Lifeboat Foundation

Like the USPS; could we see a day when DARPA and IARPA positioned to be revenue generators like big tech? Granted these 2 programs are tax payer funded; however, so is USPS. One option is to for a contracted service fee; could DARPA &/ or IARPA charge fees to tech companies and others for using their technologies?

Two of the most important technological advances that helped fueled much of the country’s record economic growth in the post-WW II era were ubiquitous computing devices and modern communications technologies.

Indeed, most of the companies covered on TechCrunch certainly would not exist if not for the development and commercialization of microprocessors and the internet.

Continue reading “Capitalizing on foundations of innovation” »

[3:19] Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco test the first human brain-to-brain interface, allowing the brain to be controlled over the internet. When Rajesh plays a video game and thinks about firing at a target, the EEG picks up the signal and sends it across the internet, the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS stimulates the region of Andrea’s brain that controls hand movement. This causes Andrea’s index finger to fire the cannon and blow up the target. [Source: World Science Festival YouTube link] Comments.

Definitely could see QC being Blackberry’s achilles heal.

WATERLOO — Advances in quantum computing could present a huge challenge to BlackBerry’s biggest competitive advantage — its vaunted security software that has never been hacked.

This seldom talked-about subject was raised recently by John Thompson, the associate vice-president for research at the University of Waterloo. Thompson was listening to a presentation by Mike Wilson, a senior vice-president and chief evangelist for BlackBerry, at a medical technology conference in Kitchener about a month ago.

Continue reading “Will quantum computing be BlackBerry’s Waterloo?” »

“What would you do right now if you wanted to read something stored on a floppy disk? On a Zip drive? In the same way, the web browsers of the future might not be able to open today’s webpages and images …”

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Human civilization has always been a virtual reality. At the onset of culture, which was propagated through the proto-media of cave painting, the talking drum, music, fetish art making, oral tradition and the like, Homo sapiens began a march into cultural virtual realities, a march that would span the entirety of the human enterprise. We don’t often think of cultures as virtual realities, but there is no more apt descriptor for our widely diverse sociological organizations and interpretations than the metaphor of the “virtual reality.” Indeed, the virtual reality metaphor encompasses the complete human project.

Virtual Reality researchers, Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, write in their book Infinite Reality; “[Cave art] is likely the first animation technology”, where it provided an early means of what they refer to as “virtual travel”. You are in the cave, but the media in that cave, the dynamic-drawn, fire-illuminated art, represents the plains and animals outside—a completely different environment, one facing entirely the opposite direction, beyond the mouth of the cave. When surrounded by cave art, alive with movement from flickering torches, you are at once inside the cave itself whilst the media experience surrounding you encourages you to indulge in fantasy, and to mentally simulate an entirely different environment. Blascovich and Bailenson suggest that in terms of the evolution of media technology, this was the very first immersive VR. Both the room and helmet-sized VRs used in the present day are but a sophistication of this original form of media VR tech.

Read entire essay here

I have been helping by advising various companies across multiple industries plan & prep for more on boarding of bot technology as part of their own IT infrastructure and application layer. What I have seen companies who are at a turning point for their applications and infrastructure are wanting to invest in more automation meaning more online bot technology so that the resources that they currently have can be scaled to focus on new products & services innovation to help IT become a profit center & deploy commercial services and products to the company’s external customers.

We’re at the cusp of a sharp rise in devices that have no screen but do have conversational voice controls, such as the Amazon Echo. Smart home and Internet-of-things (IoT) objects that respond to users’ voices will improve and become more intuitive with further iterations and wider adoption.

Already they can, for example, dim the lights in a room and play a favorite song. With practice, and, by the virtues of machine learning, these user experiences will become ever more intuitive, capable, and innate.

Continue reading “The bot revolution: How conversational interfaces will replace apps” »

Entanglement purification, a vital enabler for practical quantum networks, has been shown to be feasible with secluded nuclear memories in diamond.

Quantum devices can team up to perform a task collectively, but only if they share that most “spooky” of all quantum phenomena: entanglement. Remote devices have been successfully entangled in order to investigate entanglement itself [1], but the entanglement’s quality is too low for practical applications. The solution, known as entanglement purification [2], has seemed daunting to implement in a real device. Now new research [3] shows that even quite simple quantum components—nanostructures in diamond—have the potential to store and upgrade entanglement. The result relies on hiding information in almost-inaccessible nuclear memories, and may be a key step toward the era of practical quantum networks.

The concept of an interlinked network is absolutely fundamental to conventional technologies. It applies not only to distributed systems like the internet, but also to individual devices like laptops, which contain a hierarchy of interlinked components. For quantum technologies to fulfill their potential, we will want them to have the flexibility and scalability that come from embracing the network paradigm.

In Russia, not all scientific projects get financial backing from the government — but teleportation does.

On June 22, a special interagency working group, along with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, discussed the country’s scientific and technological plans drawn up by the Russian Strategic Initiatives Agency.

The document, described in detail by Kommersant newspaper, lists innovations Russian scientists plan to accomplish by 2035. Among them are a Russia-based coding language, a 5G mobile network, “smart” buildings, medical implants — and teleportation.

Continue reading “Twittersphere Ridicules Russian Research Plans On Teleportation” »

Your next sex-buddy may be made of silicone, designed to your specifications and willing to put up with even your most outrageous quirks – much to Noel Sharkey’s chagrin. The emeritus professor of robotics at Sheffield University in the UK is blowing up over the proliferation of realistic sex dolls.

According to the Daily Mail, Sharkey and other academics are voicing concern about the dolls and a new generation of sex-bots that may one day have full-blown speech recognition.

At that point, the profs warn, fabricated mates may become as prevalent as Internet porn and wreak havoc with our love lives. “What if it’s your first time? Your first relationship?” Sharkey asks. “What [will] you think a man or woman is? It will get in the way of real life, stopping people from forming relationships with normal people.”