Lifeboat Foundation

A top U.S. general has issued a sobering warning that both China and Russia, given their years of emphasis on upgrading and renovating their space war arsenals, could, in the future, place the United States in a position of weakness if matters were to degenerate into a state of war between the countries. Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten believes that China and Russia have been attempting to outpace the U.S. in military matters with regard to space and that the Pentagon is now moving to counter the foreseen “challenge” of possibly being outmaneuvered and outgunned in space. If a World War 3 scenario were to actualize, he thinks the U.S. should be prepared to meet said challenge.

The Washington Times reported last week that Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, who has been chosen as the next commander of Strategic Command, told Congress’ Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is moving to counter the threat of a space war disadvantage with China and Russia. He said China and Russia are currently in the process of developing anti-satellite missiles, laser guns, and maneuvering killer space robots that could, once deployed, knock out or incapacitate strategic U.S. communications, navigation and intelligence satellites. As military experts know, these craft are crucial to the maintenance and actionability of America’s high-technology warfare systems.

“The Department of Defense has aggressively moved out to develop responses to the threats that we see coming from China and Russia. I believe it’s essential that we go faster in our responses.”

Continue reading “World War 3 Warning: Space War ‘Challenge’ Looming With China And Russia, U.S. Strategic Command General States” »

“The donation is part of an ambitious plan to preserve Argentina’s northeastern Iberá wetlands and restore populations of six species of wildlife, including jaguars, that had gone extinct in the region. Tompkins plans to donate about 341,350 acres, a spokeswoman from her nonprofit Tompkins Foundation told The Huffington Post.”

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The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has launched a multi-year research and development effort to create new technologies that could provide an early warning system for detecting precursors to cyberattacks. If successful, the government effort could help businesses and other targets move beyond the reactive approach to contending with a massive and growing problem.

IARPA, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, says the three-and-a-half year program will develop software code to sense unconventional indicators of cyber attack, and use the data to develop models and machine learning systems that can create probabilistic warnings.

Current early warning systems are focused on traditional cyber indicators such as activity targeted toward IP addresses and domain names, according to IARPA program manager Robert Rahmer. The first stage, lasting 18 months, will examine data outside of the victim network, such as black market sales of exploits that take advantage of particular software bugs. The second and third phases, 12 months each, will examine internal target organization data and look for ways to develop warnings and transfer any tools that emerge from the research from one organization to another, he said.

Continue reading “IARPA To Develop Early-Warning System For Cyberattacks” »

Elon Musk unveils SpaceX’s future Mars vehicle and discusses the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. The presentation focuses on potential architectures for sustaining humans on the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead.

Overview:
00:00. Why Mars and become a multi-planetary civilisation.

Continue reading “Elon Musk unveils plan to colonise Mars (2016.9.27)” »

“The world awoke on Wednesday to an actuality it had never known before: a modern state of Israel without Shimon Peres. But in many respects Mr. Peres’s Israel began to disappear long ago.”

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The huge wave of Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices has the U.S. government worried that the technology harbors lurking security threats.

According to a Defense One article, the U.S. Department of Justice has joined other agencies in evaluating IoT technology for national security risks.

Continue reading “Terrorist in the machine: U.S. DOJ fears IoT for security” »

A self-driving car may someday have to decide between your life and the lives of others. But how should the car choose? If you don’t know how to make that decision, that’s okay — Washington doesn’t either.

That’s one big takeaway in a new, lengthy document from the Department of Transportation that lays out options to make autonomous vehicles safer–and represents the most public sign of the attention self-driving cars are getting from politicians despite their inability to vote.

LONDON, Sept. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — This report provides quantitative analysis and unprecedented level of insight into China’s RFID industry, analyzing the market by application, region, frequency band and value chain. The report develops a ten-year segmented market forecast. It also provides detailed profiles of 28 listed companies in addition to a further summary of 110 other Chinese RFID players. By 2025 the total RFID market in China will reach US$4.3 billion. This report provides a complete view of the RFID suppliers, value chain, applications and trends in China. It looks not only at the RFID manufacturing base in China, but also the applications of RFID in China, providing ten year forecasts by 13 application categories. IDTechEx has studied the RFID market globally for 15 years and this research builds on that knowledge in addition to new research carried out in Chain by IDTechEx analyst Dr Xiaoxi He. Over 150 RFID companies have been identified.

China already has 85% of the world’s RFID manufacturing capacity, being a major exporter of tags. In addition, the second generation National Identification Card project in China is the largest RFID order by value and China is delivering it by using Chinese-only resources almost exclusively. Thanks to strong support by the government, China has used RFID widely on applications ranging from library assets to train tickets, and as China becomes a leader in manufacturing in most segments — from cars to planes — it will fuel increasing demand for RFID in manufacturing and many other industries.

As RFID is increasingly being deployed around the world (IDTechEx expect that over 8.5 billion tags will be sold globally in 2015 versus 7 billion in 2014), suppliers are in the process of shaving off fractions of a cent from each inlay, particularly for passive UHF. That means picking up and moving manufacturing base to China in some cases. There have also been other, relatively new entrants that by strong investment (including acquisition) have gained a relatively high market share from nothing in a few years, examples being Arizon RFID and Shangyang, to name a few.

Continue reading “RFID in China 2015-2025: Forecasts, Players, Opportunities : Data and analysis of the technologies, markets and value chain” »

1st Robot has been arrested this year; guess Kurzweil’s request for Robots to have Constitutional Rights may have a need.

You might be forgiven if you were under the impression that the Russian government is a bit behind the times when it comes to modern technology and its never ending desire to stifle every last bit of dissent possible. Between the bouts its had with internet censorship and some strange claims about how binge-watching streaming services are a form of United States mind-control, it would be quite easy to be left with the notion that this is all for comedy. Alas, blunders and conspiracy theories aside, much of this technological blundering is mere cover for the very real iron grip the Russians place upon free speech, with all manner of examples in technology used as excuses to silence its critics.

And now it’s no longer just human beings that need fear the Russian government, it seems. Just this past week, a robot was arrested at a political rally. And, yes, I really do mean a robot, and, yes, I really do mean arrested.

Continue reading “Not Content With Silencing Human Critics, Russia Has Now Arrested A Robot” »