new acquisition of technological assets designed to boost its foray into streaming.
On July 1st, TMTG joined the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000 indexes.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (Nasdaq: DJT) (“TMTG” or the “Company”), operator of the social media platform Truth Social, yet another of President Donald J. Trump’s iconic American brands, announced today that it signed an agreement to acquire assets intended to power TMTG’s planned content distribution network for streaming of linear TV – initially via the Truth Social platform and later through stand-alone apps. Additionally, the Company finalized a long-term equity financing arrangement to fund TMTG’s expansion over the next three years.
Tech giant IBM is building a blockchain-based platform for seven big European banks, including HSBC and Deutsche Bank, that is aimed at simplifying trade finance transactions for small- and medium-sized companies. Trade finance was identified by a survey of banks carried out by IBM and the Economist Intelligence Unit last year as one of the top areas where blockchain – the underlying technology behind bitcoin – could have an impact. Blockchain technology provides an electronic record-keeping and transaction-processing system, which lets all parties track documentation through a secure network and requires no third-party verification.
Elon Musk at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference on May 6, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.
Photo: Apu Gomes (Getty Images)
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X, has been a struggle — and now it looks like the platform’s user growth has stalled.
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According to figures seen by the Financial Times, X said its number of global daily active users was 251 million in the second quarter of this year — just 1.6% above what it was a year ago. Before Musk acquired the social media platform for $44 billion in October 2022, Twitter had experienced double-digit year-over-year growth, including 33.8% growth in the second quarter of 2022.
Many users have left the platform over concerns about hate speech since Musk’s takeover. That combined with Musk’s fight with major advertisers, including Walmart and Disney, has sent the company’s value tumbling 71.5% since Musk’s takeover.
As of November 2023, X was worth $12.5 billion, according to a disclosure from Fidelity — which had worked with Musk on his purchase of the platform — obtained by Axios. Months earlier, a leaked memo valued X at $19 billion — or less than half of what he paid for it in 2022. Analysts have said X is falling behind its rivals, and daily active users on the platform were down 23% from October 2022 to March.
Threads was the fastest-growing app ever when it was released last July, and counted 100 million sign-ups in its first week. However, usage eventually fell, and Zuckerberg said in an earnings call in February the platform had “[blown] up before we’re ready for them to.”
After the Chinese Navy surpassed the U.S. Navy in terms of overall number of ships, a congressional report suggests the number advantage could soon be matched with technological parity with the U.S. The U.S. Congressional Research Service report suggests the U.S. is seeing its technological advantage rapidly disappear.
The Chinese are in agreement, with the director of the a Beijing-based think tank group, Hu Bo, claiming “both sides have essentially come to a balance of power in military presence in the West Pacific.”
According to the Pentagon, the Chinese navy has surpassed the US navy in terms of the number of battle force ships over the past decade, thanks to China’s status as the world’s top ship-producing nation by tonnage.
A US Congressional Research Service report released in October of last year predicted the PLA would have 440 ships by 2030 while the US will have 290.
Senior US Air Force officials have also noted the PLA’s potential to become the world’s biggest air force. It now has over 3,150 non-trainer and non-drone aircraft, compared with about 4,000 for the American military.
While China continues to catch up on air and sea capabilities, “both sides have essentially come to a balance of power in military presence in the West Pacific”, said Hu Bo, director of Beijing-based think tank South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative.
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