Lifeboat Foundation

A London-based startup has combined some of today’s most disruptive technologies in a bid to change the way we’ll build the future. By retrofitting industrial robots with 3D printing guns and artificial intelligence algorithms, Ai Build has constructed machines that can see, create, and even learn from their mistakes.

When CEO and founder Daghan Cam was studying architecture, he noticed a disconnect between small-scale manufacturing and large-scale construction. “On one side we have a fully automated production pipeline,” Cam explained at a recent conference in London. “On the other side we’re completely dependent on human labor.” With the emergence of more efficient printing technologies, he thought there must be a better way.

Continue reading “Give a 3D printer artificial intelligence, and this is what you’ll get” »

Mars colonization — getting there is only a small part of the equation. The bigger problem is how to survive. Synthetic biology may be able to help.

If there is any organization on the planet that has had a closer view of the coming demise of Moore’s Law, it is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Since its inception in the 1960s, the wide range of industry professionals have been able to trace a steady trajectory for semiconductors, but given the limitations ahead, it is time to look to a new path—or several forks, to be more accurate.

This realization about the state of computing for the next decade and beyond has spurred action from a subgroup, led by Georgia Tech professor Tom Conte and superconducting electronics researcher, Elie Track called “Rebooting Computing,” which produces reports based on invite-only deep dives on a wide range of post-Moore’s Law technologies, many of which were cited here this week via Europe’s effort to pinpoint future post-exascale architectures. The Rebooting Computing effort is opening its doors next week for a wider-reaching, open forum in San Diego to bring together new ideas in novel architectures and modes of computing as well as on the applications and algorithm development fronts.

According to co-chair of the Rebooting Computing effort, Elie Track, a former Yale physicist who has turned his superconducting circuits work toward high efficiency solar cells in his role at startup Nvizix, Moore’s Law is unquestionably dead. “There is no known technology that can keep packing more density and features into a given space and further, the real issue is power dissipation. We just cannot keep reducing things further; a fresh perspective is needed.” The problem with gaining that view, however, is that for now it means taking a broad, sweeping look across many emerging areas; from quantum and neuromorphic devices, approximate computing, and a wide range of other technologies. “It might seem frustrating that this is general, but there is no clear way forward yet. What we all agree on is that we need exponential growth in computing engines.”

Continue reading “IEEE Reboots, Scans for Future Architectures” »

Nice.

There are many scientific and non-scientific varieties of the answer about what came before Big Bang. Some say there was literally nothing and some say a black hole or a multiverse. But now a group of mathematicians from Canada and Egypt have analyzed some cutting edge scientific theory and a complex set of equations to find what preceded the universe in which we live. Their research paper has been published in Nature.

Continue reading “Scientists claim to have discover what existed BEFORE the beginning of the universe” »

By now everyone has heard of Google’s RankBrain, the new artificial intelligence machine learning algorithm that is supposed to be the latest and greatest from Mountain View, Calif. What many of you might not realize, however, is just how fast the SEO industry is changing because of it. In this article, I’ll take you through some clear examples of how some of the old rules of SEO no longer apply, and what steps you can take to stay ahead of the curve in order to continue to provide successful SEO campaigns for your businesses.

So what is artificial intelligence?

There are generally three different classifications of artificial intelligence:

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The Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Dr. James Caverlee and Dr. Xia “Ben” Hu a Next Generation Social Science (NGS2) grant to complete their collaborative research project, HELIOS, named after the Greek god with the ability to see the invisible.

Along with being a part of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station’s (TEES) Center for Digital Libraries, Caverlee is an associate professor and Hu is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.

The HELIOS project aims to create new computational methods and algorithms to fill in the gaps of rapidly evolving spatial-temporal datasets, which are datasets that measure both space and time. These types of datasets are generally missing information, which prohibit accurate assessments of time and location.

Researchers at Sapience.org foresee market instability intensifying by the computer trading ‘arms race’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Last Friday the sterling has experienced a dramatic, ultrafast crash. It lost 10% of its value in minutes after the Asian markets opened — a decline usually reserved to declarations of war, major earthquakes and global catastrophes — and bounced right back. Although the affected exchanges are yet to release the details, computer trading algorithms almost certainly played a key role. Just like the 2010 Flash Crash, yesterday’s event is characteristic to Ultrafast Extreme Events[1]: split-second spikes in trade caused by ever smarter algorithms razor-focused on making ever-quicker profits. But the arms race is only likely to intensify as computing speed accelerates and AI algorithms become more intelligent.

In Brief.

• A task that would take one robot years to complete could be done in just a few weeks if multiple robots are allowed to communicate with one another.
• As algorithms and technology advances, a robot cloud could help us best utilize bots within our daily lives.

Robots, for all their helpfulness in performing tasks that we would rather not do (usually because those tasks are dangerous or boring), first need to be coded in order to do the work. These specific sets of commands tell the machines what exactly they need to do and define how to do it.

Continue reading “Robots Have Learned to Pool Their Experience to Acquire Basic Motor Skills” »

Got a bee shortage? No problem, DARPA has you covered.

Following the news that the honeybee is now officially an endangered species as “colony collapse disorder” accelerates, it seems that a Harvard research team has the solution – robotic honeybees. Instead of attempting to save the bees by reducing the use of pesticides or revising safety standards for cell phone radiation, the focus has shifted to replacing the bees altogether. Harvard University researchers, led by engineering professor Robert Wood have been tweaking “RoboBees” since their initial introduction in 2009. The bee-sized robots made of titanium and plastic represent a breakthrough in the field of micro-aerial vehicles. The size of the components needed to create flying robots were previously too heavy to make a such a small structure lightweight enough to achieve flight. Current models weigh only 80 mg and have been fitted with sensors that detect light and wind velocity.

Researchers claim that the bees could artificially pollinate entire fields of crops and will soon be able to be programmed to live in an artificial hive, coordinate algorithms and communicate among themselves about methods of pollination and the locations of particular crops. In addition, RoboBees have been suggested for other uses including searching disaster sites for survivors, monitoring traffic, and “military and police applications.” These applications could include using RoboBees to “scout for insurgents” on battlefields abroad or allowing police and SWAT teams to use the micro-robots to gather footage inside buildings.

Continue reading “Project Originally Funded By DARPA Seeks To Replace Bees With Tiny, Winged Robots” »