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May 12, 2016

Recommendation Engines Yielding Stronger Predictions into Our Wants and Needs

Posted by in categories: computing, disruptive technology, economics, information science, innovation, internet, machine learning, software

If you’ve ever seen a “recommended item” on eBay or Amazon that was just what you were looking for (or maybe didn’t know you were looking for), it’s likely the suggestion was powered by a recommendation engine. In a recent interview, Co-founder of machine learning startup Delvv, Inc., Raefer Gabriel, said these applications for recommendation engines and collaborative filtering algorithms are just the beginning of a powerful and broad-reaching technology.

Raefer Gabriel, Delvv, Inc.

Raefer Gabriel, Delvv, Inc.

Gabriel noted that content discovery on services like Netflix, Pandora, and Spotify are most familiar to people because of the way they seem to “speak” to one’s preferences in movies, games, and music. Their relatively narrow focus of entertainment is a common thread that has made them successful as constrained domains. The challenge lies in developing recommendation engines for unbounded domains, like the internet, where there is more or less unlimited information.

“Some of the more unbounded domains, like web content, have struggled a little bit more to make good use of the technology that’s out there. Because there is so much unbounded information, it is hard to represent well, and to match well with other kinds of things people are considering,” Gabriel said. “Most of the collaborative filtering algorithms are built around some kind of matrix factorization technique and they definitely tend to work better if you bound the domain.”

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May 12, 2016

Is Zika How Humanity Ends?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

It’s absolutely insane to go ahead with the summer Olympics in light of this horrid mess. It’s unlikely to end us. but it could hurt us all, badly. No disease of this kind could ask for a better opportunity to spread around the world than that which the Olympics are about to give it. It’s insane.


Probably not, but pathogens that damage brains may earn a special place in cosmic hell.

By Caleb A. Scharf on May 11, 2016.

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May 12, 2016

This five-fingered robot hand is close to human in functionality

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, food, robotics/AI, singularity

You are really starting to see the shape of the Singularity, ever more clearly, in the convergence of so many engineering and scientific discoveries, inventions, and philosophical musings.

I can say, without a doubt, that we are all living in truly extraordinary times!

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May 12, 2016

DARPA aims to bring cutting edge to the tactical edge

Posted by in category: government

Ramping up for US Fed. government contract season with DARPA.


DARPA is working to get troops high-tech tools that see beyond walls and automatically provide targets, among other emerging technologies.

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May 12, 2016

DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm Does Everything

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

MAY 12, 2016, WASHINGTON (Army News Service) – “This is the most advanced arm in the world. This one can do anything your natural arm can do, with the exception of the Vulcan V,” said Johnny Matheny, using his right hand to mimic the hand greeting made famous by Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy. “But unless I meet a Vulcan, I won’t need it.”

Matheny was at the Pentagon, May 11, 2016, as part of “DARPA Demo Day,” to show military personnel the robotic arm he sometimes wears as part of research funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.

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May 12, 2016

NVIDIA Brings Virtual Reality to Materials

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, biotech/medical, business, habitats, neuroscience, virtual reality

When I look at technology and other things; my brain just dissolves all boundaries/ scope of the technology was originally defined for. For me, this is and has always been in my own DNA since I was a toddler. When I first looked at VR/ AR, my future state vision just exploded immediately where and how this technology could be used, how it could transform industries and daily lives, and other future technologies. So, I am glad to see folks apply AR and VR in so many ways that will prove valuable to users, companies, and consumers.


NVIDIA is working with various companies in different sectors such as automotive, manufacturing, and medical to bring AR benefits in their business. It is working with Audi, General Motors (GM), and Ford (F) to create a VR application where the consumer can design a car by changing its wheels, paint, or seat leather. NVIDIA is also working with European (IEV) furniture manufacturer IKEA to build a virtual reality application that allows the user to design their own rooms and homes.

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May 12, 2016

Organs on chips: The DARPA-backed project mimicking the human body on a tiny scale

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing

Beautiful!!!!


The Wyss Institute at Harvard is creating miniaturised versions of human organs that could one day be used to test drugs as specific as the patients that take them.

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May 12, 2016

DARPA News Update: To Build the First Space Shuttle Without A Pilot Known as the ‘Experimental Spaceplane’

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space travel

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HMXKXzEz44c

Getting ready to send the robots to Space on an AI Spaceship; perfect for that trip to Mars, Jupiter, etc.


DARPA will soon build and relase their first space shuttle without a pilot.

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May 12, 2016

Advisory Committee expresses Quantum, legacy system concerns

Posted by in categories: military, privacy, quantum physics, security

NSA meets with Silicon Valley execs to voice their concerns over legacy systems being hacked by Quantum technology. Glad they’re talking about it because with the recent advancements in Quantum means it will be available in devices, communications, and platforms a lot sooner than originally projected.


The National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) brought together Silicon Valley executives with federal officials at the advisory committee’s annual meeting on Wednesday in Santa Clara, California.

U.S. military and intelligence officials, including Department of Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, attended the advisory committee.

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May 12, 2016

Help Crowdfund Senescent Cell Clearance as a Therapy for Aging at the Major Mouse Testing Program

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension

The community has the power to direct science and we no longer have to accept the traditional path of state funded science. We have the power to choose the direction science takes!


The cadence of SENS rejuvenation research fundraising this year will be a little different from that of past years. There will be more groups involved and more smaller initiatives running through existing crowdfunding sites for a start. The first of these fundraisers for 2016 has launched at crowdfunding site Lifespan.io, and is definitely worthy of our support. The Major Mouse Testing Program is a new non-profit group of researchers and advocates, who have spent the last six months making connections and laying the groundwork to run more animal studies of SENS-relevant prototype therapies focused on health and life span. This is an important gap in the longevity science community as it exists today: consider the painfully slow progress in organizing animal studies in senescent cell clearance over the past five years, for example. Given more enthusiasm and more funding, that could have happened a lot faster. Consider also that the research mainstream — such as the NIA Interventions Testing Program — carries out very few rigorous health and life span studies of potential interventions for aging in mice, and of those almost none are relevant to the SENS approach of damage repair, the only plausible path to radical life extension within our lifetimes.

Animal studies are vital; not just one or two, here or there, but a systematic approach to generating rigorous supporting data, establishing dosage, and uncovering unexpected outcomes. The Major Mouse Testing Program can do a great deal to fill this gap for our community, and has the potential to be an important supporting organization for the SENS Research Foundation, for startups working on SENS technologies such as Oisin Biotechnologies, and for labs involved in SENS research. The more diversity the better. The only thing that the Major Mouse Testing Program lacks today is the initial funding and support that we can provide to give them a good start on their plans for the future. With clever organization, a non-profit organization allied with established labs can carry out solid animal studies at a cost low enough for people like you and I to fund the work via fundraisers, and that is exactly what we should do.

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