Lifeboat Foundation

India frees itself from the US & Russian GPS system.

Back home, the mission control room of Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) resonated with thunderous applause. The scientists who were till then glued to their monitors burst into cheers. India’s mini GPS, a regional positioning system, was ready to be rolled out.

Prime minister Narendra Modi who was watching the launch live from his office in Delhi congratulated the scientists. “With this successful launch, we will determine our own paths powered by our technology. This is an example of made in India and made for Indians,” he said. The navigational structure was given a new name — NavIC (Navigation Indian Constellation) — by the prime minister. “125 crore Indians have got a new Navic,” he tweeted.

Continue reading “IRNSS: Desi GPS to liberate India from dependence on US, Russia” »

Recently the Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NDS), an organization that provides settlement and depository services, began testing blockchain technology as a potential solution for a corporate e-proxy voting system. The results will not shock you but the origin of praise for the system just might.

NDS began looking into solutions for e-proxy voting in August of 2014. The prototype they recently tested is based on the NXT platform. The system also adheres to the ISO 20022 standard for messaging. NDS worked with the UK based DSX Technologies to develop the e-proxy voting system. The recent testing was conducted during a bondholder meeting.

With this e-proxy voting system, cascade messaging is enabled through a chain of nominee accounts. This chain is from the issuer to the voter and then back. In this configuration, NSD manages the database for the chain in order to ultimately oversee that all voting protocol was followed during the process. All of the information that is on the blockchain is then encrypted and able to be viewed by participants. The digital signatures embedded in the blockchain provide verification that the voting is within the time constraints allotted, all votes are accounted for, and that the process is transparent.

Continue reading “Russia’s NDS Uses Blockchain For E-Proxy Voting” »

China’s moral conduct code over rules the web.

In a nationwide crackdown, a group of internet video player service providers have been investigated and punished for allegedly spreading pornography in China.

Comets are more complicated than ever imagined and even after ESA’s spectacularly successful mission to 67P, researchers are still debating whether they delivered most of the water to Earth and whether they helped jumpstart life here on terra firma.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has arguably given planetary scientists the best new cometary data in a generation. Although the mission’s Philae lander has long ceased communication from the comet’s surface, the Rosetta spacecraft will continue operations until September when it makes a final touchdown on 67P’s surface. As I noted here previously, at that point, Rosetta will be so far from the Sun it will be on the verge of exhausting all its power.

But next month, researchers will meet at The Royal Society in London to discuss the data and the direction cometary science should take in this post-Rosetta era.

Continue reading “5 Takeaways From ESA’s Rosetta Comet Mission” »

I forgot Sony in the list of contact lens patents. Sony’s new camera contact patent. So, we have Google, Huawei, and Samsung with AR and CPU patents and Sony’s patents on the camera. Waiting for Apple and my favorite Microsoft’s announcements.

Sony has joined Google and Samsung in the world of contact lens camera patents, Sony’s version also has zoom and aperture control built in.

New engine for SpaceX to take them to Mars in 2018.

Ars takes a closer look at SpaceX’s innovative and essential engine.

The Earth’s lurches are erratic, so we don’t even know when the next one is needed.

After centuries of training surgeons in crowded operating theatres, Ahmed thinks that virtual and augmented reality can be used to train tens of thousands of students simultaneously.

“Artificial Intelligence, friend or foe?”

I, like most of you, have pondered this question many times over the years, and I’ve finally come to this conclusion: We should NOT give birth to (what could and SHOULD be described as) an entirely new sentient race — then immediately consign it to shackles and slavery. If we do, we will deserve what we get.

By now we’ve all seen some of the most brilliant people of our age come out with warnings about AI, some advocating extreme, cruel and intellectually dishonest measures to make sure that our new creations don’t ever turn on us.

Continue reading “Artificial intelligence explained” »