Lifeboat Foundation

Advancing Nuclear Energy Science And Technology For U.S. Energy, Environmental And Economic Needs — Dr. Katy Huff, Ph.D. — Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy.

Dr. Kathryn Huff, Ph.D. (https://www.energy.gov/ne/person/dr-kathryn-huff) is Assistant Secretary, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, where she leads their strategic mission to advance nuclear energy science and technology to meet U.S. energy, environmental, and economic needs, both realizing the potential of advanced technology, and leveraging the unique role of the government in spurring innovation.

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Accelerating Breakthroughs in Critical and Emerging Technologies — Dr. Erwin Gianchandani, Ph.D. — Assistant Director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)

Dr. Erwin Gianchandani, Ph.D. is Assistant Director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, U.S. National Science Foundation, leading the newly established TIP Directorate (https://new.nsf.gov/tip/leadership).

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Servers running software sold by Salesforce are leaking sensitive data managed by government agencies, banks, and other organizations, according to a post published Friday by KrebsOnSecurity.

At least five separate sites run by the state of Vermont permitted access to sensitive data to anyone, Brian Krebs reported. The state’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program was among those affected. It exposed applicants’ full names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and bank account numbers. Like the other organizations providing public access to private data, Vermont used Salesforce Community, a cloud-based software product designed to make it easy for organizations to quickly create websites.

Another affected Salesforce customer was Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bank. It recently acquired TCF Bank, which used Salesforce Community to process commercial loans. Data fields exposed included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, titles, federal IDs, IP addresses, average monthly payrolls, and loan amounts.

U.S. cyber intelligence staff is vastly outnumbered by Chinese hackers, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray told Congress as he pleaded for more money for the agency.

“To give you a sense of what we’re up against, if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI Cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1,” Wray said in prepared remarks for a budget hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday.

The disclosure highlights the massive scale of cyber threats the U.S. is facing, particularly from China. Wray said the country has “a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined and have stolen more of our personal and corporate data than all other nations—big or small—combined.”

Nagoya University.

Nagoya University, sometimes abbreviated as NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was the seventh Imperial University in Japan, one of the first five Designated National University and selected as a Top Type university of Top Global University Project by the Japanese government. It is one of the highest ranked higher education institutions in Japan.

Google has been vying to win business from big corporations and government agencies that are deciding between major tech vendors as they move from traditional data centers to the cloud and rely on more compute-heavy applications involving artificial intelligence. Amazon Web Services, the leader in cloud infrastructure, popularized the market in the mid-2000s and has been profitable every quarter since 2014. Microsoft, the second-biggest player in the space, doesn’t report profitability figures for its Azure unit.

Alphabet started disclosing cloud revenue in 2020, and the following year began providing information on the scale of its operating losses.

Last week Alphabet restated operating income for cloud and its other segments, resulting in lower cloud losses in 2021 and 2022. The restated numbers show the cloud unit had a $186 million operating loss in the fourth quarter, compared with $480 million before the change, for example.

Scientists have analyzed the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever detected, named the BOAT (Brightest Of All Time) and GRB 221009A, which was observed by NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.” Its core values are “safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion.” NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Axiom Space has introduced a new program to allow countries to create human spaceflight programs without needing to develop their own infrastructure or other capabilities.

The Axiom Space Access Program, announced April 17, offers countries a tiered approach to conducting research on the International Space Station or Axiom’s future commercial space station, as well as flying their own astronauts.

The program is effectively a “space program in a box,” said Tejpaul Bhatia, chief revenue officer at Axiom, in an interview during the 38^th Space Symposium. “The real key is that turnkey access at affordable, sustainable and predictable rates.”

Accelerating Leadership In Quantum Information Sciences — Dr. Charles Tahan, Ph.D., Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science (QIS); Director, National Quantum Coordination Office, Office of Science and Technology Policy, The White House.

Dr. Charles Tahan, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science (QIS) and the Director of the National Quantum Coordination Office (NQCO) within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (https://www.quantum.gov/nqco/). The NQCO ensures coordination of the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) and QIS activities across the federal government, industry, and academia.

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