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How NASA uses simple technology to track lunar missions

How NASA uses simple technology to track lunar missions

This photograph shows a mockup laser retroreflector array (LRA) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, demonstrating the basic design: a metallic semi-hemispheric disk, with eight silica glass cubes embedded in its surface. NASA/Goddard

NASA is using a simple but effective technology called Laser Retroreflective Arrays (LRAs) to determine the locations of lunar landers more accurately. They will be attached to most of the landers from United States companies as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) initiative. LRAs are inexpensive, small, and lightweight, allowing future lunar orbiters or landers to locate them on the moon.

These devices consist of a small aluminum hemisphere, 2 inches (5 centimeters) in diameter and 0.7 ounces (20 grams) in weight, inset with eight 0.5-inch-diameter (1.27-centimeter) corner cube retroreflectors made of fused silica glass. LRAs are targeted for inclusion on most of the upcoming CLPS deliveries headed to the lunar surface.

LRAs

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Future quantum computers will be no match for ‘space encryption’ that uses light to beam data around — with the 1st satellite launching in 2025

Future quantum computers will be no match for ‘space encryption’ that uses light to beam data around — with the 1st satellite launching in 2025

By converting data into light particles and beaming them around the world using satellites, we could prevent encrypted messages from being intercepted by a superpowerful quantum computer, scientists claim.

Currently, messaging technology relies on mathematical, or cryptographic, methods of protection, including end-to-end encryption. This technology is used in WhatsApp — as well as by corporations, the government and the military — to protect sensitive data from being intercepted. 

Encryption works by scrambling data or text into what appears to be nonsense, using an algorithm and a key that only the sender and recipient can use to unlock the data. These algorithms can, in theory, be cracked. But they are designed to be so complex that even the fastest supercomputers would take millions of years to translate the data into something readable. 

Quantum computers change the equation. Although the field is young, scientists predict that such machines will be powerful

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SandboxAQ Puts a Quantum Twist on AI Technology

SandboxAQ Puts a Quantum Twist on AI Technology

Just when you thought you had a handle on artificial intelligence (AI), here comes a twist on the technology. Because AI is being merged with quantum computing ahead of schedule. The result could have significant implications for financial services as well as other verticals.

“The physical world is defined by quantum mechanics,” Chris Hume, senior director of business operations for SandboxAQ, told PYMNTS. “The more effectively we can understand those interactions and then model those interactions, the more efficiently and effectively you can build predictive models. With the algorithms that we’re developing combined with the classical computer hardware that’s available today, you can build better predictive models, and that’s the exciting part. And that’s the opportunity at hand.”

SandboxAQ has termed its AI-quantum computing hybrid AQ. Quantum computing as a holistic approach to data is years away and, as Hume said, even scientists who work on quantum computing

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Copresence Sets New Industry Standard for Cost-Effective Avatar Solutions

Copresence Sets New Industry Standard for Cost-Effective Avatar Solutions

ZURICH — COPRESENCE AG (“copresence”), a pioneer in digital avatar technology, has today announced a significant breakthrough in the balance of quality, efficiency, and cost in the avatar generation process. The company’s innovation sets a new industry standard, offering unparalleled value in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

The digital avatar market has traditionally been dominated by either high-end, resource-intensive solutions from major tech giants, or simplistic cartoon-style avatars. Whilst these high-end avatars may look impressive, their creation involves highly expensive camera setups that are not accessible to the average consumer. Furthermore, subjects may need to sit for hours at a time in order to get fully scanned. On the other hand, the more simplistic avatars lack the level of realism required to create a truly believable likeness.

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Copresence’s technology bridges this gap by delivering photorealistic avatars that rival the quality of top industry players at a

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Did we recover alien technology from the ocean floor?

Did we recover alien technology from the ocean floor?

Although the distances between the stars and planets are vast, our Universe, and even our own Solar System, remains a violent place. Fragments of matter, mostly arising from the asteroid and Kuiper belts of our own Solar System, occasionally impact all of the known worlds, including planet Earth. Even though the typical mass and size of the objects that impact us are relatively small, there are many such impacts every year. With modern technology, we’re even beginning to characterize and track them.

On rare occasion, some of these objects that strike Earth may even arise from elsewhere: from a planet like Mars or from another star system, as the recent passes of interstellar objects ‘Oumuamua and Borisov through our Solar System hint at. But could any of those objects be something extraordinary, like alien technology? That’s what several people want to know, including Garuka de Silva, who asks:

“I would

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