Lifeboat Foundation

Coastal artisanal fisheries, particularly those in developing countries, are facing a global crisis of overexploitation¹. Artificial reefs (ARs), or human–made reefs², have been widely advocated by governmental and non-governmental conservation and management organizations for addressing these issues. Industries, particularly oil and gas, seeking to avoid the costs of removal or conventional disposal of used materials are often major advocates for deploying ARs. Yet, major questions remain regarding the success of such efforts in the context of weak governance and poorly sustained international investment in AR development projects. There is frequently confusion over whether or not ARs should be fishing sites and the precise goals of constructing such ARs are often unclear, making difficult to evaluate their successfulness³. Over the last 40 years, both failures and success AR implementation programs have been reported^4,5. The main point of the present work is to underline the importance of the governance issue and address social and management factors on AR “success”.

To improve fishery yields, it has been recommended that ARs must be no-take areas (e.g.,²). Yet, most ARs were historically delineated as sites for fishing⁴, and were rarely implemented at large scales in/for no-take zones, even in countries with centuries of experience in constructing ARs, such as Japan. In Japan, fishery authorities and local fishers use ARs to promote sustainable catches and to establish nursery grounds of target species⁶. However, fishery authorities and local fishery cooperatives in Japan have extensive management authority over ARs. For example, fishing around ARs is usually limited to hook and line techniques, with net fishing rarely being permitted in areas where risk of entanglement in ARs is high. Furthermore, during spawning, fishing gear and fishing season are often restricted around ARs in Japan. These practices are recognized for their effectiveness in maintaining good fishing performance and marine conservation in Japan and elsewhere where they have been implemented⁷.

Continue reading “Successful artificial reefs depend on getting the context right due to complex socio-bio-economic interactions” »

If you follow the latest trends in the tech industry, you probably know that there’s been a fair amount of debate about what the next big thing is going to be. Odds-on favorite for many has been augmented reality (AR) glasses, while others point to fully autonomous cars, and a few are clinging to the potential of 5G. With the surprise debut of Amazon’s Astro a few weeks back, personal robotic devices and digital companions have also thrown their hat into the ring.

However, while there has been little agreement on exactly what the next thing is, there seems to be little disagreement that whatever it turns out to be, it will be somehow powered, enabled, or enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI). Indeed, the fact that AI and machine learning (ML) are our future seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Yet, if we do an honest assessment of where some of these technologies actually stand on a functionality basis versus initial expectations, it’s fair to argue that the results have been disappointing on many levels. In fact, if we extend that thought process out to what AI/ML were supposed to do for us overall, then we start to come to a similarly disappointing conclusion.

Imagine a place where you could always stay young, name a city after yourself, or even become the president — sounds like a dream? Well, if not in the real world, such dreams can definitely be fulfilled in the virtual world of a metaverse. The metaverse is believed by some to be the future of the internet, where apart from surfing, people would also be able to enter inside the digital world of the internet, in the form of their avatars.

The advent of AR, blockchain, and VR devices in the last few years has sparked the development of the metaverse. Moreover, the unprecedented growth of highly advanced technologies in the gaming industry, which offer immersive gameplay experiences, not only provides us a glimpse of how the metaverse would look like but also indicates that we are closer than ever to experience a virtual world of our own.

But first, Facebook is going to have to bridge the territory of privacy — not just for those who might have photos taken of them, but for the wearers of these microphone and camera-equipped glasses. VR headsets are one thing (and they come off your face after a session). Glasses you wear around every day are the start of Facebook’s much larger ambition to be an always-connected maker of wearables, and that’s a lot harder for most people to get comfortable with.

Walking down my quiet suburban street, I’m looking up at the sky. Recording the sky. Around my ears, I hear ABBA’s new song, I Still Have Faith In You. It’s a melancholic end to the summer. I’m taking my new Ray Ban smart glasses for a walk.

The Ray-Ban Stories feel like a conservative start. They lack some features that have been in similar products already. The glasses, which act as earbud-free headphones, don’t have 3D spatial audio like the Bose Frames and Apple’s AirPods Pro do. The stereo cameras, on either side of the lenses, don’t work with AR effects, either. Facebook has a few sort-of-AR tricks in a brand-new companion app called View that pairs with these glasses on your phone, but they’re mostly ways of using depth data for a few quick social effects.

Traditional networks are unable to keep up with the demands of modern computing, such as cutting-edge computation and bandwidth-demanding services like video analytics and cybersecurity. In recent years, there has been a major shift in the focus of network research towards software-defined networks (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), two concepts that could overcome the limitations of traditional networking. SDN is an approach to network architecture that allows the network to be controlled using software applications, whereas NFV seeks to move functions like firewalls and encryption to virtual servers. SDN and NFV can help enterprises perform more efficiently and reduce costs. Needless to say, a combination of the two would be far more powerful than either one alone.

In a recent study published in IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, researchers from Korea now propose such a combined SDN/NFV network architecture that seeks to introduce additional computational functions to existing network functions. “We expect our SDN/NFV-based infrastructure to be considered for the future 6G network. Once 6G is commercialized, the resource management technique of the network and computing core can be applied to AR/VR or holographic services,” says Prof. Jeongho Kwak of Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Korea, who was an integral part of the study.

The new network architecture aims to create a holistic framework that can fine-tune processing resources that use different (heterogeneous) processors for different tasks and optimize networking. The unified framework will support dynamic service chaining, which allows a single network connection to be used for many connected services like firewalls and intrusion protection; and code offloading, which involves shifting intensive computational tasks to a resource-rich remote server.

Moving beyond the digital revolution, librarians are now confronting the Fourth Industrial Revolution, thinks Bohyun Kim. She sees the lines between the physical, the digital, and the biological spheres becoming blurred. Implications regarding virtual, augmented, and mixed reality will affect the future of libraries.

Even the most highly trained and experienced person sometimes needs a hand.

As I begin to understand the future of the internet and its evolving technology, I believe this author has it right and has cleverly synthesized a coherent image of a future sustainable as NFT, VR, AR and Metaverse Web 3.0. #Metaverse #NFT #web3 #VR #AR

NFTs are here to stay and will be foundational to our new world.

Do you want to wear screens on your eyes?