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Category: government – Page 90

Liberals Yet to Account for $600 Billion in Public Spending During the Pandemic. Don’t Expect That to Change

Here’s a quick reminder that one of the expected results of the current pandemic is the slow, controlled, but inevitable destruction of the Canadian economy as government assets are secretly pulled out of circulation and redistributed to international bankers and their wealthiest clients.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is asking Parliament to approve billions in new spending during a brief four-week sitting in Ottawa, but is facing questions because it has not released a full accounting of how it spent more than $600Bln last year.

DoD Announces the Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synch

Today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, in close collaboration with the Director of National Intelligence, directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security to establish within the Office of the USD(I&S) the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) as the successor to the U.S. Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The AOIMSG will synchronize efforts across the Department and the broader U.S. government to detect, identify and attribute objects of interests in Special Use Airspace (SUA), and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security. To provide oversight of the AOIMSG, the Deputy Secretary also directed the USD(I&S) to lead an Airborne Object Identification and Management Executive Council (AOIMEXEC) to be comprised of DoD and Intelligence Community membership, and to offer a venue for U.S. government interagency representation.

Incursions by any airborne object into our SUA pose safety of flight and operations security concerns, and may pose national security challenges. DOD takes reports of incursions – by any airborne object, identified or unidentified – very seriously, and investigates each one. This decision is the result of planning efforts and collaboration conducted by OUSD(I&S) and other DoD elements at the direction of Deputy Secretary Hicks, to address the challenges associated with assessing UAP occurring on or near DOD training ranges and installations highlighted in the DNI preliminary assessment report submitted to Congress in June 2021. The report also identified the need to make improvements in processes, policies, technologies, and training to improve our ability to understand UAP.

In coming weeks, the Department will issue implementing guidance, which will contain further details on the AOIMSG Director, organizational structure, authorities, and resourcing.

Canada’s first cases of the omicron coronavirus variant confirmed in Ottawa

“It is not known at this time whether the variant is more transmissible, or more dangerous to the health of those who catch it, than other coronavirus variants.”

There are two confirmed cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Ottawa, the Ontario government announced Sunday.

“Today, the province of Ontario has confirmed two cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19 in Ottawa, both of which were reported in individuals with recent travel from Nigeria. Ottawa Public Health is conducting case and contact management and the patients are in isolation,” the statement said.

Seoul, First Local Gov’t to Start New-Concept Public Service with “Metaverse Platform”

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) is the first local government in Korea to establish a metaverse platform, which has emerged as a contactless communication channel in the post-pandemic era, to start providing a new-concept public service by using the platform in its administration.

The SMG plans to establish “Metaverse Seoul” (tentatively named), a high-performance platform, by the end of next year, and create a metaverse ecosystem for all areas of its municipal administration, such as economic, cultural, tourism, educational and civic service, in three stages from next year.

Starting with the pilot program of a Bosingak Belfry virtual bell ringing event at the end of this year, the SMG will consecutively provide various business support facilities and services, including the Virtual Mayor’s Office, Seoul FinTech Lab, Invest Seoul and Seoul Campus Town, on its metaverse platform.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Completes a Record-Setting Swing by the Sun

Blazing along at space-record speeds that would get it from Earth to the Moon in under an hour, NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It’s vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”

Japan Is Investing Over $5 Billion to Solve the World’s Chip Shortage

Bringing global giants into the economic fight.

The world’s biggest chip-making nation is getting serious.

Japan has committed $5.2 billion (roughly 600 billion yen) toward providing support for semiconductor manufacturers in a bid to help solve the world’s ongoing chip shortage.

While the funds will go to several chipmakers, the most notable among them is the largest one in the world, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), according to an initial Tuesday report from Nikkei.

Japan invests $5.2 billion in Taiwan’s giant chip-making firm TSMC also said that it would construct a new chip plant in Japan for $7 billion in a joint effort with Sony Group Corp. Understandably, the government of Japan was pleased. The remaining 200 billion yen of Japan’s new investment will be directed toward preparing other factories for multiple new projects, including one under development by the U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, and Japan’s Kioxia Holdings, according to the report. Japan has remained the largest chip-making industry in the world since the 1980s. But since then the nation has fought an uphill battle to maintain its competitive edge in an increasingly crowded industry, falling into a steady decline in the last three decades as economic rivals like manufacturers based in Taiwan continued to close the gap.

