Lifeboat Foundation

AppleInsider Staff

“User interface started with the command prompt, moved to graphics, then touch, and then gestures,” Microsoft research executive Yoram Yaakobi told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s now moving to invisible UI, where there is nothing to operate. The tech around you understands you and what you want to do. We’re putting this at the forefront of our efforts.”

With the push, dubbed “UI.Next,” Microsoft is pursuing a future in which users do not need to tell their device what to do — by touching or speaking to it, for instance — and instead passively consume information that the device has already prepared in anticipation of their needs.

Both Apple and Google have nodded in this direction already, though the technology is far from mature. Apple’s Passbook, for instance, can dynamically surface information like event tickets based on the user’s location, while Google’s Google Now will adjust a user’s schedule based on traffic conditions.

Read more

Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub

The term ‘transhuman’ inevitably (for me) summons grotesque visions of humans and machines merging into a Borg-like race bent on eradicating biological imperfection. These creatures’ cold rationality calls it an evolutionary improvement, but to my admittedly backward biological brain, it’s a terrible thought.

I’d prefer a little less HR Giger in my future, thank you.

In his latest Shots of Awe video short, Jason Silva says forget about Hollywood’s nightmare scenarios. Humans are, by definition, transhuman. We ceaselessly invent and reinvent what it means to be human. We circumvent biological evolution with technology.

Read more

Chris Dannen and Michael Grothaus and Matthew Rosenberg — Fast Company

The word around the Bay Area is that it’s impossible to build a “real” technology company anywhere else. They say the talent, the culture, and the money are all here.

Some people think it’s such a perfect incubator for new, progressive industries and lifestyles that it should be designated a kind of experimental, low-regulation zone overseen by a CEO-type political official.

Now–don’t get us wrong–this is an experiment we’d love to see executed. The world is dying to know what life is like when all the coffee shops are cashless, all the mail is reverse-delivered, and people actually use Path.

Read more

Telegraph Reporter

The White Swan’s Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments: How To Fundamentally Cope With Corporate Litmus Tests and With The Permanent Impact of the Dramatic Highly Improbable And Succeed and Prevail Through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! [TREATISE EXCERPT]. By © Copyright 2013, 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini — All Rights Reserved Worldwide — « www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini AND www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini » — The Lifeboat Foundation Global Chief Consulting Officer and Partner, Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador —

(An Independent, Solemn, Most-Thorough and Copyrighted Answer. Independence, solemnity, thoroughness, completeness, detail, granularity of details, accuracy and rigor, hereunder, will be then redefined by several orders of nonlinear magnitude and without a fail).

[TREATISE EXCERPT].

To Nora, my mother, who rendered me with the definitiveness to seek the thoughts and seek the forethoughts to outsmart any impending demand and other developments. To Francisco, my father: No one who has taught me better. There is no one I regard most highly. It is my greatest fortune to be his son. He endowed me with the Agostini family’s charter, “…Study and, when grown up, you will neither be the tyrants’ toy, nor the passions’ servile slave…” I never enjoyed a “…Mom…”, but considerably enjoyed a gargantuan courageous Mother, Father, Grandparents and Forbears.

Continue reading “The White Swan's Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments! [TREATISE EXCERPT] By Mr. Andres Agostini at www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini” »

Allen McDuffee — Wired
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sGqQek3pqQ#t=106
With UAVs crowding navigable airspace and plans underway to put giant mega-satellites into orbit, it was just a matter of time before a drone-satellite hybrid was developed to fit between the two spaces. StratoBus, a new project out of France, is conceptualized to do just that. Designed to be about the length of a football field and 25 yards in diameter, the blimp-shaped vehicle’s shell will be made of carbon fiber.

Without a launcher, StratoBus floats to the lower stratosphere at an altitude of about 13 miles where developers say it will be in a perfect position to carry out a range of functions, including surveillance, border security monitoring, communications reinforcement and facilitating navigation — all from a stationary position with the help of two self-adjusting electric motors. The StratoBus will be able to endure missions of up to a year with a total lifetime of five years.

Read more

Darrell Etherington — Tech Crunch

In the sci-fi show Almost Human, everyone has a bitcoin wallet. More and more places to spend bitcoin means that could become a reality, and popular indie merchant mobile payment provider Square is the latest to accept the cryptocurrency.

In an announcement today on their blog, which isn’t an April Fool’s Joke pushed early Square assures us, the company notes that bitcoin can be used to buy goods and services with Square Market as of today. That means shoppers can pay using the virtual currency on Square’s online storefront, which includes items from merchants around the world collected in one place.

Read more

Laura Montini — Inc.

For years, authors like David Allen and Tim Ferriss have researched and written about productivity. But judging from the high tech trends in the field, the best efficiency practices are yet to be discovered.

That’s because productivity is on the brink of transformation via Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), according to Colin Lewis, who provides consulting services in automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence. In a recent blog post on Harvard Business Review, Lewis looked at the research and development trends among big tech companies and concluded that it’s only a matter of time before virtual assistants start to revamp your daily routine.

Read more

George Dvorsky — i09
It’s been 50 years since Isaac Asimov devised his famous Three Laws of Robotics — a set of rules designed to ensure friendly robot behavior. Though intended as a literary device, these laws are heralded by some as a ready-made prescription for avoiding the robopocalypse. We spoke to the experts to find out if Asimov’s safeguards have stood the test of time — and they haven’t.

First, a quick overview of the Three Laws. As stated by Asimov in his 1942 short story “Runaround”:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Read more