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Jan 21, 2014

Hydrogen Space Launch

Posted by in categories: lifeboat, nanotechnology, science, space, space travel, transportation

We have been using the same propellant system for rockets since the Chinese fire arrows in 1000 A.D. A gas is expanded in a tube to generate force. Enough gas and force and you can break the bonds of the earth.

From gunpowder to liquid propellants to solid rocket boosters, nothing except size and volume has changed.

New proposed systems such as nuclear engines, magnetic rail guns, ion engines are all options that have not been shown to be functional at this point in time.

Our popular fantasy TV and movies all have some unspecified, powerful propulsion system that can easily break our gravity well to send us to outer space.

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Jan 20, 2014

eBay UK to allow Bitcoin sales in ‘virtual currency’ category

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, business
It seemed like it was only a matter of time before e-commerce giant eBay and its payment platform PayPal addressed the sale and use of Bitcoin on its sites. And, despite concern from government regulators, it appears the company believes in virtual currencies — so much so, that it will soon start allowing their sale on its UK site.

Last week, PayPal President David Marcus tweeted “To clarify: we have no policies against using PayPal to sell Bitcoin mining rigs. We don’t support any currency txn whether fiat or BTC… for a host of regulatory issues. But we treat BTC and any FX txn the same way. We’re believers in BTC though.”

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Jan 20, 2014

REMINDER: Asimov’s Laws Of Robotics Won’t Protect You And Robots Will Be More Than Happy To Kill Us All

Posted by in categories: existential risks, robotics/AI, security

terminator salvationYou may have noticed we have a soft spot for sci-fi author Isaac Asimov. His fiction, especially as it pertains to robotics, cemented him in the sci-fi canon and advanced the thinking on what practical robotics would look like in the future.

He also used his fiction to entertain a foreboding question: Should a robot be able to kill a human?

Asimov decided not, and drew up three “laws of robotics” that governed how robots behaved in his fictional universes.

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Jan 20, 2014

EmoSPARK | The First Artificial Intelligence Home Console — Official Release

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Jan 20, 2014

Should AI Makers Be Legally Responsible for Emotionally Manipulating Customers?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

By — Slate
181281532-customer-inspects-the-new-iphone-5s-at-the-wangfujing

Harvey Milk famously advised his “gay brothers and sisters” to come out, but “only to the people you know, and who know you.” He understood the power of human empathy. It is hard to hate people you know and who know you.

We’ll soon see how human empathy shapes the design of artificial intelligence because, as it turns out, our empathy is so strong we will consider objects people if we can interact with them like people. Her played with this idea in a future where Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore falls in love with his operating system, Samantha. But right now on Indiegogo, you can contribute to EmoSPARK, “the first artificial intelligence console committed to your happiness.”

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Jan 20, 2014

Thin, Stretchy, Dissolvable Health Gadgets

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

John A. Rogers, University of Illinois

Epidermal Electronics Media

Fitness buffs are going gaga for gadgets like the Fitbit Flex and Jawbone UP — for now. Although the stylish rubber bracelets can monitor heart rate, sleep patterns and other vital signs, and even display them on a smartphone, John Rogers thinks wearable health can do better.

Today’s often clunky self-health trackers are “just hanging there,” said Rogers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a result, they only measure a handful of biological functions. “We want to go for more sophisticated, clinical quality measurements in ordinary daily life. Being intimately in contact with the skin is the only way to do it.”

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Jan 20, 2014

The future of jobs

Posted by in categories: automation, economics, human trajectories

The Economist

IN 1930, when the world was “suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism”, John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers.

One of the worries Keynes admitted was a “new disease”: “technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested—but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come.

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Jan 18, 2014

Bitcloud: Bitcoin-like “distributed autonomous corporations” that replace Youtube, Facebook, etc

Posted by in category: bitcoin

— Boin Boing

Some Bitcoin enthusiasts have announced a new project called Bitcloud. The idea is something like the old Mojo Nation P2P architecture, in which individual Internet users perform tasks for each other — routing, storage, lookups, computation — in exchange for very small payments.

The Bitcloud protocol uses Bitcoin-style accounting to allocate those microtransfers, along with Bitcoin-style proof-of-work (they call it “proof-of-bandwidth”) and the authors suggest that the potential for profit by individual members will create enough capacity to replace a large number of centralized commercial services (“Youtube, Dropbox, Facebook, Spotify, ISPs”) with “distributed autonomous corporations,” that obviate the need for centralized control in order to supply anonymous, robust, free services to the public.

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Jan 17, 2014

News Jan 17 AT 11:21 AM Brooks Barnard 8 Comments Google[x] developing smart contact lenses for diabetics and their phones

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Brooks Barnard — Android and Me

Google[x] Smart Contact Lens

I think I’m a pretty healthy guy. I eat well. I exercise. No real serious health problems. But about a half a year ago my life changed in a big way. I had no idea that at the ripe old age of 28 one could be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, but there I was at the doctors office with a blood glucose level that was through the roof and a no longer working pancreas.

I’m now insulin dependent. Type 1 diabetes can’t be controlled by diet and I need to check my blood sugar levels several times a day and give myself insulin injections to make sure my levels are acceptable. If it goes too low, I run the risk of passing out and dying. If I run too high for long periods of time I run the risk of all sorts of health issues down the line including lost digits and limbs. So as you can see, it’s in my best interest to closely monitor and control my blood sugar levels. In practice, treating type 1 diabetes is a giant balancing act that involves carb counting and needles and any new technologies available could make a huge difference to those affected by the disease.

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Jan 17, 2014

15 Technologies That Were Supposed To Change Education Forever

Posted by in categories: education, futurism, human trajectories

15 Technologies That Were Supposed to Change Education Forever

Every generation has its shiny new technology that’s supposed to change education forever. In the 1920s it was radio books. In the 1930s it was television lectures. Here in the second decade of the 21st century, it seems the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) is the education tech of tomorrow. Let’s hope it pans out better than previous attempts.

Today we take a look back at 15 technologies that were supposed to radically change the way that people are educated around the world. Some innovations were mostly hype. Others had an undeniably meaningful impact.

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