Lifeboat Foundation

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has come a big step closer to launching a computer called The Machine that it’s been talking about, researching, and developing since 2014. On Tuesday, it announced that is has a prototype of this computer that is specifically designed for the big data era.

It uses a new kind of memory to be able to store and instantly analyse mind-boggling amounts of data, potentially even a limitless amount of data. The current prototype that HPE is showing off today contains 160 terabytes (TB) of memory, which is enough to store and work with every book in the Library of Congress five times over, the company says.

Also read: Why Trump’s disclosures to Russia are ‘damaging’.

Continue reading “Meet ‘The Machine’: Futuristic supercomputer with 160 TB memory” »

Nearly a half-century has passed since the earliest rotational artificial gravity testing was performed, such as at the Rockwell Rotational Test Facility and the NASA Langley Rotating Space Station Simulator. Periodically over the decades since then a few experiments have taken place, and proposals have been made for government-sponsored rotating artificial gravity test facilities, both on the ground and in orbit.^1,2 And yet no such project has been started since those early government programs.

This is an extensive new interview on my major platform proposal to eliminate all poverty in California (and eventually the nation) and to restore the massive wealth of government resources to your wallet. Also, I’m currently calling this a Federal Land Dividend, as that name sits better with libertarians, though it is of course a new way of paying (withut raising taxes) a #basicincome to everyone. It will also massively jumpstart the economy and end the healthcare affordability issues, since everyone would be able to afford healthcare.

Zoltan Istvan is running for governor of California in 2018 and has made headlines for his proposal to develop California lands and use the revenue to form a Universal Basic Income for all California households.

Continue reading “Interview: California gubernatorial candidate proposes state-wide basic income” »

Malicious software that blocks access to computers is spreading swiftly across the world, snarling critical systems in hospitals, telecommunications and corporate offices, apparently with the help of a software vulnerability originally discovered by the National Security Agency.

The reports of the malware spread began in Britain, where the National Health Service (NHS) reported serious problems throughout Friday. But government officials and cybersecurity experts later described a far more extensive problem growing across the Internet and unbounded by national borders. Europe and Latin America were especially hard hit.

“This is not targeted at the NHS,” British Prime Minister Theresa May told reporters. “It’s an international attack, and a number of countries and organizations have been affected.”

Continue reading “Malware, described in leaked NSA documents, cripples computers worldwide” »

The US government has rolled out a plan to reshape airport security around facial recognition, playing off a wealth of passport photos and visa applications.

Led by Customs and Border Protection, the plan is built around the Biometric Exit program, which will register visitors leaving the US using facial recognition. But new statements show that CBP’s plans could make facial scans necessary for US citizens as well, documenting them when they reenter the country or pass through TSA checkpoints. The result would eventually grow into an airport-wide system Customs officials call “The Biometric Pathway.”

John Wagner, deputy assistant commissioner at CBP, laid out that vision at the ConnectID conference last week. “We’re going to build this for [Biometric] Exit. We’re out of time, we have to,” Wagner told the crowd. “But why not make this available to everyone? Why not look to drive the innovation across the entire airport experience?”

Continue reading “Homeland Security is building a ‘biometric pathway’ for the airport” »

The small EU nation has made big steps into the digital future with the Estonian eResidency and eID programs. Government and private sector services are now delivered securely online and worldwide entrepreneurs are starting companies virtually in Estonia. But the country’s president sees challenges ahead for countries around the globe as the nature of work transforms and it becomes difficult to tax income using traditional geographic models.

In the near future, as artificial intelligence (AI) systems become more capable, we will begin to see more automated and increasingly sophisticated social engineering attacks. The rise of AI-enabled cyberattacks is expected to cause an explosion of network penetrations, personal data thefts, and an epidemic-level spread of intelligent computer viruses. Ironically, our best hope to defend against AI-enabled hacking is by using AI. But this is very likely to lead to an AI arms race, the consequences of which may be very troubling in the long term, especially as big government actors join the cyber wars.

It will become the problem and the solution.

Germany has broken a new record for renewable energy, with low-carbon sources nearly obliterating coal and nuclear power last weekend.

At one point on the sunny and breezy Sunday, sustainable energy from wind, solar, biomass and hydro power provided a record 85 per cent of the country’s total energy.

Germany has been investing heavily in renewables, as part of the government’s Energiewende initiative to transition away from fossil fuels and nuclear power to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply by 2050.

Continue reading “Germany breaks renewables record with coal and nuclear power responsible for only 15% of country’s total energy” »

Canada’s largest province is to trial universal income, becoming the first North American government to test the progressive policy for decades.

Some 4,000 people in Ontario will be given at least C$16,989 (£9,850) a year under the scheme, with no conditions or restrictions attached.

Participants living in three settlements in Ontario will be selected at random to participate in the radical scheme, which advocates hail as a solution to poverty and costly bureaucracy.

Continue reading “Canada’s largest province to launch universal basic income trial” »