Lifeboat Foundation

This article is amusing on killer robots and how governments should address the threat of killer robots on a national level. On a national level if (in my case the US) we were invaded or a whole army of robots landed on the shores of Florida, NY, or CA; then yes Congress would need to approve war, etc. Which is what this article highlights. However, attacking robots will most likely not be the result of an invasion from another country; attacking robot/s will be the result of criminals; etc. that hacked/or reprogrammed the robotics.

Cartels, terrorists, etc. will pay well to have self driving cars, humanoid robots, etc. re-engineered and re-programmed for their own benefits and become a weapon against individuals and the population.

The United Nations’ effort to ban killer robots will fail, but there are three important steps the United States can take to help slow the rise of lethal autonomous weapons systems, one of the most prominent voices in the robotics debate said this week.

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I do believe that there will be some level of expansion of social services to help employees to be retrained for the new positions that are coming as well as assist lower skill workers to be retrained. However, the larger question is who should pay. Some people are saying tech should assist governments in retooling since the AI technology created the situation; others say it’s a governments issue only, etc. It will be interesting to say the least how the retraining program and other services are covered.

A leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert believes that societies may have to consider issuing a basic income to all citizens, in order to combat the threat to jobs posed by increased automation in the workplace.

Dr Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice University in Texas, believes that a basic income may be needed in the future as advances in automation and AI put human workers out of jobs.

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How could AI disrupt the music and commercial media industries?

Artificial intelligence may be set to disrupt the world of live music. Using data driven algorithms, AI would be able to calculate when and where artists should play, as well as streamline the currently deeply flawed means through which fans discover concerts happening in their area.

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You know what they say about rules…

If you thought regular black holes were about as weird and mysterious as space gets, think again, because for the first time, physicists have successfully simulated what would happen to black holes in a five-dimensional world, and the way they behave could threaten our fundamental understanding of how the Universe works.

The simulation has suggested that if our Universe is made up of five or more dimensions — something that scientists have struggled to confirm or disprove — Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the foundation of modern physics, would be wrong.

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It’s the first time we’ve ever seen rumblings from a black hole with our eyes.

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We talked to Paul Dillinger, Levi’s VP of Global Product Innovation, on how the company is using the future of textile tech with Google’s Project Jacquard.

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In December, a shuttle resupply mission successfully reached the International Space Station. Among the cargo were two Microsoft HoloLens devices for use as a part of NASA’s Sidekick project. The goal of Sidekick is to enable station crews with assistance when and where they need it. According to NASA, this new capability could reduce crew training requirements and increase the efficiency at which astronauts can work in space.

We were thrilled to see some early pictures today of astronaut Scott Kelly with HoloLens at the International Space Station!

Continue reading “Microsoft HoloLens in space: Making science fiction (mixed) reality” »

Isolating cancer cells is the new option for treating cancer.

We have new weapons to fight cancer, less invasive and smarter, since they use the operating behavior of the cells themselves and the immune system.

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We don’t live in a world that’s pinning the survival of humanity of Matthew McConaughey’s shoulders, but if it turns out the plot of the 2014 film Interstellar is true, then we live in a world with at least five dimensions. And that would mean that a ring-shaped black hole would, as scientists recently demonstrated, “break down” Einstein’s general theory of relativity. (And to think, the man was just coming off a phenomenal week.)

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the UK simulated a black hole in a “5-D” universe shaped like a thin ring (which were first posited by theoretical physicists in 2002). In this universe, the black hole would bulge strangely, with stringy connections that become thinner as time passes. Eventually, those strings pinch off like budding bacteria or water drops off a stream and form miniature black holes of their own.

This is wicked weird stuff, but we haven’t even touched on the most bizarre part. A black hole like this leads to what physicists call a “naked singularity,” where the equations that support general relativity — a foundational block of modern physics — stop making sense.

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