Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: finance

ChartNet trains AI to read charts, boosting smaller models past commercial rivals

To accelerate and refine decision-making in a fast-paced, global marketplace, enterprises may deploy generative artificial intelligence models to help summarize and interpret the charts that often fill market summaries and financial reports.

But even the latest vision-language models sometimes struggle with this task, since it requires a model to integrate visual, numerical, and linguistic understanding. A company that invests in a state-of-the-art model might still receive inaccurate or incomplete information.

To fill this performance gap, researchers from MIT and the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab developed a multifaceted resource for AI users that is specifically designed to teach vision-language models (VLMs) how to effectively interpret charts.

AI Development Highlights To Watch-Out For In 2025 & Beyond

~ AI supremacy & digital empires.

There is something critical taking place in the world now.

It has something to do with the neurological response system of humans.

Basically, when something happens, our sensory/nervous system processes it and guides us in the best way to respond.

That system is being blunted to death in everyone living in today’s world.

We have become so stimulated by numerous technological, socioeconomic and geopolitical shocks, that, we are almost in a helpless trance-like state now (the usual rounds of life).

We can only just watch as the world unfolds into a dystopian singularity before our eyes— wars & conflicts, natural disasters, alien disclosures, unending AI updates now laced with political & economic tensions, World Cup & UFC fevers, Stock Market volatility etc… etc…

Continue reading “AI Development Highlights To Watch-Out For In 2025 & Beyond” | >

New Rokarolla Android malware targets 217 banking, crypto apps

A new Android banking trojan named Rokarolla is targeting 217 banking and cryptocurrency applications using an extensive set of 137 commands.

The malware is distributed via malicious websites purporting to provide the Google Chrome or TikTok app, and can take complete administrative control of a compromised device.

Its capabilities include stealing lock screen credentials, contact lists, and SMS data, as well as using keyloggers to continuously record user input.

Quantum Computing Edges Closer to Reality

Quantum computing has long been viewed as one of the most promising technologies of the future, and 2026 is bringing new signs of progress. Major technology companies and research institutions continue to invest billions into developing more stable and scalable quantum systems capable of solving problems beyond the reach of traditional computers. Recent advances have focused on improving error correction, increasing qubit reliability, and developing practical applications in fields such as drug discovery, materials science, logistics, and financial modelling. While widespread commercial adoption remains years away, experts believe the pace of innovation is accelerating as competition intensifies across the industry.

Is extracting oxygen from lunar soil the future of space exploration?

A new race to the moon is emerging between the United States and China. Unlike fifty years ago, the goal is no longer just about landing and leaving, but establishing a base that allows for a sustainable presence and extended stays on the surface of our natural satellite. The objective is now to use the moon as a testing ground for technologies that will enable us to travel further, particularly to Mars.

One of these key technologies is in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), which involves using available resources on-site to produce the consumables necessary for human activities: oxygen, water, rocket fuels, or construction materials. By producing these essentials directly on the moon, it will be possible to significantly reduce the mass of cargo sent from Earth, thereby reducing the logistical and financial costs of space exploration. Instead of importing these resources from Earth, the goal is to learn how to live on the moon.

Breaking down lunar dust to extract oxygen At the dawn of humanity’s sustainable return to the moon, ISRU is emerging as a strategic pivot. One of the major challenges is producing oxygen from regolith, the layer of soil covering the moon, primarily composed of small rock fragments and dust. The composition of regolith is complex, mainly consisting of several minerals (plagioclase, pyroxene, olivine) themselves made up of a mixture of metal oxides—chemical compounds that combine oxygen with another element such as silicon, iron, or calcium.

Diffusion model links foam physics to voting shifts and market behavior

A drop of dye added to a glass of water undergoes ordinary diffusion. However, when placed on the surface of a foam, the dye spreads differently—diffusion becomes anomalous. An example of this is the pattern on the froth of a cup of cappuccino. Interestingly, recent research suggests that diffusion equations in a heterogeneous environment can also describe social phenomena, such as election results or the behavior of stock market traders. The study is published in the Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science.

The movement of particles in complex media—such as porous materials, gels or foams—bears more resemblance to a random journey through an irregular maze than to a leisurely stroll through a homogeneous space. The presence of local “traps” alongside narrow passages or branches causes the transport of matter or energy to be significantly slowed down or accelerated. Such deviations from classical diffusion are referred to as anomalous diffusion. It is also observed in media with a nonuniform structure.

An international team of physicists from Poland, Croatia, Macedonia and Hungary has undertaken a mathematical description of diffusion in such systems; the Polish side was represented by scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow.

Oracle PeopleSoft servers hacked in ShinyHunters data theft attacks

Oracle PeopleSoft servers are being targeted in ongoing data theft attacks by the ShinyHunters extortion gang, which claims to have stolen data from over 100 organizations.

PeopleSoft is an enterprise business software suite used by large organizations to manage business operations such as human resources, payroll, finance, supply chain management, procurement, and student administration.

Yesterday, BleepingComputer learned of widespread data theft attacks targeting both cloud and on-premises Oracle PeopleSoft customer instances. These customers were receiving extortion demands that were signed by the ShinyHunters extortion gang.

Hidden geometry explains why kernel methods separate complex data so well

Are two sets of data genuinely different, or is it because of randomness? This question, known as the two-sample testing problem, becomes notoriously difficult in modern datasets, because they are often high-dimensional, complex, and differences between them can take countless subtle forms.

“Simply put, we don’t know what differences to look for, the possibilities are bewildering,” says Professor Victor Panaretos at EPFL’s Institute of Mathematics.

To solve the problem, mathematicians have developed the so-called “kernel methods,” which have emerged as powerful solutions, widely used in fields such as genomics, finance, and artificial intelligence.

/* */