Human settlement of the moon may go through Hawaii.
Earlier this month, an International MoonBase Summit (IMS) brought together representatives from academia, government and the private sector to help lay the groundwork for a base on the lunar surface.
“Because of its geography, geology and culture, Hawaii is the perfect place to build a MoonBase prototype,” said Henk Rogers, an entrepreneur based in Hawaii and the organizer of the IMS. [Lunar Colony: How to Build a Moonbase in Images].
This announcement comes just a few days after the UAE announced their UAE 2031 AI strategy, which aims to make the government more efficient and streamlined by relying on AI technologies.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) appears to be leading new trends in government reshuffles, now having introduced its first Minister for Artificial Intelligence.
It will happen eventually. The argument against it will be that AI lacks the human touch, by that they mean the crooks in the government who make a living on corruption, graft, outright theft, and are in the process of collapsing the United States with nepotism. The main fear of the crime bosses (politcos) is that you cant bribe, threaten, or blackmail an AI.
By glen sawyer, national director, iot digital transformation, SAP
Put Skynet from The Terminator movies to the back of your mind for a minute, and stay with me on this one.
AI machines injected into our bodies could give us superhuman strength and let us control gadgets using the power of THOUGHT within 20 years…
Humans could be ‘melded’ to machines, giving us huge advancements in brain power, experts told peers at the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee (pictured, stock)
Dubai’s police department has added a flying motorcycle to its arsenal. Capable of flying with or without a pilot, the bike will be used to help rescue missions and monitor traffic. Due to safety concerns, the bike won’t fly higher than 20 feet. Dubai officials plan to start using the vehicle within the next two years.
The flying motorcycle is just the latest piece of absurd technology the Dubai government has introduced in the last year. The bike will join the ranks of Dubai’s jetpack firefighters, flying taxis, and robot police officers.
Dubai’s push for new government technology is part of their plan improve services ahead of their world fair, Expo 2020, which is expected to attract 25 million visitors to the city.
Israel notified the NSA, where alarmed officials immediately began a hunt for the breach, according to people familiar with the matter, who said an investigation by the agency revealed that the tools were in the possession of the Russian government.
Israeli spies had found the hacking material on the network of Kaspersky Lab, the global anti-virus firm under a spotlight in the United States because of suspicions that its products facilitate Russian espionage.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security instructed federal civilian agencies to identify Kaspersky Lab software on their networks and remove it on the grounds that “the risk that the Russian government, whether acting on its own or in collaboration with Kaspersky, could capitalize on access provided by Kaspersky products to compromise federal information and information systems directly implicates U.S. national security.” The directive followed a decision by the General Services Administration to remove Kaspersky from its list of approved vendors. And lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering a governmentwide ban.
As the U.S. government continues to pursue plans for a crewed mission to Mars, NASA has contracted with BWXT Nuclear Energy Inc. of Lynchburg, Virginia, to advance concepts in Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP), which could drastically reduce travel times to Mars.
This is part of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, which takes ideas from academia and industry as well as NASA and other government programs, to advance new approaches to space technologies to accommodate the changing needs of U.S. space efforts.
NTP is not a new concept, but it was abandoned in 1972 when plans for a Mars mission were shelved. NASA conducted ground tests since 1955 to determine the viability of NTP and has occasionally been revisited as a conceptual part of Mars mission feasibility studies.
With all the movies and TV shows currently streaming online, who has time to learn a new language or some other cognitive skill anymore? DARPA (the U.S government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been working on the ultimate cheat code for brains that would cut down the time needed to acquire knowledge and complete skill training. The program was not named after any of the characters from The Matrix, but it probably should have been.
According to Futurism, DARPA announced the Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program back in 2016. In theory, DARPA would develop technology that would stimulate peripheral nerves to release more neuromodulators (brain chemicals) including acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. The chemicals would activate synaptic plasticity and the brain would be trained to process information for cognitive skills more quickly. The stated goal of TNT is to speed up training processes for military personnel and in turn reduce costs and improve results. “DARPA is approaching the study of synaptic plasticity from multiple angles to determine whether there are safe and responsible ways to enhance learning and accelerate training for skills relevant to national security missions,” said TNT Program Manager Doug Webe, in a press release. But the technology could be used for much cooler applications, like teaching me Jiu-jitsu or how to fly a helicopter in a matter of seconds.
China may have the clear lead in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the region, but Japan’s government, realising how vital the sector is to its economic future, has intervened in the hopes of levelling the playing field.
Japan announced in late August that it is planning to invest billions of yen to fund next-generation semiconductors and other technologies critical to AI development.
Billions of yen in public investment could help firms innovate, but analysts say the nation may never catch up with China and the US, global tech leaders that show no signs of slowing down.
