Lifeboat Foundation

My new article on how some technologies will inevitably make the government smaller:

However, there’s reason to believe that in the near future, government might dramatically shrink—not because of demands by fiscally astute Americans, but because of radical technology.

Indubitably, millions of government jobs will soon be replaced by robots. Even the US President could one day be replaced, which—strangely enough—might bring sanity to our election process.

Continue reading “Technology Will Replace the Need for Big Government” »

Recognizing the importance of biofuels to energy and climate security, the U.S. Department of Energy has announced up to $90 million in project funding focused on designing, constructing and operating integrated biorefinery facilities. The production of biofuels from sustainable, non-food, domestic biomass resources is an important strategy to meet the Administration’s goals to reduce carbon emissions and our dependence on imported oil.

Project Development for Pilot and Demonstration Scale Manufacturing of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biopower is a funding opportunity meant to assist in the construction of bioenergy infrastructure to integrate cutting-edge pretreatment, process, and convergence technologies. Biorefineries are modeled after petroleum refineries, but use domestic biomass sources instead of crude oil, or other fossil fuels to produce biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower. They convert biomass feedstocks—the plant and algal materials used to derive fuels like ethanol, butanol, biodiesel and other hydrocarbon fuels—to another form of fuel or energy product. This funding will support efforts to improve and demonstrate processes that break down complex biomass feedstocks and convert them to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, as well as plastics and chemicals.

“The domestic bio-industry could play an important part in the growing clean energy economy and in reducing American dependence on imported oil,” said Lynn Orr, DOE’s under secretary for science and energy. “This funding opportunity will support companies that are working to advance current technologies and help them overcome existing challenges in bioenergy so the industry can meet its full potential.”

Continue reading “DOE opens funding opportunity for biofuels, bioproducts, biopower” »

Again, we all must ask ourselves “What is it that we all need and want v. being told what we need and want by a 20 something old who gets take out or heats up a tv dinner, etc. And, truly what makes sense from an investment, ROI, and security risk adverse investment approach.” 1st, I like making and having my own choices in how I run my house, and operating style at work and private life. 2nd, I don’t trust our out dated digital infrastructure to warrant a great investment in all things AI.

Until I see AI that assist me instead of trying to work against me or replace me as well as having security; then not bought in 100%.

The U.S. manufacturing sector has changed rapidly in the last decade and continues to change as new techonolgy innovations emerge. Daniel Araya and Christopher Sulavik discuss how schools can react to educate a skilled labor force for this new era of robot technolgies.

Continue reading “Disrupting manufacturing: Innovation and the future of skilled labor” »

Neurosurgeons using lasers to treat brain cancer have discovered that the technique breaks down the blood-brain barrier, a finding that could lead to new treatment options for patients with the deadly disease.

The blood-brain barrier is sort of a natural “security system” that shields the brain from toxins in the blood but also blocks potentially helpful drugs such as those used in chemotherapy.

“We were able to show that this blood-brain barrier is broken down for about four weeks after you do this laser therapy,” said Dr. Eric Leuthardt, a professor of neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis. “So not only are you killing the tumor, you are actually opening up a window of opportunity to deliver various drugs and chemicals and therapies that could otherwise not get there.”

Continue reading “Laser Brain Cancer Treatment May Offer Extra Advantage” »

All I can say is WOW!!!! US Security Intelligence awards contract to University of Sydney who is also partnering with China. Also, this should send a huge message to the university in the US that Sydney is kicking it.

The US office of the director of national intelligence has awarded a mutlimillion dollar research grant to an international consortium that includes a quantum science laboratory at the University of Sydney.

New requirement if you’re a Smartphone device provider and trying to sell in India.

Starting next year, all mobile phones sold across India must include a panic button, local news outlets are reporting. In addition, by 2018, all cell phones need to come with a built-in GPS chip, so a person in trouble can be more easily found.

“Technology is solely meant to make human life better and what better than using it for the security of women,” communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a statement, according to The Economic Times. “I have taken a decision that from January 1, 2017, no cell phone can be sold without a provision for panic button and from January 1, 2018, mobile sets should have in-built GPS.”

Continue reading “India to require panic buttons on phones” »

Quantum mechanics, with its counter-intuitive rules for describing the behavior of tiny particles like photons and atoms, holds great promise for profound advances in the security and speed of how we communicate and compute.

Now an international team of researchers has built a chip that generates multiple frequencies from a robust quantum system that produces time-bin entangled photons. In contrast to other quantum state realizations, entangled photons don’t need bulky equipment to keep them in their quantum state, and they can transmit quantum information across long distances. The new device creates entangled photons that span the traditional telecommunications spectrum, making it appealing for multi-channel quantum communication and more powerful quantum computers.

“The advantages of our chip are that it’s compact and cheap. It’s also unique that it operates on multiple channels,” said Michael Kues, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), University of Quebec, Canada.

A team of computer scientists from the University of Southern California (USC) have been successful in developing a new method to alleviate wildlife poaching. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the project that has created a model for ‘green security games’.

This model is based on game theory to safeguard wildlife from poachers. Game theory involves predicting the actions of enemy using mathematical equations and subsequently formulating the best possible restrain moves. This model will enable more efficient patrolling of parks and wildlife by park rangers.

An artificial intelligence (AI) application, known as Protection Assistant for Wildlife Sanctuary (PAWS) was developed by Fei Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in the computer science department at USC and Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science and systems engineering at USC, in 2013. The team has since then spent a couple of years to test the effectiveness of the application in Uganda and Malaysia.

Continue reading “AI Helps Scientists Develop Anti-Poaching System” »

I almost snickered at this article because many of us have been highlighting many of the issues with AI. I am glad to see someone else also speaking up with the bigger issue with AI which is poor security due to the existing net infrastructure.

Facebook and others are all working on simplifying users’ lives with bots, but these novel interactive programs change the game in terms of security.