Lifeboat Foundation

Pasadena-based artificial intelligence tech startup Oben is about to roll out its first product, PAI (Personal AI), a consumer app designed to let users create an AI-driven avatar with their own look and voice.

Its underlying AI technology is already getting some select professional use. Overall, Oben’s team believes AI can have a wide range of uses including in virtual and augmented reality, gaming, content creation and retail.

With PAI, users essentially “teach” the app about themselves. “You take a selfie, and a visual avatar is ready in the app,” Oben CEO and co-founder Nikhil Jain explained, adding that users can then customize their look. Plus, simply by speaking a few sentences, users can teach their avatar to talk or sing. These features can be used on social media and the like.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Startup Oben Debuts ‘Personal’ AI Consumer App” »

Cryptocurrency investors can now buy Stellar Lumens on Bitcoin exchange itBit, after NYDFS approved it to add four new cryptocurrencies.

Earth’s Second Magnetic Field.

Elon Musk’s Boring Co. is the winner in a bid to build a multibillion-dollar high-speed express train to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The result gives the young company a big boost in legitimacy as it tries to get transportation projects underway in Los Angeles and Washington.

The company beat out a consortium that included Mott MacDonald, the civil engineering firm that designed a terminal at London’s Heathrow Airport, and JLC Infrastructure, an infrastructure fund backed by former basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, people with knowledge of the matter said. The city is expected to announce the news as soon as Thursday, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

When completed in 2020, this will be one of the world’s largest planetariums.

This ancient interstellar dust formed the Earth and the solar system.

Particles collected from Earth’s upper atmosphere, originally deposited by comets, are older than our Solar System, scientists say – and these fine bits of interstellar dust could teach us about how planets and stars form from the very beginning.

These cosmic particles have lived through at least 4.6 billion years and travelled across incredible distances, according to the new research into their chemical composition.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Found Interstellar Dust on Earth That’s Older Than Our Solar System” »

During Hurricane Katrina and other severe storms that have hit New Orleans, power outages, flooding and wind damage combined to cut off people from clean drinking water, food, medical care, shelter, prescriptions and other vital services.

In a year-long project, researchers at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories teamed up with the City of New Orleans to analyze ways to increase community resilience and improve the availability of critical lifeline services during and after severe weather.

The team used historical hurricane scenarios to model how storms cause localized flooding, disrupt the electrical system and cut off parts of the community from lifeline services. Sandia researchers then developed a tool to analyze and identify existing clusters of businesses and community resources in areas less prone to inundation—such as gas stations, grocery stores and pharmacies that could be outfitted with microgrids to boost resilience.

A connection between cancer and cellular cilia.

A team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London led by Dr. Barbara Tanos has found out that cellular organelles known as “cilia” may be a viable target for undermining many cancers’ drug resistance [1].

Study summary

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Hypertension is an increasingly encountered condition in modern society, as sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, and other unhealthy lifestyle choices are becoming more prevalent.

The aging processes generally cause our blood pressure to rise, as they steadily clog our arteries, stiffen blood vessels, and cause our hearts to work harder to get blood to all our tissues. However, the rate at which this happens is subject to a great deal of variation, and diet and lifestyle are two big influences on this. At least initially, hypertension is frequently self-inflicted and something that we can reverse to a certain extent, as a new study shows.

Researchers have recently demonstrated that a program seeking to help people change their lifestyles through diet and exercise was almost as effective as some medications for reducing blood pressure.