Lifeboat Foundation

Brooks Barnard — Android and Me

I think I’m a pretty healthy guy. I eat well. I exercise. No real serious health problems. But about a half a year ago my life changed in a big way. I had no idea that at the ripe old age of 28 one could be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, but there I was at the doctors office with a blood glucose level that was through the roof and a no longer working pancreas.

I’m now insulin dependent. Type 1 diabetes can’t be controlled by diet and I need to check my blood sugar levels several times a day and give myself insulin injections to make sure my levels are acceptable. If it goes too low, I run the risk of passing out and dying. If I run too high for long periods of time I run the risk of all sorts of health issues down the line including lost digits and limbs. So as you can see, it’s in my best interest to closely monitor and control my blood sugar levels. In practice, treating type 1 diabetes is a giant balancing act that involves carb counting and needles and any new technologies available could make a huge difference to those affected by the disease.

Read more

Matt Novak — Gizmodo

Every generation has its shiny new technology that’s supposed to change education forever. In the 1920s it was radio books. In the 1930s it was television lectures. Here in the second decade of the 21st century, it seems the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) is the education tech of tomorrow. Let’s hope it pans out better than previous attempts.

Today we take a look back at 15 technologies that were supposed to radically change the way that people are educated around the world. Some innovations were mostly hype. Others had an undeniably meaningful impact.

Read more

I don’t consider myself as someone with nostalgia for the past. Certainly the past is fascinating and worth studying – historically, archaeologically, astronomically, etc. – but I don’t consider it worth pursuing again, all while abandoning everything we’ve achieved thus far. I reach to the stars, though keep a distant memory of what I’ve learned in the past.

One of my fears, however, as we continue journeying into the exponentially brightening light of the future, is that we – as a global, interconnected community – lose sight of the reasoning why we’ve taken up the future rather than the past. I advocate abandoning neither the future, nor the past. Reason being because the past plays an important role in shaping our future. We lose sight of the past, we may just lose sight of our present and future.

While I fear I may be at err for quoting such a dooms-dayer publication, George Orwell’s famous book Nineteen Eighty Four teaches the lesson, “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” Orwell is the last person I’d prefer learning lessons from, but in this respect he’s correct.

Continue reading “A Techno-Ramadan Proposal” »

The Future of Spage-Age Management, Today! by Mr. Andres Agostini at http://lnkd.in/d7zExFi

This is an excerpt from the conclusion section o, “…The Future of Spage-Age Management, Today!..,” that discusses some management strategies. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

BEGINNING OF EXCERPT.

Mr. David Shaw’s question, “…Andres, from your work on the future which management skills need to be developed? Classically the management role is about planning, organizing, leading and controlling. With the changes coming in the future what’s your view on how this management mix needs to change and adapt?…” This question was posited on an Internet Forum, formulated by Mr. David Shaw (Peterborough, United Kingdom) at http://lnkd.in/ba6xX-K on October 09, 2013.

This P.O.V. addresses practical and structural solutions, not onerous quick fixes. THIS P.O.V. WILL BE COMMUNICATED UNAMBIGUOUSLY AND EMPHATICALLY.

Continue reading “The Future of Spage-Age Management, Today!” »

RT

A World Wide Web for robots just got more real as scientists ready to demo a project four years in the making: a cloud-based hive mind for robots to upload and download information and learn new tasks from each other, completely independent of humans.

Comparisons to The Terminator’s Skynet began flooding in all the way back in 2011, when a breakthrough was made after researchers at the University of Technology in Munich, Zaragoza, Stuttgart, and Philips assembled in Eindhoven to form the Robo Earth project.

Read more

By Gregory Wallace — CNN Money

Bitcoin just got another cheerleader.

The Sacramento Kings NBA team just became the first major professional sports franchise to accept Bitcoin, according to an announcement from payment processor BitPay.

Continue reading “NBA's Sacramento Kings cash in on Bitcoin” »

By Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub

In Back to the Future, Doc Brown tells Marty McFly, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need…roads.” Where (or more precisely, when) were they going? Why, the year 2015. As you may have noticed, we’re nowhere near Mr. Fusion or flying cars.

Robot cars, however, are likely coming to a road near you inside the next decade. And according to a recent IHS Automotive study, 54 million of them will hit the streets worldwide by 2035, and nearly all autos will be driverless by 2050.

Read more

By Michael Molitch-Hou — 3D Printing Industry

The phrase “we want to lower the barrier of entry for brain-computer interfaces” may be the strongest indicator yet that you are, indeed, living in the future. In order to achieve that futuristic dream, Conor Russomanno and Joel Murphy have launched what’s become the infomercial of the 21st Century, a Kickstarter campaign. It’s called OpenBCI and it’s an open-source, 3D printable brain scanner.

OpenBCI is built around a 24-bit analog-to-digital converter called the ADS1299, from Texas Instruments, which measures EEG, as well as EMG (skeletal muscle) and ECG (heart) signals. It’s Arduino compatible, with designs and software all available on GitHub. After printing out the Spider Claw 3000 headset, you can connect the OpenBCI board from the campaign, along with electrodes to attach to your scalp, and begin measuring brain waves for a variety of uses. The software from OpenBCI is compatible with a number of different open source platforms, such as Processing, so that you can take the data and apply it to your own projects. 3D printing makes the OpenBCI even more accessible as it allows users with a variety of head shapes and sizes to print a headset tailored to their own head. Watch the Kickstarter video for a more detailed idea of how the OpenBCI project works:

Read more