May 31, 2014
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: education, engineering, finance, futurism
White Paper — Market Research and Social Media in the 21st Century http://ciowhitepapers.com/owp/119/156
Page 11874
May 31, 2014
Future Observatory, White Swan Update by Andres Agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: futurism, innovation, physics, science, scientific freedom, singularity
What the future of work looks like http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2014/05/29/what-the-future-of-work-looks-like/
The first 21st Century Passenger Spacecraft – Dragon Version 2 is Unveiled http://www.21stcentech.com/21st-century-passenger-spacecraft…-unveiled/
Our Universe May Exist in a Multiverse, Cosmic Inflation Discovery Suggests http://www.space.com/25100-multiverse-cosmic-inflation-gravitational-waves.html
Continue reading “Future Observatory, White Swan Update by Andres Agostini” »
May 31, 2014
Amazon Awarded Bitcoin-Related Cloud Computing Patent
Posted by Seb in category: bitcoin
— Coin Desk
E-commerce giant Amazon has been awarded a bitcoin-related cloud computing patent that envisions the use of digital currencies as payment for cloud computing services on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Amazon’s cloud is by far the biggest remote computing service on the market. Market research firm Gartner estimates AWS annual revenue at upwards of $3bn, and it believes Amazon’s cloud has five times the capacity of its next 14 rivals.
May 31, 2014
Physicists use diamonds to reach quantum teleportation breakthrough
Posted by Seb in category: quantum physics
BY Philip Palermo — Endgadget
Quantum teleportation promises a leap into the next great era of computing — but first we’ve got to get it working consistently. Scientists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft say they’ve managed to reliably teleport quantum info stored in one bit of diamond to another sitting three meters away (roughly 10 feet). Now, they want to go much farther.
The key with quantum teleportation is its ability to move quantum information (called a qubit) from one point to another without that information crossing the space between those two points. That’s thanks to a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, where the properties of a pair of particles are linked so tightly that they remain connected regardless of distance. In a research article published today in Science, the team described how they used quantum-entangled particles to consistently transmit data from one nitrogen-infused bit of diamond to another.
May 31, 2014
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Update, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Posted by Andres Agostini in category: futurism
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Update, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
‘Nanodaisies’ deliver more powerful drug cocktail to cancer cells http://www.kurzweilai.net/nanodaisies-deliver-more-powerful-…ncer-cells
A research agenda for potential ecological risks of synthetic biology http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-research-agenda-for-potential-ec…ic-biology
How to make robots and self-driving cars think faster http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-make-robots-and-self-driving-cars-think-faster
Google’s self-driving car prototype: no steering wheel, brake, or accelerator http://www.kurzweilai.net/googles-self-driving-car-prototype…ccelerator
Can ‘Mixed Reality Living Spaces’ fix our overcrowded future? http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/26/5751336/virtual-reality-walls-bernando-schorr
Scientists achieve reliable quantum teleportation for first time http://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-achieve-reliable-quantum…irst-time/
DARPA unveils four ‘big’ cybersecurity projects http://washingtonexaminer.com/darpa-unveils-four-big-cyberse…le/2549057
May 30, 2014
SpaceX unveils first commercial capsule capable of manned flight
Posted by Seb in category: space travel
By Jordan England-Nelson, Los Angeles Daily News
The long-awaited presentation by Elon Musk, SpaceX’s billionaire CEO and founder of Tesla Motors, showcased the 12-year-old company’s engineering prowess with the flair of an Apple product release party.
Starry-eyed engineers cheered and flashed their smartphone cameras inside SpaceX’s Hawthorne factory as Musk took the stage in a crushed velvet blazer and a boy-band mic strapped to his ear.
After a 10-second countdown, a curtain dropped behind Musk to reveal the gumdrop-shaped Dragon V2, a seven-passenger capsule that could begin shuttling astronauts to the ISS as early as 2017.
