Lifeboat Foundation

Two weeks ago Abacus examined the extent to which China lags behind the world’s advanced economies in technological innovation, and looked at Beijing’s aim of closing the gap and taking the lead in key emerging technologies.

Some techniques Beijing will use are similar to past episodes of industrial planning. Others are newer, reflecting China’s recently acquired economic strength and confidence.

By Tom Holland

Continue reading “The tools – and weapons – China can use for tech supremacy” »

The mysterious, massively funded mixed-reality company still won’t divulge exactly when the device will be available, but it’s more specific than its previous statement that it would be out sometime this year.

The announcement: While much of the world was paying attention to the World Cup on Wednesday, Magic Leap’s Alan Noon said during a live stream on Twitch that the Magic Leap One, a developer-geared headset, will ship this season. Summer ends September 22, so the company has roughly 10 weeks to meet that deadline.

Also: AT&T said Wednesday that it will be the sole wireless carrier for the headset, bringing it to AT&T stores in cities including San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Continue reading “Magic Leap promises to ship its headset this summer” »

The power of 3D printing has opened up a whole new mode of “imagination engineering.” The world of tomorrow’s weapons and ammunition are going to be radically different from what we consider weapons and ammunition today.

Now that Defense Distributed has won their court case, officially legalizing 3D-printable gun uploads and downloads, how will the future respond to today’s gun laws?

Continue reading “How the Second Amendment Turned Into Freedom of Information Thanks to 3D Printing” »

When my colleague Professor Tom Gill at University of Texas at El Paso alerted me to a recent study noting that cargo ships may be creating more lightning, my first reaction was that I wasn’t surprised at all. Though this may be a surprising finding to many scientists and the public, I have been conducting research for over two decades on how cities affect rainfall, storms, and lightning. As I read the paper, it was apparent to me that some of the same physical processes were at play with the cargo ship — lightning relationships. So how does a cargo ship create lightning?

Researchers have created a biohybrid robot finger, a tiny device that combines 3D-printed parts with living muscle tissue.

This device renders your iPhone screen invisible to everyone except you.

This robotic suit lets wheelchair users walk.

Scientists have discovered a “Big Bang” of Alzheimer’s disease – the precise point at which a healthy protein becomes toxic but has not yet formed deadly tangles in the brain.

A study from UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute provides novel insight into the shape-shifting nature of a tau molecule just before it begins sticking to itself to form larger aggregates. The revelation offers a new strategy to detect the devastating disease before it takes hold and has spawned an effort to develop treatments that stabilize tau proteins before they shift shape.

“This is perhaps the biggest finding we have made to date, though it will likely be some time before any benefits materialize in the clinic. This changes much of how we think about the problem,” said Dr. Marc Diamond, Director for UT Southwestern’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases and a leading dementia expert credited with determining that tau acts like a prion – an infectious protein that can self-replicate.

Continue reading “The ‘Big Bang’ of Alzheimer’s: Scientists ID genesis of disease, focus efforts on shape-shifting tau” »

This robot is like a roomba for tennis balls. 🎾.