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Archive for the ‘law’ category: Page 58

Jan 19, 2019

Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines

Posted by in categories: alien life, astronomy, cosmology, energy, engineering, ethics, existential risks, general relativity, governance, gravity, innovation, law, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, particle physics, philosophy, physics, policy, quantum physics, science, scientific freedom, security, singularity, space travel, supercomputing, theory, time travel

CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?

CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.

Experts point out that this research could be as limitless as the universe itself. The UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Sir David King told BBC: “We have to draw a line somewhere otherwise we end up with a collider that is so large that it goes around the equator. And if it doesn’t end there perhaps there will be a request for one that goes to the Moon and back.”

“There is always going to be more deep physics to be conducted with larger and larger colliders. My question is to what extent will the knowledge that we already have be extended to benefit humanity?”

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Jan 7, 2019

A Grindr harassment suit could change the legal landscape for tech — and free speech

Posted by in category: law

Months of harassment led Matthew Herrick to file a lawsuit against the dating app — and he’s using laws meant to protect consumers from dangerous products to do so.

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Dec 26, 2018

Facial Recognition Tech Aims to Identify Good and Evil

Posted by in categories: education, information science, law, privacy, robotics/AI, terrorism

Facial recognition is going mainstream. The technology is increasingly used by law-enforcement agencies and in schools, casinos and retail stores, spurring privacy concerns. In this episode of Moving Upstream, WSJ’s Jason Bellini tests out the technology at an elementary school in Seattle and visits a company that claims its algorithm can identify potential terrorists by their facial features alone.


Dec 23, 2018

President Trump has signed a $1.2 billion law to boost US quantum tech

Posted by in categories: government, law, quantum physics, supercomputing

This new law was signed just as a partial US government shutdown began.


The new National Quantum Initiative Act will give America a national masterplan for advancing quantum technologies.

The news: The US president just signed into law a bill that commits the government to providing $1.2 billion to fund activities promoting quantum information science over an initial five-year period. The new law, which was signed just as a partial US government shutdown began, will provide a significant boost to research, and to efforts to develop a future quantum workforce in the country.

Continue reading “President Trump has signed a $1.2 billion law to boost US quantum tech” »

Dec 23, 2018

2019: the year of moon missions, marijuana and mega-hub airports | The Economist

Posted by in categories: law, space, transportation

From groundbreaking moon missions to growth in the legal-cannabis market, 2019 will be year of new highs. Here’s what to watch out for in the year ahead.

Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy

Continue reading “2019: the year of moon missions, marijuana and mega-hub airports | The Economist” »

Dec 20, 2018

Quantum Maxwell’s demon ‘teleports’ entropy out of a qubit

Posted by in categories: computing, law, quantum physics

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, ETH Zurich, and Argonne National Laboratory, U.S, have described an extended quantum Maxwell’s demon, a device locally violating the second law of thermodynamics in a system located 1–5 meters away from the demon. The device could find applications in quantum computers and microscopic refrigerators cooling down tiny objects with pinpoint accuracy. The research was published Dec. 4 in Physical Review B.

The second law says that the entropy — that is, the degree of disorder or randomness — of an isolated system never decreases.

“Our demon causes a device called a qubit to transition into a more orderly state,” explained the study’s lead author Andrey Lebedev of MIPT and ETH Zurich. “Importantly, the demon does not alter the qubit’s energy and acts over a distance that is huge for quantum mechanics.”

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Dec 16, 2018

Elon Musk’s Boring Company to Launch “Road Legal” Autonomous Cars

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, law, robotics/AI, transportation

Like many Musk announcements, this one is filled with unknowns.

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Dec 13, 2018

Steph Curry says moon landing comments were a joke, but he will take NASA up on its offer of a tour

Posted by in categories: humor, law, space travel

NBA superstar Steph Curry said he was kidding when he said he doesn’t believe humans landed on the moon.

“Obviously I was joking when I was talking on the podcast,” the Golden State Warriors guard told ESPN on Wednesday. “I was silently protesting how stupid it was that people actually took that quote and made it law.”

While appearing on an episode of the podcast “Winging It,” which posted Monday, Curry asked fellow NBA players Vince Carter, Kent Bazemore and Andre Iguodala “We ever been to the moon?”

Continue reading “Steph Curry says moon landing comments were a joke, but he will take NASA up on its offer of a tour” »

Dec 9, 2018

Future Cities & Societies: Governance, Law, Blockchain

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, governance, law, transhumanism

I’m speaking next Friday evening, Dec 14, at 6PM then doing a panel at the NodeSF in San Francisco. Hosted by the Institute for Competitive Governance and Startup Societies Foundation, the event will discuss innovative approaches for new cities and societies. Join us in building the future! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/future-cities-distributed-socie…gFeha96wn2 #transhumanism


How are the future cities going to look like? Are they going to be sovereign states? Will people have decentralized governments? What is the future of law like?

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Dec 1, 2018

The Hidden Danger of Cleaning Up Our Space Junk

Posted by in categories: law, policy, satellites, security

As an international relations scholar who studies space law and policy, I have come to realize what most people do not fully appreciate: Dealing with space debris is as much a national security issue as it is a technical one.

Considering the debris circling the Earth as just an obstacle in the path of human missions is naive. As outer space activities are deeply rooted in the geopolitics down on Earth, the hidden challenge posed by the debris is the militarization of space technologies meant to clean it up.

To be clear, space debris poses considerable risks; however, to understand those risks, I should explain what it is and how it is formed. The term “space debris” refers to defunct human-made objects, relics left over from activities dating back to the early days of the space age. Over time that definition has expanded to include big and small things like discarded boosters, retired satellites, leftover bits and pieces from spacecraft, screwdrivers, tools, nuts and bolts, shards, lost gloves, and even flecks of paint.

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