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Yuri Milner is spending $100 million on a probe that could travel to Alpha Centauri within a generation—and he’s recruited Mark Zuckerberg and Stephen Hawking to help. In an interview with The Atlantic, Milner makes his case for star travel.

In the Southern Hemisphere’s sky, there is a constellation, a centaur holding a spear, its legs raised in mid-gallop. The creature’s front hoof is marked by a star that has long hypnotized humanity, with its brightness, and more recently, its proximity.

Since the dawn of written culture, at least, humans have dreamt of star travel. As the nearest star system to Earth, Alpha Centauri is the most natural subject of these dreams. To a certain cast of mind, the star seems destined to figure prominently in our future.

Continue reading “​Inside a Billionaire’s New Interstellar Mission” »

The growth of human and computer intelligence has triggered a barrage of dire predictions about the rise of super intelligence and the singularity. But some retain their skepticism, including Dr. Michael Shermer, a science historian and founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine.

The reason so many rational people put forward hypotheses that are more hype than high tech, Shermer says, is that being smart and educated doesn’t protect anyone from believing in “weird things.” In fact, sometimes smart and educated people are better at rationalizing beliefs that they hold for not-so-rational reasons. The smarter and more educated you are, the better able you are to find evidence to support what you want to be true, suggests Shermer.

“This explains why Nobel Prize winners speak about areas they know nothing about with great confidence and are sure that they’re right. Just because they have this great confidence of being able to do that (is) a reminder that they’re more like lawyers than scientists in trying to marshal a case for their client,” Shermer said. “(Lawyers) just put together the evidence, as much as you can, in support of your client and get rid of the negative evidence. In science you’re not allowed to do that, you’re supposed to look at all the evidence, including the counter evidence to your theory.”

Continue reading “Why Pessimistic Predictions For Future of AI May be More Hype than High Tech” »

A Nevada real estate magnate has poured $290 million into a wild dream of being a landlord in outer space. His first tenant: NASA.

Unlike sight and sound, nobody has developed a system that can accurately reproduce smells. Now one researcher has begun to think seriously about how artificial olfaction might work.

Facebook Live is looking to tap its billion-plus user advantage and built-in social and group features to gain an edge on rivals like Periscope. As such, it has revealed live streaming within groups and events, real-time reactions, invitations to watch video with friends and a live map showing video in 60 countries. Later today, the social network will launch the service in LA (on Facebook Live, of course) with appearances by Mark Zuckerberg and product chief Chris Cox. If you’ve been using Live, Facebook will give you a heads-up as to when to tune in to the broadcasts.

The biggest and most logical feature is the ability to broadcast live within groups and events. If you’re putting on a concert, race or charitable event, for example, it makes infinite sense to be able to stream key moments to a ready-made captive audience. The feature will let friends and family who are subscribed but can’t make it in person can still experience the fun at a distance. Creators also get five new Instagram-like filters, and Facebook will soon let you doodle directly onto live video.

Continue reading “Facebook Live gets a discovery section and instant reactions” »

Discover & Share this Gyroscope GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

The world’s brightest X-ray laser is getting a second beam that is 10,000 times brighter than the first one and fires 8,000 times faster.

Contact lenses that allow you to zoom and change focus are coming.