Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence is already helping determine your future – whether it’s your Netflix viewing preferences, your suitability for a mortgage or your compatibility with a prospective employer. But can we agree, at least for now, that having an AI determine your guilt or innocence in a court of law is a step too far?

Worryingly, it seems this may already be happening. When American Chief Justice John Roberts recently attended an event, he was asked whether he could forsee a day “when smart machines, driven with artificial intelligences, will assist with courtroom fact finding or, more controversially even, judicial decision making”. He responded: “It’s a day that’s here and it’s putting a significant strain on how the judiciary goes about doing things”.

Continue reading “AI sentencing criminals is a bad idea. This is why” »

Scientists have discovered a low-cost, efficient catalyst for splitting water to create hydrogen. This means that the world’s cleanest form of energy, hydrogen, may be more easily and cheaply produced.

Physicists at the University of Houston have discovered a low-cost, efficient, and easily available catalyst that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The catalyst is far more efficient than other options that have previously been employed, and because it is grown from ferrous metaphosphate on a conductive nickel foam platform, it is both more durable and cheaper to produce.

Bigelow Aerospace is building space habitats for the public. Get an exclusive tour inside one of their prototypes, and see where we would live in space.

As computer parts grow tinier — billions of transistors are now packed onto silicon chips the size of a fingernail — silicon’s performance shrinks too, and the material can overheat.

A planned coal fired mega power plant in India has been scrapped because the government wants to focus on green energy.

Gujarati state officials had planned a 4,000-Megawatt ultra-mega power project (UMPP).

It would have been the state of Gujarat’s second UMPP.

Continue reading “India cancelling huge coal power station because it wants to focus on renewable energy” »

What does it cost for malware, stolen identities and other tools of the cybercriminal trade? Probably less than you think.

1 of 10.

Continue reading “Cybercrime: A Black Market Price List From The Dark Web” »

Uber launched a new app on Thursday called Uber Freight, which matches trucking companies with loads to haul.

The formal launch of the app marks Uber’s long-anticipated move into the trucking industry — potentially disrupting one of the most popular professions in the U.S.

Continue reading “Uber’s new app for truckers could disrupt one of America’s core industries” »

It’s basically the lower half of Iron Man’s suit, minus rocket boosters and armor.

• The small, spherical Tokamak ST40 reactor is on track to reach its next goal of hitting the 15,000,000 °C (27,000,000 °F) mark this autumn.
• When it does, we will be one step closer to achieving fusion power on a commercial scale.

Earlier this month the newest fusion reactor in the U.K., Tokamak Energy’s ST40, achieved first plasma. This milestone event on the road to fusion energy signals the viability of the company’s overall timetable. The more immediate aim for the ST40 is to achieve a temperature of 15,000,000 °C (27,000,000 °F), as hot as the center of the sun — this should happen in autumn of 2017 based on the progress thus far.