Lifeboat Foundation

Biometric features like fingerprint sensors and iris scanners have made it easier to securely unlock phones, but they may never be as secure as a good old-fashioned password. Researchers have repeatedly worked out methods to impersonate registered users of biometric devices, but now a team from New York University and the University of Michigan has gone further. The team managed to create so-called “DeepMasterPrints” that can fool a sensor without a sample of the real user’s fingerprints.

Past attempts to bypass biometric systems usually involve getting access to a registered individual’s data — that could be a copy of their fingerprint or a 3D scan of their face. DeepMasterPrints involves generating an entirely new fingerprint from a mountain of data that’s close enough to fool the sensor. Like so many research projects these days, the team used neural networks to do the heavy lifting.

The process started with feeding fingerprints from 6,000 people into a neural network in order to train it on what a human fingerprint looks like. A neural network is composed of a series of nodes that process data. It feeds forward into additional “layers” of nodes if the output meets a certain threshold. Thus, you can train the network to get the desired output. In this case, the researchers used a “generative adversarial network” to tune the system’s ability to generate believable fingerprints. The network used its understanding of prints to make one from scratch, and then a second network would determine if they were real or fake. If the fingerprints didn’t pass muster, the network could be re-tuned to try again.

Continue reading “Researchers Create ‘Master Fingerprints’ to Unlock Phones” »

En Taro AI

The latest results in a long-running contest of video-game-playing AIs reveal how hard it is for machines to master swarming insectoid Zergs or blitzing Protos. They also show that even old-school approaches can still sometimes win out.

The AIIDE Starcraft Contest has been running at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, since 2010. Participating teams submit bots that play an original version of Starcraft, a sprawling sci-fi-themed game, in a series of one-on-one showdowns.

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It’ll be ready for launch by the mid-2020s.

On-Earth manufacturing isn’t the only kind being automated.

It is predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) will transform many aspects of our life including healthcare and genomics. AI and machine learning have helped us to understand the genome of organisms and will potentially change the way we treat disease, determine effective drugs and edit genes.

Google’s deep learning AI called LYNA able to correctly identify tumorous regions in lymph nodes 99 per cent of the time.

Intel has unveiled the Intel Neural Compute Stick 2. It looks like a standard USB thumb drive, and it runs on a USB 3.0 port, but is oh-more-special. CNET said the new AI “brain” sticks into the side of your PC.

Andrew Tarantola in Engadget summed up its significance. “Intel’s NCS2 is essentially a self-contained neural network on a thumbdrive and should make developing those sorts of devices faster and easier by offloading much of the processing power required to train them to its onboard Movidius Myriad X vision processing unit (VPU).”

The debut took place Wednesday, Nov. 14, at the Intel AI Devcon in Beijing.

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The Rise of GPU Computing (+ What is Volta, Titan V, RTX…) https://www.facebook.com/singularityprosperity/videos/440193486462231/

In this video, we’ll be discussing the rise of GPU computing and the role it will play in AI computational tasks.

Continue reading “This video is the sixth in a multi-part series discussing computing” »

LEXINGTON, Ky. (NOVEMBER 15, 2018) – Space Tango, a leader in the commercialization of space through R&D, bioengineering and manufacturing in microgravity, today announced ST-42, a fully autonomous robotic orbital platform designed specifically for scalable manufacturing in space. Launching in the mid 2020’s, ST-42 aims to harness the unique environment of microgravity to produce high value products across industries; from patient therapeutics to advanced technology products that have the potential to revolutionize industries here on Earth. ST-42 is an extension of the International Space Station’s (ISS) capabilities, and NASA’s creation of a robust commercial marketplace in low Earth orbit (LEO).

ST-42 will bring the economics of production in orbit into reality coupling autonomy with the reduced cost and larger number of launch vehicle providers. Space Tango expects the platform to be at the forefront of new breakthroughs in knowledge discovery, therapeutic solutions and manufacturing, and to provide the required capabilities for creation of new biomedical and technology product sectors in the commercial Space economy.

Continue reading “Unveils ST-42 for Scalable Manufacturing in Space for Earth-Based Applications” »

Under what circumstances should militaries delegate the decision to take a human life to machines? It’s a moral leap that the international community is grappling with.