Lifeboat Foundation

By Jason Dorrier –SingularityHUB

In 2012, University of Pittsburgh researchers released a video of Jan Scheuermann feeding herself a bite of chocolate. This, of course, wouldn’t be noteworthy but for one thing: Scheuermann is paralyzed from the neck down. She fed herself that chocolate using a brain implant and thought-controlled robotic arm—and got a taste of freedom once unthinkable.

Scheuermann’s spinocerebellar degeneration left her unable to move her limbs over a decade ago. She leapt at the chance to take part in the University of Pittsburgh study investigating brain-computer interfaces. The study’s researchers are developing a system that reads and decodes brain activity, translating it into physical action in a robotic arm and hand.

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By Jacob Kastrenakes — The Verge

Elon Musk is worried that AI will destroy humanity, and so he’s decided to donate $10 million toward research into how we can keep artificial intelligence safe. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has previously expressed concern that something like what happens in The Terminator could happen in real life. He’s also said that AI is “potentially more dangerous than nukes.” The purpose of this donation is to both prevent that from happening and to ensure that AI is used for good and to benefit humanity.

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FM 2030 was at various points in his life, an Iranian Olympic basketball player, a diplomat, a university teacher, and a corporate consultant. He developed his views on transhumanism in the 1960s and evolved them over the next thirty-something years. He was placed in cryonic suspension July 8th, 2000.

By Steven Kotler — SingularityHUB

2015—that just sounds like the future, right. But does it look like the future? Because, that’s the thing, right—we all know technology is advancing at exponential rates. We are making soaring progress in a host of whiz-bang fields. But other than Tokyo, Times Square and, sometimes, Las Vegas from the right angle, the future doesn’t yet look like we thought the future would look.

But that is starting to change. Over the past few months, we’ve started to get clearer and clearer looks at the world that’s coming. Here are five of my favorites sights of tomorrow already here today:

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You need a pocket mirror, a laser pointer and a counter. Then measure both the up-down time (or distance) and the down-up time (or distance). The two are different.

This means, taking light-radar as a reliable measuring device, that the two measured heights are different. As far as I know, the experiment has never been done in spite of its simplicity.

Why is it worth doing? This “V-Lambda” experiment can also be called “WM” experiment, with the two letters printed on top of each other. You then get XXXX. Very regularly, no shifts. That is, upper and lower time intervals interlock even though being different.

You can do the same experiment between earth and a neutron star (provided a mirror can be deposited on its surface). Then the two time intervals that interlock differ by a factor of about 2.

Continue reading “The Eiffel Tower Experiment” »

By Singularity University

Learn about the Singularity University Labs Startup Accelerator here, and submit your application by January 23rd. Selected teams will be notified of their participation by February 14th. The inaugural class will convene March 23rd.

To change the world, it helps to have a good idea—but good ideas are a dime a dozen. The hard part is sharpening your idea and executing on it. It’s a long road from idea to execution, but how much time the trip takes depends on your speed.

Continue reading “Have a World Changing Startup? Apply Now For Inaugural SU Labs Accelerator” »

Motherboard

“We’re descending toward Hill Valley, California, at 4:29 PM, on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015,” Doc Brown announces in the opening scenes of Back to the Future II.

“2015? You mean we’re in the future?” exclaims Marty, apparently having forgotten that madcap time-distorting adventures are hardly out of character for the Doc.

Continue reading “How the Year 2015 Is Depicted in Science Fiction” »

by Stephen Clark — Spaceflight Now

There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.

Russia had the most liftoffs with 36 orbital launch attempts — 34 were deemed complete successes — and the United States came in second with 23 space launches, with all but one reaching its intended target.

Continue reading “2014’s launch tally highest in two decades” »

SynBiology

So if I asked what you think will fuel the growth of today’s technology giants in the next 15 years, what would your answer be? You might say familiar or trendy terms, such as user growth or the Internet of Things. Or perhaps that the companies with the most innovative products and services will reign king in tomorrow’s tech markets. And while those are likely partially correct answers, there’s a tremendous amount of growth to be had from a rather unlikely source.

It might be difficult to believe that companies that have traditionally relied on silicon chips, mobile apps, and lines of software code could profit from something as seemingly disconnected as making biological engineering as predictable as traditional engineering fields, but a closer look into research and development spending hints that it may not be that far-fetched after all. Why are Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) , Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) , and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) quietly investing in synthetic biology, and what could it mean for investors?

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