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A NASA-led research team used satellite imagery and artificial intelligence methods to map billions of discrete tree crowns down to a 50-cm scale. The images encompassed a large swath of arid northern Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Allometric equations based on previous tree sampling allowed the researchers to convert imagery into estimates of tree wood, foliage, root size, and carbon sequestration.

The new NASA estimation, published in the journal Nature, was surprisingly low. While the typical estimation of a region’s might rely on counting small areas and extrapolating results upwards, the NASA demonstrated technique only counts the trees that are actually there, down to the individual tree. Jules Bayala and Meine van Noordwijk published a News & Views article in the same journal commenting on the NASA team’s work.

The initial expectation of counting every scattered tree, in areas that previous models often represented by zero values, was erased by large overestimations in other areas of the earlier assessments. In previous attempts using satellites, cropland, and ground vegetation adversely affected optical images. If radar was used, topography, wetlands, and irrigated areas affected the radar backscatter, predicting higher stocks than the current NASA estimations.

FULL AudioBook | GreatestAudioBooks | Science Fiction / Fantasy — Early victories by the USSR in a global nuclear war cause the United Nations government to retreat to the moon leaving behind troops and fierce autonomous robots called “Claws”, which reproduce and redesign themselves in unmanned subterranean factories. After six bloody years of conflict the Soviets call for an urgent conference and UN Major Joseph Hendricks sets out to meet them. Along the way he will discover what the Claws have been up to, and it isn’t good… — Second Variety was first published in the May 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction Magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)

About the Author, Philip K. Dick:
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American writer notable for publishing works of science fiction. Dick explored philosophical, social, and political themes in novels with plots dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, alternate universes, and altered states of consciousness. His work reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology, and often drew upon his life experiences in addressing the nature of reality, identity, drug abuse, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences.

Born in Illinois before moving to California, Dick began publishing science fiction stories in the 1950s, initially finding little commercial success. His 1962 alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle earned Dick early acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel. He followed with science fiction novels such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and Ubik (1969). His 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel. Following a series of religious experiences in February–March 1974, Dick’s work engaged more explicitly with issues of theology, philosophy, and the nature of reality, as in such novels as A Scanner Darkly (1977) and VALIS (1981). A collection of his non-fiction writing on these themes was published posthumously as The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011). He died in 1982 of a stroke, aged 53.

In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. A variety of popular films based on his works have been produced, including Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Paycheck (2003), Next (2007), and The Adjustment Bureau (2011). In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. [6] In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia.org — Attribution: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philip_K._Dick&action=history)

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On Wednesday, OpenAI announced the availability of developer APIs for its popular ChatGPT and Whisper AI models that will let developers integrate them into their apps. An API (application programming interface) is a set of protocols that allows different computer programs to communicate with each other. In this case, app developers can extend their apps’ abilities with OpenAI technology for an ongoing fee based on usage.

OpenAI calls its new ChatGPT API model “gpt-3.5-turbo,” which supersedes its previous “best” LLM API, “text-davinci-003.” It is priced at $0.002 per 1,000 tokens (about 750 words), which OpenAI says is about 10 times cheaper than its existing GPT-3.5 models. “Through a series of system-wide optimizations, we’ve achieved 90% cost reduction for ChatGPT since December,” writes OpenAI on its API announcement page.

Summary: The human brain continues to massively outperform AI technology in a range of tasks, a new study reports. Researchers outline their plans for biocomputers and organoid intelligence systems as future improvements for artificial intelligence technology.

Source: Cortical Labs.

The time has come to create a new kind of computer, say researchers from John Hopkins University together with Dr Brett Kagan, chief scientist at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, who recently led development of the DishBrain project, in which human cells in a petri dish learnt to play Pong.

Ford Motor Co. has filed for a patent on technology that could remotely shut down your radio or air conditioning, lock you out of your vehicle, or prompt it to ceaselessly beep if you miss car payments. Ford said it has no plans to use the technology, contained in just one of the many patents filed by the auto-making giant.

Still, it emerges at a troubling time for car owners. Loan delinquencies have been steadily ticking back up from their pandemic lull. Cox Automotive data showed severely delinquent auto loans in January hitting their highest point since 2006. The use of technology to aid repossessions isn’t new, but the patent application is wide-ranging, even proposing the idea that an autonomous vehicle could drive itself to a “more convenient” location to be collected by a tow truck.

“It really seems like you’re opening up a can of worms that, as a manufacturer, you don’t really need to be doing,” said John Van Alst, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.

