Lifeboat Foundation

This month we look at important questions about our future: is it time to have a serious the debate about universal basic income?; the weaponisation of AI; and we review Vivek Wadhwa’s book about our unease over industrial revolution 4.0

• Corporations now rule the world, and one of them is Apple.
• With the company’s record-breaking cash hoard swelling to almost $300 billion, there’s not a lot the Cupertino tech giant couldn’t do.

In the science fiction flick Incorporated, a post-apocalyptic future world is no longer run by nation-states but by corporation-states, each acting in the best interests of the company. Such a future doesn’t seem that far or farfetched now, especially if one considers just how big the world’s most powerful corporations are.

Spread of malware curtailed by expert who simply registered a domain name for a few dollars, giving many across world time to protect against attack.

Upcoming missions to Mars have grabbed plenty of headlines in recent years, but before we set off for the Red Planet, a lot more research is needed – and that’s why NASA has a new plan for sending astronauts into orbit around the Moon.

It’s been a while – we last set foot on the Moon in 1972. But NASA thinks the cislunar orbit (between the Moon and the Earth) is going to be an essential testing site and launching pad for reaching Mars in the 2030s.

As NASA’s Greg Williams explained this week at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington DC, the Moon mission is on the slate for 2027 and could see a crew spending a year sailing above the lunar surface.

Continue reading “NASA Just Revealed Its 4-Step Plan to Launch a Year-Long Mission to The Moon” »

This is on tonight.

Robots are now advanced enough to do breast exams.

VICE on HBO, tonight at 7:30 and 11.

RELATED: Building Blocks for Life Found in Rosetta’s Comet

“Understanding the origin of molecular oxygen in space is important for the evolution of the Universe and the origin of life on Earth,” the researchers wrote.

The finding muddies the waters in how detecting oxygen in the atmospheres of exoplanets might not necessarily point to life, as this abiotic process means that oxygen can be produced in space without the need for life. The researchers say this finding might influence how researchers search for signs of life on exoplanets in the future.

Continue reading “Comet 67P Found to Be Producing Its Own Oxygen in Deep Space” »

New simulation technology is not just revolutionising gaming, it could transform the way we model everything from disease to economic markets and ecosystems.

By Chris Baraniuk

New research suggests that exploding stars may still be deadly twice as far away as previously thought.

Malicious software that blocks access to computers is spreading swiftly across the world, snarling critical systems in hospitals, telecommunications and corporate offices, apparently with the help of a software vulnerability originally discovered by the National Security Agency.

The reports of the malware spread began in Britain, where the National Health Service (NHS) reported serious problems throughout Friday. But government officials and cybersecurity experts later described a far more extensive problem growing across the Internet and unbounded by national borders. Europe and Latin America were especially hard hit.

“This is not targeted at the NHS,” British Prime Minister Theresa May told reporters. “It’s an international attack, and a number of countries and organizations have been affected.”

Continue reading “Malware, described in leaked NSA documents, cripples computers worldwide” »