This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 27) – Singularity Hub

AUTOMATION

Amazon Shakes Up the Race for Self-Drivingand Ride-HailingAarian Marshal | WiredUber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says his company wants to be the Amazon for transportation. Friday, Amazon made clear that it intends to be the Amazon for transportation. The ecommerce giant said it hadagreed to acquireBay Area-based autonomous vehicle company Zoox, a dealreportedly worth more than $1 billion.

Wrongfully Accused by an AlgorithmKashmir Hill | The New York TimesMr. Williams knew that he had not committed the crime in question. What he could not have known, as he sat in the interrogation room, is that his case may be the first known account of an American being wrongfully arrested based on a flawed match from a facial recognition algorithm, according to experts on technology and the law.

Meet Silq: The First Intuitive Programming Language for Quantum ComputersLuke Dormehl | Digital TrendsThe creation of the C programming language was a massive milestone for classical computing. It was easy, intuitive, and helped open up computer programming to an entirely new audience. Now, nearly 50 years after C was created, computer scientists have reached a similar milestone: A new programming language that brings the same level of coding simplicity to quantum computing.

How Green Sand Could Capture Billions of Tons of Carbon DioxideJames Temple | MIT Technology ReviewThis process, along with other forms of whats known as enhanced mineral weathering, could potentially store hundreds of trillions of tons of carbon dioxide, according toa National Academies report last year. Thats far more carbon dioxide than humans have pumped out since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Scientists Made a List of Every Place Aliens Could Be HidingGeorge Dvorsky | GizmodoTheExotica Catalog further signifies the ongoing shift away from traditional SETI strategies, in which scientists search for familiar alien signatures (such as radio emissions), and the shift toward Dysonian SETI, in which scientists look for extraterrestrial technosignatures, that is, signs of alien technology: stuff like Dyson shells (a star surrounded by solar panels), industrial waste, gigantic space habitats, beacons, and things we cant even imagine.

The Rocket Motor of the Future Breathes Air Like a Jet EngineDaniel Oberhaus | WiredWhile a conventional rocket engine must carry giant tanks of fuel and oxidizer on its journey to space, an air-breathing rocket motor pulls most of its oxidizer directly from the atmosphere. This means that an air-breathing rocket can lift more stuff with less propellant and drastically lower the cost of space accessat least in theory.

$100 Billion Universal Fiber Plan Proposed by Democrats in CongressJon Brodkin | Ars Technica[Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon] argues that a plan like Clyburns is needed for the US to deploy fiber throughout the country within a few years instead of decades. Such an ambitious program would have the United States match Chinas efforts to build universal fiber with the US completing its transition just a few short years after China, Falcon wrote. Without this law, the transition would take decades.

Does Dark Matter Exist?Ramin Skibba | Aeonover the past half century, no one has ever directly detected a single particle of dark matter. Over and over again, dark matter has resisted being pinned down, like a fleeting shadow in the woods. And as long as its not found, its still possible that there is no dark matter at all. An alternative remains: instead of huge amounts of hidden matter, some mysterious aspect of gravity could be warping the cosmos instead.

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 27) - Singularity Hub