US blocks chip sales to China & invests in local development

Remember when the US government put Huawei on their naughty list imposing trade restrictions in 2019? Well they've decided to take things to 11 and immediately stop US based chip manufacturers Intel and Qualcomm buying or selling hardware to them. This has all come about because Huawei announced some new AI-enabled laptop that scares the pants off Uncle Joe and co apparently. Huawei continue to proclaim their innocence and like TikTok are between a rock & a hard place state-side. On the flip side, the US knows they're likely to have some more restrictions of their own. Fully aware of their reliance of Chinese manufactured hardware and supply constraints during the good old Covid years, they're looking to invest US$285m into research institute to build chips faster. The facility would use software to develop a "digital twin" of hardware to allow the rapid prototyping of silicon and help the US become the chip making powerhouse it so desperately wants to be.

The Aussie government is digging for gold

Gold, zinc, lithium literally anything that might make Australia manufacture again. It's like Trump's MAGA, but we're calling out for MAMA to save our economy. The new federal budget will give Geosciences Australia (GA) A$566m over the next decade to improve its offerings used to locate deposits of raw materials and fossil fuels. GA says that 80% of Australia hasn't been properly explored for us to exploit and pillage like Gina's good little rock pirates, which may very well be true, but as critics rightly point out does little towards achieving any clean energy or net-zero targets. The government are batting that one back saying you need the resource sector to get to net zero because batteries & building stuff. Additionally the data produced by GA will be available for all and can help with other sectors such farming, land management and environmental assessments. Will it be the basis for a manufacturing revolution in Australia? Probably not.

Here come the armed robo-dogs

You know what sounds like a great idea? All those robot dogs we've soon doing flips and jumping on boxes from the likes of Boston Robotics; let's put guns on them. Some acronym driven division of the US Marines (MARSOC) is working with Ghost Robotics and defence tech company Onyx Industries. The later of which put the most low-res video on their LinkedIn page (video in article) showing a robo-dog mounted rifle shooting metal targets. MARSOC have kinda asked everyone to take a chill-pill saying they're aware of the system and assures us it adheres to all the Department of Defence's policies concerning autonomous weapons. Unsurprisingly this isn't the first time a gun was on a robo-dog, there was a video that went viral in 2022, which led to robot manufactures saying they'd never allow it unless it was for those totally legit & lucrative military dollars of course.

AI and the debate of raising the dead

Digital resurrection is a relatively new subject of philosophical debate. Hollywood were amongst the first to broach it, digitally recreating actors in their likeness whom had long passed and gold-rush of AI it seems we're in for another deeply controversial conversation. The now pulled app, Vera AI, promised to "recreate anybody you can think of & have real & intimate conversations with them". Outraging the masses the app didn't stay live long and like many "AI" apps on the market was quickly disproven to be nothing more than a chatbot aking to Clippy circa 1996, but it does raise the question about the idea of "bringing someone back to life" via digital means. As AI and tech continues to evolve at exponential rates you have to imagine it's only a matter of time, but should we? There's some great discussion about it over on Tom Merritt's Daily Tech News Show if you'd like to know more.