Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists say recent advances in laser propulsion technology could make it possible for spacecrafts to reach Mars in as little as 3 days using photon propulsion.

The concept was shared by Philip Lubin, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium. Ultimately, the method seeks to place an ultra-powerful laser in Earth’s orbit, that would use photon pressure to power a “sail-equipped” spacecraft. [ESA To Build “Moon Village” by 2030].

I couldn’t agree more…aggression and recklessness.

Stephen Hawking may be getting some Hollywood love for “The Theory of Everything,” a biopic about his life that earned actor Eddie Redmayne the best actor Oscar at last night’s Academy Awards. But that hasn’t stopped the world-famous physicist from issuing yet another warning about humanity’s impending doom.

Human aggression threatens to destroy us all, Hawking said during a tour of London’s Science Museum last week. The remark was in response to a question about what human shortcomings he would most like to alter. Hawking suffers from a neurological disease similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Continue reading “Stephen Hawking: Human Aggression Could ‘Destroy Us All’” »

SolaBat is developing a hybrid device that utilizes both solar cells and more traditional electrochemical energy storage systems.

Last month, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) announced a groundbreaking new project called SolaBat. Spearheaded by a group of researchers at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) led by Illie Hanzu, it aims to combine photovoltaic cells and electrochemical energy storage systems into a single hybrid device. Fundamentally, SolaBat plans to create a more simplified system of converting and storing solar power.

“Currently, single systems of photovoltaic cells which are connected together – mostly lead-based batteries and vast amounts of cable – are in use. Solar panels on the roof with a battery in the cellar. This takes up a lot of space, needs frequent maintenance and is not optimally efficient,” says Hanzu. “We want to make a battery and solar cell hybrid out of two single systems which is not only able to convert electrical energy but also store it.”

Re-inventing the integrated circuit.

Since the advent of the integrated circuit in 1958, the same year the Advanced Research Projects Agency was established, engineers have been jamming ever more microelectronic integration into ever less chip real estate. Now it has become routine to pack billions of transistors onto chips the size of fingernails.

DARPA (the D for Defense was first added in 1972) has played key roles in this ongoing miracle of miniaturization, giving rise to new and sometimes revolutionary military and civilian capabilities in domains as diverse as communication, intelligence gathering, and optical information processing. ‎Now a DARPA-funded team has drastically miniaturized highly specialized electronic components called circulators and for the first time integrated them into standard silicon-based circuitry. The feat could lead to a doubling of radiofrequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—meaning even faster web-searching and downloads, for example—as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.

Continue reading “Novel miniaturized circulator opens way to doubling wireless capacity” »

I am still not convinced that everyone fully understands how bot technology is about to change IoT and its impact to online business industry. Let me share a few ideas: Financial Auditing and accounting. Bots will be able to do a more thorough job in managing, tracking, reporting financials that many finance back office controls can be performed by bots and requiring a sign off by CFO/ Lead Controller. And, Accounting & Audit firms can easily leverage the technology to perform audits on companies remotely without having to send teams of auditors to a client’s site.

Here’s another one; I decide to set up a few 3D printers to make some unique seals for aircraft manufactures for their jets/ planes; and I need a call center plus online sales teams taking and processing orders. With bot technology my whole operation is automated and no need for sales people, call center folks, or operators. All I need is myself and couple of techies to manage the bot operations; and more profit for me and my team.

However, we still have to keep a tight oversight on hacking which is still a risk; however, we should see more micro-size companies spin up as a result of online bots and 3D printers in our immediate future.

Continue reading “How bots will change the Web, according to a bot we built to answer that question” »

Microscopic spaceships powered by Earth-based lasers are being developed to hunt for extra-terrestrial life in Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to ours.

The £70m Breakthrough Starshot concept involves creating a tiny robotic spacecraft, no larger than a mobile phone chip, which would carry cameras, thrusters, a power supply and navigation and communication equipment.

Physicist Stephen Hawking, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Russian internet billionaire Yuri Milner have all joined the project’s board giving it major backing.

Researchers hope the stammering rodents help find a cure for the speech problem.

CRISPR to improve shelf life of vegetables and fruits. I magine what this would mean for populations in remote locations with horrible climates or in disaster zones that need fresh foods.

Yinong Yang, a Penn State University researcher, has used a famous gene editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9 for cutting out a small piece of DNA from one specific gene in a white button mushroom. With this, Yang was able to stop the gene, which in turn cuts the production of an enzyme known as polyphenol oxidase in mushroom. With this gene editing of white mushrooms, the mushroom doesn’t get spoiled as natural mushrooms.

You might have heard something like this earlier as scientists have also developed non-browning versions of apples and potatoes. However, those crops were called GMOs as scientists had put in new, slightly altered genes within those plants to ‘silence’ the natural gene.

Continue reading “Penn Researcher uses CRISPR/Cas9 to snip out tiny piece of DNA from gene in white button mushroom” »

Hmmm; I want to see a real humanoid truly interact and move seamlessly like folks rushing to catch the tram, or BART/ Marta and hustle in rushing to meetings and multi-tasking in a high pressure office or trading floor. Until we see this level of fluid responsiveness; humanoid is only a pale imitation at best.

You might to do a double take when you see this new interactive robot, as it ‘looks very much like a real woman’.

Dubbed ‘robot goddess’, Jia Jia has the long flowing locks and rosy red cheeks as a human, but is being taught deep learning abilities.

Continue reading “Chinese inventor claims AI humanoid is the most realistic ever made” »