Lifeboat Foundation

But in “The Matrix,” the landmark of liquid-action sci-fi released 20 years ago today, the artificial intelligence comes at us in a uniquely teasing, forward-tilting, who’s-that-in-the-mirror way. The movie is about a computer-company office drone, played with pinpoint charisma by Keanu Reeves, who gets tugged out of his existence by a rebel underground that unplugs him from the Matrix.

The term “artificial intelligence” was coined in 1956, but one way or another it has been the subject of just about every great science-fiction movie, from “Metropolis” to “Frankenstein,” from the paranoid fables of the ’50s (about brainy robots and aliens with giant noggins who were like “advanced” versions of ourselves) to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” in which HAL, the computer who talks like a wounded therapy patient, displays the anger and ego of a jilted human being. And by the late ’70s and early ’80s, the Machines Who Could Think were really taking over. “Alien” featured a technologically evolved monster with the metallic jaws, the helmet head, and the relentlessness of a demonic thresher, the most sympathetic character in “Blade Runner” was a replicant, and “The Terminator” gave us a dystopia ruled by the machines, featuring a weaponized badass who was the ultimate programmed destroyer.

After being sold out this year with nearly 500 participants, we will be back in 2020!

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Physicists have observed a difference in the decay of particles containing the charm quark and its antiparticle, perhaps helping to explain why matter exists at all.

Aiming a laser beam at an aircraft isn’t a harmless prank: The sudden flash of bright light can incapacitate the pilot, risking the lives of passengers and crew. But because attacks can happen with different colored lasers, such as red, green or even blue, scientists have had a difficult time developing a single method to impede all wavelengths of laser light. Today, researchers report liquid crystals that could someday be incorporated into aircraft windshields to block any color of bright, focused light.

It may be a cliché, but drone photography really does offer a new perspective on the world.

Winners of the 2018 Aerial Photo and Video Contest from SkyPixel (an online photo-sharing community owned by Chinese drone maker DJI) show how. The pictures and videos put architecture, nature, and humanity on display from unexpected heights and angles. The resulting imagery is stunning, and might make you rethink your place in the world.

Just consider it for a second. Where are you standing or sitting right now? What would it look like if you could see yourself from a distance? What surrounds you?

Continue reading “These stunning drone photos put humanity in its place” »

This is incredible!

Open Bionics

I ask not for the children’s safety in mind, but rather the robot’s.

“Artificial intelligence will never get jokes like humans do.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A robot walks into a bar. It goes CLANG.

Alexa and Siri can tell jokes mined from a humor database, but they just don’t get them.

Continue reading “No AI in humor: R2-D2 walks into a bar, doesn’t get the joke” »

The most popular contender over the past few decades has been string theory, and the related concepts of superstring theory and M-theory, in which particles are considered as tiny units of one-dimensional string. However, a lesser-known theory has also gained traction; loop quantum gravity (LQG), which attempts to solve the quantum gravity problem by focusing on the very fabric of spacetime, rather than the particles themselves.

In “Quantum Space,” the popular-science writer Jim Baggott lays out the basic principles of LQG for science enthusiasts. The book looks at how loop quantum gravity has emerged by following the work of two of its leading proponents, Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin, and assesses where the theory is now, and where it might be going.

Although the concepts are — not surprisingly — mind-boggling, Baggott asks deep questions about the nature of the universe, what space is actually composed of, and the existence of time itself. (The book covers a lot of challenging material, however, and some prior reading may help readers find their way.)