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“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” is a short story by Philip K. Dick first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in April 1966. It features a melding of reality, false memory, and real memory. The story has been the subject of two film adaptations, 1990’s Total Recall, with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the story’s protagonist; and 2012’s same-titled with Colin Farrell in a similar role.

Douglas Quail, a simple and ordinary clerk, wishes to visit Mars. Unable to afford it, he visits a company, REKAL (pronounced “recall”) Incorporated, which promises to implant an “extra-factual memory” of a trip to Mars as a secret agent. The procedure involves administration of narkidrine, a sedative and truth drug, which causes Quail to remember and reveal that he actually did go to Mars as a secret government agent. His conscious memories of the trip have been erased, but his initial desire to sign up for the trip cannot be removed. The REKAL staff quickly get Quail out of their office without implanting anything, but his real memories are now returning slowly. At home, he finds physical evidence to support his trip but also remembers that he attended REKAL. This conflict causes him to angrily return for a refund, which he is given.

When two police officers show up to kill him, Quail discovers that his former handlers have been reading his thoughts by means of an implanted device that was used to communicate with him during his mission on Mars. As more memories return, he realizes that he was an assassin for the government, but also remembers how to disarm the cops and escape. Since he can be tracked by the device, this cannot last for long. He thus makes a deal for the memory of his Mars mission to be replaced by a false memory of his deepest fantasy as analyzed by psychiatrists, in order to prevent any further desires to visit REKAL. He is sent back to REKAL for the procedure, but under the narkidrine, he reveals that the memories they are about to implant are real — that aliens visited him when he was nine and were so touched by his kindness and compassion that they decided to postpone their invasion until his death. By simply remaining alive, he is the most important person on Earth, and the government is now unable to kill him.

Philip K Dick :: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale :: Alternate Version.
Philip K Dick :: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep :: Complete Audiobook https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8FOUNWblapUdeQ86NW1SrmVno-jsDknO

For fans of bioethical nightmares, it’s been a real stonker of a month. First, we had the suggestion that we use comatose women’s wombs to house surrogate pregnancies. Now, it appears we might have a snazzy idea for what to do with their brains, too: to turn them into hyper-efficient biological computers.

Lately, you see, techies have been worrying about the natural, physical limits of conventional, silicon-based computing. Recent developments in ‘machine learning’, in particular, have required exponentially greater amounts of energy – and corporations are concerned that further technological progress will soon become environmentally unsustainable. Thankfully, in a paper published this week, a team of American scientists pointed out something rather nifty: that the walnut-shaped, spongy computer in your skull doesn’t appear to be bound by anything like the same limitations – and that it might, therefore, provide us with something of a solution.

The human brain, the paper explains, is slower than machines at performing basic tasks (like mathematical sums), but much, much better at processing complex problems that involve limited, or ambiguous, data. Humans learn, that is, how to make smart decisions quickly, even when we only have small fragments of information to go on, in a way that computers simply can’t. For anything more sophisticated than arithmetic, sponge beats silicon by a mile.

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast we meet three scientists who are trying to answer a question that humanity has long pondered: does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe?

Peter Ma and Leandro Rizk of the University of Toronto and Cherry Ng of the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Orleans are part of a team that has used machine learning to identify eight potential “technosignatures” in data from the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope. The trio explain how they look for signs of intelligent life in radio-telescope data and how machine learning gives a helping hand.

Ng also talks about her research on how signals from pulsars could be used to detect gravitational waves.

Despite AI’s impressive track record, its computational power pales in comparison with that of the human brain. Scientists today unveil a revolutionary path to drive computing forward: organoid intelligence (OI), where lab-grown brain organoids serve as biological hardware. “This new field of biocomputing promises unprecedented advances in computing speed, processing power, data efficiency, and storage capabilities – all with lower energy needs,” say the authors in an article published in Frontiers in Science.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been inspired by the human brain. This approach proved highly successful: AI boasts impressive achievements – from diagnosing medical conditions to composing poetry. Still, the original model continues to outperform machines in many ways. This is why, for example, we can ‘prove our humanity’ with trivial image tests online. What if instead of trying to make AI more brain-like, we went straight to the source?

Scientists across multiple disciplines are working to create revolutionary biocomputers where three-dimensional cultures of brain cells, called brain organoids, serve as biological hardware. They describe their roadmap for realizing this vision in the journal Frontiers in Science.