Lifeboat Foundation

NVIDIA plans to build the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer dedicated to predicting climate change, named Earth-2.

The earth is warming. The past seven years are on track to be the seven warmest on record. The emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of average warming since the period 1850–1900.

What we’re experiencing is very different from the global average. We experience extreme weather — historic droughts, unprecedented heatwaves, intense hurricanes, violent storms and catastrophic floods. Climate disasters are the new norm.

Continue reading “NVIDIA to Build Earth-2 Supercomputer to See Our Future” »

Last month, the global security community was startled by a report that China had twice tested hypersonic weapons over the summer. According to reporting by the Financial Times, this weapons system consists of two parts: a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) and a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV).

Neither FOBSs nor HGVs are new — but the combination of the two is. Many in the defense community have likened the Chinese hypersonic missile tests to the 1957 launch of Sputnik, a moment when the USSR displayed a technological superiority that stunned the U.S.

Flying to the Moon.

But don’t take it from me — hear out David Anderman, who served as SpaceX’s general counsel during the time it flew its first crewed mission. Now, Anderman is advising the producers of the reality TV show Space Hero, which plans to send one lucky winner to space (see Musk Reads+ #61).

Continue reading “SpaceX could become a space airline sooner than you think” »

Pfizer has pledged a shipment of its experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill to Israel, according to a Saturday television report, a week after the US drugmaker said it was engaged in “active discussion” with 90 countries regarding the coronavirus medication.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz reached an agreement with the drug company for tens of thousands of doses, Channel 12 news reported. The shipment will be despatched as soon as Pfizer receives FDA approval for the pill, the TV report said.

PM and health minister reach agreement with drug company for ‘tens of thousands of doses’; initial data shows almost 90% efficacy.

Continue reading “Pfizer pledges shipment of new antiviral COVID pill to Israel — report” »

Climate change can cause dramatic shifts in global temperatures and weather patterns. And while scientists won’t be able to reverse all of the negative impacts of these changes, they are looking for ways to lessen the effects by controlling the weather.

Tech Insider tells you all you need to know about tech: gadgets, how-to’s, gaming, science, digital culture, and more.

Continue reading “How We’ll Control The Weather In 100 Years” »

A cold winter is spurring the hole, which will persist through November at least.

Would you have thought that Elon Musk is Vladimir Putin’s best friend?? How about the idea of Elon Musk making a factory in Russia???

How would that work? Good idea? Bad Idea? Who’s going to win from that scenario??

Continue reading “IT HAPPENED!! Russia OFFICIALLY asks Elon Musk for ALL SpaceX’s latest Technology…” »

Battling bias. If I’ve been a little MIA this week, it was because I spent Monday and Tuesday in Boston for Fortune ’s inaugural Brainstorm A.I. gathering. It was a fun and wonky couple of days diving into artificial intelligence and machine learning, technologies that—for good or ill—seem increasingly likely to shape not just the future of business, but the world at large.

There are a lot of good and hopeful things to be said about A.I. and M.L., but there’s also a very real risk that the technologies will perpetuate biases that already exist, and even introduce new ones. That was the subject of one of the most engrossing discussions of the event by a panel that was—as pointed out by moderator, guest co-chair, and deputy CEO of Smart Eye Rana el Kaliouby—comprised entirely of women.

One of the scariest parts of bias in A.I. is how wide and varied the potential effects can be. Sony Group’s head of A.I. ethics office Alice Xiang gave the example of a self-driving car that’s been trained too narrowly in what it recognizes as a human reason to jam on the breaks. “You need to think about being able to detect pedestrians—and ensure that you can detect all sorts of pedestrians and not just people that are represented dominantly in your training or test set,” said Xiang.

Non-verbal social cues are key.

Robots are increasingly becoming common in everyday life but their communications skills still lag far behind. One key attribute that might really help robot-human interactions is if robots could learn to read and respond to human emotional cues.

In that case, they would be able to interfere when they are really needed and not disturb the rest of the time. Now, researchers at Franklin & Marshall College have been working on allowing socially assistive robots to process social cues given by humans and respond to them accordingly.