May 30, 2014
TransEvolution (2014) by Daniel Estulin (@EstulinDaniel): Review
Posted by Harry J. Bentham in categories: cyborgs, posthumanism, singularity, transhumanism
- @ClubOfINFO — TransEvolution: The Coming Age of Human Deconstruction (2014) is an alarmist book by Daniel Estulin, a commentator on the secretive Bilderberg Group who is well-liked by many – in particular on conspiracy theorist forums. Essentially, this should be regarded as conspiracy theory material. My refutations of it are too many to cram into this review, so I will mainly focus on what the book itself says.
Daniel Estulin connects disparate events and sources to depict an elaborate conspiracy. The main starting claim of the book is a link between the 2005 Bilderberg Conference and the 2006 document Strategic Trends 2007–2036 prepared by the British government (p. 1–12). Estulin claims that the latter report’s predictions betray “Promethean” plans that represent “designs by the Bilderberg Group”.
The book makes the allegation that the economic pressure on the world today “is being done on purpose, absolutely on purpose. The reason is because our current corporate empire knows that “progress of humanity” means their imminent demise”. The “powers-that-be” destroy nation-states to maintain power, and “this is by design” (p. 13). Estulin decries international money flows and globalization, and promotes “physical economy” instead. To make a long story short, he describes the apparatus of globalization, integration, etc. as a clash between the nation-state and global oligarchy and frames this as a classic battle between good and evil respectively (p. 13–35). “The ideas of a nation-state republic and progress” are intrinsically connected (p. 34), Estulin argues, putting forward his preference for the old Jacobin ideological script of the Nineteenth Century rather than modern discourses on integration and communication.
In his preference for the nation-state, Estulin attacks the WTO’s record on free trade, and makes criticisms that are provisionally valid. However, he confuses the tendency for weaker nations to be exploited through free trade with a conspiracy against the nation-state. The WTO’s commitment to what it calls free trade, a commitment to “One World, One Market”, reflects “anti-nation-state intent”, Estulin argues (p. 37–38).
Although they attach too much agency to global “elites”, Estulin’s description of the way international trade on agriculture has been manipulated to disadvantage poor nations and advantage rich nations (p. 38–49) agrees with already powerful sociology theories of “free trade imperialism” and the larger humanitarian message of the alter-globalization movement. Estulin quotes William Engdahl’s The Seeds of Destruction at length to argue against the destructive local impacts of global agribusiness (p. 47–53).
Continue reading “TransEvolution (2014) by Daniel Estulin (@EstulinDaniel): Review” »
May 29, 2014
Artificial Intelligence: Data formula makes robots autonomous
Posted by Seb in category: robotics/AI
Deutsche Welle
They recognise how unfamiliar objects move, find their way in rooms they don’t know, and securely grasp completely differently shaped objects. Oliver Brock has programmed his robots so they can almost learn the way people do. His trick is an algorithm that trawls through large amounts of data and subdivides movements into individual segments.
May 29, 2014
You’ll soon be able to pay your TV company in Bitcoin. The future is now.
Posted by Seb in category: bitcoin
Brian Fung — Washington Post
We’ve been talking for months about how Bitcoin has been slowly getting more integrated into the mainstream. Well, now the cryptocurrency is taking a bigger step in that direction: Beginning this summer, Dish Network, one of the largest satellite TV operators in the country, is going to start accepting bitcoins as a form of payment.
The company said Thursday that it’s partnering with the virtual wallet company Coinbase to help process the transactions. Users who want to pay with bitcoins will do so through Coinbase, which will instantly convert the bitcoins into dollars and forward them to Dish.
“Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals,” said Dish executive vice president Bernie Han in a statement.
May 29, 2014
Suspended Animation Goes Primetime: Say Goodbye To Death As We Know It
Posted by Seb in category: life extension
Steven Kotler — Singularity Hub
In The Princess Bride, the always sagacious Miracle Max—aka Billy Crystal—points out “there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.” And he wasn’t wrong.
Death has always been something of a moving target. Take, for example, the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1768, that defined the term as “the separation of soul and body; in which sense it stands opposed to life, which consists in the union thereof.
But how can you tell when said separation occurs? Well, that’s a slightly more complicated procedure and one we still haven’t quite cracked. Thus, moving forward, and trying for an—um— more practical definition, we began to define the end of life by a series of cessations.
