Lifeboat Foundation

During a disaster situation, first responders benefit from one thing above anything else: accurate information about the environment that they are about to enter. Having foreknowledge of specific building layouts, the locations of impassable obstacles, fires or chemical spills can often be the only thing between life or death for anyone trapped inside. Currently first responders need to rely on their own experience and observations, or possibly a drone sent in ahead of them sending back an unreliable 2D video feed. Unfortunately neither option is optimal, and sadly many victims in a disaster situation will likely perish before they are discovered or the area is deemed safe enough to be entered.

But a team at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed technology that can offer first responders the option of exploring a disaster area without putting themselves in any risk. Virtual Eye is a software system that can capture and transmit video feed and convert it into a real time 3D virtual reality experience. It is made possible by combining cutting-edge 3D imaging software, powerful mobile graphics processing units (GPUs) and the video feed from two cameras, any two cameras. This allows first responders — soldiers, firefighters or anyone really — the option of walking through a real environment like a room, bunker or any enclosed area virtually without needing to physically enter.

Not only could they transform quantum computing, they’re a candidate for dark matter.

A team of Chinese physicists from Shanghai’s Jiaotong University have proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of the Majorana fermion — a special particle that could potentially revolutionize quantum computing.

“The search for this particle is for condensed-matter physicists what the Higgs boson search was for high-energy particle physicists,” said Leonid Rokhinson, an associate professor of physics at Purdue University, who was the first to detect the signature of the fermion in 2012 but was not involved in this study, in a 2012 press release. “It is a very peculiar object because it is a fermion yet it is its own antiparticle with zero mass and zero charge.”

Continue reading “Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Majorana Fermions Exist” »

Games to help fight obesity?

Innovative research uses technology to help people with a sweet-tooth lose weight. Researchers believe they can train the brain to better resist temptation and warn people of an unhealthy urge before the temptation occurs.

Specifically, Drexel University psychologists have created a computer game aimed at improving users’ inhibitory control. Additionally, the investigators are also rolling out a mobile app that used in conjunction with the Weight Watchers app, will alert users on unhealthy urges before they strike.

Continue reading “New Gaming Software Hopes to Train Brain to Resist Sweets” »

Like the USPS; could we see a day when DARPA and IARPA positioned to be revenue generators like big tech? Granted these 2 programs are tax payer funded; however, so is USPS. One option is to for a contracted service fee; could DARPA &/ or IARPA charge fees to tech companies and others for using their technologies?

Two of the most important technological advances that helped fueled much of the country’s record economic growth in the post-WW II era were ubiquitous computing devices and modern communications technologies.

Indeed, most of the companies covered on TechCrunch certainly would not exist if not for the development and commercialization of microprocessors and the internet.

Continue reading “Capitalizing on foundations of innovation” »

As we continue to improve cell circuitry, we will see this is going to be more and more important to our tech future. I believe once we have the underlying infrastructure improved with QC that we will see more advancement made in Biocomputing as well as opportunities to adopt on multiple levels including Singularity.

Cells that are electrically active and that also produce light for easy voltage monitoring could lead to new studies of heart arrhythmias and possibly bio-computing.

The human heartbeat is produced by electrical pulses that propagate through cardiac tissue, causing rhythmic muscle contraction. Researchers have previously engineered cells to create an artificial tissue capable of producing coordinated electrical activity, and now a team has added the ability to monitor their electrical state by detecting fluorescent emission. They have also fashioned the cells into “living circuits” that might act as model systems for studying heart behavior.

Nice read.

Is quantum technology the future of the 21st century? On the occasion of the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, this is the key question to be explored today in a panel discussion with the Nobel Laureates Serge Haroche, Gerardus ’t Hooft, William Phillips and David Wineland. In the following interview, Council Member Professor Rainer Blatt, internationally renowned quantum physicist, recipient of numerous honours, and Scientific Co-Chairman of the 66th Lindau Meeting, talks about what we can expect from the “second quantum revolution”.

Blatt has no doubt: quantum technologies are driving forward a technological revolution, the future impact of which is still unclear. Nothing stands in the way of these technologies becoming the engine of innovations in science, economics and society in the 21st century. Early laboratory prototypes have shown just how vast the potential of quantum technologies is. Specific applications are expected in the fields of metrology, computing and simulations. However, substantial funding is required to advance from the development stage.

Continue reading “Quantum technologies to revolutionise 21st century — Nobel Laureates discuss at Lindau” »

First installations go live as INTASAVE Energy pursues $30M impact investment.

Villagers in Lemolo B and Echareria in Nakuru County, Kenya, are waking up today to a new future as new solar nano-grids installed over the last two weeks allows them to switch on lights and operate new agri-processing machinery. The two communities are the first to receive a revolutionary new model for clean, affordable and reliable energy where a central solar hub provides both commercial energy for new village enterprises and household energy using cutting-edge up-cycled laptop batteries. The hub allows energy to be shared between households, businesses and the community bringing economic, social and environmental benefits.

The installation is the start of a major INTASAVE Energy solar nano-grid initiative (SONG) that ultimately aims to bring the benefits now beginning for villagers in Lemolo B and Echareria to over 450,000 people across the globe. INTASAVE Energy has launched a $30M impact investment programme to make this goal a reality.

Continue reading “Solar nano-grids light up homes and businesses in Kenya” »

SanDisk doubles the capacity of its microSD memory cards with 256GB Ultra and Extreme options.

How does the human brain collect, process and store the flow of data which it constantly encounters? How does it manage cognitive tasks, which require complex interaction between various areas of the brain and overload high performance computers that work much more quickly? Why can the brain cope with all of this using much less energy? It is the aim of the research team from Kiel led by Professor Hermann Kohlstedt, Head of the Nanoelectronics Department at Kiel University (CAU) and spokesman of the national collaborative research project “Memristive devices for neural systems” (FOR 2093) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to track this impressive efficiency of the human brain using technology and to implement its method of operation in artificial neural networks. The scientists from Kiel have now succeeded in electronically reproducing two fundamental principles of operation of the human brain, memory and synchronisation. They recently published their results in Applied Physics Letters.

The human brain is a master of energy efficiency. It has approximately 100 billion nerve cells, also known as neurons, which manage with power of only about 20 Watt. Modern high performance computers would require many thousands of times more energy to perform similarly complex calculations as the brain manages. The neurons in the brain are linked to each other with synapses and form a highly complex network. The term “learning” in the neurological sense means that the synaptic connections in the brain are not determined statically. Instead they are continually readjusting on the basis of environmental influences, for example sensations. This makes it possible to store new memory content locally, known as the neurological plasticity of the brain.

In addition to the spatial ability of the neural connections to adjust, there is another important building block to process information in the brain: the synchronisation of neural groups. Electrical impulses, so-called action potentials, form the basic unit of information processing in the brain. These impulses permanently transmit information between the neurons and in doing so they cross and influence the synaptic connections in the brain. “In the case of conscious sensory perceptions the spatial irregular occurrence of neural impulses changes into ordered structures suddenly and for a limited time,” says Professor Thorsten Bartsch, a neurologist at Kiel University and member of the research group. The previously independent impulses of the neurons synchronise themselves in this case even over areas of the brain that are not close together. Evidence of this synchronised “firing” in humans can also be shown by measuring brain waves (electroencephalography, EEG).

Continue reading “Research team reproduces major functional principles of the brain using technology” »