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Why We’re Making the Grace Humanoid Eldercare Robot: Response to Russell Brand

Sooo… the inimitable Russell Brand posted a video a few weeks ago saying some amusing but largeuly inaccurate and misleading things about the Grace humanoid eldercare robot we’re making in our Awakening Health project (http://awakening.health).

Russell’s video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDD7M1OWBDg.

I recorded this video as a sort of response, to set the record straight a bit and explain why Russell is wrong about Grace and what is the actual nature of the Awakening Health project and what are the motivations behind it!

The three main points I make in the video (but with more color and detail, so do watch the video if you’re interested!!) are:

1) Grace is there to help nurses and nursing assistants not replace or obsolete them. When she becomes an AGI she still won’t obsolete the need for human connection and human care. Elderly folks need extra help and attention right now and Grace can help. My grandfather spent the last 5 years or so of his life in an eldercare facility; it was a pretty good one, but he was still lonely and confused a lot of the time and certainly could have benefited greatly from a robot like Grace.

2) Awakening Health is a JV of Hanson Robotics and: SingularityNET (http://singularitynet.io), whose purpose is to democratize & decentralize AI. It’s all about data sovereignty and putting the control over the AI in the hands of the humans who are training and using the AI. Not about centralized tech oppression of the elderly or anyone else as Russell alludes. Actually I think I see very closely eye to eye w/ Russell Brand on the dangers of Big Tech and Big Government, though I probably more clearly see the path to a solution than he does (hint: it has to do with blockchain-meets-beneficial-AGI).

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TSMC To Receive $3.47 Billion In Subsidies From Japan Government For $7 Billion Chip Factory It Will Set Up In Kumamoto

TSMC getting half their factory paid for by the Japan government shows how concerned governments are getting about the fact that we are down to 3 companies in the world that can make high-end chips. Sony is also contributing $500 million to this factory in addition to the Japan government money.

Japan will provide 600 billion yen ($5.2 billion) as part of its fiscal 2021 supplementary budget to support advanced semiconductor manufacturers.

A New Challenger for Elon Musk? Another Company Plans to Settle Humans on Mars

After raising $1.4 billion.

Long ago, the writer Edward Albee wrote: “Good, better, best, bested.”

On a long enough timeline, this might reflect the experience of every major space firm.

Since the federal government ruled in favor of NASA’s decision to opt for SpaceX’s bid to design and deploy a Human Landing System (HLS) to the moon, it’s seemed like Elon Musk and his firm will have the lion’s share of public-private collaborations for lunar missions, and beyond. But in the coming decade, contestants for this role are lining up.

Beyond Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which lost a lawsuit against NASA regarding Musk’s contract with the agency, there are other aerospace firms with their eyes on the prize. And one of them, called Sierra Space, just took a major leap toward a rivaling position in Space Race 2.0, raising $1.4 billion to, among other things, modify its Dream Catcher space vehicle for human crews, with aims to land on Mars, and “enable humanity to build and sustain thriving civilizations beyond Earth,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice, in a press release from his company.

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Rolls-Royce Claims Its All-Electric Plane Is World’s Fastest

In a recent news release 0, the company, not to be mistaken for the car company owned by BMW, claimed that the Spirit of Innovation set three new world records earlier this week. On flight tests carried out on Nov. 16, Rolls-Royce said its aircraft reached a top speed of 345.4 mph (555.9 km/h) over 1.8 miles (3 kilometers), exceeding the current record by 132 mph (213 k/h). It broke another record in a subsequent 9.3-mile (15 kilometer) flight, during which it reached 330 mph (532.1 km/h), surpassing the current record by 182 mph (292.8 km/h).

The Spirit of Innovation didn’t stop there, though. Rolls-Royce affirms that it smashed another record when it reached 9,842.5 feet (3,000 meters) in 202 seconds, beating the current record by 60 seconds. In the company’s view, it also took the title of the world’s fastest all-electric vehicle when it reached a maximum speed of 387.4 mph (623 km/h) during its flight tests.

The company’s aircraft is powered by a 400kW electric powertrain and “the most power-dense propulsion battery pack ever assembled in aerospace.” It’s part of the Accelerating the Electrification of Flight project 0, which receives half of its funding from the UK government and the Aerospace Technology Institute.

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