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Feb 6, 2016

Watch An Artificial Chameleon Change Color

Posted by in category: futurism

Chameleons are masters at rapidly changing the color of their skin to camouflage themselves or communicate with others. Scientists worldwide have long sought to mimic the skins of these reptiles to render people effectively invisible with chameleon suits.

Now a mechanical chameleon from China can change color to almost every hue in the visible spectrum with the aid of bumps made of gold and silver on its skin, researchers say. The scientists published their work this past month in the journal ACS Nano.

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Feb 5, 2016

USENIX Enigma 2016 — Protecting High Risk Users

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, security

Eva Galperin, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Morgan Marquis-Boire, Citizen Lab, University of Toronto.

Protecting high-risk individuals has always been a problem for the security industry. While many enterprises focus on mitigating scenarios that will affect the greatest number of their users, harm from attacks is not distributed proportionally. Cyber-attacks on high-risk individuals in dangerous situations can lead to torture, kidnapping, and worse. But dealing with targeted attacks is time-consuming and resource intensive. This problem is exacerbated when the target is an individual or small NGO rather than a large enterprise. This talk will discuss the challenges of protecting high-risk, targeted users using the experience of the speakers in assisting targeted NGOs and individuals.

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Feb 5, 2016

Why should you run IT as a business?

Posted by in categories: business, robotics/AI

Interesting article, and one thing that I have thoroughly enjoyed over the years is helping companies developed new products and services through innovation, or changing their IT organization into real profit centers like this article highlights. And, as part of these types of transformations it has always been key to change/ reinforce the culture’s mindset that business owns the definition of the strategies and solutions.

However, as AI becomes more and more prevelant across businesses; we could eventually see that IT ends up owning the definition as well as the enablement of the solutions for the company/ business. So, it is almost like we come full circle through AI after all. And, this is just one of many business/ corporate cultural questions that we will need to address with AI in the coming years.


There are many reasons to run IT as a well functioning business instead of the traditional cost center model. Below are the top 5 consequences of continuing to run IT in the traditional manner.

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Feb 5, 2016

Watch this guy control his Tesla from his Apple Watch

Posted by in categories: futurism, transportation

The future didn’t come with jetpacks, but it does have this.

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Feb 5, 2016

Watson for President 2016

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The Watson 2016 Foundation is an independent organization formed for the advocacy of the artificial intelligence known as Watson to run for President of The United States of America.


It’s time to elect the first artificial intelligence into office.

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Feb 5, 2016

Northwestern University researchers develop a hybrid polymer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, electronics, materials, nanotechnology

What would be really cool is have a “Computer Screen in a Can”; take your polymer spray and instantly create a screen on a table, a window, suitcase, etc. with your “Computer Screen in a Can”; U Can! I can just imagine the infomercials. On a more serious note — NW Univ has developed a new Hybrid Polymer which is going to expand the capabilities of polymer into so many areas in medicine, to manufacturing, electronics, self reparing material & devices, etc.

http://www.compositesworld.com/news/northwestern-university-…id-polymer


A completely new hybrid polymer has been developed by Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) researchers.

“We have created a surprising new polymer with nano-sized compartments that can be removed and chemically regenerated multiple times,” said materials scientist Samuel Stupp, the senior author of the study and director of Northwestern’s Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology. The study was published in the Jan. 29 issue of Science.

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Feb 5, 2016

Why US tech giants are buying British AI start-ups

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI, virtual reality

I will admit there is some great VR and AI talent in the UK.


U.S. giants such as Apple and Microsoft are flocking to the U.K. to buy artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups as Britain establishes itself as the go-to place for the technology.

Microsoft announced that it had acquired London-based Swiftkey, an AI start-up that makes a predictive keyboard for smartphones, on Wednesday for $250 million, sources close to the deal told CNBC.

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Feb 5, 2016

Next generation of machine learning rockstars will trade Google and Facebook for top secret hedge funds

Posted by in categories: finance, information science, robotics/AI

Nice — Bridgewaters engaged. Actually, not too surprised by this.


IBTimes UK spoke to AI finance startup Walnut Algorithms about machine learning and the financial sector.

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Feb 5, 2016

Who’s to Blame (Part 1): The Legal Vacuum Surrounding Autonomous Weapons

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, law, military, robotics/AI

Future of Life Institute illustrate their objection to automated lethal robots:

“Outrage swells within the international community, which demands that whoever is responsible for the atrocity be held accountable. Unfortunately, no one can agree on who that is”


The year is 2020 and intense fighting has once again broken out between Israel and Hamas militants based in Gaza. In response to a series of rocket attacks, Israel rolls out a new version of its Iron Dome air defense system. Designed in a huge collaboration involving defense companies headquartered in the United States, Israel, and India, this third generation of the Iron Dome has the capability to act with unprecedented autonomy and has cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology that allows it to analyze a tactical situation by drawing from information gathered by an array of onboard sensors and a variety of external data sources. Unlike prior generations of the system, the Iron Dome 3.0 is designed not only to intercept and destroy incoming missiles, but also to identify and automatically launch a precise, guided-missile counterattack against the site from where the incoming missile was launched. The day after the new system is deployed, a missile launched by the system strikes a Gaza hospital far removed from any militant activity, killing scores of Palestinian civilians. Outrage swells within the international community, which demands that whoever is responsible for the atrocity be held accountable. Unfortunately, no one can agree on who that is…

Continue reading “Who’s to Blame (Part 1): The Legal Vacuum Surrounding Autonomous Weapons” »

Feb 5, 2016

Pan-Cancer Epigenetic Signature Readable in Circulating Tumor DNA

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Could researchers found the magic bullet for cancer? NIH thinks possibly that they have.


Epigenetic marks seen across multiple cancers may serve as a biomarker for identifying solid tumor DNA in blood samples.

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