GPS has changed the way we get around the globe. But if you command a warship, you must think about what you would do if an adversary destroyed or compromised your GPS system. The Royal Navy and Imperial College London think a quantum navigation system might be the answer.
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The quantum sensors in question are essentially accelerometers. Unlike conventional accelerometers, though, these devices use ultracold atoms to make very precise measurements using a laser optical ruler, which means they do not drift as rapidly
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You can see a Sky News report on the trial below.The tests were done in a rapid prototyping pod carried onboard XV Patrick Blackett, a fitting name for an experimental ship since Lord Blackett was a Nobel laureate and head of the physics department at Imperial College for a decade ending in 1963. The underlying tech came out of the university back in 2018, but making it work in a real-world environment onboard a ship is another matter.
The makers of an app called Sleep Reset claim it can help you get more (and better) sleep without the use of drugs — and they have the study to prove it. A group of researchers from the University of Arizona’s Sleep and Health Research Program, some of whom also serve as the company’s medical advisors, have just published a paper in peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Sleep. The paper details the results of a 12-week program that used Sleep Reset, which apparently increased the average participant’s sleep time by 44 minutes.
Those who were getting less than six hours of sleep a night increased their sleep time by 85 minutes. Some of them likely improved their time because they were able to fall asleep much earlier: The paper says participants who typically lie awake for more than 30 minutes before dozing off managed to reduce that time by 53 percent. And those who usually spend more than an hour trying to fall asleep were able to reduce their time awake by 41 percent. Meanwhile, those’d wake up more than three times overnight found themselves experiencing two fewer nightly awakenings. The researchers also said that nearly half of the participants stopped using sleep aids after completing the program.
The study involved 564 participants (65 percent of whom were female) aged 30 to 60 years old who followed a standardized curriculum for three months. They used Sleep Reset in the way it’s meant to be used in that its sleep coaches gave them personalized recommendations and feedback via text messages within the app. They also used the app’s sleep diary, mindfulness exercises and trackers to monitor their progress. To use Sleep Reset, a user needs to answer a series of questions on what kind of sleep they’re getting and what they’re having trouble with. They’re also asked to state what their goals are, such as whether they’re looking to feel more well-rested or to look more youthful.
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Dr. Michael Grandner, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Sleep Reset’s Lead Scientific advisor said: “Many popular sleep solutions like Trazadone, Benadryl and Melatonin don’t even have the clinical evidence to increase total sleep time much at all. Ambien and Lunesta are known to increase sleep time by around 30 minutes, but that’s much less than what we’ve seen from Sleep Reset. What’s even better is that Sleep Reset is a non-medication intervention, thus non-habit forming and devoid of troubling side effects.”
On Tuesday, a Reddit user named “nhciao” posted a series of artistic QR codes created using the Stable Diffusion AI image-synthesis model that can still be read as functional QR codes by smartphone camera apps. The functional pieces reflect artistic styles in anime and Asian art.
QR codes, short for Quick Response codes, are two-dimensional barcodes initially designed for the automotive industry in Japan. These codes have since found wide-ranging applications in various fields including advertising, product tracking, and digital payments, thanks to their ability to store a substantial amount of data. When scanned using a smartphone or a dedicated QR code scanner, the encoded information (which can be text, a website URL, or other data) is quickly accessed and displayed.
In this case, despite the presence of intricate AI-generated designs and patterns in the images created by nhciao, we’ve found that smartphone camera apps on both iPhone and Android are still able to read these as functional QR codes. If you have trouble reading them, try backing your camera farther away from the images.
Stable Diffusion is an AI-powered image-synthesis model released last year that can generate images based on text descriptions. It can also transform existing images using a technique called “img2img.” The creator did not detail the exact technique used to create the novel codes in English, but based on this blog post and the title of the Reddit post (“ControlNet for QR Code”), they apparently trained several custom Stable Diffusion ControlNet models (plus LoRA fine tunings) that have been conditioned to create different-styled results. Next, they fed existing QR codes into the Stable Diffusion AI image generator and used ControlNet to maintain the QR code’s data positioning despite synthesizing an image around it, likely using a written prompt.
Other techniques exist to make artistic-looking QR codes by manipulating the positions of dots within the codes to make meaningful patterns that can still be read. In this case, Stable Diffusion is not only controlling dot positions but also blending picture details to match the QR code.
This interesting use of Stable Diffusion is possible because of the innate error correction feature built into QR codes. This error correction capability allows a certain percentage of the QR code’s data to be restored if it’s damaged or obscured, permitting a level of modification without making the code unreadable.
In typical QR codes, this error correction feature serves to recover information if part of the code is damaged or dirty. But in nhciao’s case, it has been leveraged to blend creativity with utility. Stable Diffusion added unique artistic touches to the QR codes without compromising their functionality.
Enlarge/ An AI-generated image that still functions as a working QR code.
The codes in the examples seen here all point to a URL for qrbtf.com, a QR code-generator website likely run by nhciao based on their previous Reddit posts from years past. The technique could technically work with any QR code, although someone on the Reddit thread said that it may work best for shorter URLs due to how QR codes encode data.
This discovery opens up new possibilities for both digital art and marketing. Ordinary black-and-white QR codes could be turned into unique pieces of art, enhancing their aesthetic appeal. The positive reaction to nhciao’s experiment on social media may spark a new era in which QR codes are not just tools of convenience but also interesting and complex works of art.
US aviation regulators on Wednesday unveiled their first framework for how to train pilots for the expected new breed of electric-powered urban air taxis designed to revolutionize short-hop travel in cities. From a report: The Federal Aviation Administration published a proposed set of regulations that attempt to create an orderly process for building a pipeline of pilots on the devices, which don’t currently fit into existing regulations. It would allow flight crews trained on existing aircraft to take credit for that experience as they transition to the new devices known as electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVOTLs, the FAA said in a statement. It also creates a pathway for pilots to receive FAA sign-off for specific new aircraft and attempts to merge the new technology into existing rules as much as possible, the agency said.
“These proposed rules of the sky will safely usher in this new era of aviation and provide the certainty the industry needs to develop,” David Boulter, FAA’s acting associate administrator for aviation safety, said in the release. The proposal is a key step in allowing the new aircraft — which take off vertically like helicopters, but can fly with the efficiency of fixed-wing planes — to be introduced into the US aviation system. The agency has estimated that it will approve a handful of the devices as early as 2025.
