Lifeboat Foundation

Google is working in secret at a spaceport in New Mexico to build and test solar-powered internet drones in a new initiative codenamed Project SkyBender, according to a report from The Guardian today. The company is reportedly renting 15,000 square feet of hangar space from Virgin Galactic — the commercial spaceflight outfit of business mogul Richard Branson — at the privately owned Spaceport America located near a town called Truth or Consequences. The lynchpin of Project SkyBender appears to be cutting-edge millimeter wave technology, which can transmit gigabits of data every second at speeds up to 40 times faster than modern 4G LTE.

Millimeter waves are thought to be the future of high-speed data transmission technology, and may form the backbone of 5G mobile networks. Aereo founder Chet Kanojia’s new startup Starry announced earlier this week it would use millimeter wave tech to bring gigabit internet speeds to people’s homes via Wi-Fi. Millimeter waves have much shorter range than current smartphone signals and are easily disrupted by weather conditions like rain, fog, and snow. Using what’s called a phased array, however, Google and others could potentially focus the transmissions over greater distances.

Google is currently testing the technique with a new solar-powered drone called Centaur and other units made by a division known as Google Titan, which the company formed after it acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace in 2014. The company has a deal with the FCC to continue testing until July, according to The Guardian. It’s also paying Virgin Galactic about $1,000 a day to use its hanger, as well as an additional $300,000 to Spaceport America to construct installations with servers, millimeter wave transceivers, and other tech onsite.

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According to Nick Pfitzner, the Tesla Powerwall is “a thing of beauty.”

Pfitzner, who lives in Sydney’s Hills District, was one of the first homeowners in Australia to have the highly anticipated energy storage battery installed at his home on Thursday.

Tesla announced in September it would be bringing the Powerwall to Australia, with a spokesperson telling Mashable Australia the country had been “prioritised as a market” due to its high number of solar energy users.

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Rob Joyce, Chief, Tailored Access Operations, National Security Agency.

From his role as the Chief of NSA’s Tailored Access Operation, home of the hackers at NSA, Mr. Joyce will talk about the security practices and capabilities that most effectively frustrate people seeking to exploit networks.

Continue reading “USENIX Enigma 2016 — NSA TAO Chief on Disrupting Nation State Hackers” »

Finally, folks are getting the real picture around re-tooling and retraining folks for new jobs in an oncoming AI future. In my posts; I have highlighted the need for governments and businesses to retrain people as well as ensure that their is some level of funding established to assist displaced workers, and especially as we see the maturity of Quantum in the AI space this will definitely be a must.

“If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it… then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.” – Aristotle.

Humans have such a love/hate relationship with technology that it’s almost comical. All of our own creation, once we’ve perfected amazing innovations, we often turn on them–when convenient. As the PC became common and marketed toward the masses in the 80s, a new world of automation, both good and bad, was predicted. As mad scientists tucked away in secret, underground labs began creating evil robots in a slew of sci-fi movies that we consumed greedily, along with becoming affectionate toward machines like C-3P0 and R2-D2 just birthed in what would be a continuing pop subculture with a momentum of its own, our imaginations ran wild. Fearmongers cited that automation would make many jobs obsolete; robots would begin doing what was left as an economic apocalypse ensued for the human race.

Continue reading “World Economic Forum Report: Existing Workforce Must Prepare, Re-Skill & Up-Skill for Impending Fourth Industrial Revolution” »

Virtual Healthcare & IMSHealth is a major player in this service offering. Healthcare and clinic in your own home.

The University of Southern California Center for Body Computing has teamed with 8 partners to launch a Virtual Care Clinic. The idea with VCC is to create an integrated approach to the use of mobile apps, “virtual” doctors, artificial intelligence, data collection and analysis, as well as diagnostics and wearable sensors to create truly on-demand healthcare.

The partners involved in this effort are peer-reviewed clinical trial database startup Doctor Evidence, drug data resource IMS Health ($IMS), consumer design firm Karten Design, HIPAA-compliant cloud platform Medable, video creator Planet Grande, sensor-enabled pill startup Proteus Digital Health and vision player VSP Global.

Continue reading “IMS Health, Proteus Digital among 8 founding partners for Keck virtual healthcare clinic” »

Another article highlighting the fears around Singularity. There are so many great things that will come from Singularity such as Cancer is wiped out, improved healthcare across the board and cheaper, etc. And, there are also downsides as Gates, Musk, etc. have warned folks especially around AI.

So, what are our options and obligations around Singularity? In reality, you will not be able to stop this evolution from happening. However, each person has a right to decide how much singularity is right for their own private use. As a business or a company, there are many things to consider such as Total Cost of Ownership v. ROI, tax codes or how government will view “humanoids” v. non-humanoids as it relates to CapEx and Taxes, etc. And, the company or business needs to ensure that there are appropriate safegaurds in place in order to protect their data, etc… Also, government has an obligation to the people in general in safegaurding our rights, security, and safety.

Another, question that will continue to be raised and will increase overtime is government and business obligations to the financial welfare of the people. And, this one will become more and more complex and interesting overtime. If AI was to truly displace millions of workers; how will the countries help feed, clothe, and house millions displaced people beyond what they have done in their own country’s past? Will the countries government place a special tax structure on companies and businesses to help fund the displaced workers and their families? Or, will it be a joint partnership with business and government? It does make one wonder.

Continue reading “Why you should be scared of robots” »

Have you ever wondered what is going to replace the likes of Siri, Cortana, and Alexa? You may be looking at their next logical stage – this holographic digital home assistant.

Continue reading “Gatebox Hologram Communication Robot: Siri 3D” »

I cannot wait until I finally equip my home theater with a VR experience — imagine watching a Terminator Movie “Terminator 3 rise of the machines” — it would be scary.

Google released a couple of virtual reality tour locations for its Expeditions Pioneer Program which are Buckingham Palace and the Great Barrier Reef.

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I must admit; I got a little laughter from reading the beginning of this article. However, there is a potential longer term concern around jobs and an even larger concern around data (including IP) when it comes to AI. So, I truly hope folks are strategically planning, designing, and implementing appropriate safeguards around their AI architecture and systems; especially if we look at hacking, etc.

Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have all done their part in warning the world of the true power of artificial intelligence. All three men were actually awarded the 2015 Luddite Award, which is given by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

Because of their honest assessment on the power of new technology, these three men have been called alarmists who spread horror. There were 10 total nominees to the prices, and all three received them after getting more 3,680 votes.

Continue reading “Bill Gates and Elon Musk Will Save the World from AI?” »