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By James Temple — re/codeJul 18, 2014
Experts say driverless cars will require artificial intelligence
Posted by Seb in category: driverless cars
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Automakers intending to bring driverless cars to market need to work as much on software design as mechanical engineering, the researcher leading Nissan Motor Co.’s automated-vehicle program said.
Making cars that are “deliberative” in assessing road conditions, rather than just reactive, requires artificial intelligence, Maarten Sierhuis, director of Nissan’s Silicon Valley research center in Sunnyvale, California, said in an interview. The carmaker, which aims to sell vehicles that can drive themselves by 2020 or sooner, is developing software to read and filter sensor data much as a human brain does, he said.
“What the auto industry has to come to is a shift from thinking about the car as a physical, mechanical system,” Sierhuis said in an interview Tuesday during the Automated Vehicles Symposium in San Francisco. “Autonomy, autonomous systems, is about understanding how humans do that, and then replicating it with software.”
Jul 17, 2014
Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini AND www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in category: futurism
Gene Therapy Is Used to Adjust Pigs’ Heartbeat http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/health/gene-therapy-used-t.…html?_r=0
Gene Therapy Is Used to Adjust Pigs’ Heartbeat http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/health/gene-therapy-used-t.…html?_r=0
Can Tetrahedrite Help Generate Cheap Thermoelectric Energy? http://www.21stcentech.com/tetrahedrite-generate-cheap-energy/
Jul 17, 2014
Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in category: futurism
Nest’s Tony Fadell on Smart Objects, and the Singularity of Innovation http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/11/07/nests-tony-f…nnovation/
Controlling the Home, Google Style http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/controlling-the-hom…s&_r=0
A Robot With a Little Humanity http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/a-robot-with-a-little-humanity/
Criminal Software, Government-Grade Protection http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/criminal-software-g…rotection/
Jul 16, 2014
Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in category: futurism
Urban Skyfarm concept would provide inner city farming space http://www.gizmag.com/aprilli-design-studio-urban-skyfarm/32954/
Honda’s new ASIMO robot is all grown up http://www.gizmag.com/new-honda-asimo-robot/32977/
DARPA announces Phase 1 of its XS-1 spaceplane program http://www.gizmag.com/darpa-xs-1-spaceplane-phase-design-contracts/32965/
Jul 15, 2014
Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in category: futurism
How machine learning is saving lives while saving hospitals money http://gigaom.com/2014/07/14/how-machine-learning-is-saving-…als-money/
Meet the algorithm that can learn “everything about anything” http://gigaom.com/2014/05/23/meet-the-algorithm-that-can-lea…-anything/
Three Teams To Develop Spaceplane Concepts for DARPA http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/41263three-t…-for-darpa
Jul 15, 2014
Political futurism, ethics energized by sci-fi
Posted by Harry J. Bentham in categories: entertainment, ethics, existential risks, philosophy, transhumanism
Literature has served an indispensable purpose in exploring ethical and political themes. This remains true of sci-fi and fantasy, even if there is such a thing as reading too much politics into fictional work or over-analyzing.
Since Maquis Books published The Traveller and Pandemonium, a novel authored by me from 2011–2014, I have been responding as insightfully as possible to reviews and also discussing the book’s political and philosophical themes wherever I can. Set in a fictional alien world, much of this book’s 24 chapters are politically themed on the all too real human weakness of infighting and resorting to hardline, extremist and even messianic plans when faced with a desperate situation.
The story tells about human cultures battling to survive in a deadly alien ecosystem. There the human race, rather than keeping animals in cages, must keep their own habitats in cages as protection from the world outside. The human characters of the story live out a primitive existence not typical of science-fiction, mainly aiming at their own survival. Technological progress is nonexistent, as all human efforts have been redirected to self-defense against the threat of the alien predators.
Even though The Traveller and Pandemonium depicts humanity facing a common alien foe, the various struggling human factions still fail to cooperate. In fact, they turn ever more hostilely on each other even as the alien planet’s predators continue to close in on the last remaining human states. At the time the story is set, the human civilization on the planet is facing imminent extinction from its own infighting and extremism, as well as the aggressive native plant and animal life of the planet.
Continue reading “Political futurism, ethics energized by sci-fi” »
Jul 15, 2014
A minor new Result can change the World (c-global)
Posted by Otto E. Rössler in categories: existential risks, particle physics
It is a nice game: Pretend that c, the speed of light in the vacuum, were a global constant of nature. Then the Einstein equation assumes a more compact form. And black holes acquire radically new properties. One should not try to produce them down on earth, for example.
Fortunately, this simple game is pure fiction. Presently, Stephen Hawking’s safety guarantee to the planet – the rapid “evaporation” he described – renders miniature black holes innocuous, his recent modifications notwithstanding.
There are some voices that c is indeed globally constant (http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/2608/2469 ). Would this be a reason to look at the issue anew for Hawking and others?
Jul 14, 2014
Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini
Posted by Andres Agostini in category: futurism
Small E-Airplanes Take Flight but No Commercial Passenger Planes in the Near Future http://www.21stcentech.com/electric-airplanes-flight/
The End of Retirement http://harpers.org/archive/2014/08/the-end-of-retirement/
Roger Schell on long-term computer security research http://intelligence.org/2014/06/23/roger-schell/
Jul 14, 2014
Super Size Me: Now You Can 3D Print a Life-sized Model of Yourself
Posted by Seb in category: 3D printing
— Inside 3DP
Forget those eight-inch mini-me models you can get for £60 if you happen to live near an Asda in Manchester, offering the service. Now, thanks to a firm in China, you can actually own a fully life-sized replica of yourself.
The company is called Qingdao Unique Products Develop Co. Ltd, and in order to print a life-size model, they have developed the world’s largest 3D printer. The Chinese company revealed their life-size 3D printed model and their 3D Wax Statue Printer at the World 3D printing technology Industry Conference and Exposition held in Qingdao in June.
