China is working to create a massive subsurface sea lab thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, aiming to hunt for minerals in the South China Sea and presumably to cement their claim to the disputed region.

The project is one of the country’s top scientific priorities, according to the Chinese government, and would be a world first – while submarines can go as deep as the planned station, no manned outpost has been constructed and maintained at such depths to date.

“The deep sea contains treasures that remain undiscovered and undeveloped, and in order to obtain these treasures we have to control key technologies in getting into the deep sea, discovering the deep sea, and developing the deep sea,” President Xi said last month at a national science conference.

Some reports indicate that the project would be mobile, and others have theorized that it could be a strategic part of the ‘Underwater Great Wall Project” designed to detect US and Russian submarines. The government says it will be for civil use, but will not rule out military functions.

Spearheading the planning for the deep-sea station is the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, according to a statement on the website of the science ministry. Once operational, it would host dozens of crew members who could remain underwater for up to a month, the ministry’s presentation separately said.

Planning has been under way for a decade and is central to China’s push to become a global technology superpower by 2030. Completing it would help China close a deep sea exploration gap with the U.S., Japan, France and Russia on underwater technology.

The post China’s “Underwater Space Station” to be 10,000 Feet Deep first appeared on Gajitz.

Like something straight out of Iron Man, this new heads-up display (HUD) from the United States Navy turns diving helmets into dynamic screens.

The Divers Augmented Reality Display, or DAVD for short, is still in a prototyping phase but is designed to provide real-time data for underwater missions, supplemented with sonar and photography as well as briefs and texts to keep divers current while exploring the depths.

A pair of transparent displays together form a stereoscopic augmented heads-up display, simulating depth for divers in low-visibility scenarios.

Live maps can be overlaid on murky scenes, allowing the diver to see regardless of conditions on the ground (or in the water, as it were).

The post US Navy Develops Augmented Reality Display for Divers first appeared on Gajitz.

The future generally looks so bright, shiny and utterly perfect when envisioned by futurists, or terrible, dark and depressing through the eyes of dystopians. This film is something else entirely, neither beyond nor between – a humorously realistic look at how our current tech could turn dismally ordinary in the years to come.

London designer Keiichi Matsuda created this short film about augmented reality, layering touch interfaces, projections and holographic figures on ordinary and everyday scenes of normal life. Much like regular reality, where we deal with computer glitches and unwanted ads, this extrapolates those same familiar problems.

Shop signs and traffic lights are overlaid on ordinary buildings and walls, turning a bland world technicolor, but not in a way that is entirely appealing. At times and places where this layering could become helpful rather than intrusive, it veers toward the latter, much like pop-up and auto-play-audio ads on the internet.

“Our physical and virtual realities are becoming increasingly intertwined,” said Matsuda. “Technologies such as VR, augmented reality, wearables, and the internet of things are pointing to a world where technology will envelop every aspect of our lives. It will be the glue between every interaction and experience, offering amazing possibilities, while also controlling the way we understand the world,” he said. “Hyper-Reality attempts to explore this exciting but dangerous trajectory.”

The post Hyper Reality: Augmented Future Taken to Virtual Extremes first appeared on Gajitz.

Autonomous vehicles are more than just a means of easier ground travel; they are poised to become huge disruptive for both lodging and air transit industries, places to relax and snooze while going from A to B.

With respect to planes, self-driving cars offer the convenience of staying in one vehicle throughout one’s entire trip, avoiding time and annoyance at the airport, which might be worth slightly-longer travel times. Likewise at hotels: people have to plan and reserve, or at least stop, check in and out, but not if they can sleep on the road while their car takes them wherever they want to go even more restfully than a redeye flight would. The key point in both cases: not having to stop and get out provides passengers with a lot more freedom and options.

In turn, cars will increasingly look like mobile motels themselves, reconfiguring seats into different positions but also reshaping entirely to reflect the drop in some needs and additional requirements on other fronts. Seats can become more like sofas or beds, or unforeseen hybrids based on the special needs of users in a new era of travel. Driving is no longer going to be about sitting behind the wheel, but about whatever we want it to be, from community interactions to reading, resting or even work activities.

“Today’s cars are shaped to be only an emotional piece and to be very comfortable and safe,” says a senior executive at Audi. “So in an autonomous world, if cars do not have accidents any more, the cars do not have have a small amount of glass, a lot of metal, a lot of bumpers and all that stuff. It could be a bit more transparent. Once you decide you want to go for an autonomous drive or a piloted drive, then something happens in your car, so your car transforms inside and the interior changes.”

The post Driverless Cars Set to Disrupt Airline & Hotel Industries first appeared on Gajitz.

As drones become more and more common among the military, regular folks, and bad guys alike, security fears about unmanned aircraft systems continue to mount. It’s just about impossible to tell whether an in-flight UAS is friendly – and when a drone is headed toward a restricted area like the White House or a prison yard, there’s no time to ask questions.

Battelle, a tech-development company that seems to have its hand in just about every industry imaginable, has developed the DroneDefender to easily secure sensitive areas from drones. It’s a shoulder-mounted anti-drone weapon that kills the flying machines with invisible bullets made of radio waves.

The ten-pound device can swat drones out of the sky from up to 400 meters away. Its shot jams up most GPS and ISM frequencies to disable the device and prevent it from spying, carrying weapons, detonating, or whatever else its goal (or rather, its operator’s goal) might have been. The DroneDefender doesn’t actually physically harm the drone – it just quickly and effectively neutralizes the potential threat.

The post Sound of the Fury? Radio Wave Gun Shoots Down Drones first appeared on Gajitz.