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Mar 11, 2014
Winklevoss twins plan space trip, funded by Bitcoin
Posted by Seb in categories: bitcoin, space travel
The brothers, known for their legal battle over the creation of Facebook (FB, Fortune 500), are going to space and paying for it with Bitcoins. Take that, Mark Zuckerberg.
The twins bought tickets, valued at $250,000 each, for a ride to space with Virgin Galactic. That’s about 375 Bitcoins, at Wednesday’s price.
They think of their purchase “as seed capital” supporting new technologies they have high hopes for.
Mar 10, 2014
Expanded Google Fiber to Bring 10 Gigabit Internet in Coming Years
Posted by Seb in category: internet
Written By: Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub
Google is on a mission to update the web’s wiring—and they’re not talking a decade or more to do it. Google CFO, Patrick Pichette, recently said his firm is working to boost internet speeds a thousand fold in the next three years.
“That’s where the world is going. It’s going to happen.”
Mar 10, 2014
Linguistic Analysis Says Newsweek Named The Wrong Man As Bitcoin’s Creator
Posted by Seb in category: bitcoin
Matthew Herper — Forbes
A linguistic analysis done at Forbes’ request indicates that Newsweek fingered the wrong man when it tried to unmask the creator of the digital currency, Bitcoin.
Bitcoin allows users to conduct transactions with no or low fees and a relative degree of privacy. There is close to $8 billion of the currency on the Internet. But the identity of its creator (or creators), who went by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, has remained shrouded in mystery.
Matthew Herper — ForbesMar 8, 2014
Leaked NSA document confirms online covert deception involves UFOs
Posted by Seb in categories: alien life, government, security, surveillance
Michael Salla — Honolulu Exopolitics Examiner
Among the leaked Snowden National Security Agency (NSA) documents, the first to explicitly involve the UFO issue has just been released and is currently generating much media scrutiny. The 50 page document is a powerpoint presentation titled “The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations,” and was authored by the British equivalent of the NSA, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The document was the subject to an in-depth story released this week by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first worked with Edward Snowden to release to the world official NSA surveillance of the general public, and foreign government officials. The leaked document details how the NSA is working with its “Five Eyes” partners in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to train its operatives in online covert operations. Greenwald’s article exposes how the NSA and its Five Eyes intelligence partners encourage a range of psychological warfare tools to discredit any targets discussing sensitive national security information. In the “Art of Deception” document three of the 50 slides show images of UFOs – one of which dates from 1950. The leaked document reveals a clear connection between online covert operations by the GCHQ and its intelligence partners on the UFO issue. It is smoking gun evidence that the international intelligence community is training its covert operatives to deceive the public on a range of sensitive national security issues including UFOs.
Mar 8, 2014
The Future of Scientific Management, Today!
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: 3D printing, big data, business, computing, defense, futurism, law enforcement, life extension, robotics/AI, science, security
LIST OF UPDATES (MARCH 10 THROUGH MARCH 16/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC
New US Military Space Plane Aims for 2017 Liftoff
http://www.space.com/24639-united-states-military-space-plane-xs1.html
9 hot Indian innovators that Silicon Valley could buy next
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific…ld-buy-nex
Continue reading “The Future of Scientific Management, Today!” »
Mar 8, 2014
Artificial Intelligence could kill us all. Meet the man who takes that risk seriously
Posted by Seb in categories: existential risks, robotics/AI
Thinking about the end of the world is something that most people try to avoid; for others, it’s a profession. The Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, UK specializes in looking at the ‘big-picture’ future of the human race, and notably, the risks that could wipe us out entirely.
As you’d probably imagine, the risks considered by the Institute include things like nuclear war and meteor strikes, but one perhaps unexpected area that it’s looking into is the potential threat posed by artificial intelligence. Could computers become so smart that they become our rivals, take all our jobs and eventually wipe us all out? This Terminator-style scenario used to seem like science fiction, but it’s starting to be taken seriously by those who watch the way technology is developing.
Mar 8, 2014
‘Faxing’ Life from Mars: Craig Venter’s Wild, Digital Space Exploration Idea
Posted by Seb in categories: alien life, genetics, space
By Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist
If scientists do find life on Mars, it may be possible to beam Martian DNA back to Earth, according to a new idea growing in popularity. If Martian bugs are found, the idea of “faxing” life from Mars is an enticing prospect, spurred on by scientist, Craig Venter, famous for his early sequencing of the human genome.
Venter proposes that researchers analyze Martian DNA on the Red Planet and then radio back that sequence to synthesize the DNA on Earth. He put forth the notion in a book published last year called “Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of the Digital Age.” [The Search for Life on Mars (A Photo Timeline)]
Mar 8, 2014
100% Renewable Energy Is Feasible and Affordable, According to Stanford Proposal
Posted by Seb in category: energy
Written By: Cameron Scott — Singularity Hub
One of the greatest promises of the high-tech future, whether made explicitly or implicitly through shiny clean concept sketches, is that we will have efficient energy that doesn’t churn pollutants into the air and onto the streets.
But here in the present, politicians and even many clean energy advocates maintain that a world run on hydrogen and wind, water and solar power is not yet possible due to technical challenges like energy storage and cost.
Yet Stanford University researchers led by civil engineer Mark Jacobson have developed detailed plans for each state in the union that to move to 100 percent wind, water and solar power by 2050 using only technology that’s already available. The plan, presented recently at the AAAS conference in Chicago, also forms the basis for The Solutions Project nonprofit.
“The conclusion is that it’s technically and economically feasible,” Jacobson told Singularity Hub.
By Paul Kvinta — Popular Science
In December 2001, American environmental activist Jim Puckett traveled to the town of Guiyu in southeast China to look for old computers. He’d learned that electronic waste from the West was finding its way to Guiyu, and the place apparently wasn’t what it used to be. For centuries, residents of Guiyu’s four villages had scratched out a living farming rice along the Lianjiang River. When Puckett arrived, one of the first things he saw was a man riding a bicycle stacked 15-feet high with computer keyboards. Puckett followed him to a village and, like Alice tailing the white rabbit through Wonderland, he discovered an upside-down world almost cartoonish in its horrors. Towering piles of monitors, printers, and fax machines lined streets and occupied front yards. In a neighboring village, women cooked circuit boards curbside in woks, and children played atop ash heaps. There were piles of burning wires, clouds of noxious fumes, and fields of gooey sludge. Puckett met people blackened head-to-toe with printer toner.
