Lifeboat Foundation

• There has been a 14X increase in the number of active AI startups since 2000. Crunchbase, VentureSource, and Sand Hill Econometrics were also used for completing this analysis with AI startups in Crunchbase cross-referenced to venture-backed companies in the VentureSource database. Any venture-backed companies from the Crunchbase list that were identified in the VentureSource database were included.

• The share of jobs requiring AI skills has grown 4.5X since 2013., The growth of the share of US jobs requiring AI skills on the Indeed.com platform was calculated by first identifying AI-related jobs using titles and keywords in descriptions. Job growth is a calculated as a multiple of the share of jobs on the Indeed platform that required AI skills in the U.S. starting in January 2013. The study also calculated the growth of the share of jobs requiring AI skills on the Indeed.com platform, by country. Despite the rapid growth of the Canada and UK. AI job markets, Indeed.com reports they are respectively still 5% and 27% of the absolute size of the US AI job market.

• Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are the three most in-demand skills on Monster.com. Just two years ago NLP had been predicted to be the most in-demand skill for application developers creating new AI apps. In addition to skills creating AI apps, machine learning techniques, Python, Java, C++, experience with open source development environments, Spark, MATLAB, and Hadoop are the most in-demand skills. Based on an analysis of Monster.com entries as of today, the median salary is $127,000 in the U.S. for Data Scientists, Senior Data Scientists, Artificial Intelligence Consultants and Machine Learning Managers.

Continue reading “10 Charts That Will Change Your Perspective On Artificial Intelligence’s Growth” »

Developers at major technology companies, outraged by the Snowden disclosures, started pushing back. Some, such as those at WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook a year after the story broke, implemented their own encryption. Others, such as Yahoo’s Alex Stamos, quit rather than support further eavesdropping. (Stamos is now the head of security at Facebook.)

Five years after historic NSA leaks, whistleblower tells the Guardian he has no regrets.

Mon 4 Jun 2018 13.00 EDT Last modified on Tue 5 Jun 2018 04.46 EDT.

Continue reading “Edward Snowden: ‘The people are still powerless, but now they’re aware’” »

A new space era is dawning and will be upon us by the early 2020s. In the face of emerging novel threats and vulnerabilities, whether the self-defense doctrine allows us to counter the threat before the attack occurs can make the difference between peace and war.

President Trump unveiled the America First National Space Strategy on March 23 covering both commercial and civil space, and national security space. This important document has drawn few comments, which are typified by the observation of Spacepolicyonline.com founder and editor Marcia Smith that “the Trump strategy contains little that is new.”

Indeed, most of the national security provisions, which are the focus of this article, are only different in rhetoric but not in substance from those of the Obama administration and it’s predecessors. However, that they are the same is fine because they are equally essential for the new space era.

Although blockchain is traditionally seen as secure, it is vulnerable to attack from quantum computers. Now, a team of Russian researchers say they have developed a solution to the quantum-era blockchain challenge, using quantum key distribution (QKD).

Quantum computers are different from binary digital electronic computers based on transistors. Whereas common digital computing requires that the data be encoded into binary digits (bits), each of which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1), quantum computation uses quantum bits, which can have more by being in superpositions of states.

Writing in the journal Quantum Science and Technology, the researchers set out a quantum-safe blockchain platform that uses QKD to achieve secure authentication.

Continue reading “Quantum Computing Key Could Protect Blockchain Security” »

The technology could be used at airport security instead of fingerprinting and eye-scanning. It can successfully verify an individual simply by analysing the footstep 3D and time-based data.

The AI system, developed by researchers at University of Manchester in the UK and University of Madrid in Spain, correctly identified an individual almost 100 percent of the time, with just a 0.7 error rate.

Physical biometrics, such as fingerprints, facial recognition and retinal scans, are currently more commonly used for security purposes. However, so-called behavioural biometrics, such as gait recognition, also capture unique signatures delivered by a person’s natural behavioural and movement patterns.

Continue reading “Scientists develop AI systems that can identify people” »

Seafood consumption is both a love and a necessity for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. And its supply is a key part of maintaining food security for the whole planet. But during a time of rapid population growth and increasing demand, stocks of wild fish and invertebrates (such as mussels and prawns) are declining.

The problem is that policies and plans designed to make sure there are enough fish and invertebrates almost exclusively target fishing activity. But we also need to protect the critical habitats that are essential for the sustainability of these stocks and fisheries.

Most species that are fished require more than a single habitat to live and thrive. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), for example, spends its adult life shoaling in deep water where it lives, feeds and spawns. But juveniles require more stable habitat such as seagrass meadows. So, if we want to manage fish and invertebrate stocks for sustainability reasons, it is essential to protect the supporting habitats of targeted species.

Continue reading “Loss of marine habitats is threatening the global fishing industry – new research” »

The Astana Global Challenge Summit 2018 will host a series of panels and talks on longevity and rejuvenation.

As it has every year since 2008, the Astana Economic Forum (AEF) is about to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan. AEF, now also known as the Global Challenges Summit (GCS), is an international and regional non-profit platform for public discourse on topics such as economics, globalization, security, global risks, energy efficiency, innovation, and, more generally, matters concerning the future of our world and society. It was jointly created by the Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists Association and the Kazakhstan government back in 2008, and over the years, it has hosted innumerable talks and presentations by scientists, economists, world leaders, entrepreneurs, Nobel laureates, and other key people.

In our rapidly changing world, where we sometimes struggle to keep up the pace with progress, initiatives like this are greatly needed and welcome. In order to address the global issues we will face in the coming decades, cooperation, dialogue, information sharing, and networking will be pivotal, and events like the GCS are instrumental in achieving success. The themes of the 2018 event, which will be held on May 17–19, will include global strategy, sustainability, the future of money, clean energy, a unified economy, and many others. Around 500 speakers from all over the world will be on stage to discuss these important topics, sharing visions and insights to build a brighter and safer future together.

It will still be a while before scientists are able to harness Superman-like laser vision, but the technology is now closer than ever before thanks to a new development from the University of St Andrews. The team there have created an ultra-thin membrane laser using organic semiconductors, which is for the first time compatible with the requirements for safe operation in the human eye. Even though the membrane is super thin and flexible, it’s durable, and will retain its optical properties even after several months spent attached to another object, such as a bank note or, more excitingly, a contact lens.

The ocular laser, which has so far been tested on cow eyes, is able to identify sharp lines on a flat background — the ones and zeros of a digital barcode — and could be harnessed for new applications in security, biophotonics and photomedicine. Team member Professor Malte Gather said: “Our work represents a new milestone in laser development and, in particular, points the way to how lasers can be used in inherently soft and ductile environments, be it in wearable sensors or as an authentication feature on bank notes.”

Life is moving faster and faster. Just about everything—transportation, weapons, the flow of information—is accelerating. How will decisionmakers preserve our personal and national security in the face of hyperspeed?